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Self-organising Software
by Marie-Pierre Gleizes Anthony Karageorgos Giovanna Di Marzo SerugendoSelf-organisation, self-regulation, self-repair and self-maintenance are promising conceptual approaches for dealing with complex distributed interactive software and information-handling systems. Self-organising applications dynamically change their functionality and structure without direct user intervention, responding to changes in requirements and the environment. This is the first book to offer an integrated view of self-organisation technologies applied to distributed systems, particularly focusing on multiagent systems. The editors developed this integrated book with three aims: to explain self-organisation concepts and principles, using clear definitions and a strong theoretical background; to examine how self-organising behaviour can be modelled, analysed and systematically engineered into agent behaviour; and to assess the types of problems that can be solved using self-organising multiagent systems. The book comprises chapters covering all three dimensions, synthesising up-to-date research work and the latest technologies and applications. The book offers dedicated chapters on concepts such as self-organisation, emergence in natural systems, software agents, stigmergy, gossip, cooperation and immune systems. The book then explains how to engineer artificial self-organising software, in particular it examines methodologies and middleware infrastructures. Finally, the book presents diverse applications of self-organising software, such as constraint satisfaction, trust management, image recognition and networking. The book will be of interest to researchers working on emergent phenomena and adaptive systems. It will also be suitable for use as a graduate textbook, with chapter summaries and exercises, and an accompanying website that includes teaching slides, exercise solutions and research project outlines. Self-organisation, self-regulation, self-repair and self-maintenance are promising conceptual approaches for dealing with complex distributed interactive software and information-handling systems. Self-organising applications dynamically change their functionality and structure without direct user intervention, responding to changes in requirements and the environment. This is the first book to offer an integrated view of self-organisation technologies applied to distributed systems, particularly focusing on multiagent systems. The editors developed this integrated book with three aims: to explain self-organisation concepts and principles, using clear definitions and a strong theoretical background; to examine how self-organising behaviour can be modelled, analysed and systematically engineered into agent behaviour; and to assess the types of problems that can be solved using self-organising multiagent systems. The book comprises chapters covering all three dimensions, synthesising up-to-date research work and the latest technologies and applications. The book offers dedicated chapters on concepts such as self-organisation, emergence in natural systems, software agents, stigmergy, gossip, cooperation and immune systems. The book then explains how to engineer artificial self-organising software, in particular it examines methodologies and middleware infrastructures. Finally, the book presents diverse applications of self-organising software, such as constraint satisfaction, trust management, image recognition and networking. The book will be of interest to researchers working on emergent phenomena and adaptive systems. It will also be suitable for use as a graduate textbook, with chapter summaries and exercises, and an accompanying website that includes teaching slides, exercise solutions and research project outlines.
Sensing Emotions
by Martijn Krans Martin Ouwerkerk Joyce WesterinkIn the future, products and machines will know how we feel and how to adapt to those feelings. This book analyzes the influence of specific everyday situations and contexts on the emotional state of people and ways this will impact future user experience.
Sensor Networks with IEEE 802.15.4 Systems
by Roberto Verdone Gianluigi Ferrari Marco Martalo' Chiara BurattiThis book presents a simple, yet complete, approach to the design and performance analysis of distributed processing algorithms and techniques suitable for IEEE 802.15.4 networks. In particular, the book focuses on the bottom two layers of the ISO/OSI stack (Physical and Medium Access Control), discussing also a few issue related to routing. The book is a the synergistic combination of signal processing aspects on the one hand and MAC and connectivity issues on the other hand. The goal of the book is to clearly link physical layer aspects with medium access and topology aspects, in order to provide the reader with a clear understanding of how to approach the design of proper distributed signal processing and medium access algorithms in this context.
Service Robotics within the Digital Home
by Ignacio González Alonso Mercedes Fernández José M. Maestre María del García FuenteThis book provides the reader with a clear and precise description of robotics and other systems for home automation currently on the market, and discusses their interoperability and perspectives for the near future. It shows the different standards and the development platforms used by the main service robots in an international environment. This volume provides a scientific basis for the user who is looking for the best option to suit his or her needs from the available alternatives to integrate modern technology in the digital home.
Simulation und Optimierung in Produktion und Logistik
by Lothar März Gerald Weigert Oliver Rose Wilfried KrugDie simulationsgestützte Optimierung von Produktportfolios und Produktionsketten birgt großes Potenzial - Berichte über Kopplungen von Simulation und Optimierung sind aber rar. Der Band liefert erstmals deutschsprachige Anwendungsbeispiele und einen Überblick über die Möglichkeiten von Simulation und Optimierung. Anders als standardisierte Planungsansätze können mithilfe der Simulation auch dynamische Produktions- und Logistikprozesse analysiert werden. Bei gezielter Vernetzung von Logistikabläufen lassen sich so unerwünschte Liegezeiten vermeiden.
Social Media Tools and Platforms in Learning Environments
by Irwin King Bebo White Philip TsangOnline social media have transformed the face of human interaction in the 21st century. Wikis, blogs, online groups and forums, podcasts, virtual worlds, and social tagging are but a few of the applications enabling innovative behaviors that support acquisition, access, manipulation, retrieval, and visualization of information. It is, therefore, no surprise that educational practitioners and theorists have begun to explore how social media can be harnessed to describe and implement new paradigms for communication, learning, and education. The editors' goal in publishing this book was to identify original research on the application of online social media and related technologies in education as well as emerging applications in Web technologies that could provide and shape future educational platforms. The selected contributions deal with questions such as how social media can truly enrich and enhance learning and teaching experiences in ways not otherwise possible; how learning can be integrated in a distributed and ubiquitous social computing environment; or what theories, paradigms, and models are applicable for the support of social computing in education. Researchers in education or educational software will find interesting and sometimes provocative chapters on paradigms and methodologies, virtual and mobile learning spaces, and assessment and social factors. Practitioners in these fields will benefit from an additional section devoted to case studies and first experience reports.
Social Understanding
by Jürgen Klüver Christina KlüverThe operation of understanding is the fundamental methodical procedure of hermeneutics and is usually seen as contradiction to scientific explanation by the usage of mathematical models. Yet understanding is the basic way in which humans organize their everyday practice, namely by understanding other people and social situations. In this book the authors demonstrate how an integration of hermeneutical understanding and scientific explanation can be done via the construction of suited geometrical models with neural networks of processes of understanding. In this sense the authors develop some kind of mathematical hermeneutics. Connecting links for the integration of the two methodical poles are the developments of particular models of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which are able to perform certain tasks of understanding.
Socially Enhanced Services Computing
by Daniel Schall Schahram Dustdar Florian Skopik Lukasz Juszczyk Harald PsaierSocially enhanced Services Computing deals with a novel and exciting new field at the intersection between Social Computing, Service-oriented Computing, Crowd Computing, and Cloud Computing. The present work presents a collection of selected papers by the editors of this volume, which they feel will help the reader in understanding this field. The approach discussed allows for a seamless integration of people into trusted dynamic compositions of Human-provided Services and Software-based services, thus empowering new interaction models and processes in massive collaboration scenarios in a Future Internet.
Speech Spectrum Analysis
by Sean A. FulopThe accurate determination of the speech spectrum, particularly for short frames, is commonly pursued in diverse areas including speech processing, recognition, and acoustic phonetics. With this book the author makes the subject of spectrum analysis understandable to a wide audience, including those with a solid background in general signal processing and those without such background. In keeping with these goals, this is not a book that replaces or attempts to cover the material found in a general signal processing textbook. Some essential signal processing concepts are presented in the first chapter, but even there the concepts are presented in a generally understandable fashion as far as is possible. Throughout the book, the focus is on applications to speech analysis; mathematical theory is provided for completeness, but these developments are set off in boxes for the benefit of those readers with sufficient background. Other readers may proceed through the main text, where the key results and applications will be presented in general heuristic terms, and illustrated with software routines and practical "show-and-tell" discussions of the results. At some points, the book refers to and uses the implementations in the Praat speech analysis software package, which has the advantages that it is used by many scientists around the world, and it is free and open source software. At other points, special software routines have been developed and made available to complement the book, and these are provided in the Matlab programming language. If the reader has the basic Matlab package, he/she will be able to immediately implement the programs in that platform---no extra "toolboxes" are required.
Statistical Analysis of Clinical Data on a Pocket Calculator
by Aeilko H. Zwinderman Ton J. CleophasThe core principles of statistical analysis are too easily forgotten in today's world of powerful computers and time-saving algorithms. This step-by-step primer takes researchers who lack the confidence to conduct their own analyses right back to basics, allowing them to scrutinize their own data through a series of rapidly executed reckonings on a simple pocket calculator. A range of easily navigable tutorials facilitate the reader's assimilation of the techniques, while a separate chapter on next generation Flash prepares them for future developments in the field. This practical volume also contains tips on how to deny hackers access to Flash internet sites. An ideal companion to the author's co-authored works on statistical analysis for Springer such as Statistics Applied to Clinical Trials, this monograph will help researchers understand the processes involved in interpreting clinical data, as well as being a necessary prerequisite to mastering more advanced statistical techniques. The principles of statistical analysis are easily forgotten in today's world of time-saving algorithms. This step-by-step primer takes researchers back to basics, enabling them to examine their own data through a series of sums on a simple pocket calculator.
Statistical Pronunciation Modeling for Non-Native Speech Processing
by Wolfgang Minker Rainer E. Gruhn Satoshi NakamuraIn this work, the authors present a fully statistical approach to model non--native speakers' pronunciation. Second-language speakers pronounce words in multiple different ways compared to the native speakers. Those deviations, may it be phoneme substitutions, deletions or insertions, can be modelled automatically with the new method presented here. The methods is based on a discrete hidden Markov model as a word pronunciation model, initialized on a standard pronunciation dictionary. The implementation and functionality of the methodology has been proven and verified with a test set of non-native English in the regarding accent. The book is written for researchers with a professional interest in phonetics and automatic speech and speaker recognition.
Statistik für Ökonomen
by Riza Öztürk Wolfgang KohnDie Autoren erläutern in einer anschaulichen, anwendungsorientierten und kompakten Darstellung alle elementaren statistischen Verfahren, die in der Ökonomie angewendet werden - ergänzt durch zahlreiche Beispiele und Übungen. Der Text enthält Programmanweisungen sowohl für das Statistikprogramm R (Open-Source-Progamm) als auch für SPSS. Das Buch richtet sich an Studierende, die sich in wirtschaftswissenschaftlich ausgerichteten Studiengängen mit Statistik beschäftigen.
Supply Chain Coordination under Uncertainty
by T.C. Edwin Cheng Tsan-Ming ChoiChannel coordination is a core subject of supply chain management. Over the past decade, much research effort has been devoted to exploring the detailed mechanisms for achieving supply chain coordination under uncertainty, generating many fruitful analytical and empirical results. Despite the abundance of research results, there is an absence of a comprehensive reference source that provides state-of-the-art findings on both theoretical and applied research on the subject. In addition, with the advance of knowledge and technologies, many new topics on supply chain coordination under uncertainty have appeared in recent years. This handbook extensively examines supply chain coordination challenges with a focal point on discovering innovative measures that can help tackle the existing and emerging challenges. The book is organized into five parts, which include chapters on innovative analytical models for coordination, channel power and bargaining, technological advancements and applications, empirical analysis, cases studies and review. This handbook provides new empirical and analytical results with precious insights, which will not only help supply chain agents to understand more about the latest measures for supply chain coordination under uncertainty, but also help practitioners and researchers to know how to improve supply chain performance based on innovative methods.
Syntax-Based Collocation Extraction
by Violeta SeretanSyntax-Based Collocation Extraction is the first book to offer a comprehensive, up-to-date review of the theoretical and applied work on word collocations. Backed by solid theoretical results, the computational experiments described based on data in four languages provide support for the book's basic argument for using syntax-driven extraction as an alternative to the current cooccurrence-based extraction techniques to efficiently extract collocational data. The work described in Syntax-Based Collocation Extraction focuses on using linguistic tools for corpus-based identification of collocations. It takes advantage of recent advances in parsing to propose a novel deep syntactic analytic collocation extraction that has applicability to a range of important core tasks in Computational Linguistics. The book is useful for anyone interested in computational analysis of texts, collocation phenomena, and multi-word expressions in general.
Teaching and Learning in Information Retrieval
by Andrew Macfarlane Juan F. Huete Juan M. Fernández-Luna Efthimis EfthimiadisInformation Retrieval has become a very active research field in the 21st century. Many from academia and industry present their innovations in the field in a wide variety of conferences and journals. Companies transfer this new knowledge directly to the general public via services such as web search engines in order to improve their information seeking experience. In parallel, teaching IR is turning into an important aspect of IR generally, not only because it is necessary to impart effective search techniques to make the most of the IR tools available, but also because we must provide a good foundation for those students who will become the driving force of future IR technologies. There are very few resources for teaching and learning in IR, the major problem which this book is designed to solve. The objective is to provide ideas and practical experience of teaching and learning IR, for those whose job requires them to teach in one form or another, and where delivering IR courses is a major part of their working lives. In this context of providing a higher profile for teaching and learning as applied to IR, the co-editor of this book, Efthimis Efthimiathis, had maintained a leading role in teaching and learning within the domain of IR for a number of years. This book represents a posthumous example of his efforts in the area, as he passed away in April 2011. This book, his book, is dedicated to his memory.
The Growing Gap Between Emerging Technologies and Legal-Ethical Oversight
by Braden R. Allenby Gary E. Marchant Joseph R. HerkertAt the same time that the pace of science and technology has greatly accelerated in recent decades, our legal and ethical oversight mechanisms have become bogged down and slower. This book addresses the growing gap between the pace of science and technology and the lagging responsiveness of legal and ethical oversight society relies on to govern emerging technologies. Whether it be biotechnology, genetic testing, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, computer privacy, autonomous robotics, or any of the other many emerging technologies, new approaches are needed to ensure appropriate and timely regulatory responses. This book documents the problem and offers a toolbox of potential regulatory and governance approaches that might be used to ensure more responsive oversight.
Theoretical Aspects of Distributed Computing in Sensor Networks
by José D.P. Rolim Sotiris NikoletseasWireless ad hoc sensor networks has recently become a very active research subject. Achieving efficient, fault-tolerant realizations of very large, highly dynamic, complex, unconventional networks is a real challenge for abstract modelling, algorithmic design and analysis, but a solid foundational and theoretical background seems to be lacking. This book presents high-quality contributions by leading experts worldwide on the key algorithmic and complexity-theoretic aspects of wireless sensor networks. The intended audience includes researchers and graduate students working on sensor networks, and the broader areas of wireless networking and distributed computing, as well as practitioners in the relevant application areas. The book can also serve as a text for advanced courses and seminars.
Tractable Models of Solid Mechanics
by Oleg V. Gendelman Leonid I. ManevitchThis book describes significant tractable models used in solid mechanics - classical models used in modern mechanics as well as new ones. The models are selected to illustrate the main ideas which allow scientists to describe complicated effects in a simple manner and to clarify basic notations of solid mechanics. A model is considered to be tractable if it is based on clear physical assumptions which allow the selection of significant effects and relatively simple mathematical formulations. The first part of the book briefly reviews classical tractable models for a simple description of complex effects developed from the 18th to the 20th century and widely used in modern mechanics. The second part describes systematically the new tractable models used today for the treatment of increasingly complex mechanical objects - from systems with two degrees of freedom to three-dimensional continuous objects.
Trustworthy Internet
by Nicola Blefari-Melazzi Giuseppe Bianchi Luca SalgarelliThis book collects a selection of the papers presented at the 21st International Tyrrhenian Workshop on Digital Communications, organized by CNIT and dedicated this year to the theme "Trustworthy Internet". The workshop provided a lively discussion on the challenges involved in reshaping the Internet into a trustworthy reality, articulated around the Internet by and for People, the Internet of Contents, the Internet of Services and the Internet of Things, supported by the Network Infrastructure foundation. The papers have been revised after the workshop to take account of feedbacks received by the audience. The book also includes: i) an introduction by the Editors, setting the scene and presenting evolution scenarios; ii) five papers written by the session chairmen, reputed scientists, and each dedicated to a facet of the trustworthy Internet vision; iii) a concluding paper, reporting the outcomes of a panel held at the conclusion of the workshop, written by the two keynote speakers.
Viability and Resilience of Complex Systems
by Nigel Gilbert Guillaume DeffuantOne common characteristics of a complex system is its ability to withstand major disturbances and the capacity to rebuild itself. Understanding how such systems demonstrate resilience by absorbing or recovering from major external perturbations requires both quantitative foundations and a multidisciplinary view on the topic. This book demonstrates how new methods can be used to identify the actions favouring the recovery from perturbations. Examples discussed include bacterial biofilms resisting detachment, grassland savannahs recovering from fire, the dynamics of language competition and Internet social networking sites overcoming vandalism. The reader is taken through an introduction to the idea of resilience and viability and shown the mathematical basis of the techniques used to analyse systems. The idea of individual or agent-based modelling of complex systems is introduced and related to analytically tractable approximations of such models. A set of case studies illustrates the use of the techniques in real applications, and the final section describes how one can use new and elaborate software tools for carrying out the necessary calculations. The book is intended for a general scientific audience of readers from the natural and social sciences, yet requires some mathematics to gain a full understanding of the more theoretical chapters. It is an essential point of reference for those interested in the practical application of the concepts of resilience and viability
Views on Evolvability of Embedded Systems
by Pierre Van de Laar Teade PunterEvolvability, the ability to respond effectively to change, represents a major challenge to today's high-end embedded systems, such as those developed in the medical domain by Philips Healthcare. These systems are typically developed by multi-disciplinary teams, located around the world, and are in constant need of upgrading to provide new advanced features, to deal with obsolescence, and to exploit emerging enabling technologies. Despite the importance of evolvability for these types of systems, the field has received scant attention from the scientific and engineering communities. Views on Evolvability of Embedded Systems focuses on the topic of evolvability of embedded systems from an applied scientific perspective. In particular, the book describes results from the Darwin project that researched evolvability in the context of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) systems. This project applied the Industry-as-Laboratory paradigm, in which industry and academia join forces to ensure continuous knowledge and technology transfer during the project's lifetime. The Darwin project was a collaboration between the Embedded Systems Institute, the MRI business unit of Philips Healthcare, Philips Research, and five Dutch universities. Evolvability was addressed from a system engineering perspective by a number of researchers from different disciplines such as software-, electrical- and mechanical engineering, with a clear focus on economic decision making. The research focused on four areas: data mining, reference architectures, mechanisms and patterns for evolvability, in particular visualization & modelling, and economic decision making. Views on Evolvability of Embedded Systems is targeted at both researchers and practitioners; they will not only find a state-of-the-art overview on evolvability research, but also guidelines to make systems more evolvable and new industrially-validated techniques to improve the evolvability of embedded systems.
Web 2.0
by Berthold H. Hass Gianfranco Walsh Thomas KilianNeue Technologien und Nutzungsarten machen das Internet interaktiver, neue Formen des Austauschs sind möglich geworden. So gestalten Nutzer Ideen und Produkte mit und werden zu wichtigen Wertschöpfungspartnern von Unternehmen. Dies zeigt, dass Web 2.0 mehr ist als nur ein neuer Internet-Hype. Der Band bietet eine praxisorientierte Einführung und einen systematischen Einblick in aktuelle Konzepte und Trends. Renommierte Autoren aus Wissenschaft und Praxis stellen neue Entwicklungen und praktische Anwendungen für Web 2.0 vor.
Worst-Case Execution Time Aware Compilation Techniques for Real-Time Systems
by Paul Lokuciejewski Peter MarwedelFor real-time systems, the worst-case execution time (WCET) is the key objective to be considered. Traditionally, code for real-time systems is generated without taking this objective into account and the WCET is computed only after code generation. Worst-Case Execution Time Aware Compilation Techniques for Real-Time Systems presents the first comprehensive approach integrating WCET considerations into the code generation process. Based on the proposed reconciliation between a compiler and a timing analyzer, a wide range of novel optimization techniques is provided. Among others, the techniques cover source code and assembly level optimizations, exploit machine learning techniques and address the design of modern systems that have to meet multiple objectives. Using these optimizations, the WCET of real-time applications can be reduced by about 30% to 45% on the average. This opens opportunities for decreasing clock speeds, costs and energy consumption of embedded processors. The proposed techniques can be used for all types real-time systems, including automotive and avionics IT systems.
.NET Compact Framework 3.5 Data Driven Applications
by Edmund TanThe book walks you through three different real-world mobile applications from head to toe to provide a practical, hands-on experience on how to use .NET CF. It provides you with code snippets (in both VB.NET and C#) from real-world business scenarios. A summary at the end of each chapter explains how these code snippets work together as a part of the larger whole. It also makes use of diagrams to explain core concepts and helps you decide on which design patterns to use in different enterprise application scenarios. This book is written for developers who are acquainted with the basics of .NET Compact Framework and want to create enterprise-level mobile applications. It is for developers who have worked with the .NET CF Framework before but would like to learn how to utilize its advanced features and deploy leaner and faster business applications.
1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die: You Must Play Before You Die (1001)
by Tony MottIn fewer than fifty years videogames have become one of the most popular forms of entertainment, but which are the best games, the ones you must play? This action packed book presents the best videogames from around the world - from 80's classic Donkey Kong to Doom, Frogger and Final Fantasy. Covering everything from old favourites to those breaking new ground, these are the games that should not be missed.Video game expert Tony Mott presents 1001 of the best video games from around the world and on all formats, from primitive pioneering consoles like Atari's VCS to modern-day home entertainment platforms such as Sony's PlayStation 3. 1001 VIDEO GAMES defines arcade experiences that first turned video gaming into a worldwide phenomenon such as Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Pac-Man - games that made the likes of Atari, Sinclair and Commadore household names. It also includes the games that have taken the console era by storm from Nintendo Wii to Sony Playstation and beyond - games of the modern era that have become cultural reference points in their own right including multi-million selling series such as Halo, Grand Theft Auto and Resident Evil.For aficionados this is a keepsake - charting the highlights of the past fifty years giving them key information for games they must play. For those just discovering the appeal of gaming this extensive volume will provide everything they need to ensure they don't miss out on the games that revolutionized this overwhelmingly popular medium.