Based on the practical experiences of its authors, who collectively have spent several decades teaching software skills to scientists. Readers only need a basic understanding of Python includes over a hundred exercises to allow readers to practice their skills

Soft computing techniques are no longer limited to the arena of computer science. The discipline has an exponentially growing demand in other branches of science and engineering and even into health and social science. This book contains theory and applications of soft computing in engineering, health, and social and applied sciences. Different soft computing techniques such as artificial neural networks, fuzzy systems, evolutionary algorithms and hybrid systems are discussed. It also contains important chapters in machine learning and clustering. This book presents a survey of the existing knowledge and also the current state of art development through original new contributions from the researchers. This book may be used as a one-stop reference book for a broad range of readers worldwide interested in soft computing. In each chapter, the preliminaries have been presented first and then the advanced discussion takes place. Learners and researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds will find several useful tools and techniques to develop their soft computing skills. This book is meant for graduate students, faculty and researchers willing to expand their knowledge in any branch of soft computing. The readers of this book will require minimum prerequisites of undergraduate studies in computation and mathematics.

This title includes a number of Open Access chapters. Data structure and software engineering is an integral part of computer science. This volume presents new approaches and methods to knowledge sharing, brain mapping, data integration, and data storage. The author describes how to manage an organization's business process and domain data and presents new software and hardware testing methods. The book introduces a game development framework used as a learning aid in a software engineering at the university level. It also features a review of social software engineering metrics and methods for processing business information. It explains how to use Pegasys to create and manage sequence analysis workflows.

This book addresses the issue of improving the accuracy in exon prediction in DNA sequences using various adaptive techniques based on different performance measures that are crucial in disease diagnosis and therapy. First, the authors present an overview of genomics engineering, structure of DNA sequence and its building blocks, genetic information flow in a cell, gene prediction along with its significance, and various types of gene prediction methods, followed by a review of literature starting with the biological background of genomic sequence analysis. Next, they cover various theoretical considerations of adaptive filtering techniques used for DNA analysis, with an introduction to adaptive filtering, properties of adaptive algorithms, and the need for development of adaptive exon predictors (AEPs) and structure of AEP used for DNA analysis. Then, they extend the approach of least mean squares (LMS) algorithm and its sign-based realizations with normalization factor for DNA analysis. They also present the normalized logarithmic-based realizations of least mean logarithmic squares (LMLS) and least logarithmic absolute difference (LLAD) adaptive algorithms that include normalized LMLS (NLMLS) algorithm, normalized LLAD (NLLAD) algorithm, and their signed variants. This book ends with an overview of the goals achieved and highlights the primary achievements using all proposed techniques. This book is intended to provide rigorous use of adaptive signal processing algorithms for genetic engineering, biomedical engineering, and bioinformatics and is useful for undergraduate and postgraduate students. This will also serve as a practical guide for Ph.D. students and researchers and will provide a number of research directions for further work. Features Presents an overview of genomics engineering, structure of DNA sequence and its building blocks, genetic information flow in a cell, gene prediction along with its significance, and various types of gene prediction methods Covers various theoretical considerations of adaptive filtering techniques used for DNA analysis, introduction to adaptive filtering, properties of adaptive algorithms, need for development of adaptive exon predictors (AEPs), and structure of AEP used for DNA analysis Extends the approach of LMS algorithm and its sign-based realizations with normalization factor for DNA analysis Presents the normalized logarithmic-based realizations of LMLS and LLAD adaptive algorithms that include normalized LMLS (NLMLS) algorithm, normalized LLAD (NLLAD) algorithm, and their signed variants Provides an overview of the goals achieved and highlights the primary achievements using all proposed techniques Dr. Md. Zia Ur Rahman is a professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering at Koneru Lakshmaiah Educational Foundation (K. L. University), Guntur, India. His current research interests include adaptive signal processing, biomedical signal processing, genetic engineering, medical imaging, array signal processing, medical telemetry, and nanophotonics. Dr. Srinivasareddy Putluri is currently a Software Engineer at Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Hyderabad. He received his Ph.D. degree (Genomic Signal Processing using Adaptive Signal Processing algorithms) from the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering at Koneru Lakshmaiah Educational Foundation (K. L. University), Guntur, India. His research interests include genomic signal processing and adaptive signal processing. He has published 15 research papers in various journals and proceedings. He is currently a reviewer of publishers like the IEEE Access and IGI.

This introduction to cryptography employs a programming-oriented approach to study the most important cryptographic schemes in current use and the main cryptanalytic attacks against them. Discussion of the theoretical aspects, emphasizing precise security definitions based on methodological tools such as complexity and randomness, and of the mathematical aspects, with emphasis on number-theoretic algorithms and their applications to cryptography and cryptanalysis, is integrated with the programming approach, thus providing implementations of the algorithms and schemes as well as examples of realistic size.

A distinctive feature of the author's approach is the use of Maple as a programming environment in which not just the cryptographic primitives but also the most important cryptographic schemes are implemented following the recommendations of standards bodies such as NIST, with many of the known cryptanalytic attacks implemented as well. The purpose of the Maple implementations is to let the reader experiment and learn, and for this reason the author includes numerous examples. The book discusses important recent subjects such as homomorphic encryption, identity-based cryptography and elliptic curve cryptography. The algorithms and schemes which are treated in detail and implemented in Maple include AES and modes of operation, CMAC, GCM/GMAC, SHA-256, HMAC, RSA, Rabin, Elgamal, Paillier, Cocks IBE, DSA and ECDSA. In addition, some recently introduced schemes enjoying strong security properties, such as RSA-OAEP, Rabin-SAEP, Cramer--Shoup, and PSS, are also discussed and implemented. On the cryptanalysis side, Maple implementations and examples are used to discuss many important algorithms, including birthday and man-in-the-middle attacks, integer factorization algorithms such as Pollard's rho and the quadratic sieve, and discrete log algorithms such as baby-step giant-step, Pollard's rho, Pohlig--Hellman and the index calculus method.

This textbook is suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of computer science, engineering and mathematics, satisfying the requirements of various types of courses: a basic introductory course; a theoretically oriented course whose focus is on the precise definition of security concepts and on cryptographic schemes with reductionist security proofs; a practice-oriented course requiring little mathematical background and with an emphasis on applications; or a mathematically advanced course addressed to students with a stronger mathematical background. The main prerequisite is a basic knowledge of linear algebra and elementary calculus, and while some knowledge of probability and abstract algebra would be helpful, it is not essential because the book includes the necessary background from these subjects and, furthermore, explores the number-theoretic material in detail. The book is also a comprehensive reference and is suitable for self-study by practitioners and programmers."

This book meant for those who seek to apply evolutionary algorithms to problems in engineering and science. To this end, it provides the theoretical background necessary to the understanding of the presented evolutionary algorithms and their shortcomings, while also discussing themes that are pivotal to the successful application of evolutionary algorithms to real-world problems. The theoretical descriptions are illustrated with didactical Python implementations of the algorithms, which not only allow readers to consolidate their understanding, but also provide a sound starting point for those intending to apply evolutionary algorithms to optimization problems in their working fields. Python has been chosen due to its widespread adoption in the Artificial Intelligence community. Those familiar with high level languages such as MATLAB (TM) will not have any difficulty in reading the Python implementations of the evolutionary algorithms provided in the book. Instead of attempting to encompass most of the existing evolutionary algorithms, past and present, the book focuses on those algorithms that researchers have recently applied to difficult optimization problems, such as control problems with continuous action spaces and the training of high-dimensional convolutional neural-networks. The basic characteristics of real-world optimization problems are presented, together with recommendations on its proper application to evolutionary algorithms. The applied nature of the book is reinforced by the presentation of successful cases of the application of evolutionary algorithms to optimization problems. This is complemented by Python source codes, giving users an insight into the idiosyncrasies of the practical application of evolutionary algorithms.

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized our everyday life. Many AI algorithms have reached human-level performance and AI agents are replacing humans in most professions. It is predicted that this trend will continue and 30% of work activities in 60% of current occupations will be automated. This success, however, is conditioned on availability of huge annotated datasets to training AI models. Data annotation is a time-consuming and expensive task which still is being performed by human workers. Learning efficiently from less data is a next step for making AI more similar to natural intelligence. Transfer learning has been suggested a remedy to relax the need for data annotation. The core idea in transfer learning is to transfer knowledge across similar tasks and use similarities and previously learned knowledge to learn more efficiently. In this book, we provide a brief background on transfer learning and then focus on the idea of transferring knowledge through intermediate embedding spaces. The idea is to couple and relate different learning through embedding spaces that encode task-level relations and similarities. We cover various machine learning scenarios and demonstrate that this idea can be used to overcome challenges of zero-shot learning, few-shot learning, domain adaptation, continual learning, lifelong learning, and collaborative learning.

This book seeks to generalize techniques and experiences in designing and analyzing cryptographic schemes for blockchain. It devotes three chapters to review the background and basic knowledge, four chapters to discuss specific types of cryptographic primitive design for blockchain, one chapter to discuss optimization tools and another chapter for blockchain regulation and economies. This book covers the systematic survey of research objects, as well as detailed reviews of cryptographic schemes, lectures and methodologies to practice cryptography. The main findings of this book are summarized as following, first, the practical design and analysis of cryptographic schemes for blockchain can address major problems in blockchain at algorithmic level. Then, some intrinsic deficiencies in some traditional cryptographic primitives, like centralized setup, impractical design, etc, prevent the successful application of these primitives in blockchain. However, huge efforts are being made to make these primitives practical and applicable for researchers. Finally, the formal and rigorous design and analysis of public key cryptographic algorithms is vital to blockchain. Design and Analysis of Cryptographic Algorithms in Blockchain is a useful textbook for graduate students and PhD students, or researches who wish to connect cryptography with blockchain for research and developing projects.

Recommender systems use information filtering to predict user preferences. They are becoming a vital part of e-business and are used in a wide variety of industries, ranging from entertainment and social networking to information technology, tourism, education, agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing, and retail. Recommender Systems: Algorithms and Applications dives into the theoretical underpinnings of these systems and looks at how this theory is applied and implemented in actual systems. The book examines several classes of recommendation algorithms, including Machine learning algorithms Community detection algorithms Filtering algorithms Various efficient and robust product recommender systems using machine learning algorithms are helpful in filtering and exploring unseen data by users for better prediction and extrapolation of decisions. These are providing a wider range of solutions to such challenges as imbalanced data set problems, cold-start problems, and long tail problems. This book also looks at fundamental ontological positions that form the foundations of recommender systems and explain why certain recommendations are predicted over others. Techniques and approaches for developing recommender systems are also investigated. These can help with implementing algorithms as systems and include A latent-factor technique for model-based filtering systems Collaborative filtering approaches Content-based approaches Finally, this book examines actual systems for social networking, recommending consumer products, and predicting risk in software engineering projects.

In this multidisciplinary book, experts from around the globe examine how data-driven political campaigning works, what challenges it poses for personal privacy and democracy, and how emerging practices should be regulated. The rise of big data analytics in the political process has triggered official investigations in many countries around the world, and become the subject of broad and intense debate. Political parties increasingly rely on data analytics to profile the electorate and to target specific voter groups with individualised messages based on their demographic attributes. Political micro-targeting has become a major factor in modern campaigning, because of its potential to influence opinions, to mobilise supporters and to get out votes. The book explores the legal, philosophical and political dimensions of big data analytics in the electoral process. It demonstrates that the unregulated use of big personal data for political purposes not only infringes voters' privacy rights, but also has the potential to jeopardise the future of the democratic process, and proposes reforms to address the key regulatory and ethical questions arising from the mining, use and storage of massive amounts of voter data. Providing an interdisciplinary assessment of the use and regulation of big data in the political process, this book will appeal to scholars from law, political science, political philosophy and media studies, policy makers and anyone who cares about democracy in the age of data-driven political campaigning.

This book focuses on the fundamental concepts of IP routing and distance-vector routing protocols (RIPv2 and EIGRP). It discusses routing protocols from a practicing engineer's perspective, linking theory and fundamental concepts to common practices and everyday examples. The book benefits and reflects the author's more than 22 years of designing and working with IP routing devices and protocols (and Telecoms systems, in general). Every aspect of the book is written to reflect current best practices using real-world examples. This book describes the various methods used by routers to learn routing information. The author includes discussion of the characteristics of the different dynamic routing protocols, and how they differ in design and operation. He explains the processing steps involved in forwarding IP packets through an IP router to their destination and discusses the various mechanisms IP routers use for controlling routing in networks. The discussion is presented in a simple style to make it comprehensible and appealing to undergraduate and graduate level students, research and practicing engineers, scientists, IT personnel, and network engineers. It is geared toward readers who want to understand the concepts and theory of IP routing protocols, through real-world example systems and networks. Focuses on the fundamental concepts of IP routing and distance-vector routing protocols (RIPv2 and EIGRP). Describes the various methods used by routers to learn routing information. Includes discussion of the characteristics of the different dynamic routing protocols, and how they differ in design and operation. Provides detailed descriptions of the most common distance-vector routing protocols RIPv2 and EIGRP. Discusses the various mechanisms IP routers use for controlling routing in networks. James Aweya, PhD, is a chief research scientist at the Etisalat British Telecom Innovation Center (EBTIC), Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE. He has authored four books including this book and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

This book discusses link-state routing protocols (OSPF and IS-IS), and the path-vector routing protocol (BGP). It covers their most identifying characteristics, operations, and the databases they maintain. Material is presented from a practicing engineer's perspective, linking theory and fundamental concepts to common practices and real-world examples. Every aspect of the book is written to reflect current best practices using real-world examples. The book begins with a detailed description of the OSPF area types and hierarchical routing, and the different types of routers used in an OSPF autonomous system. The author goes on to describe in detail the different OSPF packet types, and inbound and outbound processing of OSPF link-state advertisements (LSAs). Next, the book gives an overview of the main features of IS-IS. The author then discusses the two-level routing hierarchy for controlling the distribution of intra-domain (Level 1) and inter-domain (Level 2) routing information within an IS-IS routing domain. He then describes in detail IS-IS network address formats, IS-IS routing metrics, IS-IS packet types, IS-IS network types and adjacency formation, IS-IS LSDB and synchronization, and IS-IS authentication. The book then reviews the main concepts of path-vector routing protocols, and describes BGP packet types, BGP session states and Finite State Machine, BGP path attributes types, and BGP Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs). Focuses solely on link-state routing protocols (OSPF and IS-IS), and the only path-vector routing protocol in use today (BGP). Reviews the basic concepts underlying the design of IS-IS and provides a detailed description of IS-IS area types and hierarchical routing, and the different types of routers used by IS-IS. Discusses the two-level routing hierarchy for controlling the distribution of intra-domain (Level 1) and inter-domain (Level 2) routing information within an IS-IS routing domain. Describes in detail BGP packet types, BGP session states and Finite State Machine, BGP path attributes types, and BGP ASNs, includes a high-level view of the typical BGP router and its components, and inbound and outbound message processing. James Aweya, PhD, is a chief research scientist at the Etisalat British Telecom Innovation Center (EBTIC), Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE. He has authored four books including this book and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

This book discusses link-state routing protocols (OSPF and IS-IS), and the path-vector routing protocol (BGP). It covers their most identifying characteristics, operations, and the databases they maintain. Material is presented from a practicing engineer's perspective, linking theory and fundamental concepts to common practices and real-world examples. Every aspect of the book is written to reflect current best practices using real-world examples. The book begins with a detailed description of the OSPF area types and hierarchical routing, and the different types of routers used in an OSPF autonomous system. The author goes on to describe in detail the different OSPF packet types, and inbound and outbound processing of OSPF link-state advertisements (LSAs). Next, the book gives an overview of the main features of IS-IS. The author then discusses the two-level routing hierarchy for controlling the distribution of intra-domain (Level 1) and inter-domain (Level 2) routing information within an IS-IS routing domain. He then describes in detail IS-IS network address formats, IS-IS routing metrics, IS-IS packet types, IS-IS network types and adjacency formation, IS-IS LSDB and synchronization, and IS-IS authentication. The book then reviews the main concepts of path-vector routing protocols, and describes BGP packet types, BGP session states and Finite State Machine, BGP path attributes types, and BGP Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs). Focuses solely on link-state routing protocols (OSPF and IS-IS), and the only path-vector routing protocol in use today (BGP). Reviews the basic concepts underlying the design of IS-IS and provides a detailed description of IS-IS area types and hierarchical routing, and the different types of routers used by IS-IS. Discusses the two-level routing hierarchy for controlling the distribution of intra-domain (Level 1) and inter-domain (Level 2) routing information within an IS-IS routing domain. Describes in detail BGP packet types, BGP session states and Finite State Machine, BGP path attributes types, and BGP ASNs, includes a high-level view of the typical BGP router and its components, and inbound and outbound message processing. James Aweya, PhD, is a chief research scientist at the Etisalat British Telecom Innovation Center (EBTIC), Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE. He has authored four books including this book and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

This book focuses on the fundamental concepts of IP routing and distance-vector routing protocols (RIPv2 and EIGRP). It discusses routing protocols from a practicing engineer's perspective, linking theory and fundamental concepts to common practices and everyday examples. The book benefits and reflects the author's more than 22 years of designing and working with IP routing devices and protocols (and Telecoms systems, in general). Every aspect of the book is written to reflect current best practices using real-world examples. This book describes the various methods used by routers to learn routing information. The author includes discussion of the characteristics of the different dynamic routing protocols, and how they differ in design and operation. He explains the processing steps involved in forwarding IP packets through an IP router to their destination and discusses the various mechanisms IP routers use for controlling routing in networks. The discussion is presented in a simple style to make it comprehensible and appealing to undergraduate and graduate level students, research and practicing engineers, scientists, IT personnel, and network engineers. It is geared toward readers who want to understand the concepts and theory of IP routing protocols, through real-world example systems and networks. Focuses on the fundamental concepts of IP routing and distance-vector routing protocols (RIPv2 and EIGRP). Describes the various methods used by routers to learn routing information. Includes discussion of the characteristics of the different dynamic routing protocols, and how they differ in design and operation. Provides detailed descriptions of the most common distance-vector routing protocols RIPv2 and EIGRP. Discusses the various mechanisms IP routers use for controlling routing in networks. James Aweya, PhD, is a chief research scientist at the Etisalat British Telecom Innovation Center (EBTIC), Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE. He has authored four books including this book and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

This book examines the growing importance of algorithms and automation-including emerging forms of artificial intelligence-in the gathering, composition, and distribution of news. In it the authors connect a long line of research on journalism and computation with scholarly and professional terrain yet to be explored. Taken as a whole, these chapters share some of the noble ambitions of the pioneering publications on 'reporting algorithms', such as a desire to see computing help journalists in their watchdog role by holding power to account. However, they also go further, firstly by addressing the fuller range of technologies that computational journalism now consists of: from chatbots and recommender systems to artificial intelligence and atomised journalism. Secondly, they advance the literature by demonstrating the increased variety of uses for these technologies, including engaging underserved audiences, selling subscriptions, and recombining and re-using content. Thirdly, they problematise computational journalism by, for example, pointing out some of the challenges inherent in applying artificial intelligence to investigative journalism and in trying to preserve public service values. Fourthly, they offer suggestions for future research and practice, including by presenting a framework for developing democratic news recommenders and another that may help us think about computational journalism in a more integrated, structured manner. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Digital Journalism.

Originally published in 1986 and a major contribution towards improving operations within transportation systems, this book provides detailed coverage of the theory of transportation networks as a general traffic and transportation discipline. It examines some of the daily difficulties encountered by traffic and transportation experts, uncovering the intricacies of vehicle routing and scheduling, crew planning and facilities placement. This problem-solving approach uses multiple numerical examples and simple mathematical methods to enable newcomers to apply the book's solutions to the situations they encounter on the job.

This book discusses research in Artificial Intelligence for the Internet of Health Things. It investigates and explores the possible applications of machine learning, deep learning, soft computing, and evolutionary computing techniques in design, implementation, and optimization of challenging healthcare solutions. This book features a wide range of topics such as AI techniques, IoT, cloud, wearables, and secured data transmission. Written for a broad audience, this book will be useful for clinicians, health professionals, engineers, technology developers, IT consultants, researchers, and students interested in the AI-based healthcare applications. Provides a deeper understanding of key AI algorithms and their use and implementation within the wider healthcare sector Explores different disease diagnosis models using machine learning, deep learning, healthcare data analysis, including machine learning, and data mining and soft computing algorithms Discusses detailed IoT, wearables, and cloud-based disease diagnosis model for intelligent systems and healthcare Reviews different applications and challenges across the design, implementation, and management of intelligent systems and healthcare data networks Introduces a new applications and case studies across all areas of AI in healthcare data K. Shankar (Member, IEEE) is a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Department of Computer Applications, Alagappa University, Karaikudi, India. Eswaran Perumal is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Computer Applications, Alagappa University, Karaikudi, India. Dr. Deepak Gupta is an Assistant Professor of the Department Computer Science & Engineering, Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology (GGSIPU), Delhi, India.

This book provides a perspective on the application of machine learning-based methods in knowledge discovery from natural languages texts. By analysing various data sets, conclusions which are not normally evident, emerge and can be used for various purposes and applications. The book provides explanations of principles of time-proven machine learning algorithms applied in text mining together with step-by-step demonstrations of how to reveal the semantic contents in real-world datasets using the popular R-language with its implemented machine learning algorithms. The book is not only aimed at IT specialists, but is meant for a wider audience that needs to process big sets of text documents and has basic knowledge of the subject, e.g. e-mail service providers, online shoppers, librarians, etc. The book starts with an introduction to text-based natural language data processing and its goals and problems. It focuses on machine learning, presenting various algorithms with their use and possibilities, and reviews the positives and negatives. Beginning with the initial data pre-processing, a reader can follow the steps provided in the R-language including the subsuming of various available plug-ins into the resulting software tool. A big advantage is that R also contains many libraries implementing machine learning algorithms, so a reader can concentrate on the principal target without the need to implement the details of the algorithms her- or himself. To make sense of the results, the book also provides explanations of the algorithms, which supports the final evaluation and interpretation of the results. The examples are demonstrated using realworld data from commonly accessible Internet sources.

High quality meshes play a key role in many applications based on digital modeling and simulation. The finite element method is a paragon for such an approach and it is well known that quality meshes can significantly improve computational efficiency and solution accuracy of this method. Therefore, a lot of effort has been put in methods for improving mesh quality. These range from simple geometric approaches, like Laplacian smoothing, with a high computational efficiency but possible low resulting mesh quality, to global optimization-based methods, resulting in an excellent mesh quality at the cost of an increased computational and implementational complexity. The geometric element transformation method (GETMe) aims to fill the gap between these two approaches. It is based on geometric mesh element transformations, which iteratively transform polygonal and polyhedral elements into their regular counterparts or into elements with a prescribed shape. GETMe combines a Laplacian smoothing-like computational efficiency with a global optimization-like effectiveness. The method is straightforward to implement and its variants can also be used to improve tangled and anisotropic meshes. This book describes the mathematical theory of geometric element transformations as foundation for mesh smoothing. It gives a thorough introduction to GETMe-based mesh smoothing and its algorithms providing a framework to focus on effectively improving key mesh quality aspects. It addresses the improvement of planar, surface, volumetric, mixed, isotropic, and anisotropic meshes and addresses aspects of combining mesh smoothing with topological mesh modification. The advantages of GETMe-based mesh smoothing are demonstrated by the example of various numerical tests. These include smoothing of real world meshes from engineering applications as well as smoothing of synthetic meshes for demonstrating key aspects of GETMe-based mesh improvement. Results are compared with those of other smoothing methods in terms of runtime behavior, mesh quality, and resulting finite element solution efficiency and accuracy. Features: * Helps to improve finite element mesh quality by applying geometry-driven mesh smoothing approaches. * Supports the reader in understanding and implementing GETMe-based mesh smoothing. * Discusses aspects and properties of GETMe smoothing variants and thus provides guidance for choosing the appropriate mesh improvement algorithm. * Addresses smoothing of various mesh types: planar, surface, volumetric, isotropic, anisotropic, non-mixed, and mixed. * Provides and analyzes geometric element transformations for polygonal and polyhedral elements with regular and non-regular limits. * Includes a broad range of numerical examples and compares results with those of other smoothing methods.

This book introduces the basic methodologies for successful data analytics. Matrix optimization and approximation are explained in detail and extensively applied to dimensionality reduction by principal component analysis and multidimensional scaling. Diffusion maps and spectral clustering are derived as powerful tools. The methodological overlap between data science and machine learning is emphasized by demonstrating how data science is used for classification as well as supervised and unsupervised learning.

No pleasure lasts long unless there is variety in it. Publilius Syrus, Moral Sayings We've been very fortunate to receive fantastic feedback from our readers during the last four years, since the first edition of How to Solve It: Modern Heuristics was published in 1999. It's heartening to know that so many people appreciated the book and, even more importantly, were using the book to help them solve their problems. One professor, who published a review of the book, said that his students had given the best course reviews he'd seen in 15 years when using our text. There can be hardly any better praise, except to add that one of the book reviews published in a SIAM journal received the best review award as well. We greatly appreciate your kind words and personal comments that you sent, including the few cases where you found some typographical or other errors. Thank you all for this wonderful support.

This book presents, in an integrated form, both the analysis and synthesis of three different types of hidden Markov models. Unlike other books on the subject, it is generic and does not focus on a specific theme, e.g. speech processing. Moreover, it presents the translation of hidden Markov models' concepts from the domain of formal mathematics into computer codes using MATLAB (R). The unique feature of this book is that the theoretical concepts are first presented using an intuition-based approach followed by the description of the fundamental algorithms behind hidden Markov models using MATLAB (R). This approach, by means of analysis followed by synthesis, is suitable for those who want to study the subject using a more empirical approach. Key Selling Points: Presents a broad range of concepts related to Hidden Markov Models (HMM), from simple problems to advanced theory Covers the analysis of both continuous and discrete Markov chains Discusses the translation of HMM concepts from the realm of formal mathematics into computer code Offers many examples to supplement mathematical notation when explaining new concepts

This book covers the issues related to optimization of engineering and management problems using soft computing techniques with an industrial outlook. It covers a broad area related to real life complex decision making problems using a heuristics approach. It also explores a wide perspective and future directions in industrial engineering research on a global platform/scenario. The book highlights the concept of optimization, presents various soft computing techniques, offers sample problems, and discusses related software programs complete with illustrations. Features Explains the concept of optimization and relevance to soft computing techniques towards optimal solution in engineering and management Presents various soft computing techniques Offers problems and their optimization using various soft computing techniques Discusses related software programs, with illustrations Provides a step-by-step tutorial on how to handle relevant software for obtaining the optimal solution to various engineering problems

Originally published in 1995, Large Deviations for Performance Analysis consists of two synergistic parts. The first half develops the theory of large deviations from the beginning, through recent results on the theory for processes with boundaries, keeping to a very narrow path: continuous-time, discrete-state processes. By developing only what is needed for the applications, the theory is kept to a manageable level, both in terms of length and in terms of difficulty. Within its scope, the treatment is detailed, comprehensive and self-contained. As the book shows, there are sufficiently many interesting applications of jump Markov processes to warrant a special treatment. The second half is a collection of applications developed at Bell Laboratories. The applications cover large areas of the theory of communication networks: circuit switched transmission, packet transmission, multiple access channels, and the M/M/1 queue. Aspects of parallel computation are covered as well including, basics of job allocation, rollback-based parallel simulation, assorted priority queueing models that might be used in performance models of various computer architectures, and asymptotic coupling of processors. These applications are thoroughly analysed using the tools developed in the first half of the book.

This book focuses on lattice-based cryptosystems, widely considered to be one of the most promising post-quantum cryptosystems and provides fundamental insights into how to construct provably secure cryptosystems from hard lattice problems. The concept of provable security is used to inform the choice of lattice tool for designing cryptosystems, including public-key encryption, identity-based encryption, attribute-based encryption, key change and digital signatures. Given its depth of coverage, the book especially appeals to graduate students and young researchers who plan to enter this research area.