The book introduces some challenging methods and solutions to solve the human activity recognition challenge. This book highlights the challenge that will lead the researchers in academia and industry to move further related to human activity recognition and behavior analysis, concentrating on cooking challenge. Current activity recognition systems focus on recognizing either the complex label (macro-activity) or the small steps (micro-activities) but their combined recognition is critical for analysis like the challenge proposed in this book. It has 10 chapters from 13 institutes and 8 countries (Japan, USA, Switzerland, France, Slovenia, China, Bangladesh, and Columbia).

After a short description of the key concepts of big data the book explores on the secrecy and security threats posed especially by cloud based data storage. It delivers conceptual frameworks and models along with case studies of recent technology.

Trojans, Worms, and Spyware provides practical, easy to understand, and readily usable advice to help organizations to improve their security and reduce the possible risks of malicious code attacks. Despite the global downturn, information systems security remains one of the more in-demand professions in the world today. With the widespread use of the Internet as a business tool, more emphasis is being placed on information security than ever before. To successfully deal with this increase in dependence and the ever growing threat of virus and worm attacks, Information security and information assurance (IA) professionals need a jargon-free book that addresses the practical aspects of meeting new security requirements.
This book provides a comprehensive list of threats, an explanation of what they are and how they wreak havoc with systems, as well as a set of rules-to-live-by along with a system to develop procedures and implement security training. It is a daunting task to combat the new generation of computer security threats - new and advanced variants of Trojans, as well as spyware (both hardware and software) and "bombs" - and Trojans, Worms, and Spyware will be a handy must-have reference for the computer security professional to battle and prevent financial and operational harm from system attacks.
*Provides step-by-step instructions to follow in the event of an attack
*Case studies illustrate the "do's," "don'ts," and lessons learned from infamous attacks
*Illustrates to managers and their staffs the importance of having protocols and a response plan in place

In today's society, the professional development of teachers is urgent due to the constant change in working conditions and the impact that information and communication technologies have in teaching practices. ""Online Learning Communities and Teacher Professional Development: Methods for Improved Education Delivery"" features innovative applications and solutions useful for teachers in developing knowledge and skills for the integration of technology into everyday teaching practices. This defining collection of field research discusses how technology itself can serve as an important resource in terms of providing arenas for professional development.

This volume is the result of the 11th International Conference on Information Systems Development: Methods and Tools, Theory and Practice, held in Riga, Latvia, September 12-14, 2002. The purpose of this conference was to address issues facing academia and industry when specifying, developing, managing, reengineering and improving information systems. This volume should be a useful reference for anyone in the fields of general management, systems and control theory, software engineering and operation systems.

Multimedia technologies are becoming more sophisticated, enabling the Internet to accommodate a rapidly growing audience with a full range of services and efficient delivery methods. Although the Internet now puts communication, education, commerce and socialization at our finger tips, its rapid growth has raised some weighty security concerns with respect to multimedia content. The owners of this content face enormous challenges in safeguarding their intellectual property, while still exploiting the Internet as an important resource for commerce.
Data Hiding Fundamentals and Applications focuses on the theory and state-of-the-art applications of content security and data hiding in digital multimedia. One of the pillars of content security solutions is the imperceptible insertion of information into multimedia data for security purposes; the idea is that this inserted information will allow detection of unauthorized usage.
* Provides a theoretical framework for data hiding, in a signal processing context;
* Realistic applications in secure, multimedia delivery;
* Compression robust data hiding;
* Data hiding for proof of ownership--WATERMARKING;
* Data hiding algorithms for image and video watermarking.

The book discusses the theoretical fundamentals of CAD graphics to enhance readers' understanding of surface modeling and free-form design by demonstrating how to use mathematical equations to define curves and surfaces in CAD modelers. Additionally, it explains and describes the main approaches to creating CAD models out of 3D scans of physical objects. All CAD approaches are demonstrated with guided examples and supported with comprehensive engineering explanations. Furthermore, each approach includes exercises for independent consolidation of advanced CAD skills. This book is intended for engineers and designers who are already familiar with the basics of modern CAD tools, e.g. feature based and solid based modeling in 3D space, and would like to improve and expand their knowledge and experience. It is also an easy-to use guide and excellent teaching and research aid for academics and practitioners alike.

Real world problems are complex and full of uncertainty. Fuzzy computing technologies embedded into data analysis methodologies and decision-making processes help to address the complexity of these problems. Contemporary Theory and Pragmatic Approaches in Fuzzy Computing Utilization presents the most innovative systematic and practical facets of fuzzy computing technologies to students, scholars, and academicians, as well as practitioners, engineers, and professionals. This premier reference source focuses on up-to-date theoretical views of fuzzy computing while highlighting empirical approaches useful to real world utilization.

This is the fourth volume of the successful series Robot Operating Systems: The Complete Reference, providing a comprehensive overview of robot operating systems (ROS), which is currently the main development framework for robotics applications, as well as the latest trends and contributed systems. The book is divided into four parts: Part 1 features two papers on navigation, discussing SLAM and path planning. Part 2 focuses on the integration of ROS into quadcopters and their control. Part 3 then discusses two emerging applications for robotics: cloud robotics, and video stabilization. Part 4 presents tools developed for ROS; the first is a practical alternative to the roslaunch system, and the second is related to penetration testing. This book is a valuable resource for ROS users and wanting to learn more about ROS capabilities and features.

This book shows how the web-based PhysGL programming environment (http://physgl.org) can be used to teach and learn elementary mechanics (physics) using simple coding exercises. The book's theme is that the lessons encountered in such a course can be used to generate physics-based animations, providing students with compelling and self-made visuals to aid their learning. Topics presented are parallel to those found in a traditional physics text, making for straightforward integration into a typical lecture-based physics course. Users will appreciate the ease at which compelling OpenGL-based graphics and animations can be produced using PhysGL, as well as its clean, simple language constructs. The author argues that coding should be a standard part of lower-division STEM courses, and provides many anecdotal experiences and observations, that include observed benefits of the coding work.

This book presents a variety of perspectives on vision-based applications. These contributions are focused on optoelectronic sensors, 3D & 2D machine vision technologies, robot navigation, control schemes, motion controllers, intelligent algorithms and vision systems. The authors focus on applications of unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous and mobile robots, industrial inspection applications and structural health monitoring. Recent advanced research in measurement and others areas where 3D & 2D machine vision and machine control play an important role, as well as surveys and reviews about vision-based applications. These topics are of interest to readers from diverse areas, including electrical, electronics and computer engineering, technologists, students and non-specialist readers. * Presents current research in image and signal sensors, methods, and 3D & 2D technologies in vision-based theories and applications; * Discusses applications such as daily use devices including robotics, detection, tracking and stereoscopic vision systems, pose estimation, avoidance of objects, control and data exchange for navigation, and aerial imagery processing; * Includes research contributions in scientific, industrial, and civil applications.

The book focuses the latest endeavours relating researches and developments conducted in fields of Control, Robotics and Automation. Through more than twenty revised and extended articles, the present book aims to provide the most up-to-date state-of-art of the aforementioned fields allowing researcher, PhD students and engineers not only updating their knowledge but also benefiting from the source of inspiration that represents the set of selected articles of the book. The deliberate intention of editors to cover as well theoretical facets of those fields as their practical accomplishments and implementations offers the benefit of gathering in a same volume a factual and well-balanced prospect of nowadays research in those topics. A special attention toward "Intelligent Robots and Control" may characterize another benefit of this book.

Technological innovation continues to be present in all areas of our lives, offering seemingly endless possibilities. As technology is increasingly implemented in healthcare applications, it is necessary to understand whether users respond to a predefined organizational strategy of model of care or whether they will become wholly dependent on the healthcare technology. This understanding is especially crucial when dealing with the possibility of generating inequities, especially with individuals that are elderly. Exploring the Role of ICTs in Healthy Aging is a collection of innovative research that proposes the detailed study of a strategic framework for the development of technological innovation in healthcare and for its adoption by health organizations. While highlighting topics including emotional health, quality of life, and telemedicine, this book is ideally designed for physicians, nurses, hospital staff, medical professionals, home care providers, hospital administrators, academicians, students, and researchers. Moreover, the book will provide insights and support executives concerned with the management of expertise, knowledge, information, and organizational development in different types of healthcare units at various levels.

This book addresses and disseminates state-of-the-art research and development in the applications of intelligent techniques for smart grids and renewable energy systems. This helps the readers to grasp the extensive point of view and the essence of the recent advances in this field. The book solicits contributions from active researchers which include theory, case studies and intelligent paradigms pertaining to the smart grid and renewable energy systems. The prospective audience would be researchers, professionals, practitioners and students from academia and industry who work in this field.

This book demonstrates an original concept for implementing the rough set theory in the construction of decision-making systems. It addresses three types of decisions, including those in which the information or input data is insufficient. Though decision-making and classification in cases with missing or inaccurate data is a common task, classical decision-making systems are not naturally adapted to it. One solution is to apply the rough set theory proposed by Prof. Pawlak. The proposed classifiers are applied and tested in two configurations: The first is an iterative mode in which a single classification system requests completion of the input data until an unequivocal decision (classification) is obtained. It allows us to start classification processes using very limited input data and supplementing it only as needed, which limits the cost of obtaining data. The second configuration is an ensemble mode in which several rough set-based classification systems achieve the unequivocal decision collectively, even though the systems cannot separately deliver such results.

Take an active role in managing technology!

From new business models to new types of business, information technology has become a key driver of business and an essential component of corporate strategy. But simply acquiring technology is not enough; organizations must manage IT effectively to gain the competitive advantage.

Henry Lucas's Information Technology: Strategic Decision Making for Managers focuses on the key knowledge and skills you need to take an active role in managing technology and obtain the maximum benefits from investing in IT. Offering streamlined, up-to-date coverage, the text is ideally suited for MBA students or anyone who wants to learn more about how to gain the competitive advantage by successfully managing IT.

Features Focuses on managerial issues: This text explores the many real technology issues confronting today's managers, such as what to do with legacy systems, when to outsource, and how to choose a source of processing and services. Shows how to evaluate IT investments: Two full chapters cover the value of information technology and how to evaluate IT project proposals using both net present value and real options approaches. Balances technical and managerial coverage: This balance helps you understand how diverse companies have developed their IT architectures and environments. Explains the various applications of technology: Concrete examples illustrate major IT applications, such as ecommerce, ERP, CRM, decision and intelligent systems, and knowledge management.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and the Internet of Things are facing tremendous advances both in terms of energy-efficiency as well as in the number of available applications. Consequently, there are challenges that need to be tackled for the future generation of WSNs. After giving an overview of the WSN protocols and IEEE 802.15.4 standard, this book proposes IEEE 802.15.4 Medium Access Control (MAC) sub-layer performance enhancements by employing not only RTS/CTS combined with packet concatenation but also scheduled channel poling (MC-SCP). Results have shown that the use of the RTS/CTS mechanism improves channel efficiency by decreasing the deferral time before transmitting a data packet. Furthermore, the Sensor Block Acknowledgment MAC (SBACK-MAC) protocol enables more efficiency as it allows the aggregation of several acknowledgement responses in one special Block Acknowledgment (BACK) Response packet. The throughput and delay performance have been mathematically derived under both ideal conditions (a channel environment with no transmission errors) and non-ideal conditions (with transmission errors). Simulation results successfully validate the proposed analytical models. This research reveals the importance of an appropriate design for the MAC sub-layer protocol for the desired WSN application. Depending on the mission of the WSN application, different protocols are required. Therefore, the overall performance of a WSN application certainly depends on the development and application of suitable e.g., MAC, network layer protocols.

This book is a collection of contributions honouring Arnon Avron's seminal work on the semantics and proof theory of non-classical logics. It includes presentations of advanced work by some of the most esteemed scholars working on semantic and proof-theoretical aspects of computer science logic. Topics in this book include frameworks for paraconsistent reasoning, foundations of relevance logics, analysis and characterizations of modal logics and fuzzy logics, hypersequent calculi and their properties, non-deterministic semantics, algebraic structures for many-valued logics, and representations of the mechanization of mathematics. Avron's foundational and pioneering contributions have been widely acknowledged and adopted by the scientific community. His research interests are very broad, spanning over proof theory, automated reasoning, non-classical logics, foundations of mathematics, and applications of logic in computer science and artificial intelligence. This is clearly reflected by the diversity of topics discussed in the chapters included in this book, all of which directly relate to Avron's past and present works. This book is of interest to computer scientists and scholars of formal logic.

This book shows in a comprehensive presentation how Bond Graph methodology can support model-based control, model-based fault diagnosis, fault accommodation, and failure prognosis by reviewing the state-of-the-art, presenting a hybrid integrated approach to Bond Graph model-based fault diagnosis and failure prognosis, and by providing a review of software that can be used for these tasks. The structured text illustrates on numerous small examples how the computational structure superimposed on an acausal bond graph can be exploited to check for control properties such as structural observability and control lability, perform parameter estimation and fault detection and isolation, provide discrete values of an unknown degradation trend at sample points, and develop an inverse model for fault accommodation. The comprehensive presentation also covers failure prognosis based on continuous state estimation by means of filters or time series forecasting. This book has been written for students specializing in the overlap of engineering and computer science as well as for researchers, and for engineers in industry working with modelling, simulation, control, fault diagnosis, and failure prognosis in various application fields and who might be interested to see how bond graph modelling can support their work. Presents a hybrid model-based, data-driven approach to failure prognosis Highlights synergies and relations between fault diagnosis and failure prognostic Discusses the importance of fault diagnosis and failure prognostic in various fields

This book presents a complete and accurate study of arithmetic and algebraic circuits. The first part offers a review of all important basic concepts: it describes simple circuits for the implementation of some basic arithmetic operations; it introduces theoretical basis for residue number systems; and describes some fundamental circuits for implementing the main modular operations that will be used in the text. Moreover, the book discusses floating-point representation of real numbers and the IEEE 754 standard. The second and core part of the book offers a deep study of arithmetic circuits and specific algorithms for their implementation. It covers the CORDIC algorithm, and optimized arithmetic circuits recently developed by the authors for adders and subtractors, as well as multipliers, dividers and special functions. It describes the implementation of basic algebraic circuits, such as LFSRs and cellular automata. Finally, it offers a complete study of Galois fields, showing some exemplary applications and discussing the advantages in comparison to other methods. This dense, self-contained text provides students, researchers and engineers, with extensive knowledge on and a deep understanding of arithmetic and algebraic circuits and their implementation.

[FIRST EDITION] This accessible textbook presents an introduction to computer vision algorithms for industrially-relevant applications of X-ray testing. Features: introduces the mathematical background for monocular and multiple view geometry; describes the main techniques for image processing used in X-ray testing; presents a range of different representations for X-ray images, explaining how these enable new features to be extracted from the original image; examines a range of known X-ray image classifiers and classification strategies; discusses some basic concepts for the simulation of X-ray images and presents simple geometric and imaging models that can be used in the simulation; reviews a variety of applications for X-ray testing, from industrial inspection and baggage screening to the quality control of natural products; provides supporting material at an associated website, including a database of X-ray images and a Matlab toolbox for use with the book's many examples.

This book addresses the principles and applications of metaheuristic approaches in engineering and related fields. The first part covers metaheuristics tools and techniques such as ant colony optimization and Tabu search, and their applications to several classes of optimization problems. In turn, the book's second part focuses on a wide variety of metaheuristics applications in engineering and/or the applied sciences, e.g. in smart grids and renewable energy. In addition, the simulation codes for the problems discussed are included in an appendix for ready reference. Intended for researchers aspiring to learn and apply metaheuristic techniques, and gathering contributions by prominent experts in the field, the book offers readers an essential introduction to metaheuristics, its theoretical aspects and applications.

Databases are designed to support data storage, processing, and retrieval activities related to data management. The use of databases in various applications has resulted in an enormous wealth of data, which populates many types of databases around the world. Advanced Database Query Systems: Techniques, Applications and Technologies focuses on technologies and methodologies of database queries, XML and metadata queries, and applications of database query systems, aiming at providing a single account of technologies and practices in advanced database query systems. This book provides the state of the art information for academics, researchers and industry practitioners who are interested in the study, use, design and development of advanced and emerging database queries with ultimate aim of building competencies for exploiting the opportunities of the data and knowledge society.

This book analyzes new electricity pricing models that consider uncertainties in the power market due to the changing behavior of market players and the implementation of renewable distributed generation and responsive loads. In-depth chapters examine the different types of market players including the generation, transmission, and distribution companies, virtual power plants, demand response aggregators, and energy hubs and microgrids. Expert authors propose optimal operational models for short-term performance and scheduling and present readers with solutions for pricing challenges in uncertain environments. This book is useful for engineers, researchers and students involved in integrating demand response programs into smart grids and for electricity market operation and planning. Proposes optimal operation models; Discusses the various players in today's electricity markets; Describes the effects of demand response programs in smart grids.