The second generation of cloud computing systems, known as domain-specific clouds, are emerging based on application-specific processors and serverless computing paradigm. As multimedia streaming services are increasingly growing in popularity and diversity, this book is authored to introduce "multimedia clouds" as a domain-specific cloud that operates in the intersection of cloud computing technologies and digital media streaming. The book concentrates on the architectural aspects of multimedia clouds and describes development of high-level abstractions that will mitigate the burden of programmers, cloud architects, and system administrators. Multimedia clouds not only democratize multimedia streaming and add flexibility to the streaming services, they also help stream providers to offer robust and reliable streaming services in a cost- and energy-efficient manner.

This book is a relevant reference for any readers interested in the security aspects of Cyber-Physical Systems and particularly useful for those looking to keep informed on the latest advances in this dynamic area. Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are characterized by the intrinsic combination of software and physical components. Inherent elements often include wired or wireless data communication, sensor devices, real-time operation and automated control of physical elements. Typical examples of associated application areas include industrial control systems, smart grids, autonomous vehicles and avionics, medial monitoring and robotics. The incarnation of the CPSs can therefore range from considering individual Internet-of-Things devices through to large-scale infrastructures. Presented across ten chapters authored by international researchers in the field from both academia and industry, this book offers a series of high-quality contributions that collectively address and analyze the state of the art in the security of Cyber-Physical Systems and related technologies. The chapters themselves include an effective mix of theory and applied content, supporting an understanding of the underlying security issues in the CPSs domain, alongside related coverage of the technological advances and solutions proposed to address them. The chapters comprising the later portion of the book are specifically focused upon a series of case examples, evidencing how the protection concepts can translate into practical application.

This monograph introduces recent developments in formation control of distributed-agent systems. Eschewing the traditional concern with the dynamic characteristics of individual agents, the book proposes a treatment that studies the formation control problem in terms of interactions among agents including factors such as sensing topology, communication and actuation topologies, and computations. Keeping pace with recent technological advancements in control, communications, sensing and computation that have begun to bring the applications of distributed-systems theory out of the industrial sphere and into that of day-to-day life, this monograph provides distributed control algorithms for a group of agents that may behave together. Unlike traditional control laws that usually require measurements with respect to a global coordinate frame and communications between a centralized operation center and agents, this book provides control laws that require only relative measurements and communications between agents without interaction with a centralized operator. Since the control algorithms presented in this book do not require any global sensing and any information exchanges with a centralized operation center, they can be realized in a fully distributed way, which significantly reduces the operation and implementation costs of a group of agents. Formation Control will give both students and researchers interested in pursuing this field a good grounding on which to base their work.

This book presents recent research on computational intelligence (CI) algorithms in the field of sport. In the modern age, information technologies have greatly reduced the need for human effort in the carrying out of many daily tasks. These technologies have radically influenced the lives of humans, and the information society in general. Unfortunately, these advances have brought with them certain negative effects, including the encouragement of sedentary lifestyles and the attendant health problems such as obesity that these engender. Other modern maladies, chiefly cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer, have also been on the increase. Today, sports are virtually the only activity that still connects modern humans to their original lifestyle, which was based on physical motion. This book tears familiarizing sports scientists with the foundations of computational intelligence, while at the same time presenting the problems that have arisen in the training domain to computer scientists. Lastly, the book proposes the use of an Artificial Sports Trainer designed to enhance the training of modern athletes who cannot afford the considerable expense of hiring a human personal trainer. This intelligent system can monitor performance and design and direct appropriate future training, thus promoting both healthy lifestyles and competitive success in athletes.

Proposing the concept of real-world data circulation (RWDC), this book presents various practical and industry-related studies in human, mechanical, and social data domains. RWDC is a new field of study, established by the information technology (IT) community. In the real world, the speed of data transmission between computers surpassed that of human communications long ago and has since expanded exponentially. As a result, the origin of the majority of data has become non-human, mechanical, or natural sources; in fact, humans are merely the source of a small part of the current data explosion. Such expanding data transmission does not simply consist of single source-destination pairs, but actually circulates over a complex network connecting numerous sources and destinations. Such circulation is an important aspect of the underlying systems. Based on this concept, in order to tame and control the massive amount of data originating from non-human sources, the authors have been considering the insertion of acquisition, analysis, and implementation processes in the flow of data circulation. This book introduces the outcome of the RWDC degree program organized at Nagoya University, Japan, collecting contributions from graduate students enrolled in the program from various research fields targeting diverse applications. Through examples of RWDC, the resulting creation of social value is illustrated. This book will be useful not only for those working on the topics discussed, but also to anyone who is interested in RWDC, digital transformation, and Industry 4.0.

Today, more than 80% of the data transmitted over networks and archived on our computers, tablets, cell phones or clouds is multimedia data - images, videos, audio, 3D data. The applications of this data range from video games to healthcare, and include computer-aided design, video surveillance and biometrics. It is becoming increasingly urgent to secure this data, not only during transmission and archiving, but also during its retrieval and use. Indeed, in today's "all-digital" world, it is becoming ever-easier to copy data, view it unrightfully, steal it or falsify it. Multimedia Security 1 analyzes the issues of the authentication of multimedia data, code and the embedding of hidden data, both from the point of view of defense and attack. Regarding the embedding of hidden data, it also covers invisibility, color, tracing and 3D data, as well as the detection of hidden messages in an image by steganalysis.

Appropriate for upper-division undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in computer vision found in departments of Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering. This textbook provides the most complete treatment of modern computer vision methods by two of the leading authorities in the field. This accessible presentation gives both a general view of the entire computer vision enterprise and also offers sufficient detail for students to be able to build useful applications. Students will learn techniques that have proven to be useful by first-hand experience and a wide range of mathematical methods.

This book introduces readers to gas flows and heat transfer in pebble bed reactor cores. It addresses fundamental issues regarding experimental and modeling methods for complex multiphase systems, as well as relevant applications and recent research advances. The numerical methods and experimental measurements/techniques used to solve pebble flows, as well as the content on radiation modeling for high-temperature pebble beds, will be of particular interest. This book is intended for a broad readership, including researchers and practitioners, and is sure to become a key reference resource for students and professionals alike.

This handbook introduces the basic principles and fundamentals of cyber security towards establishing an understanding of how to protect computers from hackers and adversaries. The highly informative subject matter of this handbook, includes various concepts, models, and terminologies along with examples and illustrations to demonstrate substantial technical details of the field. It motivates the readers to exercise better protection and defense mechanisms to deal with attackers and mitigate the situation. This handbook also outlines some of the exciting areas of future research where the existing approaches can be implemented. Exponential increase in the use of computers as a means of storing and retrieving security-intensive information, requires placement of adequate security measures to safeguard the entire computing and communication scenario. With the advent of Internet and its underlying technologies, information security aspects are becoming a prime concern towards protecting the networks and the cyber ecosystem from variety of threats, which is illustrated in this handbook. This handbook primarily targets professionals in security, privacy and trust to use and improve the reliability of businesses in a distributed manner, as well as computer scientists and software developers, who are seeking to carry out research and develop software in information and cyber security. Researchers and advanced-level students in computer science will also benefit from this reference.

This book attempts to improve algorithms by novel theories and complex data analysis in different scopes including object detection, remote sensing, data transmission, data fusion, gesture recognition, and edical image processing and analysis. The book is directed to the Ph.D. students, professors, researchers, and software developers working in the areas of digital video processing and computer vision technologies.

This book shows digital economy has become one of the most sought out solutions to sustainable development and economic growth of nations. This book discusses the implications of both artificial intelligence and computational intelligence in the digital economy providing a holistic view on AI education, economics, finance, sustainability, ethics, governance, cybersecurity, blockchain, and knowledge management. Unlike other books, this book brings together two important areas, intelligence systems and big data in the digital economy, with special attention given to the opportunities, challenges, for education, business growth, and economic progression of nations. The chapters hereby focus on how societies can take advantage and manage data, as well as the limitations they face due to the complexity of resources in the form of digital data and the intelligence which will support economists, financial managers, engineers, ICT specialists, digital managers, data managers, policymakers, regulators, researchers, academics, students, economic development strategies, and the efforts made by the UN towards achieving their sustainability goals.

This book covers several new areas in the growing field of analytics with some innovative applications in different business contexts, and consists of selected presentations at the 6th IIMA International Conference on Advanced Data Analysis, Business Analytics and Intelligence. The book is conceptually divided in seven parts. The first part gives expository briefs on some topics of current academic and practitioner interests, such as data streams, binary prediction and reliability shock models. In the second part, the contributions look at artificial intelligence applications with chapters related to explainable AI, personalized search and recommendation, and customer retention management. The third part deals with credit risk analytics, with chapters on optimization of credit limits and mitigation of agricultural lending risks. In its fourth part, the book explores analytics and data mining in the retail context. In the fifth part, the book presents some applications of analytics to operations management. This part has chapters related to improvement of furnace operations, forecasting food indices and analytics for improving student learning outcomes. The sixth part has contributions related to adaptive designs in clinical trials, stochastic comparisons of systems with heterogeneous components and stacking of models. The seventh and final part contains chapters related to finance and economics topics, such as role of infrastructure and taxation on economic growth of countries and connectedness of markets with heterogenous agents, The different themes ensure that the book would be of great value to practitioners, post-graduate students, research scholars and faculty teaching advanced business analytics courses.

This book gathers a collection of the latest research, applications, and proposals, introducing readers to innovations and concepts from diverse environments and systems. As such, it will provide students and professionals alike with not only cutting-edge information, but also new inspirations and potential research directions. Each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of applied decision making, e.g. in complex systems, computational intelligence, security, and ubiquitous computing.

This book gathers papers presented at the 5th International Conference on Sustainable Design and Manufacturing (SDM-18), held in Gold Coast, Australia in June 2018. The conference covered a wide range of topics, including: sustainable product design and service innovation, sustainable processes and technology for the manufacturing of sustainable products, sustainable manufacturing systems and enterprises, decision support for sustainability, and the study of the societal impact of sustainability including research on the circular economy. The corresponding application areas are wide and varied. The aim of cutting-edge research into sustainable design and manufacturing is to enable the manufacturing industry to grow by adopting more advanced technologies, and at the same time improve its sustainability by reducing its environmental impact. With these goals in mind, the book provides an excellent overview of the latest research and development in the area of Sustainable Design and Manufacturing.

This book discusses important recent advances in automated negotiations. It introduces a number of state-of-the-art autonomous agents for large-scale and complex negotiations, and demonstrates that automated negotiation is one of the most important areas in the field of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. Further, it presents automated negotiation scenarios involving negotiation encounters that may have, for instance, a large number of agents or a large number of issues with interdependencies and/or real-time constraints. This book includes carefully selected and reviewed outcomes of the 11th International Workshop on Automated Negotiations (ACAN) held in Stockholm, Sweden, 2018, in conjunction with IJCAI-ECAI-2018. Written by leading academic and industrial researchers, it is a valuable resource for professionals and scholars working on complex automated negotiations. Furthermore, the in-depth descriptions of automated negotiating agent programs help readers who are involved in writing codes for automated agents.

Agent technologies and multi-agent systems is an emerging field of study that is unique in the sense that all efforts to build this discipline unite knowledge from different areas of study. Developments in Intelligent Agent Technologies and Multi-Agent Systems: Concepts and Applications discusses research on emerging technologies and systems based on agent and multi-agent paradigms across various fields of science, engineering and technology. This book is a collection of work that covers conceptual frameworks, case studies, and analysis while serving as a medium of communication among researchers from academia, industry and government.

The papers contained in this volume were originally presented at the 2015 International Conference on Complex Systems in Business, Administration, Science and Engineering. Included are the latest works of practitioners from a variety of disciplines who have developed new approaches for resolving complex issues that cannot be formulated using conventional, mathematical or software models.Complex Systems occur in an infinite variety of problems, not only in the realm of physical sciences and engineering, but also in such diverse fields as economics, the environment, humanities, and social and political sciences.The papers in the book cover such topics as: Complex ecological systems; Complexity science and urban developments; Complex energy systems; Complex issues in biological and medical sciences; Extreme events: natural and human made disasters; Climate change; Complexity of the internet-based global market; Complex business processes; Supply chain complexity; Transportation complexity; Logistics complexity; Closed and open systems; Attractions and chaotic systems; Complex adaptive software; Complexity of big data; Management of complexity; Global economy as a complex system; Complexity in social systems; Complex political systems; Administrations as complex systems; Complexity in engineering; Complexity and environment; Complexity and evolution; Complexity in linguistics, literature and arts.

The book is based on interdisciplinary research on various aspects and dynamics of human multimodal signal exchanges. It discusses realistic application scenarios where human interaction is the focus, in order to identify new methods for data processing and data flow coordination through synchronization, and optimization of new encoding features combining contextually enacted communicative signals, and develop shared digital data repositories and annotation standards for benchmarking the algorithmic feasibility and successive implementation of believable human-computer interaction (HCI) systems. This book is a valuable resource for a. the research community, PhD students, early stage researchers c. schools, hospitals, and rehabilitation and assisted-living centers e. the ICT market, and representatives from multimedia industries

This book contains a collection of 13 carefully selected papers contributed by researches in technical and partial medical diagnostics as well as fault-tolerant control and constitutes a comprehensive study of the field. Nowadays technical diagnostics and fault-tolerant control are a field of intensive scientific research that covers well-established topics along with emerging developments in control engineering, artificial intelligence, applied mathematics and statistics. At the same time, a growing number of applications of different fault diagnosis methods, especially in the electrical, mechanical, chemical and medical areas, are being observed. The aim of the book is to show the bridge between technical and medical diagnosis based on analytical and artificial intelligence methods and techniques. The book is divided into three parts: I. Fault-Tolerant Control and Reconfiguration, II. Fault Diagnosis of Processes and Systems, III. Medical Applications. The book is of interest to scientists, engineers and academics dealing with the problems of designing technical diagnosis and fault-tolerant control systems. Its target readers are also junior researchers and students of control, artificial intelligence and computer engineering.

This book is targeted towards cybersecurity professionals (especially those dealing with cloud security) or any stakeholders dealing with cybersecurity who want to understand the next level of security infrastructure using blockchain. The book's security and privacy analysis help with an understanding of the basics of blockchain, and it explores the quantifying impact of the new attack surfaces introduced by blockchain technologies and platforms. In addition, the book contains relevant and current updates on the topic. It follows a practical approach to help understand how blockchain technology is used to transform cybersecurity solutions.

A classic in underwater robotics. One of the first volumes in the "Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics" series, it has been a bestseller through the previous three editions. Fifteen years after the publication of the first edition, the fourth edition comes to print. The book addresses the main control aspects in underwater manipulation tasks. With respect to the third edition, it has been revised, extended and some concepts better clustered. The mathematical model with significant impact on the control strategy is discussed. The problem of controlling a 6-degrees-of-freedoms autonomous underwater vehicle is investigated and a survey of fault detection/tolerant strategies for unmanned underwater vehicles is provided. Inverse kinematics, dynamic and interaction control for underwater vehicle-manipulator systems are then discussed. The code used to generate most of the numerical simulations is made available and briefly discussed.

Designed for managers struggling to understand the risks in organizations dependent on secure networks, this book applies economics not to generate breakthroughs in theoretical economics, but rather breakthroughs in understanding the problems of security.

Based on the idea of a universal rule for problem solving, the book suggests that the "System-Fuzzy Approach (SFA)" Model can be applied to various complex real-world problems. It is the first book for problem solving in complicated problems with a universal project management tool. Systematic searching is an essential step in identifying the right direction in problem solving; and the fuzzy steps in concrete problem solving reflect the flexibility and compromises involved in the process. Nevertheless, the fuzzy steps also demonstrate human beings' impressively flexible problem-solving skills. Simulating human decision-making processes based on fuzzy information processing is essential in our digital era, in which many problems need to be solved by means of artificial intelligence; hence the Fuzzy-AI Model emerged. As a universal rule and tool, it can be applied to a broad range of real-world problems. Offering a valuable guide to fuzzy decision-making, this book is intended for researchers, scientists and graduate students in the fields of Engineering, Economics, Sociology, Managerial Science, Project Management etc.