This book is related to the educational networking (EN) domain, an incipient but disrupting trend engaged in extending and improving formal and informal academic practices by means of the support given by online social networks (OSNs) and Web 2.0 technologies. With the aim of contributing to spread the knowledge and development of the arena, this volume introduces ten recent works, whose content meets the quality criteria of formal scientific labor that is worthy to be published according to following five categories: * Reviews: gather three overviews that focus on K-12 EN practice, mixed methods approaches using social network analysis for learning and education, and a broad landscape of the recent accomplished labor. * Conceptual: presents a work where a theoretical framework is proposed to overcome barriers that constrain the use of OSNs for educational purposes by means of a Platform Adoption Model. * Projects: inform a couple of initiatives, where one fosters groups and networks for teachers involved in distance education, and the other encourages students the author academic videos to improve motivation and engagement. * Approaches: offer three experiences related to: Wiki and Blog usage for assessment affairs, application of a method that encourages OSNs users to actively post and repost valuable information for the learning community, and the recreation of learning spaces in context-aware to boost EN. * Study: applies an own method to ranking Mexican universities based on maximal clique, giving as a result a series of complex visual networks that characterize the tides among diverse features that describe academic institutions practice. In resume, this volume offers a fresh reference of an emergent field that contributes to spreading and enhancing the provision of education in classrooms and online settings through social constructivism and collaboration policy. Thus, it is expected the published content encourages researchers, practitioners, professors, and postgraduate students to consider their future contribution to extent the scope and impact of EN in formal and informal teaching and learning endeavors.

This book presents selected research papers from CISC'17, held in MudanJiang, China. The topics covered include Multi-agent system, Evolutionary Computation, Artificial Intelligence, Complex systems, Computation intelligence and soft computing, Intelligent control, Advanced control technology, Robotics and applications, Intelligent information processing, Iterative learning control, Machine Learning, and etc. Engineers and researchers from academia, industry, and government can gain valuable insights into solutions combining ideas from multiple disciplines in the field of intelligent systems.

What is mind? ""Can we build synthetic or artificial minds?"" Think these questions are only reserved for Science Fiction? Well, not anymore. This collection presents a diverse overview of where the development of artificial minds is as the twenty first century begins. Examined from nearly all viewpoints, Visions of Mind includes perspectives from philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, social studies and artificial intelligence. This collection comes largely as a result of many conferences and symposiums conducted by many of the leading minds on this topic. At the core is Professor Aaron Sloman's symposium from the spring 2000 UK Society for Artificial Intelligence conference. Authors from that symposium, as well as others from around the world have updated their perspectives and contributed to this powerful book. The result is a multi-disciplinary approach to the long term problem of designing a human-like mind, whether for scientific, social, or engineering purposes. The topics addressed within this text are valuable to both artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and also to the academic disciplines that they draw on and feed. Among those disciplines are philosophy, computer science, and psychology.

This book highlights reliable, valid and practical testing and assessment of interpreting, presenting important developments in China, where testing and assessment have long been a major concern for interpreting educators and researchers, but have remained largely under-reported. The book not only offers theoretical insights into potential issues and problems undermining interpreting assessment, but also describes useful measurement models to address such concerns. Showcasing the latest Chinese research to create rubrics-referenced rating scales, enhance formative assessment practice, and explore (semi-)automated assessment, the book is a valuable resource for educators, trainers and researchers, enabling to gain a better understanding of interpreting testing and assessment as both a worthwhile endeavor and a promising research area.

This book offers a detailed description of the histogram probabilistic multi-hypothesis tracker (H-PMHT), providing an accessible and intuitive introduction to the mathematical mechanics of H-PMHT as well as a definitive reference source for the existing literature on the method. Beginning with basic concepts, the authors then move on to address extensions of the method to a broad class of tracking problems. The latter chapters present applications using recorded data from experimental radar, sonar and video sensor systems. The book is supplemented with software that both furthers readers' understanding and acts as a toolkit for those who wish to apply the methods to their own problems.

This book includes papers on intelligent expert systems and sustainability applications in the areas of data science, image processing, wireless communication, risk assessment, healthcare, intelligent social network mining, and energy. The recent growth of sustainability leads to a progressively new era of computing, where its design and deployment leverages significant impact on the intelligent systems research. Moreover, the sustainability technologies can be effectively used in the progressive deployment of various network-enabled technologies like intelligent sensors, smart cities, wearable technologies, robotics, web applications and other such Internet technologies. The thrust of this book is to publish the state-of-the-art research articles that deals with the design, development, implementation and testing of the intelligent expert systems and also to provide an overview of the sustainable management of these systems.

This book collects high-quality research papers presented at the International Conference on Computing Applications in Electrical & Electronics Engineering, held at Rajkiya Engineering College, Sonbhadra, India, on August 30-31, 2019. It provides novel contributions in computational intelligence, together with valuable reference material for future research. The topics covered include: big data analytics, IoT and smart infrastructures, machine learning, artificial intelligence and deep learning, crowd sourcing and social intelligence, natural language processing, business intelligence, high-performance computing, wireless, mobile and green communications, ad-hoc, sensor and mesh networks, SDN and network virtualization, cognitive systems, swarm intelligence, human-computer interaction, network and information security, intelligent control, soft computing, networked control systems, renewable energy sources and technologies, biomedical signal processing, pattern recognition and object tracking, and sensor devices and applications.

Describing the technologies to combine language resources flexibly as web services, this book provides valuable case studies for those who work in services computing, language resources, human-computer interaction (HCI), computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), and service science. The authors have been operating the Language Grid, which wraps existing language resources as atomic language services and enables users to compose new services by combining them. From architecture level to service composition level, the book explains how to resolve infrastructural and operational difficulties in sharing and combining language resources, including interoperability of language service infrastructures, various types of language service policies, human services, and service failures.The research based on the authors' operating experiences of handling complicated issues such as intellectual property and interoperability of language resources contributes to exploitation of language resources as a service. On the other hand, both the analysis based on using services and the design of new services can bring significant results. A new style of multilingual communication supported by language services is worthy of analysis in HCI/CSCW, and the design process of language services is the focus of valuable case studies in service science. By using language resources in different ways based on the Language Grid, many activities are highly regarded by diverse communities. This book consists of four parts: (1) two types of language service platforms to interconnect language services across service grids, (2) various language service composition technologies that improve the reusability, efficiency, and accuracy of composite services, (3) research work and activities in creating language resources and services, and (4) various applications and tools for understanding and designing language services that well support intercultural collaboration.

The aim of this publication is to identify and apply suitable methods for analysing and predicting the time series of gold prices, together with acquainting the reader with the history and characteristics of the methods and with the time series issues in general. Both statistical and econometric methods, and especially artificial intelligence methods, are used in the case studies. The publication presents both traditional and innovative methods on the theoretical level, always accompanied by a case study, i.e. their specific use in practice. Furthermore, a comprehensive comparative analysis of the individual methods is provided. The book is intended for readers from the ranks of academic staff, students of universities of economics, but also the scientists and practitioners dealing with the time series prediction. From the point of view of practical application, it could provide useful information for speculators and traders on financial markets, especially the commodity markets.

This book gathers selected papers presented at the conference "Advances in 3D Image and Graphics Representation, Analysis, Computing and Information Technology," one of the first initiatives devoted to the problems of 3D imaging in all contemporary scientific and application areas. The aim of the conference was to establish a platform for experts to combine their efforts and share their ideas in the related areas in order to promote and accelerate future development. This second volume discusses algorithms and applications, focusing mainly on the following topics: 3D printing technologies; naked, dynamic and auxiliary 3D displays; VR/AR/MR devices; VR camera technologies; microprocessors for 3D data processing; advanced 3D computing systems; 3D data-storage technologies; 3D data networks and technologies; 3D data intelligent processing; 3D data cryptography and security; 3D visual quality estimation and measurement; and 3D decision support and information systems.

This book consists of select proceedings of the International Conference on Functional Material, Manufacturing and Performances (ICFMMP) 2019, and presents latest research on using the combined intelligence of people, processes, and machines to impact the overall economics of manufacturing. The book focuses on optimizing manufacturing resources, improving business value and safety, and reducing waste - both on the floor and in back-office operations. It highlights the applications of the latest manufacturing execution system (MES), intelligent devices, machine-to-machine communication, and data analysis for the production lines and facilities. This book will be useful to manufacturers of finished goods and of sub-assemblies in the automotive, agriculture, and construction equipment sector. It will also provide solutions to make production strategies exceptional and can be a useful reference for beginners, researchers, and professionals interested in intelligent manufacturing technologies.

This book focuses on the design, implementation and applications of embedded systems and advanced industrial controls with microcontrollers. It combines classical and modern control theories as well as practical control programming codes to help readers learn control techniques easily and effectively. The book covers both linear and nonlinear control techniques to help readers understand modern control strategies. The author provides a detailed description of the practical considerations and applications in linear and nonlinear control systems. They concentrate on the ARM (R) Cortex (R)-M4 MCU system built by Texas Instruments (TM) called TM4C123GXL, in which two ARM (R) Cortex (R)-M4 MCUs, TM4C123GH6PM, are utilized. In order to help the reader develop and build application control software for a specified microcontroller unit. Readers can quickly develop and build their applications by using sample project codes provided in the book to access specified peripherals. The book enables readers to transfer from one interfacing protocol to another, even if they only have basic and fundamental understanding and basic knowledge of one interfacing function. Classical and Modern Controls with Microcontrollers is a powerful source of information for control and systems engineers looking to expand their programming knowledge of C, and of applications of embedded systems with microcontrollers. The book is a textbook for college students majored in CE, EE and ISE to learn and study classical and modern control technologies. The book can also be adopted as a reference book for professional programmers working in modern control fields or related to intelligent controls and embedded computing and applications. Advances in Industrial Control reports and encourages the transfer of technology in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of new work in all aspects of industrial control.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become pervasive in most areas of research and applications. While computation can significantly reduce mental efforts for complex problem solving, effective computer algorithms allow continuous improvement of AI tools to handle complexity-in both time and memory requirements-for machine learning in large datasets. Meanwhile, data science is an evolving scientific discipline that strives to overcome the hindrance of traditional skills that are too limited to enable scientific discovery when leveraging research outcomes. Solutions to many problems in medicine and life science, which cannot be answered by these conventional approaches, are urgently needed for society. This edited book attempts to report recent advances in the complementary domains of AI, computation, and data science with applications in medicine and life science. The benefits to the reader are manifold as researchers from similar or different fields can be aware of advanced developments and novel applications that can be useful for either immediate implementations or future scientific pursuit. Features: Considers recent advances in AI, computation, and data science for solving complex problems in medicine, physiology, biology, chemistry, and biochemistry Provides recent developments in three evolving key areas and their complementary combinations: AI, computation, and data science Reports on applications in medicine and physiology, including cancer, neuroscience, and digital pathology Examines applications in life science, including systems biology, biochemistry, and even food technology This unique book, representing research from a team of international contributors, has not only real utility in academia for those in the medical and life sciences communities, but also a much wider readership from industry, science, and other areas of technology and education.

There are many different approaches to understanding human consciousness. By conducting research to better understand various biological mechanisms, these can be redefined and utilized for technological purposes. Advanced Research on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures is an essential reference source for the latest scholarly research on the biological elements of human cognition and examines the applications of consciousness within computing environments. Featuring exhaustive coverage on a broad range of innovative topics and perspectives, such as artificial intelligence, bio-robotics, and human-computer interaction, this publication is ideally designed for academics, researchers, professionals, graduate students, and practitioners seeking current research on the exploration of the intricacies of consciousness and different approaches of perception.

This book introduces readers to the background, general framework, main operators, and other basic characteristics of biogeography-based optimization (BBO), which is an emerging branch of bio-inspired computation. In particular, the book presents the authors' recent work on improved variants of BBO, hybridization of BBO with other algorithms, and the application of BBO to a variety of domains including transportation, image processing, and neural network learning. The content will help to advance research into and application of not only BBO but also the whole field of bio-inspired computation. The algorithms and applications are organized in a step-by-step manner and clearly described with the help of pseudo-codes and flowcharts. The readers will learn not only the basic concepts of BBO but also how to apply and adapt the algorithms to the engineering optimization problems they actually encounter.

This book provides novel approach to the diagnosis of complex technical systems that are widely used in various kinds of transportation, energy, metallurgy, metalworking, fuels, mining, chemical, paper industries, etc. Effective diagnostic systems are necessary for the early detection of errors in mechatronic systems, for the organization of maintenance and for the assessment of the performed service quality. Unfortunately, the practical use of AI in the diagnosis of mechatronic systems is still quite limited and the inability to build effective mechatronic systems leads to significant economic losses and dangers. The main aim of this book is to contribute to knowledge within the topic of diagnostics of mechatronic systems by the analysis of the elements reliability characteristics, using methods, models and algorithms for diagnostics and by studying examples of model diagnostic systems using AI methods based on neural networks, fuzzy inference systems and genetic algorithms.

This book fosters a scientific debate for sophisticated approaches and cognitive technologies (such as deep learning, machine learning and advanced analytics) for enhanced healthcare services in light of the tremendous scope in the future of intelligent systems for healthcare. The authors discuss the proliferation of huge data sources (e.g. genomes, electronic health records (EHRs), mobile diagnostics, and wearable devices) and breakthroughs in artificial intelligence applications, which have unlocked the doors for diagnosing and treating multitudes of rare diseases. The contributors show how the widespread adoption of intelligent health based systems could help overcome challenges, such as shortages of staff and supplies, accessibility barriers, lack of awareness on certain health issues, identification of patient needs, and early detection and diagnosis of illnesses. This book is a small yet significant step towards exploring recent advances, disseminating state-of-the-art techniques and deploying novel technologies in intelligent healthcare services and applications. Describes the advances of computing methodologies for life and medical science data; Presents applications of artificial intelligence in healthcare along with case studies and datasets; Provides an ideal reference for medical imaging researchers, industry scientists and engineers, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and clinicians.

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) combine cyber capabilities, such as computation or communication, with physical capabilities, such as motion or other physical processes. Cars, aircraft, and robots are prime examples, because they move physically in space in a way that is determined by discrete computerized control algorithms. Designing these algorithms is challenging due to their tight coupling with physical behavior, while it is vital that these algorithms be correct because we rely on them for safety-critical tasks. This textbook teaches undergraduate students the core principles behind CPSs. It shows them how to develop models and controls; identify safety specifications and critical properties; reason rigorously about CPS models; leverage multi-dynamical systems compositionality to tame CPS complexity; identify required control constraints; verify CPS models of appropriate scale in logic; and develop an intuition for operational effects. The book is supported with homework exercises, lecture videos, and slides.

Mapping and localization are two essential tasks in autonomous mobile robotics. Due to the unavoidable noise that sensors present, mapping algorithms usually rely on loop closure detection techniques, which entail the correct identification of previously seen places to reduce the uncertainty of the resulting maps. This book deals with the problem of generating topological maps of the environment using efficient appearance-based loop closure detection techniques. Since the quality of a visual loop closure detection algorithm is related to the image description method and its ability to index previously seen images, several methods for loop closure detection adopting different approaches are developed and assessed. Then, these methods are used in three novel topological mapping algorithms. The results obtained indicate that the solutions proposed attain a better performance than several state-of-the-art approaches. To conclude, given that loop closure detection is also a key component in other research areas, a multi-threaded image mosaicing algorithm is proposed. This approach makes use of one of the loop closure detection techniques previously introduced in order to find overlapping pairs between images and finally obtain seamless mosaics of different environments in a reasonable amount of time.

This book presents recent methodological, technological, and experimental developments concerning human-friendly robots and their introduction into everyday life. The book contains a selection of 10 papers presented at the 13th edition of the International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotics (HFR). The International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotics (HFR) is an annual meeting that brings together academic scientists, researchers, and research scholars to present their latest, original findings on all aspects concerning human-friendly robotics where safe and dependable machines operate in close proximity to humans or directly interact with them in a wide range of contexts. The 13th edition was organized by the University of Innsbruck and took place in Innsbruck, Austria. The book is primarily intended for robotics researchers and postgraduates which are doing or willing to do research in fields related to human-friendly robotics, including human-robot interaction, robot control, robot learning, and intuitive interfaces. .

This book is a tribute to Julian Francis Miller's ideas and achievements in computer science, evolutionary algorithms and genetic programming, electronics, unconventional computing, artificial chemistry and theoretical biology. Leading international experts in computing inspired by nature offer their insights into the principles of information processing and optimisation in simulated and experimental living, physical and chemical substrates. Miller invented Cartesian Genetic Programming (CGP) in 1999, from a representation of electronic circuits he devised with Thomson a few years earlier. The book presents a number of CGP's wide applications, including multi-step ahead forecasting, solving artificial neural networks dogma, approximate computing, medical informatics, control engineering, evolvable hardware, and multi-objective evolutionary optimisations. The book addresses in depth the technique of 'Evolution in Materio', a term coined by Miller and Downing, using a range of examples of experimental prototypes of computing in disordered ensembles of graphene nanotubes, slime mould, plants, and reaction diffusion chemical systems. Advances in sub-symbolic artificial chemistries, artificial bio-inspired development, code evolution with genetic programming, and using Reed-Muller expansions in the synthesis of Boolean quantum circuits add a unique flavour to the content. The book is a pleasure to explore for readers from all walks of life, from undergraduate students to university professors, from mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers to chemists and biologists.

This book highlights papers presented at the Second International Conference on Smart Vehicular Technology, Transportation, Communication and Applications (VTCA 2018), which was held at Mount Emei, Sichuan Province, China from 25 to 28 October 2018. The conference was co-sponsored by Springer, Southwest Jiaotong University, Fujian University of Technology, Chang'an University, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Fujian Provincial Key Lab of Big Data Mining and Applications, and the National Demonstration Center for Experimental Electronic Information and Electrical Technology Education (Fujian University of Technology). The conference was intended as an international forum for researchers and professionals engaged in all areas of smart vehicular technology, vehicular transportation, vehicular communication, and applications.

This book contains 74 papers presented at ICTCS 2017: Third International Conference on Information and Communication Technology for Competitive Strategies. The conference was held during 16-17 December 2017, Udaipur, India and organized by Association of Computing Machinery, Udaipur Professional Chapter in association with The Institution of Engineers (India), Udaipur Local Center and Global Knowledge Research Foundation. This book contains papers mainly focused on ICT for Computation, Algorithms and Data Analytics and IT Security etc.