The focus of this volume is comprised of the fundamentals, models, and information technologies (IT) methods and tools for disaster prediction and mitigation. A more detailed list of topics includes mathematical and computational modeling of processes leading to or producing disasters, modeling of disaster effects, IT means for disaster mitigation, including data mining tools, knowledge-based and expert systems for use in disaster circumstances, GIS-based systems for disaster prevention and mitigation and equipment for disaster-prone areas. A specific type or class of disasters (natural or human-made), however will not be part of the main focus of this work. Instead, this book was conceived to offer a comprehensive, integrative view on disasters, seeking to determine what various disasters have in common. Because disaster resilience and mitigation involve humans, societies and cultures, not only technologies and economic models, special attention was paid in this volume to gain a comprehensive view on these issues, as a foundation of the IT tool design.

This book/software package brings the tools and excitement of modeling to pre-college teachers, to researchers involved in curriculum development, and to software developers interested in the pre-college market.

The purpose of this book is to present a methodology for designing and tuning fuzzy expert systems in order to identify nonlinear objects; that is, to build input-output models using expert and experimental information. The results of these identifications are used for direct and inverse fuzzy evidence in forecasting and diagnosis problem solving. The book is organised as follows: Chapter 1 presents the basic knowledge about fuzzy sets, genetic algorithms and neural nets necessary for a clear understanding of the rest of this book. Chapter 2 analyzes direct fuzzy inference based on fuzzy if-then rules. Chapter 3 is devoted to the tuning of fuzzy rules for direct inference using genetic algorithms and neural nets. Chapter 4 presents models and algorithms for extracting fuzzy rules from experimental data. Chapter 5 describes a method for solving fuzzy logic equations necessary for the inverse fuzzy inference in diagnostic systems. Chapters 6 and 7 are devoted to inverse fuzzy inference based on fuzzy relations and fuzzy rules. Chapter 8 presents a method for extracting fuzzy relations from data. All the algorithms presented in Chapters 2-8 are validated by computer experiments and illustrated by solving medical and technical forecasting and diagnosis problems. Finally, Chapter 9 includes applications of the proposed methodology in dynamic and inventory control systems, prediction of results of football games, decision making in road accident investigations, project management and reliability analysis.

Collected articles in this series are dedicated to the development and use of software for earth system modelling and aims at bridging the gap between IT solutions and climate science. The particular topic covered in this volume addresses the usefulness of coupling infrastructures and data management, strategies and tools for pre- and post-processing, and coupling software and strategies in regional and global coupled climate models. This first part in the series of 6 books sets the scene for the following volumes.

Commanding and controlling organizations in extreme situations is a challenging task in military, intelligence, and disaster management. Such command and control must be quick, effective, and considerate when dealing with the changing, complex, and risky conditions of the situation. To enable optimal command and control under extremes, robust structures and efficient operations are required of organizations. This work discusses how to design and conduct virtual experiments on resilient organizational structures and operational practices using modeling and simulation. The work illustrates key aspects of robustly networked organizations and modeled performance of human decision-makers through examples of naval-air defense, counterterrorism operations, and disaster responses.

Mobile Intention Recognition addresses problems of practical relevance for mobile system engineers: how can we make mobile assistance systems more intelligent? How can we model and recognize patterns of human behavior which span more than a limited spatial context? This text provides an overview on plan and intention recognition, ranging from the late 1970s to very recent approaches. This overview is unique as it discusses approaches with respect to the specificities of mobile intention recognition. This book covers problems from research on mobile assistance systems using methods from artificial intelligence and natural language processing. It thus addresses an extraordinary interdisciplinary audience.

This SpringerBrief focuses on the use of egress models to assess the optimal strategy for total evacuation in high-rise buildings. It investigates occupant relocation and evacuation strategies involving the exit stairs, elevators, sky bridges and combinations thereof. Chapters review existing information on this topic and describe case study simulations of a multi-component exit strategy. This review provides the architectural design, regulatory and research communities with a thorough understanding of the current and emerging evacuation procedures and possible future options. A model case study simulates seven possible strategies for the total evacuation of two identical twin towers linked with two sky-bridges at different heights. The authors present the layout of the building and the available egress components including both vertical and horizontal egress components, namely stairs, occupant evacuation elevators (OEEs), service elevators, transfer floors and sky-bridges. The evacuation strategies employ a continuous spatial representation evacuation model (Pathfinder) and are cross-validated by a fine network model (STEPS). Assessment of Total Evacuation Systems for Tall Buildings is intended for practitioners as a tool for analyzing evacuation methods and efficient exit strategies. Researchers working in architecture and fire safety will also find the book valuable.

Variational Regularization of 3D Data provides an introduction to variational methods for data modelling and its application in computer vision. In this book, the authors identify interpolation as an inverse problem that can be solved by Tikhonov regularization. The proposed solutions are generalizations of one-dimensional splines, applicable to n-dimensional data and the central idea is that these splines can be obtained by regularization theory using a trade-off between the fidelity of the data and smoothness properties. As a foundation, the authors present a comprehensive guide to the necessary fundamentals of functional analysis and variational calculus, as well as splines. The implementation and numerical experiments are illustrated using MATLAB (R). The book also includes the necessary theoretical background for approximation methods and some details of the computer implementation of the algorithms. A working knowledge of multivariable calculus and basic vector and matrix methods should serve as an adequate prerequisite.

Animation is a limitless medium for telling stories. Artists can create worlds, defy gravity, flip from factual to fantasy, and transport audiences to places they never imagined. The challenge is having the discipline to reel it in and be intentional about your storytelling choices. This book shows you how. In Animated Storytelling, learn how to create memorable stories using animation and motion graphics by following 10 simple guidelines that take you through the stages of concept development, pre-production, storyboarding, and design. Explore traditional linear storytelling and learn different processes for creating successful nonlinear animated stories, and also discover the wonders of experimental filmmaking. Award-winning filmmaker, educator, and motivator Liz Blazer uses clear examples and easy-to-follow exercises to provide you with the instruction, encouragement, and tools you need to get your designs moving. Whether your goal is to create exciting shorts for film festivals, effective messaging for broadcast or online, or simply to gain a deeper understanding of the medium, Animated Storytelling simplifies the process of creating clear and engaging stories for animation and motion graphics so you can get started easily. Animated Storytelling teaches you how to: * Write a creative brief for your project * Find and communicate your story's Big Idea * Create tight stories with linear and nonlinear structures * Explore experimental filmmaking techniques * Use storyboards to communicate your visual story * Use color to clarify and enrich your story * Define the rules for your animated world * Ease into the challenging task of animation * Make the work you want to be hired to do * Share your work with the world! "Equal parts inspiring and practical, Animated Storytelling is a step-by-step guide that takes aspiring storytellers from raw idea to final render to distribution. -Justin Cone, Co-founder, Motionographer "This book is the instruction manual for navigating the complex world of animated storytelling. It's informative, inspirational, and extremely entertaining to read. Anyone working (or hoping to work) in the field of animation needs to read this. -Joey Korenman, CEO & Founder, School of Motion

The author introduces the reader to the creation and implementation of space-related models by applying a learning-by-doing and problem-oriented approach. The required procedural skills are rarely taught at universities and many scientists and engineers struggle to transfer a model into a computer program. The purpose of this book is to fill this gap. It moves from simple to more complex applications, covering various important topics in the sequence: dynamic matrix processing, 2D and 3D graphics, databases, Java applets and parallel computing. A file (SMOP.zip) with all examples can be downloaded free of charge from the Internet at http: //de.geocities.com/bsttc2/book.

The focus from most Virtual Reality (VR) systems lies mainly on the visual immersion of the user. But the emphasis only on the visual perception is insufficient for some applications as the user is limited in his interactions within the VR. Therefore the textbook presents the principles and theoretical background to develop a VR system that is able to create a link between physical simulations and haptic rendering which requires update rates of 1\, kHz for the force feedback. Special attention is given to the modeling and computation of contact forces in a two-finger grasp of textiles. Addressing further the perception of small scale surface properties like roughness, novel algorithms are presented that are not only able to consider the highly dynamic behaviour of textiles but also capable of computing the small forces needed for the tactile rendering at the contact point. Final analysis of the entire VR system is being made showing the problems and the solutions found in the work

This two-volume set of CCIS 391 and CCIS 392 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Information Computing and Applications, ICICA 2013, held in Singapore, in August 2013. The 126 revised full papers presented in both volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 665 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on Internet computing and applications; engineering management and applications; Intelligent computing and applications; business intelligence and applications; knowledge management and applications; information management system; computational statistics and applications.

The five volume set LNCS 7663, LNCS 7664, LNCS 7665, LNCS 7666 and LNCS 7667 constitutes the proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, ICONIP 2012, held in Doha, Qatar, in November 2012. The 423 regular session papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. These papers cover all major topics of theoretical research, empirical study and applications of neural information processing research. The 5 volumes represent 5 topical sections containing articles on theoretical analysis, neural modeling, algorithms, applications, as well as simulation and synthesis.

Our book introduces a method to evaluate the accuracy of trend estimation algorithms under conditions similar to those encountered in real time series processing. This method is based on Monte Carlo experiments with artificial time series numerically generated by an original algorithm. The second part of the book contains several automatic algorithms for trend estimation and time series partitioning. The source codes of the computer programs implementing these original automatic algorithms are given in the appendix and will be freely available on the web. The book contains clear statement of the conditions and the approximations under which the algorithms work, as well as the proper interpretation of their results. We illustrate the functioning of the analyzed algorithms by processing time series from astrophysics, finance, biophysics, and paleoclimatology. The numerical experiment method extensively used in our book is already in common use in computational and statistical physics.

Computer-aided-design (CAD) of semiconductor microtransducers is relatively new in contrast to their counterparts in the integrated circuit world. Integrated silicon microtransducers are realized using microfabrication techniques similar to those for standard integrated circuits (ICs). Unlike IC devices, however, microtransducers must interact with their environment, so their numerical simulation is considerably more complex. While the design of ICs aims at suppressing "parasitic effects, microtransducers thrive on optimizing the one or the other such effect. The challenging quest for physical models and simulation tools enabling microtransducer CAD is the topic of this book. It is intended as a text for graduate students in Electrical Engineering and Physics and as a reference for CAD engineers in the microsystems industry. This text evolved from a series of courses offered to graduate students from Electrical Engineering and Physics. Much of the material in the book can be presented in about 40 hours of lecture time. The book starts with an illustrative example which highlights the goals and benefits of microtransducer CAD. This follows with a summary of model equations describing electrical transport in semiconductor devices and microtransducers in the absence of external fields. Models treating the effects of the external radiant, magnetic, thermal, and mechanical fields on electrical transport are then systematically introduced. To enable a smooth transition into modeling of mechanical systems, an abridged version of solid structural and fluid mechanics is presented, whereby the focus is on pertinent model equations and boundary conditions. This follows with model equations and boundary conditions relevant to various types of mechanical microactuators including electrostatic, thermal, magnetic, piezoelectric, and electroacoustic. The book concludes with a glimpse into SPICE simulation of the mixed-signal microsystem, i.e., microtransducer plus circuitry. Where possible, the model equations are supplemented with tables and/or graphs of process-dependent material data to enable the CAD engineer to carry out simulations even when reliable material models are not available. IVZ LANG: Introduction: Modeling and Simulation of Microtransducers; Illustrative Example; Progress in Microtransducer Modeling; References.- Basic Electronic Transport: Poisson s Equation; Continuity Equations; Carrier Transport in Crystalline Materials and Isothermal Behavior; Electrical Conductivity and Isothermal Behavior in Polycrystalline Materials; Electrical Conductivity and Isothermal Behavior in Metals; Boundary and Interface Conditions; The External Fields What Do They Influence?; References.- Radiation Effects on Carrier Transport: Reflection and Transmission of Optical Signals; Modeling Optical Absorption in Intrinsic Semiconductors; Absorption in Heavily-Doped Semiconductors; Optical Generation Rate and Quantum Efficiency; Low Energy Interactions with Insulators and Metals; High Energy Interactions and Monte Carlo Simulations; Model Equations for Radiant Sensor Simulation; Illustrative Simulation Example Color Sensor; References.- Magnetic-Field Effects on Carrier Transport: Galvanomagnetic Transport Equation; Galvanomagnetic Transport Coefficients; Equations and Boundary Conditions for Magnetic Sensor Simulation; Illustrative Simulation Example Micromachined Magnetic Vector Probe; References.- Thermal Non-Uniformity Effects on Carrier Transport: Non-Isothermal Effects; Electrothermal Transport Model; Electrical and Thermal Transport Coefficients; Electro-Thermo-Magnetic Interactions; Heat Transfer in Thermal Microstructures; Summary of Equations and Computational Procedure; Illustrative Simulation Example Micro Pirani Gauge; References.- Mechanical Effects on Carrier Transport: Piezoresistive Effect; Strain and Electron Transport; Strain and Hole Transport; Piezojunction Effect; Effects of Stress Gradients; Galvano-Piezo-Magnetic Effects; The Piezo Drift-Diffusion Transport Model; Illustrative Simulation Example Stress Effects on Hall Sensors; References.- Mechanical and Fluidic Signals: Definitions; Model Equations for Mechanical Analysis; Model Equations for Analysis of Fluid Transport; Illustrative Simulation Example Analysis of Flow Channels; References.- Micro-Actuation: Transduction Principles; State-of-the-Art and Preview; Electrostatic Actuation; Thermal Actuation; Magnetic Actuation; Piezoelectric Actuation; Electroacoustic Transducers; Computational Procedure and Coupling; Illustrative Example CMOS Micromirror.- Microsystem Simulation: Electrical Analogues for Mixed-Signals and Historical Developments; Circuit Modeling and Implementation Considerations; Lumped Analysis: Illustrative Example Electrostatic Micromirror; Distributed Analysis: Illustrative Example Flow Microsensor; References.- Subject Index."

This book is thematically positioned at the intersections of Urban Design, Architecture, Civil Engineering and Computer Science, and it has the goal to provide specialists coming from respective fields a multi-angle overview of state-of-the-art work currently being carried out. It addresses both newcomers who wish to obtain more knowledge about this growing area of interest, as well as established researchers and practitioners who want to keep up to date. In terms of organization, the volume starts out with chapters looking at the domain at a wide-angle and then moves focus towards technical viewpoints and approaches.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Pervasive Computing, Pervasive 2012, held in Newcastle, UK, in June 2012. The 28 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 138 submissions. The contributions are grouped into the following topical sections: activity capturing; urban mobility and computing; home and energy; HCI; development tools and devices; indoor location and positioning; social computing and games; privacy; public displays and services.

Want to create sophisticated games and graphics-intensive apps? Learn OpenGL ES gets you started immediately with OpenGL ES. After mastering the basics of OpenGL ES itself, you will quickly find yourself writing and building game apps, without having to learn about object oriented programming techniques. This book demonstrates the use of a powerful open-source modeling tool, Blender. You will be guided, step by step, through the development of Tank Fence, a dynamic, interactive 3D game. Along the way you'll gain skills in building apps with Eclipse and the Android SDK or NDK, rendering graphics using hardware acceleration, and multithreading for performance and responsiveness. iOS developers will also find this book's information invaluable when writing their apps. You'll learn everything you need to know about: Creating simple, efficient game UIs Designing the basic building blocks of an exciting, interactive 3D game Pulling all the elements together with Blender, a powerful open-source tool for modeling, animation, rendering, compositing, video editing, and game creation Taking the next big step using custom and inbuilt functions, texturing, shading, light sources, and more Refining your mobile game app through collision detection, player-room-obstacle classes, and storage classes Doing all this efficiently on mobile devices with limited resources and processing

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Computational Topology in Image Context, CTIC 2012, held in Bertinoro, Italy, in May 2012. The 16 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this book. They focus on the topology and computation in image context. The workshop is devoted to computational methods using topology for the analysis and comparison of images. The involved research fields comprise computational topology and geometry, discrete topology and geometry, geometrical modeling, algebraic topology for image applications, and any other field involving a geometric-topological approach to image processing.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Test and Proofs, TAP 2012, held in Prague, Czech Republic, in May/June 2012, as part of the TOOLS 2012 Federated Conferences. The 9 revised full papers presented together with 2 invited papers, 4 short papers and one tutorial were carefully reviewed and selected from 29 submissions. The papers are devoted to the convergence of tests and proofs for developing novel techniques and application that support engineers in building secure, safe, and reliable systems. Among the topics covered are model-based testing; scenario-based testing; complex data structure generation; and the validation of protocols and libraries.

Daylight is a dynamic source of illumination in architectural space, creating diverse and ephemeral configurations of light and shadow within the built environment. Perceptual qualities of daylight, such as contrast and temporal variability, are essential to our understanding of both material and visual effects in architecture. Although spatial contrast and light variability are fundamental to the visual experience of architecture, architects still rely primarily on intuition to evaluate their designs because there are few metrics that address these factors. Through an analysis of contemporary architecture, this work develops a new typological language that categorizes architectural space in terms of contrast and temporal variation. This research proposes a new family of metrics that quantify the magnitude of contrast-based visual effects and time-based variation within daylit space through the use of time-segmented daylight renderings to provide a more holistic analysis of daylight performance.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Programming Multi-Agent Systems held in Toronto, Canada, in May 2010 in conjunction with AAMAS 2010, the 9th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. The 7 revised full papers presented together with 1 invited paper were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers cover a broad range of mostly practical topics like decision component of agent systems; practical examples of programming languages; interaction with the environment, and are thus organized in topical sections on reasoning, programming languages, and environments.

We make complex decisions every day, requiring trust in many different entities for different reasons. These decisions are not made by combining many isolated trust evaluations. Many interlocking factors play a role, each dynamically impacting the others. In this brief, "trust context" is defined as the system level description of how the trust evaluation process unfolds. Networks today are part of almost all human activity, supporting and shaping it. Applications increasingly incorporate new interdependencies and new trust contexts. Social networks connect people and organizations throughout the globe in cooperative and competitive activities. Information is created and consumed at a global scale. Systems, devices, and sensors create and process data, manage physical systems, and participate in interactions with other entities, people and systems alike. To study trust in such applications, we need a multi-disciplinary approach. This book reviews the components of the trust context through a broad review of recent literature in many different fields of study. Common threads relevant to the trust context across many application domains are also illustrated. Illustrations in the text (c) 2013 Aaron Hertzmann. www.dgp.toronto.edu/~hertzman

This book contains the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Modeling and Simulation in Engineering, Economics, and Management, MS 2013, held in Castellon de la Plana, Spain, in June 2013. The event was co-organized by the AMSE Association and the SoGReS Research Group of the Jaume I University. This edition of the conference paid special attention to modeling and simulation in diverse fields of business management.

The 28 full papers in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 65 submissions. They are organized in topical sections on: modeling and simulation in CSR and sustainable development; modeling and simulation in finance and accounting; modeling and simulation in management and marketing; modeling and simulation in economics and politics; knowledge-based expert and decision support systems; and modeling and simulation in engineering.

The four-volume set LNCS 7333-7336 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications, ICCSA 2012, held in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, in June 2012. The four volumes contain papers presented in the following workshops: 7333 - advances in high performance algorithms and applications (AHPAA); bioinspired computing and applications (BIOCA); computational geometry and applicatons (CGA); chemistry and materials sciences and technologies (CMST); cities, technologies and planning (CTP); 7334 - econometrics and multidimensional evaluation in the urban environment (EMEUE); geographical analysis, urban modeling, spatial statistics (Geo-An-Mod); 7335 - optimization techniques and applications (OTA); mobile communications (MC); mobile-computing, sensind and actuation for cyber physical systems (MSA4CPS); remote sensing (RS); 7336 - software engineering processes and applications (SEPA); software quality (SQ); security and privacy in computational sciences (SPCS); soft computing and data engineering (SCDE). The topics of the fully refereed papers are structured according to the four major conference themes: 7333 - computational methods, algorithms and scientific application; 7334 - geometric modelling, graphics and visualization; 7335 - information systems and technologies; 7336 - high performance computing and networks.