One common criticism of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the brittleness of the solutions it produces. The suggestion is that AI systems have not scaled well beyond the relatively limited domains to which they have been applied. In recent years there has been a marked trend in the AI community towards real-world applications. Techniques, inspired by AI's wider ambition to produce more intelligent machines, are not only gaining acceptance in other fields of scientific research, but also in areas such as business, commerce and industry. Moreover, there is a tendency for the techniques themselves to be developed, tested and refined within such applications. The contemporary theme seems to be, if a technique represents a genuine advance in software engineering, then by definition it has commercial advantage. Nowhere is this trend more evident than in the application of genetic algorithms (GAs). What has marked out as GAs as compared to other techniques is the surprising speed with which commercial organizations have shown an interest. One of the reasons for this is that GAs seem to offer an extremely effective, general-purpose, means for dealing with both complexity and scale. This book presents a snapshot of some of the GA research taking place within Europe. In summery, the book attempts to emphasise the diversity of the GA approach, by presenting detailed descriptions of GAs used for real-world optimization and for complex modelling problems.

Create stunning renders of your 3ds Max models in mental ray with this concise guide. Learn all of the essential concepts such as indirect illumination, materials, render options, shaders, and lighting. Rendering with mental ray and 3ds Max, Second Edition is now revised to cover Autodesk Revit and special effects. The companion website includes all of the necessary project files from inside the book.

There's growing interest in learning how to analyze streaming data in large-scale systems such as web traffic, financial transactions, machine logs, industrial sensors, and many others. But analyzing data streams at scale has been difficult to do well--until now. This practical book delivers a deep introduction to Apache Flink, a highly innovative open source stream processor with a surprising range of capabilities. Authors Ellen Friedman and Kostas Tzoumas show technical and nontechnical readers alike how Flink is engineered to overcome significant tradeoffs that have limited the effectiveness of other approaches to stream processing. You'll also learn how Flink has the ability to handle both stream and batch data processing with one technology. * Learn the consequences of not doing streaming well--in retail and marketing, IoT, telecom, and banking and finance* Explore how to design data architecture to gain the best advantage from stream processing* Get an overview of Flink's capabilities and features, along with examples of how companies use Flink, including in production* Take a technical dive into Flink, and learn how it handles time and stateful computation* Examine how Flink processes both streaming (unbounded) and batch (bounded) data without sacrificing performance

This book is the first to provide a comprehensive survey of the computational models and methodologies used for studying the evolution and origin of language and communication. Comprising contributions from the most influential figures in the field, it presents and summarises the state-of-the-art in computational approaches to language evolution, and highlights new lines of development.Essential reading for researchers and students in the fields of evolutionary and adaptive systems, language evolution modelling and linguistics, it will also be of interest to researchers working on applications of neural networks to language problems. Furthermore, due to the fact that language evolution models use multi-agent methodologies, it will also be of great interest to computer scientists working on multi-agent systems, robotics and internet agents.

The modern ecologist usually works in both the field and laboratory, uses statistics and computers, and often works with ecological concepts that are model-based, if not model-driven. How do we make the field and laboratory coherent? How do we link models and data? How do we use statistics to help experimentation? How do we integrate modeling and statistics? How do we confront multiple hypotheses with data and assign degrees of belief to different hypotheses? How do we deal with time series (in which data are linked from one measurement to the next) or put multiple sources of data into one inferential framework? These are the kinds of questions asked and answered by "The Ecological Detective."

Ray Hilborn and Marc Mangel investigate ecological data much as a detective would investigate a crime scene by trying different hypotheses until a coherent picture emerges. The book is not a set of pat statistical procedures but rather an approach. The Ecological Detective makes liberal use of computer programming for the generation of hypotheses, exploration of data, and the comparison of different models. The authors' attitude is one of exploration, both statistical and graphical. The background required is minimal, so that students with an undergraduate course in statistics and ecology can profitably add this work to their tool-kit for solving ecological problems.

This book is concerned exclusively with discrete-time queues and their applications to the performance modeling of communication and computer networks. Since most modern networks operate on the basis of time slotting, and transmit information in fixed length (packets or cells), it thus becomes natural to model such networks in discrete-time by associating a time slot in a physical network with the unit time in the corresponding discrete-time model. The book shows how, in this way, very accurate models that faithfully reproduce the stochastic behaviour of a communication or computer network can be constructed.

The treatment is self contained, and progresses from basic probability theory and discrete-time queueing networks. These latter are applied to model the performance of numerous wide area satellite networks and local area networks, ranging in complexity from simple Aloha schemes to the timed token protocol of the FDDI network. The main objective of this book is to present a unified method for modeling any network access protocol as a discrete-time queueing network and t develop efficient solution techniques for these models. A significant number of the models and their solutions which are included have not previously appeared in the open literature.

The text should prove useful to practitioners and researchers concerned with communication and computer network performance modeling, or anyone wanting a sound understanding of the application of discrete-time technique to this subject area.

Even if you've never touched a 3D printer, these projects will excite and empower you to learn new skills, extend your current abilities, and awaken your creative impulses. Each project uses a unique combination of electronics, hand assembly techniques, custom 3D-printed parts, and software, while teaching you how to think through and execute your own ideas. Written by the founder of Printrbot, his staff, and veteran DIY authors, this book of projects exemplifies the broad range of highly personalized, limit-pushing project possibilities of 3D printing when combined with affordable electronic components and materials. In Make: 3D Printing Projects, you'll: Print and assemble a modular lamp that's suitable for beginners--and quickly gets you incorporating electronics into 3D-printed structures. Learn about RC vehicles by fabricating--and driving--your own sleek, shiny, and fast Inverted Trike. Model a 1950s-style Raygun Pen through a step-by-step primer on how to augment an existing object through rapid prototyping. Fabricate a fully functional, battery-powered screwdriver, while learning how to tear down and reconstruct your own tools. Get hands-on with animatronics by building your own set of life-like mechanical eyes. Make a Raspberry Pi robot that rides a monorail of string, can turn corners, runs its own web server, streams video, and is remote-controlled from your phone. Build and customize a bubble-blowing robot, flower watering contraption, and a DIY camera gimbal.

If you want to use CouchDB to support real-world applications, you'll need to create MapReduce views that let you query this document-oriented database for meaningful data. With this short and concise ebook, you'll learn how to create a variety of MapReduce views to help you query and aggregate data in CouchDB's large, distributed datasets.

You'll get step-by-step instructions and lots of sample code to create and explore several MapReduce views through the course of the book, using an example database you construct. To work with these different views, you'll learn how to use the Futon web administration console and the cURL command line tool that come with CouchDB. Learn how the Map and Reduce steps work independently and together to index your data Use the example database to create several temporary views based on different criteria Discover the uses of Map and Reduce JavaScript functions Convert your temporary views to permanent views within a design document Learn several options for querying the data within your views Limit the number of results returned, skip some results, or reverse the order of the output Group your results by exact keys or by parts of keys

Bradley Holt, co-founder of the creative services firm Found Line, is a web developer and entrepreneur ten years of PHP and MySQL experience. He began using CouchDB before the release of version 1.0. Bradley is an active member of the PHP community, and can be reached at bradley-holt.com.

The latest edition of this bestselling game development reference offers proven tips and techniques for the real-time rendering of special effects and visualization data that are useful for beginners and seasoned game and graphics programmers alike. Exploring recent developments in the rapidly evolving field of real-time rendering, GPU Pro6: Advanced Rendering Techniques assembles a high-quality collection of cutting-edge techniques for advanced graphics processing unit (GPU) programming. It incorporates contributions from more than 45 experts who cover the latest developments in graphics programming for games and movies. The book covers advanced rendering techniques that run on the DirectX or OpenGL runtimes, as well as on any other runtime with any language available. It details the specific challenges involved in creating games across the most common consumer software platforms such as PCs, video consoles, and mobile devices. The book includes coverage of geometry manipulation; rendering techniques, handheld devices programming, effects in image space, shadows, 3D engine design, graphics-related tools, and environmental effects. It also includes a dedicated section on general purpose GPU programming that covers CUDA, DirectCompute, and OpenCL examples. In color throughout, GPU Pro6 presents ready-to-use ideas and procedures that can help solve many of your daily graphics programming challenges. Example programs with downloadable source code are also provided on the book's CRC Press web page.

Robert Axelrod is widely known for his groundbreaking work in game theory and complexity theory. He is a leader in applying computer modeling to social science problems. His book "The Evolution of Cooperation" has been hailed as a seminal contribution and has been translated into eight languages since its initial publication. The "Complexity of Cooperation" is a sequel to that landmark book. It collects seven essays, originally published in a broad range of journals, and adds an extensive new introduction to the collection, along with new prefaces to each essay and a useful new appendix of additional resources. Written in Axelrod's acclaimed, accessible style, this collection serves as an introductory text on complexity theory and computer modeling in the social sciences and as an overview of the current state of the art in the field.

The articles move beyond the basic paradigm of the Prisoner's Dilemma to study a rich set of issues, including how to cope with errors in perception or implementation, how norms emerge, and how new political actors and regions of shared culture can develop. They use the shared methodology of agent-based modeling, a powerful technique that specifies the rules of interaction between individuals and uses computer simulation to discover emergent properties of the social system. "The Complexity of Cooperation" is essential reading for all social scientists who are interested in issues of cooperation and complexity

A Hands-On Introduction that Gets You Up and Running Fast Introduction to Siman V and Cinema V This hands-on book/disk package is a practical guide to SIMAN V, and its animator, Cinema V. Written by a simulation expert and his team, this focused resource concentrates on the language, rather than the theory of simulation. It introduces the process-interaction features of SIMAN, and shows you how to use them efficiently and productively. Introduction to Siman V teaches by example, including a wealth of computer inputs and outputs. Plus, it features a single running example throughout the text -- an example that becomes increasingly complex as you master each new feature. Here's How the Book is Organized:

• Chapter 1 provides an overview of the simulation process
• Chapter 2 provides an overview of Siman V
• Chapters 3-11 describe Siman V using examples that increase in complexity as new features are added
• Chapters 12 and 13 describe advanced features of Siman V
• Chapter 14 introduces Cinema V within the Arena environment

Economists are increasingly using computer simulations to understand the implications of their theoretical models and to make policy recommendations. New model solution techniques are required to deal with the increasingly important role of dynamics and uncertainty in macroeconomics. This book consists of articles by leading contributors in the field showing how to use these techniques in the context of standard macroeconomic models.

Some architects dream of 3D-printing houses. Some even fantasise about 3D-printing entire cities. But what is the real potential of 3D printing for architects? This issue focuses on another strand of 3D-printing practice emerging among architects operating at a much smaller scale that is potentially more significant. Several architects have been working with the fashion industry to produce some exquisitely designed 3D-printed wearables. Other architects have been 3D-printing food, jewellery and other items at the scale of the human body. But what is the significance of this work? And how do these 3D-printed body-scale items relate to the discipline of architecture? Are they merely a distraction from the real business of the architect? Or do they point towards a new form of proto-architecture - like furniture, espresso makers and pavilions before them - that tests out architectural ideas and explores tectonic properties at a smaller scale? Or does this work constitute an entirely new arena of design? In other words, is 3D printing at the human scale to be seen as a new genre of 'body architecture'? This issue contains some of the most exciting work in this field today, and seeks to chart and analyse its significance. Contributors include: Paola Antonelli/MoMA, Francis Bitonti, Niccolo Casas, Behnaz Farahi, Madeline Gannon, Eric Goldemberg/MONAD Studio, Kyle von Hasseln/3D Systems Culinary Lab, Rem D Koolhaas, Julia K rner, Neil Leach, Steven Ma/Xuberance, Neri Oxman/MIT Media Lab, Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, Gilles Retsin, Jessica Rosenkrantz/Nervous System, and Patrik Schumacher/Zaha Hadid Architects.

This book provides an introduction to Monte Carlo simulations in classical statistical physics aimed both at students beginning work in the field and at more experienced researchers who wish to learn more about Monte Carlo methods. The material covered includes methods for both equilibrium and out of equilibrium systems, and common algorithms like the Metropolis and heat-bath algorithms. Also discussed are more sophisticated methods such as continuous time Monte Carlo, cluster algorithms, multigrid methods, entropic sampling and simulated tempering.

I Methoden und Anwendungen.- Einfuhrung und grundlegende Begriffe.- Simulationstechniken fur diskrete Systeme.- Simulation zufalliger Ereignisse.- Statistische Auswertung von Simulationsexperimenten.- Ereignisorientierte Simulation vernetzter Ablaufe.- Anwendungsbeispiele vernetzter Ablaufe.- Modellierung und Simulation von Geschaftsprozessen.- II Theoretischer Grundlagen.- UEber die Theorie der diskreten Simultion.- Stochastik.- Theorie der Markov-Prozesse.- Warteschlangentheorie.- Graphische Modellierungsformalismen.- Loesungshinweise fur ausgewahlte UEbungen.- Literatur.- Index.

Der Einsatz von Software-Entwicklungsumgebungen in Unternehmen ist heute eine zentrale Aufgabe des Informationsmanagements. Das vorliegende Buch bietet eine umfassende Beschreibung der Vorgehensweise bei der Auswahl und Einf}hrung integrierter CASE-Umgebungen; dar}ber hinaus werden erste Erfahrungen mit einzelnen CASE-Werkzeugen vorgestellt. Grundlagen f}r das Buch sind das Standardisierungsprojekt SEU-IS, das sich mit der Standardisierung der Softwareentwicklung f}r Fach- und F}hrungsinformationssysteme der Bundeswehr besch{ftigt, sowie die Umsetzung der Standardisierungsergebnisse in die Praxis. Die hier zusammengestellten Ergebnisse des Projekts bieten dem DV-Praktiker ebenso wie dem Forscher eine F}lle von Informationen zur Integration von Projektmanagement, Konfigurationsmanagement, Qualit{tssicherung und Softwareerstellung in der computerunterst}tzten Softwareentwicklung.

Gestalten Sie beeindruckende virtuelle Welten mit den Techniken der 3D-Grafik am Personal Computer durch die Anwendung bewahrter Verfahren der professionellen Fotografie und des Grafik-Designs. Uber die Konstruktion virtueller 3D-Modelle hinaus lernen Sie den gekonnten Umgang mit virtueller Kamera, Licht und Materialien bis hin zu uberzeugenden Animationen komplexer Szenen mit Autodesk 3D Studio MAX 1.x, Caligari trueSpace 2.x und RayDream Designer 4.

In der Produkt-, System- und Softwareentwicklung spielt die professionelle Umsetzung des Konfigurationsmanagements eine entscheidende Rolle fur den Erfolg des entstehenden Produkts. Dieses Buch vermittelt in kompakter Form das notwendige Grundwissen fur das Konfigurationsmanagement. Anhand von Praxisberichten und Beispielvorlagen konnen Leser die Inhalte nachvollziehen."

Save time and effort when building 3D scenes with this essential guide to creating stunning photorealistic 3D environments in Blender Key Features * Reveal modeling tricks to make your Blender 3D environments look realistic * Discover techniques to enhance the photorealism of your scenes while saving time * Set up realistic lighting in your scenes to make your environment look pleasing to the eye Book Description Blender is a powerful tool for creating all kinds of visual assets, but with such power comes complexity. Creating a photorealistic 3D scene seems like a Herculean task for more than 90% of 3D designers, but don't be discouraged! 3D Environment Design with Blender will get you up and running. This practical guide helps reduce the complexity of 3D environment design, advance your Blender skills, and produce lifelike scenes and animations in a time-efficient manner. You'll start by learning how to fix the most common mistakes 3D designers make with modeling and scale matching that stop them from achieving photorealism. Next, you'll understand the basics of realistic texturing, efficient unwrapping and achieving photorealistic lighting by turning an actual reference of a wood cabin into a realistic 3D scene. These skills will be used and expanded as you build a realistic 3D environment with natural assets and materials that you'll create from scratch. Once you've developed your natural environment, you'll advance to creating realistic render shots by applying cool camera features, and compositing tricks that will make your final render look photorealistic and pleasing to the eye. By the end of this book, you'll be able to implement modeling tricks and best practices to make your 3D environments look stunningly lifelike. What you will learn * Understand how to avoid the most common modeling mistakes 3D designers make * Create realistic landscapes using Blender's built-in A.N.T Landscape add-on * Build natural assets such as rocks, flowers, plants, and rivers that you can customize and use in a variety of projects * Create realistic materials such as snow, mud, wood and animated water * Use the particle system to generate realistic grass, as well as scatter flowers and rocks * Apply the five lighting rules to achieve great photorealistic results * Use nodes and materials effectively to produce impressive results Who This Book Is For This book is for 3D environment artists and open-world game designers who have tried designing 3D environments but have trouble finding the right Blender settings. If you feel overwhelmed understanding how nodes and materials work in Blender, this book will simplify it for you and help you achieve photorealism in your environments in no time. Familiarity with the Blender interface is expected to get the most out of this book.

This book considers evolution at different scales: sequences, genes, gene families, organelles, genomes and species. The focus is on the mathematical and computational tools and concepts, which form an essential basis of evolutionary studies, indicate their limitations, and give them orientation. Recent years have witnessed rapid progress in the mathematics of evolution and phylogeny, with models and methods becoming more realistic, powerful, and complex.
Aimed at graduates and researchers in phylogenetics, mathematicians, computer scientists and biologists, and including chapters by leading scientists: A. Bergeron, D. Bertrand, D. Bryant, R. Desper, O. Elemento, N. El-Mabrouk, N. Galtier, O. Gascuel, M. Hendy, S. Holmes, K. Huber, A. Meade, J. Mixtacki, B. Moret, E. Mossel, V. Moulton, M. Pagel, M.-A. Poursat, D. Sankoff, M. Steel, J. Stoye, J. Tang, L.-S. Wang, T. Warnow, Z. Yang, this book of contributed chapters explains the basis and covers the recent results in this highly topical area.

Das aktuelle Wissen der Welt im Spiegel einer Weltausstellung: Wie stellt man das dar und wie macht man es Interessierten zugAnglich - in der Ausstellung, in Publikationen, im Funk und A1/4ber das Internet? Was man alles auf einer Weltausstellung an der Schwelle zum dritten Jahrtausend sehen und erfahren kann, sprengt in FA1/4lle und Vielfalt jeden individuell faAbaren Rahmen. Schmitz-Esser zeigt in seinem Buch, wie der Besucher wahlweise in vier Sprachen die Weltausstellung erleben und die Quintessenz davon mitnehmen kann. ErmAglicht wird dies durch das Konzept des virtuellen "Wissens in der Kapsel," das so aufbereitet ist, daA es in allen gAngigen medialen Formen und fA1/4r unterschiedlichste Wege der Aneignung eingesetzt werden kann. Die LAsung ist nicht nur eine Sache der Informatik und Informationstechnologie, sondern vielmehr auch eine Herausforderung an Informationswissenschaft und Computerlinguistik. Das Buch stellt Ziel, Ansatz, Komponenten und Voraussetzungen dafA1/4r dar.

"This book is written with the reality of biology students and their apprehension about mathematics in mind. The applications of mathematical models to real biological problems are not contrived, as they are in a number of other texts. And the biology examples are taken from the current literature--a wonderful help to those who will be teaching with this book."--Jim Keener, University of Utah, author of "Principles of Applied Mathematics" and "Mathematical Physiology"

""Dynamic Models in Biology" is a new and significant contribution to the field. Very well written and clearly presented, it fulfills its goal of bringing dynamic models into the undergraduate biology curriculum. Indeed it puts biology first, and then seeks to show how biological phenomena can be explained in mathematical terms."--Martin Henry H. Stevens, Miami University

"This excellent book is a major contribution to the literature. Strong biologically and mathematically, well-organized, and engagingly written, it introduces the subject of dynamical models in biology in as coherent a way as I have seen anywhere. Few authors could approach this topic as authoritatively as do Ellner and Guckenheimer."--Simon Levin, Princeton University, author of "The Importance of Species" and "The Encyclopedia of Biodiversity"

This book offers an up-to-date coverage of the basic principles and of the tools of Bayesian inference in econometrics. Bayesian inference is a branch of statistics that integrates explicitly both data and prior (possibly subjective) information in model building , estimation and evaluation. The book then shows how to use Bayesian methods in a range of models especially suited to the analysis of macroeconomic and financial time series.

Das Lehrbuch stellt den interdisziplinaren Bereich Medizinische Bildverarbeitung erstmals zusammenfassend, systematisch und vollstandig dar.
Es ist von erfahrenen Autoren aus der Informatik, Medizin, Mathematik, Physik und Elektrotechnik verfasst, die in diesen Disziplinen forschen und lehren.
Entsprechend aktuell, inhaltlich ausgewogen und lerngerecht vermitteln sie den Wissensstoff - von den technischen Grundlagen uber Bilderzeugung und Bildwahrnehmung zu den mathematischen Modellierungen und den Algorithmen, mit denen heute medizinische Bilder verarbeitet werden.
Ein klarer Informationsvorsprung fur Studenten und Praktiker in allen Bereichen der medizinischen Bildverarbeitung
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Das Werk bietet einen Uberblick uber die aktuelle Forschung auf dem Gebiet der Robotik. Das Spektrum reicht von neuen Anwendungen von Servicerobotern bis zur Analyse von Multirobotersystemen, bei denen Aspekte der Kooperation und Simulation im Vordergrund stehen.