Written in a self-contained tutorial fashion, this monograph successfully brings the latest theoretical advances in the design of robust adaptive systems to the realm of industrial applications. It provides a theoretical basis for verifying some of the reported industrial successes of existing adaptive control schemes and enables readers to synthesize adaptive versions of their own robust internal model control schemes.

The LNCS journal Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems focuses on data management, knowledge discovery, and knowledge processing, which are core and hot topics in computer science. Since the 1990s, the Internet has become the main driving force behind application development in all domains. An increase in the demand for resource sharing across different sites connected through networks has led to an evolution of data- and knowledge-management systems from centralized systems to decentralized systems enabling large-scale distributed applications providing high scalability. Current decentralized systems still focus on data and knowledge as their main resource. Feasibility of these systems relies basically on P2P (peer-to-peer) techniques and the support of agent systems with scaling and decentralized control. Synergy between grids, P2P systems, and agent technologies is the key to data- and knowledge-centered systems in large-scale environments. This, the seventh issue of Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems, contains five revised selected regular papers on the following topics: data management, data streams, service-oriented computing, abstract algebraic frameworks, RDF and ontologies, and conceptual model frameworks.

Current biological research demands the extensive use of sophisticated mathematical methods and computer-aided analysis of experiments and data. This highly interdisciplinary volume focuses on structural, dynamical and functional aspects of cellular systems and presents corresponding experiments and mathematical models. The book may serve as an introduction for biologists, mathematicians and physicists to key questions in cellular systems which can be studied with mathematical models. Recent model approaches are presented with applications in cellular metabolism, intra- and intercellular signaling, cellular mechanics, network dynamics and pattern formation. In addition, applied issues such as tumor cell growth, dynamics of the immune system and biotechnology are included.

This book comprises the refereed proceedings of the International Conferences, MAS and ASNT 2012, held in conjunction with GST 2012 on Jeju Island, Korea, in November/December 2012.
The papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions and focus on the various aspects of modeling and simulation, and automotive science and technology.

In this book, an easily understandable account of modelling methods with artificial neuronal networks for practical applications in ecology and evolution is provided. Special features include examples of applications using both supervised and unsupervised training, comparative analysis of artificial neural networks and conventional statistical methods, and proposals to deal with poor datasets. Extensive references and a large range of topics make this book a useful guide for ecologists, evolutionary ecologists and population geneticists.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First Mediterranean Conference on Algorithms, MedAlg2012, held in Kibbutz Ein Gedi, Israel, in December 2012.
The 18 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 44 submissions. The conference papers focus on the design, engineering, theoretical and experimental performance analysis of algorithms for problems arising in different areas of computation. Topics covered include: communications networks, combinatorial optimization and approximation, parallel and distributed computing, computer systems and architecture, economics, game theory, social networks and the World Wide Web."

Developments in both computer hardware and Perhaps the greatest impact has been felt by the software over the decades have fundamentally education community. Today, it is nearly changed the way people solve problems. impossible to find a college or university that has Technical professionals have greatly benefited not introduced mathematical computation in from new tools and techniques that have allowed some form, into the curriculum. Students now them to be more efficient, accurate, and creative have regular access to the amount of in their work. computational power that were available to a very exclusive set of researchers five years ago. This Maple V and the new generation of mathematical has produced tremendous pedagogical computation systems have the potential of challenges and opportunities. having the same kind of revolutionary impact as high-level general purpose programming Comparisons to the calculator revolution of the languages (e.g. FORTRAN, BASIC, C), 70's are inescapable. Calculators have application software (e.g. spreadsheets, extended the average person's ability to solve Computer Aided Design - CAD), and even common problems more efficiently, and calculators have had. Maple V has amplified our arguably, in better ways. Today, one needs at mathematical abilities: we can solve more least a calculator to deal with standard problems problems more accurately, and more often. In in life -budgets, mortgages, gas mileage, etc. specific disciplines, this amplification has taken For business people or professionals, the excitingly different forms.

'Subdivision' is a way of representing smooth shapes in a computer. A curve or surface (both of which contain an in?nite number of points) is described in terms of two objects. One object is a sequence of vertices, which we visualise as a polygon, for curves, or a network of vertices, which we visualise by drawing the edges or faces of the network, for surfaces. The other object is a set of rules for making denser sequences or networks. When applied repeatedly, the denser and denser sequences are claimed to converge to a limit, which is the curve or surface that we want to represent. This book focusses on curves, because the theory for that is complete enough that a book claiming that our understanding is complete is exactly what is needed to stimulate research proving that claim wrong. Also because there are already a number of good books on subdivision surfaces. The way in which the limit curve relates to the polygon, and a lot of interesting properties of the limit curve, depend on the set of rules, and this book is about how one can deduce those properties from the set of rules, and how one can then use that understanding to construct rules which give the properties that one wants.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Motion in Games, held in Rennes, France, in November 2012. The 23 revised full papers presented together with 9 posters and 5 extended abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on planning, interaction, physics, perception, behavior, virtual humans, locomotion, and motion capture.

The volume LNCS 8155 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 19th International Workshop on Cellular Automata and Discrete Complex Systems, AUTOMATA 2013, held in Giessen, Germany, in September 2013. The 8 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 26 submissions. The scope of the workshop spans the following areas the theoretical and practical aspects of a permanent, international, multidisciplinary forum for the collaboration of researchers in the field of Cellular Automata (CA) and Discrete Complex Systems (DCS), to provide a platform for presenting and discussing new ideas and results, to support the development of theory and applications of CA and DCS (e.g. parallel computing, physics, biology, social sciences, and others) as long as fundamental aspects and their relations are concerned, to identify and study within an inter- and multidisciplinary context, the important fundamental aspects, concepts, notions and problems concerning CA and DCS.

The expression 'Neural Networks' refers traditionally to a class of mathematical algorithms that obtain their proper performance while they 'learn' from examples or from experience. As a consequence, they are suitable for performing straightforward and relatively simple tasks like classification, pattern recognition and prediction, as well as more sophisticated tasks like the processing of temporal sequences and the context dependent processing of complex problems. Also, a wide variety of control tasks can be executed by them, and the suggestion is relatively obvious that neural networks perform adequately in such cases because they are thought to mimic the biological nervous system which is also devoted to such tasks. As we shall see, this suggestion is false but does not do any harm as long as it is only the final performance of the algorithm which counts. Neural networks are also used in the modelling of the functioning of (sub systems in) the biological nervous system. It will be clear that in such cases it is certainly not irrelevant how similar their algorithm is to what is precisely going on in the nervous system. Standard artificial neural networks are constructed from 'units' (roughly similar to neurons) that transmit their 'activity' (similar to membrane potentials or to mean firing rates) to other units via 'weight factors' (similar to synaptic coupling efficacies)."

As the use and relevance of robotics for countless scientific purposes grows all the time, research into the many diverse elements of the subject becomes ever more important and in demand. This volume examines in depth the most topical, complex issues of modelling and identification in robotics. The book is divided into three main parts. The !first part is devoted to robot dynamics modelling and identification of robot and load parameters, incorporating friction torques, discussing identification schemes, and presenting simulations and experiment al results of robot and load dynamic parameters identification. A general concept of robot programming language for research and educational purposes is examined and there is a detailed outline of its basic structures along with hardware requirements, which both constitute an open robot controller architecture. Finally a hybrid controller is derived, and several experimental results of this system are outlined. This impressive discussion of the topic covers both the theoretical and practical, illustrated throughout by examples and experimental results, and will be of value to anyone researching or practising within the field of robotics, automation and system i dentification or to control engineers.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th Ibero-American Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IBERAMIA 2012, held in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in November 2012. The 75 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 170 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on knowledge representation and reasoning, information and knowledge processing, knowledge discovery and data mining, machine learning, bio-inspired computing, fuzzy systems, modelling and simulation, ambient intelligence, multi-agent systems, human-computer interaction, natural language processing, computer vision and robotics, planning and scheduling, AI in education, and knowledge engineering and applications.

This book is a compilation of research accomplishments in the fields of modeling, simulation, and their applications, as presented at AsiaSim 2011 (Asia Simulation Conference 2011). The conference, held in Seoul, Korea, November 16-18, was organized by ASIASIM (Federation of Asian Simulation Societies), KSS (Korea Society for Simulation), CASS (Chinese Association for System Simulation), and JSST (Japan Society for Simulation Technology). AsiaSim 2011 provided a forum for scientists, academicians, and professionals from the Asia-Pacific region and other parts of the world to share their latest exciting research findings in modeling and simulation methodologies, techniques, and their tools and applications in military, communication network, industry, and general engineering problems.

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.

The continuous trend in computer science to lift programming to higher abstraction levels increases scalability and opens programming to a wider public. In particular, service-oriented programming and the support of semantics-based frameworks make application development accessible to users with almost no programming expertise. This monograph establishes requirement-centric scientific workflow design as an instance of consequent constraint-driven development. Requirements formulated in terms of user-level constraints are automatically transformed into running applications using temporal logic-based synthesis technology. The impact of this approach is illustrated by applying it to four very different bioinformatics scenarios: phylogenetic analysis, the dedicated GeneFisher-P scenario, the FiatFlux-P scenario, and microarray data analyses.

The Three-Volume-Set CCIS 323, 324, 325 (AsiaSim 2012) together with the Two-Volume-Set CCIS 326, 327 (ICSC 2012) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Asia Simulation Conference, AsiaSim 2012, and the International Conference on System Simulation, ICSC 2012, held in Shanghai, China, in October 2012. The 267 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 906 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on modeling theory and technology; modeling and simulation technology on synthesized environment and virtual reality environment; pervasive computing and simulation technology; embedded computing and simulation technology; verification, validation and accreditation technology; networked modeling and simulation technology; modeling and simulation technology of continuous system, discrete system, hybrid system, and intelligent system; high performance computing and simulation technology; cloud simulation technology; modeling and simulation technology of complex system and open, complex, huge system; simulation based acquisition and virtual prototyping engineering technology; simulator; simulation language and intelligent simulation system; parallel and distributed software; CAD, CAE, CAM, CIMS, VP, VM, and VR; visualization; computing and simulation applications in science and engineering; computing and simulation applications in management, society and economics; computing and simulation applications in life and biomedical engineering; computing and simulation applications in energy and environment; computing and simulation applications in education; computing and simulation applications in military field; computing and simulation applications in medical field.

The Three-Volume-Set CCIS 323, 324, 325 (AsiaSim 2012) together with the Two-Volume-Set CCIS 326, 327 (ICSC 2012) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Asia Simulation Conference, AsiaSim 2012, and the International Conference on System Simulation, ICSC 2012, held in Shanghai, China, in October 2012. The 267 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 906 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on modeling theory and technology; modeling and simulation technology on synthesized environment and virtual reality environment; pervasive computing and simulation technology; embedded computing and simulation technology; verification, validation and accreditation technology; networked modeling and simulation technology; modeling and simulation technology of continuous system, discrete system, hybrid system, and intelligent system; high performance computing and simulation technology; cloud simulation technology; modeling and simulation technology of complex system and open, complex, huge system; simulation based acquisition and virtual prototyping engineering technology; simulator; simulation language and intelligent simulation system; parallel and distributed software; CAD, CAE, CAM, CIMS, VP, VM, and VR; visualization; computing and simulation applications in science and engineering; computing and simulation applications in management, society and economics; computing and simulation applications in life and biomedical engineering; computing and simulation applications in energy and environment; computing and simulation applications in education; computing and simulation applications in military field; computing and simulation applications in medical field.

This book provides a versatile and lucid treatment of classic as well as modern probability theory, while integrating them with core topics in statistical theory and also some key tools in machine learning. It is written in an extremely accessible style, with elaborate motivating discussions and numerous worked out examples and exercises. The book has 20 chapters on a wide range of topics, 423 worked out examples, and 808 exercises. It is unique in its unification of probability and statistics, its coverage and its superb exercise sets, detailed bibliography, and in its substantive treatment of many topics of current importance. This book can be used as a text for a year long graduate course in statistics, computer science, or mathematics, for self-study, and as an invaluable research reference on probabiliity and its applications. Particularly worth mentioning are the treatments of distribution theory, asymptotics, simulation and Markov Chain Monte Carlo, Markov chains and martingales, Gaussian processes, VC theory, probability metrics, large deviations, bootstrap, the EM algorithm, confidence intervals, maximum likelihood and Bayes estimates, exponential families, kernels, and Hilbert spaces, and a self contained complete review of univariate probability.

Geometric constraint programming increases flexibility in CAD design specifications and leads to new conceptual design paradigms.
This volume features a collection of work by leading researchers developing the various aspects of constraint-based product modeling.
In an introductory chapter the role of constraints in CAD systems of the future and their implications for the STEP data exchange format are discussed. The main part of the book deals with the application of constraints to conceptual and collaborative design, as well as state-of-the-art mathematical and algorithmic methods for constraint solving.

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 text presents the results of the joint research initiative "Numercial Simulation in Tunneling." In doing so it provides a thorough guide to improving the safety and economy of tunnels by discussing the application of numerical simulation methods to assist tunnel engineers. Numerical simulation tools for the estimation of the required tunnel support and the required construction measures are described in this book. By using them, it is possible to study the impact on the construction and on the environment at the planning stadium and during construction. This will result in an improvement of the safety and economy of tunnels.

The book Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery, aims to explain how specific modeling practices employed by scientists are productive methods of creative changes in science. The study of diagnostic, visual, spatial, analogical, and temporal reasoning has demonstrated that there are many ways of performing intelligent and creative reasoning which cannot be described by classical logic alone. The study of these high-level methods of reasoning is situated at the crossroads of philosophy, artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and logic: at the heart of cognitive science. Model based reasoning promotes conceptual change because it is effective in abstracting, generating, and integrating constraints in ways that produce novel results. There are several key ingredients common to the various forms of model-based reasoning to be considered in this presentation. The models are intended as interpretations of target physical systems, processes, phenomena, or situations. The models are retrieved or constructed on the basis of potentially satisfying salient constraints of the target domain.In the modeling process, various forms of abstraction, such as limiting case, idealization, generalization, and generic modeling are utilized. Evaluation and adaptation take place in the light of structural of structural, causal, and/or functional constraint satisfaction and enhanced understanding of the target problem is obtained through the modeling process. Simulation can be used to produce new states and enable evaluation of behaviors, constraint satisfaction, and other factors. The book also addresses some of the main aspects of the concept of abduction, connecting it to the central epistemological question of hypothesis withdrawal in science and model-based reasoning, where abductive interferences exhibit their most appealing cognitive virtues. The most recent results and achievements in the above areas are illustrated in detail by the various contributors to the work, who are among the most respected researchers in philosophy, artificial intelligence and cognitive science.

Deeply rooted in fundamental research in Mathematics and Computer Science, Cellular Automata (CA) are recognized as an intuitive modeling paradigm for Complex Systems. Already very basic CA, with extremely simple micro dynamics such as the Game of Life, show an almost endless display of complex emergent behavior. Conversely, CA can also be designed to produce a desired emergent behavior, using either theoretical methodologies or evolutionary techniques. Meanwhile, beyond the original realm of applications - Physics, Computer Science, and Mathematics - CA have also become work horses in very different disciplines such as epidemiology, immunology, sociology, and finance. In this context of fast and impressive progress, spurred further by the enormous attraction these topics have on students, this book emerges as a welcome overview of the field for its practitioners, as well as a good starting point for detailed study on the graduate and post-graduate level. The book contains three parts, two major parts on theory and applications, and a smaller part on software. The theory part contains fundamental chapters on how to design and/or apply CA for many different areas. In the applications part a number of representative examples of really using CA in a broad range of disciplines is provided - this part will give the reader a good idea of the real strength of this kind of modeling as well as the incentive to apply CA in their own field of study. Finally, we included a smaller section on software, to highlight the important work that has been done to create high quality problem solving environments that allow to quickly and relatively easily implement a CA model and run simulations, both on the desktop and if needed, on High Performance Computing infrastructures.