These transactions publish research in computer-based methods of computational collective intelligence (CCI) and their applications in a wide range of fields such as the semantic web, social networks, and multi-agent systems. TCCI strives to cover new methodological, theoretical and practical aspects of CCI understood as the form of intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals (artificial and/or natural). The application of multiple computational intelligence technologies, such as fuzzy systems, evolutionary computation, neural systems, consensus theory, etc., aims to support human and other collective intelligence and to create new forms of CCI in natural and/or artificial systems. This eleventh issue contains 9 carefully selected and thoroughly revised contributions.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence: Methodology, Systems, and Applications, AIMSA 2012, held in Varna, Bulgaria in September 2012. The 36 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on natural language processing, social networks, knowledge representation and reasoning, machine learning, planning and agents, search, and computer vision.

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 deals with one of the most novel advances in natural computing, namely, in the field of tactile sense analysis. Massage, which provides relaxation and stimulation for human beings, is analyzed in this book for the first time by encoding the motions and tactile senses involved. The target audience is not limited to researchers who are interested in natural computing but also includes those working in ergonomic design, biomedical engineering, Kansei engineering, and cognitive science.

The research work of the collaborative research center SFB401 Flow Modulation and Fluid-Structure Interaction at Airplane Wings at the Rheinisch-Westfalische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen, which is reported in this book, was pos sible due to the financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The proposal has been approved after evaluation by the referees of DFG selected from other universities and industry, which is gratefully acknowledged. The work is still in progress and now approved to continue until the end of year 2005. More than 50 scientists from universities of the United States, Russia, France, Italy, Japan, Great Britain, Sweden, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and research orga nizations NASA, ONERA, NLR, DLR could be invited and have visited the research center, gave seminars on their research on related topics and some of them stayed longer for joined work. Besides its scientific value, also the importance of the pro gram for scientific educa tion becomes evident by looking at the numbers of completed theses, which are up to now about 15 doctoral theses, 40 diploma theses and 70 study theses. The authors of this book acknowledge the valuable support coming from all these persons and institutions. They are especially grateful to the referees having reviewed this work, A. Cohen (Universite Pierre et Marie Curie), J. Cooper (Manchester School of Engineering), W. Devenport (Virginia Tech.), M. Drela (MIT), F. Gern (Avionics Specialties Inc.), A. Griewank (TU Dresden), H. Honlinger (DLR), P."

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are becoming increasingly attractive for researchers from various disciplines, such as operations research, computer science, industrial engineering, electrical engineering, social science, economics, etc. This book presents an insightful, comprehensive, and up-to-date treatment of EAs, such as genetic algorithms, differential evolution, evolution strategy, constraint optimization, multimodal optimization, multiobjective optimization, combinatorial optimization, evolvable hardware, estimation of distribution algorithms, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, artificial immune systems, artificial life, genetic programming, etc.

It emphasises the initiative ideas of the algorithm, contains discussions in the contexts, and suggests further readings and possible research projects. All the methods form a pedagogical way to make EAs easy and interesting.

This textbook also introduces the applications of EAs as many as possible. At least one real-life application is introduced by the end of almost every chapter. The authors focus on the kernel part of applications, such as how to model real-life problems, how to encode and decode the individuals, how to design effective search operators according to the chromosome structures, etc.

This textbook adopts pedagogical ways of making EAs easy and interesting. Its methods include an introduction at the beginning of each chapter, emphasising the initiative, discussions in the contexts, summaries at the end of every chapter, suggested further reading, exercises, and possible research projects.

Introduction to Evolutionary Algorithms will enable students to:

establish a strong background on evolutionary algorithms;

appreciate the cutting edge of EAs;

perform their own research projects by simulating the application introduced in the book; and

apply their intuitive ideas to academic search.

This book is aimed at senior undergraduate students or first-year graduate students as a textbook or self-study material."

The "European Experiment on the Transport and Transformation of Environmentally Relevant Trace Constituents over Europe" (EUROTRAC) was established in 1986 to tackle the scientific problem and combine the expertise, knowledge and resources in Europe, in order to apply them over a large region covering the greater part of the continent. EUROTRAC is a coordinated multidisciplinary scientific research project involving field measurements, laboratory studies, instrument development and development of comprehensive computer models for the simulation of the physical and chemical processes in the lower atmosphere.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Model-Based Methodologies for Pervasive and Embedded Software, MOMPES 2012, held in Essen, Germany, in September 2012. The 7 revised full papers presented together with 1 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 16 submissions. The papers cover a large spectrum of topics including model-driven engineering, model analysis, runtime verification, modeling of reactive systems, variability modeling, and domain-specific languages.

This book contains extended and revised versions of a set of selected papers from two workshops organized by the Euro Working Group on Decision Support Systems (EWG-DSS), which were held in Liverpool, UK, and Vilnius, Lithuania, in April and July 2012. From a total of 33 submissions, 9 papers were accepted for publication in this edition after being reviewed by at least three internationally known experts from the EWG-DSS Program Committee and external invited reviewers. The selected papers are representative of the current research activities in the area of decision support systems, focusing on topics such as decision analysis for enterprise systems and non-hierarchical networks, integrated solutions for decision support and knowledge management in distributed environments, decision support system evaluation and analysis through social networks, and e-learning and its application to real environments.

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications.

Just a few years ago, virtual reality was regarded as more a toy than a tool. Today, however, it is becoming the enabling technology for man-machine communications. The rapid development of graphics hardware and soft ware makes its application possible. Besides building walkthroughs and landscape fly-overs with very realistic visual effects, we can recognize the trend toward industrial applications. This is because of the emerging need for tools for rapid product development. Especially in the aeronautical and automotive industries, companies have began to investigate and develop virtual reality tools for their own needs in co-operation with research or ganizations. In co-operation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (IGD), the Computer Graphics Center (ZGDV) in Darmstadt established the German working group on virtual reality in 1993 as a forum for infor mation exchange between industry and research. German researchers, system developers, and industrial users have met several times in Darm stadt at the Computer Graphics Center. In these meetings they discussed the essential issues inherent in applying virtual reality to industrial appli cations and exchanged their latest research results and experiences.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, IVA 2012, held in Santa Cruz, CA, USA, in September 2012. The 17 revised full papers presented together with 31 short papers and 18 poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on IVAs on learning environments; emotion and personality; evaluation and empirical studies; multimodal perception and expression; narrative and interactive applications; social interaction; authoring and tools; conceptual frameworks.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 35th Annual German Conference on Artificial Intelligence, KI 2012, held in Saarbrucken, Germany, in September 2012. The 19 revised full papers presented together with 9 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 57 submissions. The papers contain research results on theory and applicaiton of all aspects of AI.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th German Conference on Multiagent System Technologies, MATES 2013, held in Koblenz, Germany, in September 2013. The 29 revised full papers and 3 keynote talks presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers cover a broad area of topics of interest ranging from issues of agent-based coordination to simulation to negotiation.

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.

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.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Parallel Computing Technologies, PaCT 2013, held in St. Petersburg, Russia, during September 30-October 4, 2013. The 41 full papers presented together with 2 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 83 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on all technological aspects of the applications of parallel computer systems High level parallel programming languages and systems, methods and tools for parallel solution of large-scale problems, languages, environments and software tools supporting parallel processing, operating systems, scheduling, mapping, load balancing, general architectural concepts, cellular automata, performance measurement and analysis tools, teaching parallel processing, software for grid and cloud computing, scalable computing, fragmentation and aggregation of algorithms and programs as well as programs assembling and reuse.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13 International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement, PROFES 2012, held in Madrid, Spain, in June 2012. The 21 revised full papers presented together with 3 short papers and 4 workshop and tutorial papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 49 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on process focused software process improvement, open-source agile and lean practices, product and process measurements and estimation, distributed and global software development, quality assessment, and empirical studies.

Simulation Methods for Reliability and Availability of Complex Systems discusses the use of computer simulation-based techniques and algorithms to determine reliability and availability (R and A) levels in complex systems. The book: shares theoretical or applied models and decision support systems that make use of simulation to estimate and to improve system R and A levels, forecasts emerging technologies and trends in the use of computer simulation for R and A and proposes hybrid approaches to the development of efficient methodologies designed to solve R and A-related problems in real-life systems. Dealing with practical issues, Simulation Methods for Reliability and Availability of Complex Systems is designed to support managers and system engineers in the improvement of R and A, as well as providing a thorough exploration of the techniques and algorithms available for researchers, and for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students.

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

Although synthetic environments were traditionally used in military settings for mission rehearsal and simulations, their use is rapidly spreading to a variety of applications in the commercial, research and industrial sectors, such as flight training for commercial aircraft, city planning, car safety research in real-time traffic simulations, and video games. 3D Synthetic Environment Reconstruction contains seven invited chapters from leading experts in the field, bringing together a coherent body of recent knowledge relating 3D geospatial data collection, design issues, and techniques used in synthetic environments design, implementation and interoperability. In particular, this book describes new techniques for the generation of Synthetic Environments with increased resolution and rich attribution, both essential for accurate modeling and simulation. This book also deals with interoperability of models and simulations, which is necessary for facilitating the reuse of modeling and simulation components. 3D Synthetic Environment Reconstruction is an excellent reference for researchers and practitioners in the field.

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 contains the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Modeling and Simulation in Engineering, Economics, and Management, MS 2012, held in New Rochelle, NY, USA, in May/June 2012. The event was co-organized by the AMSE Association and Iona College. The 27 full papers in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 78 submissions. In addition to these papers a summary of the plenary presentation given by Ronald R. Yager is also included. The book mainly focuses on the field of intelligent systems and its application to economics and business administration. Some papers have a stronger orientation towards modeling and simulation in these fields.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement, PROFES 2013, held in Paphos, Cyprus, in June 2013. The 22 revised full papers presented together with 10 short papers and 2 tutorial papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 41 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on empirical software engineering, software process improvement, managing software processes, software measurement, decision support in software engineering, safety-critical software engineering, and software maintenance.

The development of new-generation micro-manufacturing technologies and systems has revolutionised the way products are designed and manufactured today with a s- nificant impact in a number of key industrial sectors. Micro-manufacturing techno- gies are often described as disruptive, enabling and interdisciplinary leading to the creation of whole new classes of products that were previously not feasible to ma- facture. While key processes for volume manufacture of micro-parts such as mach- ing and moulding are becoming mature technologies, micro-assembly remains a key challenge for the cost-effective manufacture of complex micro-products. The ability to manufacture customizable micro-products that can be delivered in variable volumes within relatively short timescales is very much dependent on the level of development of the micro-assembly processes, positioning, alignment and measurement techniques, gripping and feeding approaches and devices. Micro-assembly has developed rapidly over the last few years and all the pred- tions are that it will remain a critical technology for high-value products in a number of key sectors such as healthcare, communications, defence and aerospace. The key challenge is to match the significant technological developments with a new gene- tion of micro-products that will establish firmly micro-assembly as a mature manuf- turing process. th The book includes the set of papers presented at the 5 International Precision - sembly Seminar IPAS 2010 held in Chamonix, France from the 14th to the 17th February 2010.