The study of copulas and their role in statistics is a new but vigorously growing field. In this book the student or practitioner of statistics and probability will find discussions of the fundamental properties of copulas and some of their primary applications. The applications include the study of dependence and measures of association, and the construction of families of bivariate distributions. This book is suitable as a text or for self-study.

This highly useful book contains methodology for the analysis of data that arise from multiscale processes. It brings together a number of recent developments and makes them accessible to a wider audience. Taking a Bayesian approach allows for full accounting of uncertainty, and also addresses the delicate issue of uncertainty at multiple scales. These methods can handle different amounts of prior knowledge at different scales, as often occurs in practice.

Intelligent Information Processing supports the most advanced productive tools that are said to be able to change human life and the world itself. This book presents the proceedings of the 4th IFIP International Conference on Intelligent Information Processing. This conference provides a forum for engineers and scientists in academia, university and industry to present their latest research findings in all aspects of Intelligent Information Processing.

Software Engineering Techniques Applied to Agricultural Systems presents cutting-edge software engineering techniques for designing and implementing better agricultural software systems based on the object-oriented paradigm and the Unified Modeling Language (UML). The book is divided in two parts: the first part presents concepts of the object-oriented paradigm and the UML notation of these concepts, and the second part provides a number of examples of applications that use the material presented in the first part. The examples presented illustrate the techniques discussed, focusing on how to construct better models using objects and UML diagrams. More advanced concepts such as distributed systems and examples of how to build these systems are presented in the last chapter of the book.

The book presents a step-by-step approach for modeling agricultural systems, starting with a conceptual diagram representing elements of the system and their relationships. Furthermore, diagrams such as sequential and collaboration diagrams are used to explain the dynamic and static aspects of the software system.

The book 's contributing authors are among the top researchers in swarm intelligence. The book is intended to provide an overview of the subject to novices, and to offer researchers an update on interesting recent developments. Introductory chapters deal with the biological foundations, optimization, swarm robotics, and applications in new-generation telecommunication networks, while the second part contains chapters on more specific topics of swarm intelligence research.

This volume contains contributions to the First Kazakh-German Advanced Research Workshop on Computational Science and High Performance Computing presented in September 2005 at Almaty, Kazakhstan. The workshop was organized by the High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (Stuttgart, Germany), al-Farabi Kazakh National University (Almaty, Kazakhstan) and the Institute of Computational Technologies SB RAS (Novosibirsk, Russia) in the framework of activities of the German-Russian Center for Computational Technologies and High Performance

This book details the statistical concepts used in gene mapping, first in the experimental context of crosses of inbred lines and then in outbred populations, primarily humans. It presents elementary principles of probability and statistics, which are implemented by computational tools based on the R programming language to simulate genetic experiments and evaluate statistical analyses. Each chapter contains exercises, both theoretical and computational, some routine and others that are more challenging. The R programming language is developed in the text.

The papers in this volume comprise the refereed proceedings of the First Int- national Conference on Computer and Computing Technologies in Agriculture (CCTA 2007), in Wuyishan, China, 2007. This conference is organized by China Agricultural University, Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering and the Beijing Society for Information Technology in Agriculture. The purpose of this conference is to facilitate the communication and cooperation between institutions and researchers on theories, methods and implementation of computer science and information technology. By researching information technology development and the - sources integration in rural areas in China, an innovative and effective approach is expected to be explored to promote the technology application to the development of modern agriculture and contribute to the construction of new countryside. The rapid development of information technology has induced substantial changes and impact on the development of China's rural areas. Western thoughts have exerted great impact on studies of Chinese information technology devel- ment and it helps more Chinese and western scholars to expand their studies in this academic and application area. Thus, this conference, with works by many prominent scholars, has covered computer science and technology and information development in China's rural areas; and probed into all the important issues and the newest research topics, such as Agricultural Decision Support System and Expert System, GIS, GPS, RS and Precision Farming, CT applications in Rural Area, Agricultural System Simulation, Evolutionary Computing, etc.

The two-volume proceedings, LNCS 6927 and LNCS 6928, constitute the papers presented at the 13th International Conference on Computer Aided Systems Theory, EUROCAST 2011, held in February 2011 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. The total of 160 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the books. The contributions are organized in topical sections on concepts and formal tools; software applications; computation and simulation in modelling biological systems; intelligent information processing; heurist problem solving; computer aided systems optimization; model-based system design, simulation, and verification; computer vision and image processing; modelling and control of mechatronic systems; biomimetic software systems; computer-based methods for clinical and academic medicine; modeling and design of complex digital systems; mobile and autonomous transportation systems; traffic behaviour, modelling and optimization; mobile computing platforms and technologies; and engineering systems applications.

@EOI: AEI rEOMETPEI Epigram of the Academy of Plato in Athens Electromagnetism, the science of forces arising from Amber (HAEKTPON) and the stone of Magnesia (MArNHLIA), has been the fOWldation of major scientific breakthroughs, such as Quantum Mechanics and Theory of Relativity, as well as most leading edge technologies of the twentieth century. The accuracy of electromagnetic fields computations for engineering purposes has been significantly improved during the last decades, due to the deVelopment of efficient computational techniques and the availability of high performance computing. The present book is based on the contributions and discussions developed during the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Applied Computational Electromagnetics: State of the Art and Future Trends, which has taken place in Hellas, on the island of Samos, very close to the birthplace of Electromagnetism. The book covers the fundamental concepts, recent developments and advanced applications of Integral Equation and Metliod of Moments Techniques, Finite Element and BOWldary Element Methods, Finite Difference Time Domain and Transmission Line Methods. Furthermore, topics related to Computational Electromagnetics, such as Inverse Scattering, Semi-Analytical Methods and Parallel Processing Techniques are included. The collective presentation of the principal computational electromagnetics techniques, developed to handle diverse challenging leading edge technology problems, is expected to be useful to researchers and postgraduate students working in various topics of electromagnetic technologies.

Batch chemical processing has in the past decade enjoyed a return to respectability as a valuable, effective, and often preferred mode of process operation. This book provides the first comprehensive and authoritative coverage that reviews the state of the art development in the field of batch chemical systems engineering, applications in various chemical industries, current practice in different parts of the world, and future technical challenges. Developments in enabling computing technologies such as simulation, mathematical programming, knowledge based systems, and prognosis of how these developments would impact future progress in the batch domain are covered. Design issues for complex unit processes and batch plants as well as operational issues such as control and scheduling are also addressed.

This book covers all the steps from identification of operations and resources to the transformation of virtual models into real-world algorithms. The matrix-based approach presented here is a solution to the real-time application of control in discrete event systems and flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), and offers a sound practical basis for the design of controllers for manufacturing systems.

Object Oriented Simulation will qualify as a valuable resource to students and accomplished professionals and researchers alike, as it provides an extensive, yet comprehensible introduction to the basic principles of object-oriented modeling, design and implementation of simulation models.

Key features include an introduction to modern commercial graphical simulation and animation software, accessible breakdown of OOSimL language constructs through various programming principles, and extensive tutorial materials ideal for undergraduate classroom use.

Christian Kirches develops a fast numerical algorithm of wide applicability that efficiently solves mixed-integer nonlinear optimal control problems. He uses convexification and relaxation techniques to obtain computationally tractable reformulations for which feasibility and optimality certificates can be given even after discretization and rounding.

Abstract Biological vision is a rather fascinating domain of research. Scientists of various origins like biology, medicine, neurophysiology, engineering, math ematics, etc. aim to understand the processes leading to visual perception process and at reproducing such systems. Understanding the environment is most of the time done through visual perception which appears to be one of the most fundamental sensory abilities in humans and therefore a significant amount of research effort has been dedicated towards modelling and repro ducing human visual abilities. Mathematical methods play a central role in this endeavour. Introduction David Marr's theory v DEGREESas a pioneering step tov DEGREESards understanding visual percep tion. In his view human vision was based on a complete surface reconstruction of the environment that was then used to address visual subtasks. This approach was proven to be insufficient by neuro-biologists and complementary ideas from statistical pattern recognition and artificial intelligence were introduced to bet ter address the visual perception problem. In this framework visual perception is represented by a set of actions and rules connecting these actions. The emerg ing concept of active vision consists of a selective visual perception paradigm that is basically equivalent to recovering from the environment the minimal piece information required to address a particular task of interest."

This book focuses on two issues related to human figures: realtime dynamics computation and interactive motion generation. In spite of the growing interest in human figures as both physical robots and virtual characters, standard algorithms and tools for their kinematics and dynamics computation have not been investigated very much. "Simulating and Generating Motions of Human Figures" presents original algorithms to simulate, analyze, generate and control motions of human figures, all focusing on realtime and interactive computation. The book provides both practical methods for contact/collision simulation essential for the simulation of humanoid robots and virtual characters and a general framework for online, interactive motion generation of human figures based on the dynamics simulation algorithms.

Highly computer-oriented text, introducing numerical methods and algorithms along with the applications and conceptual tools. Includes homework problems, suggestions for research projects, and open-ended questions at the end of each chapter. Written by our successful author who also wrote Continuous System Modeling, a best-selling Springer book first published in the 1991 (sold about 1500 copies).

A Software Process Model Handbook for Incorporating People's Capabilities offers the most advanced approach to date, empirically validated at software development organizations. This handbook adds a valuable contribution to the much-needed literature on people-related aspects in software engineering. The primary focus is on the particular challenge of extending software process definitions to more explicitly address people-related considerations.

The capability concept is not present nor has it been considered in most software process models. The authors have developed a capabilities-oriented software process model, which has been formalized in UML and implemented as a tool. A Software Process Model Handbook for Incorporating People's Capabilities guides readers through the incorporation of the individual's capabilities into the software process.

Structured to meet the needs of research scientists and graduate-level students in computer science and engineering, this book is also suitable for practitioners in industry.

As our heritage deteriorates through erosion, human error or natural disasters, it has become more important than ever to preserve our past - even if it is in digital form only. This highly relevant work describes thorough research and methods for preserving cultural heritage objects through the use of 3D digital data. These methods were developed via computer vision and computer graphics technologies. They offer a way of passing our heritage down to future generations.

Thiseditedbookispublishedin honorofDr. GeorgeJ. Vachtsevanos, ourDr. V, c- rently Professor Emeritus, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, on the occasion of his 70th birthday and for his more than 30 years of contribution to the discipline of Intelligent Control and its application to a wide spectrum of engineering and bioengineering systems. The book is nothing but a very small token of appreciation from Dr. V's former graduate students, his peers and colleagues in the profession - and not only - to the Scientist, the Engineer, the Professor, the mentor, but most important of all, to the friend and human being. All those who have met Dr. V over the years and haveinteractedwith himin someprofessionaland/orsocial capacityunderstandthis statement: Georgenevermadeanybodyfeelinferiortohim, hehelpedandsupported everybody, and he was there when anybody needed him I was not Dr. V's student. I rst met him and his wife Athena more than 26 years ago during one of their visits to RPI, in the house of my late advisor, Dr. George N. Saridis. Since then, I have been very fortunate to have had and continue to have interactions with him. It is not an exaggeration if I say that we all learned a lot from him.

Written by authorities in the subject, this book provides a complete treatment of metal forming and machining by using the computational techniques FEM, fuzzy set theory and neural networks as modelling tools. The algorithms and solved examples included make this book of value to postgraduates, senior undergraduates, and lecturers and researchers in these fields. Research and development engineers and consultants for the manufacturing industry will also find it of use.

This volume is published as the proceedings of the third Russian-German - vanced Research Workshop on Computational Science and High Performance Computing in Novosibirsk, Russia, in July 2007. The contributions of these proceedings were provided and edited by the - thors, chosen after a careful selection and reviewing. The workshop was organized by the High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart(Stuttgart,Germany)andtheInstituteofComputationalTechnologies SBRAS(Novosibirsk,Russia)intheframeworkofactivitiesoftheGerman-Russian CenterforComputationalTechnologiesandHighPerformanceComputing. Thee event is held biannually and has already become a good tradition for German and Russian scientists. The ?rst Workshop took place in September 2003 in Novosibirskand the second Workshopwas hosted by Stuttgart in March 2005. Both workshops gave the possibility of sharing and discussing the latest results and developing further scienti?c contacts in the ?eld of computational science and high performance computing. The topics of the current workshop include software and hardware for high performancecomputation,numericalmodellingingeophysicsandcomputational ?uid dynamics, mathematical modelling of tsunami waves, simulation of fuel cellsandmodern? breopticsdevices,numericalmodellingincryptographypr- lems andaeroacoustics,interval analysis,toolsfor Gridapplications,researchon service-oriented architecture (SOA) and telemedicine technologies. Theparticipationofrepresentativesofmajorresearchorganizationsengagedin the solution of the most complex problems of mathematical modelling, devel- ment of new algorithms,programsandkey elementsof informationtechnologies, elaboration and implementation of software and hardware for high performance computing systems,provideda highlevelof competenceofthe workshop. Among the German participants were the heads and leading specialists of the HighPerformanceComputingCenterStuttgart(HLRS)(UniversityofStuttgart), NECHighPerformanceComputingEuropeGmbH,SectionofAppliedMathem- ics(UniversityofFreiburgi.Br.),InstituteofAerodynamics(RWTHAachen),- gionalComputingCenterErlangen(RRZE(UniversityofErlangen-Nuremberg), Center for High Performance Computing (ZHR) (Dresden University of Technology).

Recent interest in nanotechnology is challenging the community to analyse, develop and design nanometer to micrometer-sized devices for applications in new generations of computer, electronics, photonics and drug delivery systems. To successfully design and fabricate novel nanomaterials and nanosystems, we must necessarily bridge the gap in our understanding of mechanical properties and processes at length scales ranging from 100 nanometers (where atomistic simulations are currently possible) to a micron (where continuum mechanics is experimentally validated). For this purpose the difficulties and complexity originate in the substantial differences in philosophy and viewpoints between conventional continuum mechanics and quantum theories. The challenge lies in how to establish the relationship between a continuum mechanical system and its atomistic counterpart in order to define continuum variables that are calculable within an atomic system.

ANEMONA is a multi-agent system (MAS) methodology for holonic manufacturing system (HMS) analysis and design. ANEMONA defines a mixed top-down and bottom-up development process, and provides HMS-specific guidelines to help designers identify and implement holons. The analysis phase is defined in two stages: System Requirements Analysis, and Holon Identification and Specification. This analysis provides high-level HMS specifications, adopting a top-down recursive approach which provides a set of elementary elements and assembling rules. The next stage is Holon Design, a bottom-up process to produce the system architecture from the analysis models. The Holons Implementation stage produces an Executable Code for the SetUp and Configuration stage. Finally, maintenances functions are executed in the Operation and Maintenance stage. The book will be of interest to researchers and students involved in artificial intelligence and software engineering, and manufacturing engineers in industry and academia.

This is the first monograph which presents shock and damage models in reliability from introduction to application. Stochastic processes are introduced before current developments are surveyed. The practical applications of shock and damage models are demonstrated using case studies. The author is a leading researcher in this field with more than thirty years of experience. Reliability engineers and managers of maintenance work will find this book a broad reference.