This book presents a comprehensive guide to the design of playing robots and the related play experiences. Play is a natural activity for building and improving abilities, and it reveals important particularly for persons with disabilities. Many social, physical and cultural factors may hinder children with disabilities from fully enjoying play as their peers. Autonomous robots with specific characteristics can enhance the ludic experience, having implications for the character of the play and presenting opportunities related to autonomy and physical movement, the very nature of robots. Their introduction into play thus provides everybody, and in particular persons with disabilities, new possibilities for developing abilities, improving general status, participating in social contexts, as well as supporting professionals in monitoring progress. This book presents a framework for the design of playful activities with robots, developed over 20 years' experience at AIRLab - POLIMI. Part 1 introduces the play concepts and characteristics, and research results about play of children with different kinds of impairments. Part 2 focuses on implementing robots able to play. The design of playful activities is discussed, as well as the necessary characteristics for them to be useful in both general play and activities involving disability-related limitations. In Part 3, the defined framework is used to analyze possibilities involving robots available on the toy market, robots developed at research labs, and robots to be developed in the next future. The aim of the book is to give developers, caregivers, and users a set of methodological tools for selecting, exploring, and designing inclusive play activities where robots play a central role.

This book is made up of five parts, each dealing with a specific topic: managing data (named ranges, import/export, lists and filters, publishing Web pages, using XML with Excel etc), tools for analysing data (including auditing tools, what-if analysis tools, pivot tables and charts), templates, working in a team (sharing and protecting data), configuring menus, toolbars and default settings, and a basic guide to working with macros. Each chapter is independent of the others, so that you can choose what to study, and in what order. At the end of the book, you will find the official list of topics tested in the MOS Excel 2003 Expert exam. The number of the corresponding lesson and exercise is given next to each topic in the list.

This book provides a simple and unified approach to the mechanics of discontinuous-fibre reinforced composites, and introduces readers as generally as possible to the key concepts regarding the mechanics of elastic stress transfer, intermediate modes of stress transfer, plastic stress transfer, fibre pull-out, fibre fragmentation and matrix rupture. These concepts are subsequently applied to progressive stages of the loading process, through to the composite fractures. The book offers a valuable guide for advanced undergraduate and graduate students attending lecture courses on fibre composites. It is also intended for beginning researchers who wish to develop deeper insights into how discontinuous fibre provides reinforcement to composites, and for engineers, particularly those who wish to apply the concepts presented here to design and develop discontinuous-fibre reinforced composites.

The NeWS Book leads the technical reader through the discovery of a revolutionary window system: the Network extensible Window System, developed by Sun Microsystems. Independent of computer hardware and systems software, NeWS has been ported to a number of platforms and licensed to many computer vendors and software developers. NeWS will be part of the standard UNIX distribution from AT&T in the future as it is combined with the well-known X Window System from MIT in the X11/NeWS product. The specifications are in the public domain. Based on the popular PostScript page description language, NeWS provides a uniquely extensible interpretive programming environment for application developers in a networked graphics and window system environment. Networking is integral to NeWS; NeWS-based programs may span a heterogeneous set of distributed sites. NeWS is the first system to extend the PostScript language's already wide acceptance in printing applications into the realm of graphics and window-based applications. The NeWS Book is intended for a technical audience who may or may not have experience with window system design and programming. It gives practical examples of how to write PostScript programs, that implement interactive user interface techniques, while also exploring how the advanced imaging of the PostScript language model applies to the display as well as the printer. UNIX, NeWS, and graphics programmers, developers of graphical applications, computer science students, PostScript language devotees in desktop publishing, and sophisticated end-users who want to understand leading-edge solutions in window system design all will benefit from The NeWS Book.

This book provides an in-depth investigation of the quality relevant perceptual video space in the domain of videotelephony. The author presents an extensive investigation and quality modeling of the underlying video quality dimensions and the overall quality. The author examines the underlying quality dimensions and describes a method for subjective evaluation as well as the instrumental estimation of video quality in videotelephony. The book presents a new subjective test method in the field of video quality assessment. Further, it explains the experimental examination of the underlying video quality dimensions and the subjective-based, as well as instrumental-based quality estimation. Provides an investigation of the underlying quality dimensions of video in videotelephony; Presents insights into a new subjective test method, standardized as ITU-T Rec. P.918; Includes insights into the subjective and instrumental video quality estimation.

A MATLAB (R) Primer for Technical Programming for Materials Science and Engineering draws on examples from the field, providing the latest information on this programming tool that is targeted towards materials science. The book enables non-programmers to master MATLAB (R) in order to solve problems in materials science, assuming only a modest mathematical background. In addition, the book introduces programming and technical concepts in a logical manner to help students use MATLAB (R) for subsequent projects. This title offers materials scientists who are non-programming specialists with a coherent and focused introduction to MATLAB (R).

For two decades, Rockstar Games have been making games that interrogate and represent the idea of America, past and present. Commercially successful, fan-beloved, and a frequent source of media attention, Rockstar's franchises are positioned as not only game-changing, ground-breaking interventions in the games industry, but also as critical, cultural histories on America and its excesses. But what does Rockstar's version of American history look like, and how is it communicated through critically acclaimed titles like Red Dead Redemption (2010) and L.A. Noire (2011)? By combining analysis of Rockstar's games and a range of official communications and promotional materials, this book offers critical discussion of Rockstar as a company, their video games, and ultimately, their attempts at creating new narratives about U.S. history and culture. It explores the ways in which Rockstar's brand identity and their titles coalesce to create a new kind of video game history, how promotional materials work to claim the "authenticity" of these products, and assert the authority of game developers to perform the role of historian. By working at the intersection of historical game studies, U.S. history, and film and media studies, this book explores what happens when contemporary demands for historical authenticity are brought to bear on the way we envisage the past - and whose past it is deemed to be. Ultimately, this book implores those who research historical video games to consider the oft-forgotten sources at the margins of these games as importance spaces where historical meaning is made and negotiated. Watch our talk with the author Esther Wright here: https://youtu.be/AaC_9XsX-CQ

Nature-inspired computation and swarm intelligence have become popular and effective tools for solving problems in optimization, computational intelligence, soft computing and data science. Recently, the literature in the field has expanded rapidly, with new algorithms and applications emerging. Nature-Inspired Computation and Swarm Intelligence: Algorithms, Theory and Applications is a timely reference giving a comprehensive review of relevant state-of-the-art developments in algorithms, theory and applications of nature-inspired algorithms and swarm intelligence. It reviews and documents the new developments, focusing on nature-inspired algorithms and their theoretical analysis, as well as providing a guide to their implementation. The book includes case studies of diverse real-world applications, balancing explanation of the theory with practical implementation. Nature-Inspired Computation and Swarm Intelligence: Algorithms, Theory and Applications is suitable for researchers and graduate students in computer science, engineering, data science, and management science, who want a comprehensive review of algorithms, theory and implementation within the fields of nature inspired computation and swarm intelligence.

Knowledge Discovery in Big Data from Astronomy and Earth Observation: Astrogeoinformatics bridges the gap between astronomy and geoscience in the context of applications, techniques and key principles of big data. Machine learning and parallel computing are increasingly becoming cross-disciplinary as the phenomena of Big Data is becoming common place. This book provides insight into the common workflows and data science tools used for big data in astronomy and geoscience. After establishing similarity in data gathering, pre-processing and handling, the data science aspects are illustrated in the context of both fields. Software, hardware and algorithms of big data are addressed. Finally, the book offers insight into the emerging science which combines data and expertise from both fields in studying the effect of cosmos on the earth and its inhabitants.

In recent years, it has become apparent that knowing the average atomic structure of materials is insufficient to understand their properties. Diffuse scattering in addition to the Bragg scattering holds the key to learning about defects in materials, the topic of many recent books. What has been missing is a detailed step-by-step guide on how to simulate disordered materials. The DISCUS cook book fills this need covering simple topics such as building a computer crystal to complex topics such as domain structures, stacking faults or using advanced refinement techniques to adjust parameters on a disordered model. The book contains a CD-ROM with all files needed to recreate every example given using the program DISCUS. The reader is free to follow the principles behind simulating disordered materials or to get down into the details and run or modify the given examples.

This book provides comprehensive guidance on leveraging SAP IBP technology to connect strategic (to be understood as long term SC&O), tactical and operational planning into one coherent process framework, presenting experience shared by practitioners in workshops, customer presentations, business, and IT transformation projects. It offers use cases and a wealth of practical tips to ensure that readers understand the challenges and advantages of IBP implementation. The book starts by characterizing disconnected planning and contrasting this with key elements of a transformation project approach. It explains the functional foundations and SAP Hybris, Trade Promotion Planning, Customer Business Planning, ARIBA, and S/4 integration with SAP IBP. It then presents process for integrating finance in IBP. Annual planning and monthly planning are taken as examples of explain Long term planning (in some companies labeled as strategic). The core of the book is about sales and operations planning (S&OP) and its process steps, product demand, supply review, integrated reconciliation and management business review, illustrating all steps with use cases. It describes unconstrained and constrained optimized supply planning, inventory optimization, shelf life planning. We explain how to improve responsiveness with order-based allocation planning, sales order confirmation, and big deal / tender management coupled with simultaneous re-planning of supply. The book closes with a chapter on performance measurement, measurement of effectiveness, efficiency, and adherence.

For courses on SPSS. SPSS is, essentially, a visually-driven program, but most texts rely primarily on a verbal approach to describe its use. A Visual Approach to SPSS for Windows is the first text of its kind to employ what the author refers to as "visual sequencing" to teach students how to use SPSS.

This book covers all the topics found in introductory descriptive statistics courses, including simple linear regression and time series analysis, the fundamentals of inferential statistics (probability theory, random sampling and estimation theory), and inferential statistics itself (confidence intervals, testing). Each chapter starts with the necessary theoretical background, which is followed by a variety of examples. The core examples are based on the content of the respective chapter, while the advanced examples, designed to deepen students' knowledge, also draw on information and material from previous chapters. The enhanced online version helps students grasp the complexity and the practical relevance of statistical analysis through interactive examples and is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students taking their first statistics courses, as well as for undergraduate students in non-mathematical fields, e.g. economics, the social sciences etc.

For courses in Accounting Information Systems. Navigate the crossroads of accounting and IT. Kay/Ovlia is designed to assist students' journey as they explore the crossroads of accounting and IT-the very place where they'll learn how to gain a competitive edge in the accounting field. To help them on their journey, this text presents information on how to develop communication, leadership, strategic and critical thinking, a customer focus, an interpretation of converging information, and technological skills.

This book discusses important recent advances in automated negotiations. It introduces a number of state-of-the-art autonomous agents for large-scale and complex negotiations, and demonstrates that automated negotiation is one of the most important areas in the field of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. Further, it presents automated negotiation scenarios involving negotiation encounters that may have, for instance, a large number of agents or a large number of issues with interdependencies and/or real-time constraints. This book includes carefully selected and reviewed outcomes of the 11th International Workshop on Automated Negotiations (ACAN) held in Stockholm, Sweden, 2018, in conjunction with IJCAI-ECAI-2018. Written by leading academic and industrial researchers, it is a valuable resource for professionals and scholars working on complex automated negotiations. Furthermore, the in-depth descriptions of automated negotiating agent programs help readers who are involved in writing codes for automated agents.

This book explores the digitization of culture as a means of experiencing and understanding cultural heritage in Namibia and from international perspectives. It provides various views and perspectives on the digitization of culture, the goal being to stimulate further research, and to rapidly disseminate related discoveries. Aspects covered here include: virtual and augmented reality, audio and video technology, art, multimedia and digital media integration, cross-media technologies, modeling, visualization and interaction as a means of experiencing and grasping cultural heritage. Over the past few decades, digitization has profoundly changed our cultural experience, not only in terms of digital technology-based access, production and dissemination, but also in terms of participation and creation, and learning and partaking in a knowledge society. Computing researchers have developed a wealth of new digital systems for preserving, sharing and interacting with cultural resources. The book provides important information and tools for policy makers, knowledge experts, cultural and creative industries, communication scientists, professionals, educators, librarians and artists, as well as computing scientists and engineers conducting research on cultural topics.

Complexity and Complex Thermoeconomic Systems describes the properties of complexity and complex thermo-economic systems as the consequence of formulations, definitions, tools, solutions and results consistent with the best performance of a system. Applying to complex systems contemporary advanced techniques, such as static optimization, optimal control, and neural networks, this book treats the systems theory as a science of general laws for functional integrities. It also provides a platform for the discussion of various definitions of complexity, complex hierarchical structures, self-organization examples, special references, and historical issues. This book is a valuable reference for scientists, engineers and graduated students in chemical, mechanical, and environmental engineering, as well as those in physics, ecology and biology, helping them better understand the complex thermodynamic systems and enhance their technical skills in research.

This book explores how virtual place-based learning and research has been interpreted and incorporated into learning environments both within and across disciplinary perspectives. Contributing authors highlight the ways in which they have employed a variety of methodologies to engage students in the virtual exploration of place. In the process, they focus on the approaches they have used to bring the real world closer through virtual exploration. Chapters examine how the resources of the urban environment have been tapped to design student research projects within the context of an interdisciplinary course. In this way, authors highlight how virtual place-based learning has employed the tools of mapping and data visualization, information literacy, game design, digital storytelling, and the creation of non-fiction VR documentaries. This book makes a valuable contribution to the literature, offering a model of how the study of place can be employed in creative ways to enhance interdisciplinary learning.

Using a unique in-depth, case-based approach, Cengage's NEW PERSPECTIVES COLLECTION, MICROSOFT (R) 365 (R) & OFFICE (R) 2021 INTERMEDIATE thoroughly prepares you for the Microsoft (R) Office (R) Specialist (MOS) certification exam -- and success in your future career. As you apply Microsoft (R) Office (R) skills to real-world business scenarios based on Burning Glass market insights, you will sharpen your critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. Professional tips and insights incorporated throughout provide context and relevancy to real-world practice, while ProSkills Boxes help strengthen your employability skills, including written and verbal communication. Updated coverage of Microsoft (R) 365 (R) features and enhanced support for Mac users are also included. In addition, MindTap and up-to-date SAM (Skills Assessment Manager) online resources provide interactive study tools to help maximize your study time -- and results.

This book provides insights into important new developments in the area of statistical quality control and critically discusses methods used in on-line and off-line statistical quality control. The book is divided into three parts: Part I covers statistical process control, Part II deals with design of experiments, while Part III focuses on fields such as reliability theory and data quality. The 12th International Workshop on Intelligent Statistical Quality Control (Hamburg, Germany, August 16 - 19, 2016) was jointly organized by Professors Sven Knoth and Wolfgang Schmid. The contributions presented in this volume were carefully selected and reviewed by the conference's scientific program committee. Taken together, they bridge the gap between theory and practice, making the book of interest to both practitioners and researchers in the field of quality control.

A "how to" guide for applying statistical methods to biomarker data analysis Presenting a solid foundation for the statistical methods that are used to analyze biomarker data, Analysis of Biomarker Data: A Practical Guide features preferred techniques for biomarker validation. The authors provide descriptions of select elementary statistical methods that are traditionally used to analyze biomarker data with a focus on the proper application of each method, including necessary assumptions, software recommendations, and proper interpretation of computer output. In addition, the book discusses frequently encountered challenges in analyzing biomarker data and how to deal with them, methods for the quality assessment of biomarkers, and biomarker study designs. Covering a broad range of statistical methods that have been used to analyze biomarker data in published research studies, Analysis of Biomarker Data: A Practical Guide also features: A greater emphasis on the application of methods as opposed to the underlying statistical and mathematical theory The use of SAS(R), R, and other software throughout to illustrate the presented calculations for each example Numerous exercises based on real-world data as well as solutions to the problems to aid in reader comprehension The principles of good research study design and the methods for assessing the quality of a newly proposed biomarker A companion website that includes a software appendix with multiple types of software and complete data sets from the book's examples Analysis of Biomarker Data: A Practical Guide is an ideal upper-undergraduate and graduate-level textbook for courses in the biological or environmental sciences. An excellent reference for statisticians who routinely analyze and interpret biomarker data, the book is also useful for researchers who wish to perform their own analyses of biomarker data, such as toxicologists, pharmacologists, epidemiologists, environmental and clinical laboratory scientists, and other professionals in the health and environmental sciences.

This book contains high-quality research articles and reviews that promote research and reflect the most recent advances in intelligent wavelet based techniques for advanced multimedia applications as well as other emerging areas. In recent time, wavelet transforms have become useful in many signal, image and video processing applications, especially for multimedia security and surveillance. A few applications of wavelets in security and surveillance are watermarking, fusion, steganography, object detection, tracking, motion recognition and intention recognition, etc. Wavelets are well capable of analyzing signal, image and video at different resolution levels, popularly known as multiresolution analysis. The multiresolution analysis is advantageous in multimedia security and surveillance applications. It provides flexibility in selection of different resolution levels that leads to better accuracy. Furthermore, recently sparse representation has become an advancement to analyze wavelet coefficients. It is observed that wavelet transforms possess the invariance property which makes them suitable for many vision applications. This book provides a concise overview of the current state of the art and disseminates some of the novel and exciting ideas and techniques. In addition, it is also helpful for the senior undergraduate and graduate students, researcher, academicians, IT professional and providers, citizens, customers as well as policy makers working in this area as well as other emerging applications demanding state-of-the-art wavelet based multimedia applications.

Information technology (IT) use has generally been regarded as a positive phenomenon which always generates desirable outcomes. Recent years, however, have witnessed increasing negative consequences resulted from IT use. Emerging issues include individual users have experienced technostress from personal social media usage as well as IT use in the workplace; and organisations have experienced a loss in productivity and assets due to employees' non-compliance with information security policies.Themes explored throughout the book include: AI and its Implications for Organisations Augmented Reality Cognitive Absorption of Technology Information Technology in Organisations and Societies: Multidisciplinary Perspectives from AI to Technostress represents a collective effort that not only consolidates studies on key issues and phenomena concerning the positive and negative aspects of IT use but also prescribes future research avenues in related research domains. It is particularly relevant to academics and researchers working on IT use research and can be used as a handy reference guide by those working in the field.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented ripples throughout society, bringing many sectors and fields, including education, to a virtual halt or forcing them to change their working style abruptly. Based on technological advancements, e-learning preparedness, and human and financial resources, higher education systems and universities in Eastern and Western countries have responded differently to this crisis. Comparative Research on Educational Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Eastern vs. Western Perspectives presents global research on the response of higher education to the COVID-19 pandemic from both the East and the West. It sheds light on the relevant challenges, strategies, and effectiveness of the policies set in place in response to the pandemic. Covering topics such as international student-related policies, pedagogical adaptation, and student motivation, this premier reference source is an essential resource for policymakers, government officials, faculty of higher education, students and educators of higher education, libraries, researchers, and academicians.