This beginner's introduction to MATLAB teaches a sufficient subset of the functionality and gives the reader practical experience on how to find more information. A forty-page appendix contains unique user-friendly summaries and tables of MATLAB functions enabling the reader to find appropriate functions, understand their syntax and get a good overview. The large number of exercises, tips, and solutions mean that the course can be followed with or without a computer. Recent development in MATLAB to advance programming is described using realistic examples in order to prepare students for larger programming projects.  Revolutionary step by step 'guided tour' eliminates the steep learning curve encountered in learning new programming languages. Each chapter corresponds to an actual engineering course, where examples in MATLAB illustrate the typical theory, providing a practical understanding of these courses. Complementary homepage contains exercises, a take-home examination, and an automatic marking that grades the solution. End of chapter exercises with selected solutions in an appendix. The development of MATLAB programming and the rapid increase in the use of MATLAB in engineering courses makes this a valuable self-study guide for both engineering students and practising engineers. Readers will find that this time-less material can be used throughout their education and into their career.

This book covers a selection of fundamental topics of traffic engineering useful for highways facilities design and control. The treatment is concise but it does not neglect to examine the most recent and crucial theoretical aspects which are at the root of numerous highway engineering applications, like, for instance, the essential aspects of highways traffic stream reliability calculation and automated highway systems control. In order to make these topics easy to follow, several illustrative worked examples of applications are provided in great detail. An intuitive and discursive, rather than formal, style has been adopted throughout the contents. As such, the book offers up-to-date and practical knowledge on several aspects of traffic engineering, which is of interest to a wide audience including students, researchers as well as transportation planners, public transport specialists, city planners and decision-makers.

The subject of turbulence remains and probably will remain as the most exciting one for the mind of researchers in a variety of ?elds. Since publication of the ?rst edition of this book in November 2001 a number of otherbooksonturbulencehaveappeared,forexampleBernardandWallace (2002), Oberlack and Busse (2002), Foias et al. (2001), Biskamp (2003), Davidson(2004),Jovanovich(2004),SagautandCambon(2008)tomention afew. Soonehastoaskagain thequestionwhyasecondeditionofonebook from a ?eld of so many on the same subject? Does it make any di?erence? Thereareadditionalreasonsapartofthosegiveninthe?rstedition. One of thebasic premises of this bookis thatWeabsolutelymustleave roomfor doubtor thereis noprogress and nolearning. Thereis nolearning without posing a question. And a question requires doubt...Now the freedom of doubt,whichisabsolutelyessentialforthedevelopmentofscience,wasborn from astruggle with constituted authorities...R. Feynmann (1964). This is closely related to the term 'conceptual ': the book has now a di?erent title An informal conceptual introduction to turbulence. One of the main f- tures of the ?rst edition was indeed its conceptual orientation. The second edition is an attempt to make this feature dominant. Consequently items whicharesecondaryfromthispointofview werereducedandeven removed in favour of those added which are important conceptually. This required addressing in more detail most common misconceptions, which are con- quencesoftheprofounddi?cultiesofthesubjectandwhichtravel fromone publication to another. Consequently a one page Appendix D listing some of these misconceptions in the ?rst edition became chapter 9 titled Ana- gies,misconceptions and ill de?ned concepts.

A: Einleitung und allgemeine Methodik.- 1 Flexibilitat und Marktorientierung in der Montage.- 1.1 Einleitung.- 1.2 Anforderungen an eine flexible und marktorientierte Montage.- 1.3 Ansatze zur Steigerung von Flexibilitat und Marktorientierung in der Montage.- 1.3.1 Blickwinkel Markt und Kunde.- 1.3.2 Blickwinkel Steuerung und Logistik.- 1.3.3 Blickwinkel Personal und Ressourcen.- 1.3.4 Blickwinkel Leistung und Kosten.- 1.4 UEberblick uber die Buchstruktur.- Literatur.- 2 Integrative und marktorientierte Montageplanung.- 2.1 Aufgaben und Ziele der Montageplanung.- 2.1.1 Traditioneller Betrachtungsfokus.- 2.1.2 Integrativer und marktorientierter Ansatz.- 2.2 Einsatz von Zielsystemen.- 2.2.1 Erstellen eines Zielhandbuchs.- 2.2.2 Mengen- und Zeitflexibilitatsziele.- 2.3. Projektmanagement bei der Montageplanung.- 2.3.1 Projektaufbauorganisation.- 2.3.2 Projektstrukturplan.- 2.3.3 Projektphasenorganisation.- 2.4 Prozessorientierung bei der Projektdurchfuhrung.- 2.4.1 Vorgehensprinzipien.- 2.4.2 Workshops.- 2.4.3 Beratereinsatz.- 2.5 Zusammenfassung.- Literatur.- B: Fachspezifische Ansatze zur Montageplanung.- 3 Ausrichtung der Montage auf den Markt mit Hilfe der Simulation.- 3.1 Einleitung und Motivation.- 3.2 Vorgehen bei der Erstellung eines Simulationsmodells.- 3.2.1 Identifikation des Problems.- 3.2.2 Analyse der Problemstruktur.- 3.2.3 Entwicklung und Einsatz des Simulationsmodells.- 3.2.4 Darstellung und Diskussion der Ergebnisse aus dem Simulationsmodell.- 3.3 Umsetzungsrelevante Aspekte.- 3.4 Zusammenfassung und Ausblick.- Literatur.- 4 Benchmarking als Ausgangsbasis fur die Neuorganisation montageunterstutzender Bereiche.- 4.1 Einleitung.- 4.2 Kombinierte Ansatzpunkte zur Neuorganisation montageunterstuer Bereiche.- 4.3 Benchmarking zur kontinuierlichen Optimierung der Montage und montageunterstutzenden Bereiche.- 4.4 Ablauf des Benchmarking.- 4.5 Anwendungsbeispiele fur Benchmarking in montageunterstuen Bereichen.- 4.5.1 Neuorganisation der Lagerhaltung.- 4.5.2 Neuorganisation der Konstruktion.- 4.5.3 Neuorganisation der Arbeitsvorbereitung.- 4.6 Zusammenfassung.- Literatur.- 5 Prozessorientierte Fertigungssegmentierung.- 5.1 Einleitung.- 5.2 Grundlagen fur die Segmentierung.- 5.3 Der Segmentierungsprozess im UEberblick.- 5.4 Phase 1: Vorbereitung der Segmentierung.- 5.4.1. Teambildung.- 5.4.2 Einfuhrung.- 5.4.3 Zielabgleich.- 5.4.4 Leitbild.- 5.5 Phase 2: Konzeption von Segmenten.- 5.5.1 Bildung von Bereichsalternativen anhand eines Beispiels.- 5.5.2 Synthese der Bereichsalternativen des Beispiels zu Gesamtalternativen.- 5.6 Phase 3: Entscheidung und Nachbereitung.- 5.7 Zusammenfassung.- Literatur.- 6 Montagesystemgestaltung am Beispiel der Montageinsel- Von der Idee zum Layout.- 6.1 Einleitung.- 6.2 Leitlinien der Montagesystemgestaltung.- 6.3 Ziele und Zielsystem.- 6.4 Einsatz interdisziplinarer Planungsteams.- 6.5 Fallbeispiel Montageinsel.- 6.5.1 Kennzeichen einer Montageinsel.- 6.5.2 Ausgangssituation und Vorgehen im Fallbeispie1.- 6.5.3 Vorbereitende Analysen.- 6.5.4 Konzeption und Gestaltung der Montageinsel.- 6.5.5 Erfahrungen im Fallbeispiel.- 6.6 Zusammenfassung.- Literatur.- 7 Entwicklungsfahige Arbeitsorganisation in der Montage.- 7.1 Einleitung.- 7.2 Einbindung der Arbeitsorganisation in die Unternehmensentwicklung.- 7.3 Qualifikationsfoerderliche Arbeitssystemgestaltung mit Praxisbeispielen.- 7.3.1 Beispiel fur qualifikationsfoerderliche Arbeit in einer Montageinsel.- 7.3.2 Beispiel fur die Gestaltung einer hybriden Produktionseinheit.- 7.4 Verzahnung von Organisations- und Personalentwicklung.- 7.4.1 Vorgehenskonzept zur Einfuhrung von Gruppenarbeit.- 7.4.2 Leitlinien fur Einfuhrung von Gruppenarbeit.- 7.5 Zusamsmenfassung.- Literatur.- 8 Prozessorientierte Planung und Steuerung zur Unterstutzung der Montage-Konzept und PPS-Systemauswahl.- 8.1 Einleitung.- 8.2 Grundlagen eines Planungs und Steuerungskonzepts.- 8.2.1 Zielsystem der PPS.- 8.2.2 Das PPS-Konzept im betrieblichen Umfeld.- 8.

The Handbook of Service Description introduces an in-depth overview of service description efforts. The book also highlights the recent Unified Service Description Language (USDL) in detail and discusses its methods.

The Handbook of Service Description is the normative scientific reference for the upcoming standardization of the Unified Service Description Language (USDL). Complete documentation is included.

The Handbook of Service Description is designed for those working in the service science industry as a reference book. Advanced-level students focused on computer science, engineering and business will also find this book a valuable asset.

This book presents the perspective of the SYDIC-Telecom project on system design and reuse as perceived in the course of the research during 1999 - 2003. The initial problem statement of the research was formulated as follows: "The current situation regarding system design in general is, that the methods are insufficient, informally practiced, and weakly supported by formal techniques and tools. Regarding system reuse the methods and tools for exchanging system design data and know-how within companies are ad hoc and insufficient. The means available inside companies being already insufficient, there are actually no ways of exchanging between companies. Therefore, there hardly exists any system IP (Intellectual Property) industry. Although system design know-how is one of companies' main assets, it cannot be reused and capitalised effectively enough today. There is a lack of rational design flows supporting a design methodology based on reuse of IP, and few design tools to support it. Even guidelines on how to use existing tools in the design flow for this purpose often do not exist." The problem was known to be hard and the scope broad. The plan of attack was first to analyse the state-of-the-art and the state-of-the-practice, then to identify potential improvements, and finally to synthesise a formalised proposal for implementation. The approach was applied to different system-level issues, e.g. design flows, terminology, languages, reuse, design process and object of design.

Showcasing exemplars of how various aspects of design research were successfully transitioned into and influenced, design practice, this book features chapters written by eminent international researchers and practitioners from industry on the Impact of Design Research on Industrial Practice. Chapters written by internationally acclaimed researchers of design analyse the findings (guidelines, methods and tools), technologies/products and educational approaches that have been transferred as tools, technologies and people to transform industrial practice of engineering design, whilst the chapters that are written by industrial practitioners describe their experience of how various tools, technologies and training impacted design practice. The main benefit of this book, for educators, researchers and practitioners in (engineering) design, will be access to a comprehensive coverage of case studies of successful transfer of outcomes of design research into practice; as well as guidelines and platforms for successful transfer of research into practice.

Following the birth of the laser in 1960, the field of "nonlinear optics" rapidly emerged.

Today, laser intensities and pulse durations are readily available, for which the concepts and approximations of traditional nonlinear optics no longer apply. In this regime of "extreme nonlinear optics," a large variety of novel and unusual effects arise, for example frequency doubling in inversion symmetric materials or high-harmonic generation in gases, which can lead to attosecond electromagnetic pulses or pulse trains. Other examples of "extreme nonlinear optics" cover diverse areas such as solid-state physics, atomic physics, relativistic free electrons in a vacuum and even the vacuum itself.

This book starts with an introduction to the field based primarily on extensions of two famous textbook examples, namely the Lorentz oscillator model and the Drude model. Here the level of sophistication should be accessible to any undergraduate physics student. Many graphical illustrations and examples are given. The following chapters gradually guide the student towards the current "state of the art" and provide a comprehensive overview of the field. Every chapter is accompanied by exercises to deepen the reader's understanding of important topics, with detailed solutions at the end of the book.

In the industrial design and engineering field, product lifecycle, product development, design process, Design for X, etc., constitute only a small sample of terms related to the generation of quality products. Current best practices cover widely different knowledge domains in trying to exploit them to the best advantage, individually and in synergy. Moreover, standards become increasingly more helpful in interfacing these domains and they are enlarging their coverage by going beyond the single domain boundary to connect closely different aspects of the product lifecycle. The degree of complexity of each domain makes impossible the presence of multipurpose competencies and skills; there is almost always the need for interacting and integrating people and resources in some effective way. These are the best conditions for the birth of theories, methodologies, models, architectures, systems, procedures, algorithms, software packages, etc., in order to help in some way the synergic work of all the actors involved in the product lifecycle. This brief introduction contains all the main themes developed in this book, starting from the analysis of the design and engineering scenarios to arrive at the development and adoption of a framework for product design and process reconfiguration. In fact, the core consists of the description of the Design GuideLines Collaborative Framework (DGLs-CF), a methodological approach that generates a collaborative environment where designers, manufacturers and inspectors can find the right and effective meeting point to share their knowledge and skills in order to contribute to the optimum generation of quality products.

Computational intelligence (CI) lies at the interface between engineering and computer science; control engineering, where problems are solved using computer-assisted methods. Thus, it can be regarded as an indispensable basis for all artificial intelligence (AI) activities. This book collects surveys of most recent theoretical approaches focusing on fuzzy systems, neurocomputing, and nature inspired algorithms. It also presents surveys of up-to-date research and application with special focus on fuzzy systems as well as on applications in life sciences and neuronal computing.

Industrial energy efficiency is one of the most important means of reducing the threat of increased global warming. Research however states that despite the existence of numerous technical energy efficiency measures, its deployment is hindered by the existence of various barriers to energy efficiency. The complexity of increasing energy efficiency in manufacturing industry calls for an interdisciplinary approach to the issue. Improving energy efficiency in industrial energy systems applies an interdisciplinary perspective in examining energy efficiency in industrial energy systems, and discusses how "cross-pollinating" perspectives and theories from the social and engineering sciences can enhance our understanding of barriers, energy audits, energy management, policies, and programmes as they pertain to improved energy efficiency in industry. Apart from classical technical approaches from engineering sciences, Improving energy efficiency in industrial energy systems couples a sociotechnical perspective to increased energy efficiency in industry, showing that industrial energy efficiency can be expected to be shaped by social and commercial processes and built on knowledge, routines, institutions, and methods established in networks. The book can be read by researchers and policy-makers, as well as scholars and practicians in the field. "This book is extremely valuable for anyone who is designing or executing energy efficiency policies, schemes or projects aiming at SMEs. Both authors deserve the highest respect, and the combination of their expertise makes the results truly unique." - Daniel Lundqvist, programme manager at the Swedish energy agency "For anyone interested in improving energy efficiency in industry, this is a must-read. The book combines tools from social science and engineering to discuss the state of art today as well as possible development path tomorrow. This is a compelling book that I find useful both in my teaching and my research." - Kajsa Ellegard, Professor at Linkoeping University, Sweden "The book Improving energy efficiency in industrial energy systems is a novel approach on how improved levels of energy efficiency can be reached in industrial energy systems by merging engineering with social sciences. It is with delight that I can recommend their book to anyone interested in the field."- Mats Soederstroem, Director Energy Systems Programme, Linkoeping University, Sweden

This is a book for engineers that covers the hardware and software aspects of high-reliability safety systems, safety instrumentation and shutdown systems as well as risk assessment techniques and the wider spectrum of industrial safety. Rather than another book on the discipline of safety engineering, this is a thoroughly practical guide to the procedures and technology of safety in control and plant engineering. This highly practical book focuses on efficiently implementing and assessing hazard studies, designing and applying international safety practices and techniques, and ensuring high reliability in the safety and emergency shutdown of systems in your plant.
This book will provide the reader with the most up-to-date standards for and information on each stage of the safety life cycle from the initial evaluation of hazards through to the detailed engineering and maintenance of safety instrumented systems. It will help them develop the ability to plan hazard and risk assessment studies, then design and implement and operate the safety systems and maintain and evaluate them to ensure high reliability. Finally it will give the reader the knowledge to help prevent the massive devastation and destruction that can be caused by today's highly technical computer controlled industrial environments.
* Helps readers develop the ability to plan hazard and risk assessment studies, then design, implement and operate the safety systems and maintain and evaluate them to ensure high reliability
* Gives the reader the knowledge to help prevent the massive devastation that can be caused by today's highly technical computer controlled industrial environments
* Rather than another book on the discipline of safety engineering, this is a thoroughly practical guide to the procedures and technology of safety in control and plant engineering

TheThird International Workshop on Multi-Robot Systems was held in March 2005 at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D. C. , USA. Bringing together leading researchers and government sponsors for three days of technicalinterchange on multi-robot systems, theworkshop follows two previous highly successful gatherings in 2002 and 2003. Likethe previous two workshops, the meeting began with presentations byvarious government p- gram managers describing application areas and programs with an interest in multi-robot systems. U. S. Government representatives were on handfrom theOf?ce of Naval Research and several other governmental of?ces. Top - searchers inthe ?eld then presented their current activities in many areas of multi-robot systems. Presentations spannedawide rangeof topics, incl- ing task allocation, coordination in dynamicenvironments, information/sensor sharing andfusion, distributed mapping and coverage, motion planning and control, human-robot interaction, and applications of multi-robot systems. All presentations were given in a single-track workshop format. This proce- ings documents the work presented at the workshop. The research presen- tions were followed by panel discussions, in which all participants interacted to highlight the challenges of this ?eld and to develop possible solutions. In addition to the invited research talks, researchers and students were given an opportunity to present their work at poster sessions. We would like to thank the Naval Research Laboratory for sponsoring this workshop and providing the - cilitiesforthesemeetingstotakeplace. WeareextremelygratefultoMagdalena Bugajska, Paul Wiegand, and Mitchell A. Potter, for their vital help (and long hours) in editing these proceedings and to Michelle Caccivio for providing the administrative support to the workshop.

Inthepresentvolumethemainaspectsofhigh-powerlaser-matterinteractionin 10 22 2 theintensityrange10 -10 W/cm aredescribed. Weofferaguidetothistopic forscientistsandstudentswhohavejustdiscoveredthe eldasanewandattractive areaofresearch,andforscientistswhohaveworkedinanother eldandwantto joinnowthesubjectoflaserplasmas. Beingawareofthewidedifferencesinthe degreeofmathematicalpreparationtheindividualcandidatehasacquiredwetried topresentthesubjectinanalmostself-containedmanner. Tobemorespeci c,a bachelordegreeinphysicsenablesthereaderinanycasetofollowwithoutdi- culty. Generally uidorgasdynamicsanditsrelativisticversionisnotapartof thiseducation;itisdevelopedinthecontextwhereitisneeded. Basicknowledgein theoreticalmechanics,electrodynamicsandquantumphysicsaretheonlyprereq- sitesweexpectfromthereader. Throughoutthebookthemainemphasisisonthe variousbasicphenomenaandtheirunderlyingphysics. Notmoremathematicsthan necessaryisintroduced. Thepreferenceisgiventoideas. Agoodmodelisthebest guidetotheadequatemathematics. Thereexistalreadysomebutnotsomany, however, goodvolumesandsome monographsonhigh-powerlaserinteractionwithmatter. Afterresearchinthis eld hasgrownoverhalfacenturyandhasrami edintomanybranchesoffundamental studiesandapplicationsproducingcontinuouslynewresults,thereisnoindication ofsaturationorlossofattraction,ratherhasexcitementincreasedwiththeyears: "Therearenolimits;horizonsonly"(G. A. Mourou). Wetakethisasamotivation foranewattemptofpresentingourintroductiontotheachievementsfromthebeg- ninguptopresent. Anadditionalaimwastoofferamoreuni edormoredetailed viewwherethisispossiblenow. Furthermore,thereadermay ndconsiderations not encountered in existing volumes on the eld, e. g. , on ideal uid dynamics, dimensionalanalysis,questionsofclassicaloptics,instabilitiesandlightpressure. Inviewoftherapidlygrowing eldofatoms,moleculesandclustersexposedto superstronglaser eldsweconsidereditascompulsorytodedicateanentirechapter tolaser-atominteractionandtothevariousmoderntheoreticalapproachesrelated toit. Finally,aconsistentmodelofcollisionlessabsorptionisgiven. Dependingonpersonalpreferencesthereadermaymissperhapsasectionon inertialfusion,onhighharmonicgenerationandonradiationfromtheplasma,or ontraditionalatomicandionicspectroscopy. Inviewofthespecializedliterature vii viii Preface alreadyavailableonthesubjectswethinktheself-imposedrestrictionisjusti ed. Ourreferencingpracticewasguidedbyindicatingmaterialforsupplementaryst- iesandestablishingacontinuitythroughthedecadesofresearchinthe eldrather thanbytheaimofcompleteness. Thelatternowadaysiseasilyachievablewiththe aidoftheInternet. Wehavetestedthetextwithrespecttocomprehensionandreadability. Our rst thanksgotoProf. EdithBoriefromtheForschungszentrumKarlsruhe. Shepro- readgreatpartsofthetextverycarefullyandgavevaluablecomments. Insecond placewewouldliketothankMrs. ChristineEidmannfromTheoreticalQuantum A Electronics (TQE), TU Darmstadt, for typing in LTX half of the book. We are E furtherindebtedtoProf. RudolfBockfromGSI,Darmstadt,forhelpfuldiscussions andprecioushints. Furtherthanksforhelpfuldiscussions,criticalcomments,che- ingformulasgotoDr. HerbertSchnabl,Prof. WernerScheid,Dr. RalfSchneider, Dipl. -Phys. TatjanaMuth,Dr. SteffenHain,andDr. FrancescoCeccherini. Wewant toacknowledgeexplicitlythecontinuouseffortandsupportinpreparingthe nal manuscript by Dr. Su-Ming Weng from the Insitute of Physics, CAS, China, at presentfellowoftheHumboldtFoundationatTQE. Forhisprofessionalinputto thesectiononBrillouinscatteringspecialthanksgotoDr. StefanHullerfromEcole PolytechniqueinPalaiseau. Darmstadt,Germany PeterMulser Rostock,Germany DieterBauer Contents 1 Introductory Remarks and Overview ...1 2 The Laser Plasma: Basic Phenomena and Laws...5 2. 1 Laser-ParticleInteractionandPlasmaFormation...6 2. 1. 1 High-PowerLaserFields...6 2. 1. 2 SingleFreeElectronintheLaserField(Nonrelativistic). . 9 2. 1. 3 CollisionalIonization,PlasmaHeating,andQuasineutrality 13 2. 2 FluidDescriptionofaPlasma...24 2. 2. 1 Two-FluidandOne-FluidModels...24 2. 2. 2 LinearizedMotions...37 2. 2. 3 SimilaritySolutions...44 2. 3 LaserPlasmaDynamics...58 2. 3. 1 PlasmaProductionwithIntenseShortPulses ...60 2. 3. 2 HeatingwithLongPulsesofConstantIntensity...63 2. 3. 3 SimilarityConsiderations...69 2. 4 SteadyStateAblation...74 2. 4. 1 TheCriticalMachNumberinaStationaryPlanarFlow...75 2. 4. 2 AblativeLaserIntensity...78 2. 4. 3 AblationPressureintheAbsenceofPro leSteepening...82 References...85 3 Laser Light Propagation and Collisional Absorption ...

Industrial engineering is not known for its contribution to management requirements, which can be both challenging and varied. However, productivity and profitability are subjects that preoccupy manufacturers, distributors, warehouse managers and third-party logistics firms, many of which are multinational companies that cater to an end customer thousands of miles away. Industrial engineers must therefore follow a balance between maintaining a commitment to basic traditional tools that have been proven to improve productivity and keeping up with the evolution of their profession by staying informed about and trained in modern approaches.

This "balance" of essential information, theory, case studies, and a thorough examination of many timeless applications for productivity and profitability is evidenced in Beyond World-Class Productivity. It serves as a practical, informative source of information in the field of industrial engineering because it is neither an instruction manual nor a theoretical textbook. Practical examples and commentary come from the author's 40 years of real-world experience on the shop floor and in the boardroom.

Industrial engineering has a tendency to devote its time to "non-real gain" activities, or to making small improvements occasionally with a small-cycle time reduction. The effect of this "improvement" is calculated by annual reduced cycle time - an effect which consequently is practically invisible.

Instead, industrial engineers should aim to achieve real gain; for example, reducing the allocated number of workers to reduce paid hours immediately, but accruing the same or more powerful results. Management, particularly in human resources departments, is most interested in this type of gain and industrial engineering should be a department that fosters such connections with management. Industrial engineering tools are effective enough to support management with these goals in mind.

This book provides readers with the most current, accurate, and practical fluid mechanics related applications that the practicing BS level engineer needs today in the chemical and related industries, in addition to a fundamental understanding of these applications based upon sound fundamental basic scientific principles. The emphasis remains on problem solving, and the new edition includes many more examples.

This book applies a new analytical framework to the study of the evolution of large Internet companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and Samsung. It sheds light on the dynamics of business groups, which are approached as 'business ecosystems,' and introduces the concept of Epigenetic Economic Dynamics (EED), which is defined as the study of the epigenetic dynamics generated as a result of the adaptation of organizations to major changes in their respective environments. The book augments the existing literature on evolutionary economic thinking with findings from epigenetics, which are proving increasingly useful in analyzing the workings of large organizations. It also details the theoretical and conceptual nature of recent work based on evolutionary economics, mainly from the perspective of generalized Darwinism, resilience and related variety, and complements the work conducted on evolutionary economics by applying the analytical framework of EED. It makes it easier to forecast future dynamics on the Internet by proving that a sizable number of big business groups are veering from their initial paths to take unprecedented new directions as a result of competition pressure, and as such is a valuable resource for postgraduates and researchers as well as those involved in economics and innovation studies.

For introductory engineering economics courses. Chan Park, author of the best-selling Contemporary Engineering Economics, tells the story of engineering economy with the more concise Fundamentals of Engineering Economics by relating concepts from class to students' everyday lives. This book provides sound and comprehensive coverage of course concepts while addressing both the theoretical and the practical concerns of engineering economics. Written to appeal to a wide range of engineering disciplines, the text helps students build skills in making informed financial decisions and incorporates all critical decision-making tools, including the most contemporary, computer-oriented ones.

Natural Computing in Computational Finance is a innovative volume containing fifteen chapters which illustrate cutting-edge applications of natural computing or agent-based modeling in modern computational finance. Following an introductory chapter the book is organized into three sections. The first section deals with optimization applications of natural computing demonstrating the application of a broad range of algorithms including, genetic algorithms, differential evolution, evolution strategies, quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithms and bacterial foraging algorithms to multiple financial applications including portfolio optimization, fund allocation and asset pricing. The second section explores the use of natural computing methodologies such as genetic programming, neural network hybrids and fuzzy-evolutionary hybrids for model induction in order to construct market trading, credit scoring and market prediction systems. The final section illustrates a range of agent-based applications including the modeling of payment card and financial markets. Each chapter provides an introduction to the relevant natural computing methodology as well as providing a clear description of the financial application addressed.

The book was written to be accessible to a wide audience and should be of interest to practitioners, academics and students, in the fields of both natural computing and finance.

Technology is normally pursued only as a practical subject in schools of engineering. Technology is move into the information society or age. Human is specialized in one respect or another. The ability to think abstractly, which allows the species to be at once specific and general. Technology is simply the applied science and the scientific discoveries that can easily converted into applications. Technology is by abstracting of specie characteristics from the natural process of organism.

To be able to compete successfully both at national and international levels, production systems and equipment must perform at levels not even thinkable a decade ago. Requirements for increased product quality, reduced throughput time and enhanced operating effectiveness within a rapidly changing customer demand environment continue to demand a high maintenance performance. In some cases, maintenance is required to increase operational effectiveness and revenues and customer satisfaction while reducing capital, operating and support costs. This may be the largest challenge facing production enterprises these days. For this, maintenance strategy is required to be aligned with the production logistics and also to keep updated with the current best practices. Maintenance has become a multidisciplinary activity and one may come across situations in which maintenance is the responsibility of people whose training is not engineering. This handbook aims to assist at different levels of understanding whether the manager is an engineer, a production manager, an experienced maintenance practitioner or a beginner. Topics selected to be included in this handbook cover a wide range of issues in the area of maintenance management and engineering to cater for all those interested in maintenance whether practitioners or researchers. This handbook is divided into 6 parts and contains 26 chapters covering a wide range of topics related to maintenance management and engineering.

This book provides readers an understanding of the implementation of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) for international construction operations. In an extended case study, it primarily focuses on Chinese construction firms (CCFs) based in Singapore. In this regard, the book explains the differences and similarities between Risk Management (RM), Project Risk Management (PRM) and ERM in the construction industry, and examines their linkages for international construction operations in a broader context. The explanation elaborates on how companies may adopt and implement RM, PRM and ERM as appropriate in their various operations, both in their home market as well as in overseas host markets. The book also reviews the whole spectrum of work relating to organizational behavior (OB) as one of the key underpinnings for companies to evaluate and implement ERM. It will benefit practitioners from the industry as well as academics interested in the implementation of ERM practices in international construction operations.