This book discusses the application of metaheuristic algorithms in a number of important optimization problems in civil engineering. Advances in civil engineering technologies require greater accuracy, efficiency and speed in terms of the analysis and design of the corresponding systems. As such, it is not surprising that novel methods have been developed for the optimal design of real-world systems and models with complex configurations and large numbers of elements. This book is intended for scientists, engineers and students wishing to explore the potential of newly developed metaheuristics in practical problems. It presents concepts that are not only applicable to civil engineering problems, but can also used for optimizing problems related to mechanical, electrical, and industrial engineering. It is an essential resource for civil, mechanical and electrical engineers who use optimization methods for design, as well as for students and researchers interested in structural optimization.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of fundamental issues and recent advances in graph data management. Its aim is to provide beginning researchers in the area of graph data management, or in fields that require graph data management, an overview of the latest developments in this area, both in applied and in fundamental subdomains. The topics covered range from a general introduction to graph data management, to more specialized topics like graph visualization, flexible queries of graph data, parallel processing, and benchmarking. The book will help researchers put their work in perspective and show them which types of tools, techniques and technologies are available, which ones could best suit their needs, and where there are still open issues and future research directions. The chapters are contributed by leading experts in the relevant areas, presenting a coherent overview of the state of the art in the field. Readers should have a basic knowledge of data management techniques as they are taught in computer science MSc programs.

Talk to just about any Information Technology (IT) executive today and you're likely to hear the same complaint: "Even though we have invested millions of dollars each year in technical infrastructure and support, we don't get the results we expect." The focus of IT management over the past several decades has been on maximizing the benefit that comes from IT investments. Particular attention is paid to finding the right hardware, software, networks, and processes to allow IT to contribute to the bottom line of the business. And still, with all of this focus, IT organizations find themselves unable to meet the demands of their clients. Perhaps a shift in focus is needed. IT PEOPLE: Doing More With Less shifts the focus to the IT people. Because while it is right to focus on getting the hardware, software, networks, and processes right, people are the resources that ultimately make a difference in getting results and meeting the demands of clients. And since people costs are often the largest part of the IT budgets, and our focus has been elsewhere, it could be that a focus on IT people is long overdue. This book is intended for every IT professional (management and individual contributors) who faces the constant challenge of performing a big job with ever-shrinking departmental resources. Whether you are a manager or an individual technician, this book is for you. It will help you improve your ability to plan your work and, meet your commitments while being an effective political actor. Our aim in this book is to provide you with a tool that will not only help you deliver greater value to your organization, but do so in a way that provides a greater degree of job satisfaction andquality of life. IT PEOPLE: Doing More With Less is intended as a practical tool, not a theoretical book. The content of the book comes from the experiences of the authors, each of whom has spent years managing IT organizations and consulting with clients around the worl

There is a broad consensus amongst law firms and in-house legal departments that next generation "Legal Tech" - particularly in the form of Blockchain-based technologies and Smart Contracts - will have a profound impact on the future operations of all legal service providers. Legal Tech startups are already revolutionizing the legal industry by increasing the speed and efficiency of traditional legal services or replacing them altogether with new technologies. This on-going process of disruption within the legal profession offers significant opportunities for all business. However, it also poses a number of challenges for practitioners, trade associations, technology vendors, and regulators who often struggle to keep up with the technologies, resulting in a widening regulatory "gap." Many uncertainties remain regarding the scope, direction, and effects of these new technologies and their integration with existing practices and legacy systems. Adding to the challenges is the growing need for easy-to-use contracting solutions, on the one hand, and for protecting the users of such solutions, on the other. To respond to the challenges and to provide better legal communications, systems, and services Legal Tech scholars and practitioners have found allies in the emerging field of Legal Design. This collection brings together leading scholars and practitioners working on these issues from diverse jurisdictions. The aim is to introduce Blockchain and Smart Contract technologies, and to examine their on-going impact on the legal profession, business and regulators.

The book investigates fundamental issues in flexible manipulator systems, including distributed parameter modeling and boundary controller design. It presents theoretical explorations of several fundamental problems concerning the dynamics and control of these systems. By integrating fresh concepts and results to form a systematic approach to control, it also provides a basic theoretical framework. In turn, the book offers a comprehensive treatment of flexible manipulator systems, addressing topics ranging from related distributed parameter modeling and advanced boundary controller design for these systems with input constraint, to active control with output constraint. In brief, the book addresses dynamical analysis and control design for flexible manipulator systems. Though primarily intended for researchers and engineers in the control system and mechanical engineering community, it can also serve as supplemental reading on the modeling and control of flexible manipulator systems at the postgraduate level.

In this practical guide, experienced embedded engineer Lewin Edwards demonstrates faster, lower-cost methods for developing high-end embedded systems. With today's tight schedules and lower budgets, embedded designers are under greater pressure to deliver prototypes and system designs faster and cheaper. Edwards demonstrates how the use of the right tools and operating systems can make seemingly impossible deadlines possible.
Designer's Guide to Embedded Systems Development shares many advanced, "in-the-trenches" design secrets to help engineers achieve better performance on the job. In particular, it covers many of the newer design tools supported by the GPL (GNU Public License) system. Code examples are given to provide concrete illustrations of tasks described in the text. The general procedures are applicable to many possible projects based on any 16/32-bit microcontroller. The book covers choosing the right architecture and development hardware to fit the project; choosing an operating system and developing a toolchain; evaluating software licenses and how they affect a project; step-by-step building instructions for gcc, binutils, gdb and newlib for the ARM7 core used in the case study project; prototyping techniques using a custom printed circuit board; debugging tips; and portability considerations. The accompanying companion website contains all the code used in the design examples as well as useful open-source tools for embedded design.
.A wealth of practical tips, tricks and techniques
.Design better, faster and more cost-effectively
.Accompanying companion website includes useful open-source tools for embedded design"

During the last two decades, computer and information technologies have forced great changes in the ways businesses manage operations in meeting the desired quality of products and services, customer demands, competition, and other challenges.

Expansive growth and use of the Internet in recent years has led to computational networking and an increased use of e-collaborative technologies leading to many possibilities including collaboration of tasks from remote locations. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on E-Collaboration: Emerging Trends and Applications focuses on e-collaboration technologies that enable group-based interaction, and the impact that those technologies have on group work. A defining body of research, this reference addresses a range of e-collaboration topics including interdisciplinary perspectives on e-collaboration, and adaptation and creativity in e-collaboration.

With the diversification of Internet services and the increase in mobile users, efficient management of network resources has become an extremely important issue in the field of wireless communication networks (WCNs). Adaptive resource management is an effective tool for improving the economic efficiency of WCN systems as well as network design and construction, especially in view of the surge in mobile device demands. This book presents modelling methods based on queueing theory and Markov processes for a wide variety of WCN systems, as well as precise and approximate analytical solution methods for the numerical evaluation of the system performance. This is the first book to provide an overview of the numerical analyses that can be gleaned by applying queueing theory, traffic theory and other analytical methods to various WCN systems. It also discusses the recent advances in the resource management of WCNs, such as broadband wireless access networks, cognitive radio networks, and green cloud computing. It assumes a basic understanding of computer networks and queueing theory, and familiarity with stochastic processes is also recommended. The analysis methods presented in this book are useful for first-year-graduate or senior computer science and communication engineering students. Providing information on network design and management, performance evaluation, queueing theory, game theory, intelligent optimization, and operations research for researchers and engineers, the book is also a valuable reference resource for students, analysts, managers and anyone in the industry interested in WCN system modelling, performance analysis and numerical evaluation.

This is an information science reference. Distance learning technologies have reshaped the diffusion of communication within the educational system. Within this expanding field, the possibilities for an interactive, cross-boundary education are endless.""Strategic Applications of Distance Learning Technologies"" provides tactical uses of distance education technologies to assist instructors and researchers in their quest to provide a progressive, alternative approach to traditional education techniques. This collection of advanced research incorporates global challenges and opportunities of technology integration while outlining strategies for distance learning within developing countries.

The metaphor of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) tries to picture a vision of the future where all of us will be surrounded by 'intelligent' electronic environments, and this ambient has claims to being sensitive and responsive to our needs. Ambient Intelligence without invasion of privacy represents a long-term vision for the EU Information Society Technologies Research programme. A strong multi-disciplinary and collaborative approach is a key requirement for large-scale technology innovation and the development of effective applications. Up to now, most of the books and papers related to AmI focus their analysis on the technology potential only. An important feature of this volume is the link between the technology - through the concepts of ubiquitous computing and intelligent interface - and the human experience of interacting in the world - through a neuro-psychological vision centred on the concept of 'presence'. Presence - the sense of being there - is the experience of projecting one's mind through media to other places, people and designed environments.The combination of recent discoveries in cognitive neuroscience - which make it possible to acquire a better understanding of the human aspects of presence, and the breakthroughs at the level of the enabling technologies make it increasingly possible to build novel systems based on this understanding. The goal of this volume is to assess the technologies and processes that are behind the AmI vision, in order to help the development of state-of-the-art applications. More in detail, this volume aims at supporting researchers and scientists, interested in the understanding and exploiting the potential of AmI.

This volume explores the latest available wet-lab techniques and computational methods to study in-cell small-molecule behavior and interactions with their targets. The chapters in this book discuss topics such as disease-relevant models for chemical biology studies, target engagement using cellular thermal shift assay or bioluminescence resonance energy transfer; visualization of bio-active small molecules Raman microscopy; (phospho-)proteomics and transcriptomics for mode-of-action studies, CRISPR/Cas9-based chemogenomic profiling in mammalian cells; predicting drug interactions using computational approaches; comparison of compound-induced profiles using high-content imaging or cancer cell line panels and web-based tools for polypharmacology prediction. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Cutting-edge and thorough, Systems Chemical Biology: Methods and Protocols is a valuable resource for novice or expert scientists and researchers trying to initiate or continue their chemical biology studies at a systems level.

Rooted in a pedagogically successful problem-solving approach to linear algebra, this work fills a gap in the literature that is sharply divided between, on the one end, elementary texts with only limited exercises and examples, and, at the other end, books too advanced in prerequisites and too specialized in focus to appeal to a wide audience. Instead, it clearly develops the theoretical foundations of vector spaces, linear equations, matrix algebra, eigenvectors, and orthogonality, while simultaneously emphasizing applications to fields such as biology, economics, computer graphics, electrical engineering, cryptography, and political science.Key features: * Intertwined discussion of linear algebra and geometry* Example-driven exposition; each section starts with a concise overview of important concepts, followed by a selection of fully-solved problems* Over 500 problems are carefully selected for instructive appeal, elegance, and theoretical importance; roughly half include complete solutions* Two or more solutions provided to many of the problems; paired solutions range from step-by-step, elementary methods whose purpose is to strengthen basic comprehension to more sophisticated, self-study manual for professional scientists and mathematicians. Complete with bibliography and index, this work is a natural bridge between pure/ applied mathematics and the natural/social sciences, appropriate for any student or researcher who needs a strong footing in the theory, problem-solving, and model-building that are the subject's hallmark. I

Since its first volume in 1960, Advances in Computers has presented detailed coverage of innovations in computer hardware, software, theory, design, and applications. It has also provided contributors with a medium in which they can explore their subjects in greater depth and breadth than journal articles usually allow. As a result, many articles have become standard references that continue to be of significant, lasting value in this rapidly expanding field.
In-depth surveys and tutorials on new computer technologyWell-known authors and researchers in the fieldExtensive bibliographies with most chaptersMany of the volumes are devoted to single themes or subfields of computer science

Innovation is a time-consuming process that involves invention as a beginning and a marketable service or product as an end. But innovation itself, once concluded, is not necessarily a constructive act as some innovations yield positive and some negative results. The way we recognize and develop innovation - so often a serendipitous and almost invisible act in its beginning - is thus a matter of primary importance in today's world where new thoughts and products play such a crucial role in economies across the globe. Nowhere is the general support structure required for success in innovation more starkly illuminated than in the fields of science and medicine, where human well-being is so manifestly at stake. In this work, which draws together the perspectives of a multidisciplinary group of professionals - medical doctors, innovation policy analysts, and academics in business management - Shantha Liyanage and his colleagues provide a thorough examination of the technology innovation process, and display its critical links with organizational functions, so the innovative capacities of organizations can be better prepared to meet the rapid changes of our age.

Sir Tony Hoare has had an enormous influence on computer science, from the Quicksort algorithm to the science of software development, concurrency and program verification. His contributions have been widely recognised: He was awarded the ACM's Turing Award in 1980, the Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation in 2000, and was knighted for "services to education and computer science" by Queen Elizabeth II of England in 2000. This book presents the essence of his various works-the quest for effective abstractions-both in his own words as well as chapters written by leading experts in the field, including many of his research collaborators. In addition, this volume contains biographical material, his Turing award lecture, the transcript of an interview and some of his seminal papers. Hoare's foundational paper "An Axiomatic Basis for Computer Programming", presented his approach, commonly known as Hoare Logic, for proving the correctness of programs by using logical assertions. Hoare Logic and subsequent developments have formed the basis of a wide variety of software verification efforts. Hoare was instrumental in proposing the Verified Software Initiative, a cooperative international project directed at the scientific challenges of large-scale software verification, encompassing theories, tools and experiments. Tony Hoare's contributions to the theory and practice of concurrent software systems are equally impressive. The process algebra called Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) has been one of the fundamental paradigms, both as a mathematical theory to reason about concurrent computation as well as the basis for the programming language occam. CSP served as a framework for exploring several ideas in denotational semantics such as powerdomains, as well as notions of abstraction and refinement. It is the basis for a series of industrial-strength tools which have been employed in a wide range of applications. This book also presents Hoare's work in the last few decades. These works include a rigorous approach to specifications in software engineering practice, including procedural and data abstractions, data refinement, and a modular theory of designs. More recently, he has worked with collaborators to develop Unifying Theories of Programming (UTP). Their goal is to identify the common algebraic theories that lie at the core of sequential, concurrent, reactive and cyber-physical computations.

The utilization of information and communication technologies in almost all spheres of modern society has changed the social picture in significant ways while simultaneously leading to tensions with regard to traditional ethical and legal practices-particularly given the global context of its application. Where these technologies impact on the practice and implementation of healthcare, it is vital to recognize the extent and nature of the ethical and social impact both at the level of professional practice and the patient. Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics presents a fundamental compendium of research on the ethical, social, and legal issues facing the healthcare industry as it adopts information technologies to provide fast, efficient, and cost effective healthcare. An essential resource for every reference library, this comprehensive book offers a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing from the expertise of a wide variety of global industries including law, ethics, medicine, philosophy, and computer science.

This book explores emerging topics in atomic- and nano-scale electronics after the era of Moore's Law, covering both the physical principles behind, and technological implementations for many devices that are now expected to become key elements of the future of nanoelectronics beyond traditional complementary metal-oxide semiconductors (CMOS). Moore's law is not a physical law itself, but rather a visionary prediction that has worked well for more than 50 years but is rapidly coming to its end as the gate length of CMOS transistors approaches the length-scale of only a few atoms. Thus, the key question here is: "What is the future for nanoelectronics beyond CMOS?" The possible answers are found in this book. Introducing novel quantum devices such as atomic-scale electronic devices, ballistic devices, memristors, superconducting devices, this book also presents the reader with the physical principles underlying new ways of computing, as well as their practical implementation. Topics such as quantum computing, neuromorphic computing are highlighted here as some of the most promising candidates for ushering in a new era of atomic-scale electronics beyond CMOS.

Providing an introduction to the design of embedded microprocessor systems, this edition covers everything from the initial concept through to debugging the final result. It also includes material on DMA, interrupts and an emphasis throughout on the real-time nature of embedded systems. The book is not limited to describing any specific processor family, but covers the operation of, and interfaces to, several types of processors with an emphasis on cost and design trade-offs Included throughout the book are numerous examples, tips, and pitfalls to help readers find out how to implement faster and better design processes and avoid time-consuming and expensive mistakes. The author describes the entire process of designing circuits, and the software that controls them, assessing the system requirements, as well as testing and debugging systems. In this third edition, there is an expanded section on debug which includes avoiding common hardware, software and interrupt problems. Other added features include an expanded section on system integration and debug to address the capabilities of more recent emulators and debuggers, a section about combination microcontroller/PLD devices, and