From the Foreword: "...the presentation of real-time scheduling is probably the best in terms of clarity I have ever read in the professional literature. Easy to understand, which is important for busy professionals keen to acquire (or refresh) new knowledge without being bogged down in a convoluted narrative and an excessive detail overload. The authors managed to largely avoid theoretical-only presentation of the subject, which frequently affects books on operating systems. ... an indispensable [resource] to gain a thorough understanding of the real-time systems from the operating systems perspective, and to stay up to date with the recent trends and actual developments of the open-source real-time operating systems." -Richard Zurawski, ISA Group, San Francisco, California, USA Real-time embedded systems are integral to the global technological and social space, but references still rarely offer professionals the sufficient mix of theory and practical examples required to meet intensive economic, safety, and other demands on system development. Similarly, instructors have lacked a resource to help students fully understand the field. The information was out there, though often at the abstract level, fragmented and scattered throughout literature from different engineering disciplines and computing sciences. Accounting for readers' varying practical needs and experience levels, Real Time Embedded Systems: Open-Source Operating Systems Perspective offers a holistic overview from the operating-systems perspective. It provides a long-awaited reference on real-time operating systems and their almost boundless application potential in the embedded system domain. Balancing the already abundant coverage of operating systems with the largely ignored real-time aspects, or "physicality," the authors analyze several realistic case studies to introduce vital theoretical material. They also discuss popular open-source operating systems-Linux and FreRTOS, in particular-to help embedded-system designers identify the benefits and weaknesses in deciding whether or not to adopt more traditional, less powerful, techniques for a project.

Technology has impacted how many teachers develop methods of instruction in their classroom settings. The Continuous Practice Improvement (CPI) professional development program introduces teachers to infusing computers into the curriculum and classroom activities seamlessly. ""Infusing Technology into the Classroom: Continuous Practice Improvement"" retells compelling stories of a successful computer-related professional development program that was implemented into Kindergarten through eighth grade classrooms of a Philadelphia school. Through an analysis of the study, a theoretical model to guide technology infused professional development for teachers is discovered.

The special volume offers a global guide to new concepts and approaches concerning the following topics: reduced basis methods, proper orthogonal decomposition, proper generalized decomposition, approximation theory related to model reduction, learning theory and compressed sensing, stochastic and high-dimensional problems, system-theoretic methods, nonlinear model reduction, reduction of coupled problems/multiphysics, optimization and optimal control, state estimation and control, reduced order models and domain decomposition methods, Krylov-subspace and interpolatory methods, and applications to real industrial and complex problems. The book represents the state of the art in the development of reduced order methods. It contains contributions from internationally respected experts, guaranteeing a wide range of expertise and topics. Further, it reflects an important effor t, carried out over the last 12 years, to build a growing research community in this field. Though not a textbook, some of the chapters can be used as reference materials or lecture notes for classes and tutorials (doctoral schools, master classes).

In information technology, unlike many other fields, the need to support the unique perspective of technologically advanced students and deliver technology-rich content presents unique challenges. Today's IT students need the ability to interact with their instructor in near-real time, interact with their peers and project team members, and access and manipulate technology tools in the pursuit of their educational objectives.""Handbook of Distance Learning for Real-Time and Asynchronous Information Technology Education"" delves deep into the construct of real-time, asynchronous education through information technology, pooling experiences from seasoned researchers and educators to detail their past successes and failures, discussing their techniques, hardships, and triumphs in the search for innovative and effective distance learning education for IT programs. This Premier Reference Source answers the increasing demand for a fundamental, decisive source on this cutting-edge issue facing all institutions, covering topics such as asynchronous communication, real-time instruction, multimedia content, content delivery, and distance education technologies.

This book is aimed at two kinds of readers: firstly, people working in or near mathematics, who are curious about continued fractions; and secondly, senior or graduate students who would like an extensive introduction to the analytic theory of continued fractions. The book contains several recent results and new angles of approach and thus should be of interest to researchers throughout the field. The first five chapters contain an introduction to the basic theory, while the last seven chapters present a variety of applications. Finally, an appendix presents a large number of special continued fraction expansions. This very readable book also contains many valuable examples and problems.

This book describes RTL design using Verilog, synthesis and timing closure for System On Chip (SOC) design blocks. It covers the complex RTL design scenarios and challenges for SOC designs and provides practical information on performance improvements in SOC, as well as Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) designs. Prototyping using modern high density Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) is discussed in this book with the practical examples and case studies. The book discusses SOC design, performance improvement techniques, testing and system level verification, while also describing the modern Intel FPGA/XILINX FPGA architectures and their use in SOC prototyping. Further, the book covers the Synopsys Design Compiler (DC) and Prime Time (PT) commands, and how they can be used to optimize complex ASIC/SOC designs. The contents of this book will be useful to students and professionals alike.

This collection of high-quality articles in the field of combinatorics, geometry, algebraic topology and theoretical computer science is a tribute to Jiri Matousek, who passed away prematurely in March 2015. It is a collaborative effort by his colleagues and friends, who have paid particular attention to clarity of exposition - something Jirka would have approved of. The original research articles, surveys and expository articles, written by leading experts in their respective fields, map Jiri Matousek's numerous areas of mathematical interest.

This book presents advances and innovations in grouping genetic algorithms, enriched with new and unique heuristic optimization techniques. These algorithms are specially designed for solving industrial grouping problems where system entities are to be partitioned or clustered into efficient groups according to a set of guiding decision criteria. Examples of such problems are: vehicle routing problems, team formation problems, timetabling problems, assembly line balancing, group maintenance planning, modular design, and task assignment. A wide range of industrial grouping problems, drawn from diverse fields such as logistics, supply chain management, project management, manufacturing systems, engineering design and healthcare, are presented. Typical complex industrial grouping problems, with multiple decision criteria and constraints, are clearly described using illustrative diagrams and formulations. The problems are mapped into a common group structure that can conveniently be used as an input scheme to specific variants of grouping genetic algorithms. Unique heuristic grouping techniques are developed to handle grouping problems efficiently and effectively. Illustrative examples and computational results are presented in tables and graphs to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the algorithms. Researchers, decision analysts, software developers, and graduate students from various disciplines will find this in-depth reader-friendly exposition of advances and applications of grouping genetic algorithms an interesting, informative and valuable resource.

When researchers in computer-mediated communications discuss digital textuality, they rarely venture beyond the now commonplace notion that computer textuality embodies contemporary post-structuralist theories. Written for students and faculty of contemporary literature and composition theories, this book is the first to move from general to specific considerations. Advancing from general considerations of how computers are changing literacy, Digital Fictions moves on to a specific consideration of how computers are altering one particular set of literature practices: reading and writing fiction. Suffused through the sensibility of a creative writer, this book includes an historical overview of writing stories on computers. In addition, Sloane conducts interviews with the makers of hypertext fictions (including Stuart Moulthrop, Michael Joyce, and Carolyn Guyer) and offers close reading of digital fictions. Making careful analyses of the meaning-making activities of both readers and writers of this emerging genre, this work is embedded in a perspective both feminist and semiotic. Digital Fictions explores and distinguishes among four distinct iterations of text-based digital fictions; text adventures, Carnegie Mellon University Oz Project, hypertext fictions, and MUDs. Ultimately, Sloane revises the rhetorical triangle and proposes a new rhetorical theory, one that attends to the materials, processes, and locations of stories told on-line.

This book presents selected papers from the 3rd International Workshop on Computational Engineering held in Stuttgart from October 6 to 10, 2014, bringing together innovative contributions from related fields with computer science and mathematics as an important technical basis among others. The workshop discussed the state of the art and the further evolution of numerical techniques for simulation in engineering and science. We focus on current trends in numerical simulation in science and engineering, new requirements arising from rapidly increasing parallelism in computer architectures, and novel mathematical approaches. Accordingly, the chapters of the book particularly focus on parallel algorithms and performance optimization, coupled systems, and complex applications and optimization.

The book provides suggestions on how to start using bionic optimization methods, including pseudo-code examples of each of the important approaches and outlines of how to improve them. The most efficient methods for accelerating the studies are discussed. These include the selection of size and generations of a study's parameters, modification of these driving parameters, switching to gradient methods when approaching local maxima, and the use of parallel working hardware. Bionic Optimization means finding the best solution to a problem using methods found in nature. As Evolutionary Strategies and Particle Swarm Optimization seem to be the most important methods for structural optimization, we primarily focus on them. Other methods such as neural nets or ant colonies are more suited to control or process studies, so their basic ideas are outlined in order to motivate readers to start using them. A set of sample applications shows how Bionic Optimization works in practice. From academic studies on simple frames made of rods to earthquake-resistant buildings, readers follow the lessons learned, difficulties encountered and effective strategies for overcoming them. For the problem of tuned mass dampers, which play an important role in dynamic control, changing the goal and restrictions paves the way for Multi-Objective-Optimization. As most structural designers today use commercial software such as FE-Codes or CAE systems with integrated simulation modules, ways of integrating Bionic Optimization into these software packages are outlined and examples of typical systems and typical optimization approaches are presented. The closing section focuses on an overview and outlook on reliable and robust as well as on Multi-Objective-Optimization, including discussions of current and upcoming research topics in the field concerning a unified theory for handling stochastic design processes.

This book presents a design methodology that is practically applicable to the architectural design of a broad range of systems. It is based on fundamental design concepts to conceive and specify the required functional properties of a system, while abstracting from the specific implementation functions and technologies that can be chosen to build the system. Abstraction and precision are indispensable when it comes to understanding complex systems and precisely creating and representing them at a high functional level. Once understood, these concepts appear natural, self-evident and extremely powerful, since they can directly, precisely and concisely reflect what is considered essential for the functional behavior of a system. The first two chapters present the global views on how to design systems and how to interpret terms and meta-concepts. This informal introduction provides the general context for the remainder of the book. On a more formal level, Chapters 3 through 6 present the main basic design concepts, illustrating them with examples. Language notations are introduced along with the basic design concepts. Lastly, Chapters 7 to 12 discuss the more intricate basic design concepts of interactive systems by focusing on their common functional goal. These chapters are recommended to readers who have a particular interest in the design of protocols and interfaces for various systems. The didactic approach makes it suitable for graduate students who want to develop insights into and skills in developing complex systems, as well as practitioners in industry and large organizations who are responsible for the design and development of large and complex systems. It includes numerous tangible examples from various fields, and several appealing exercises with their solutions.

This monograph presents an application of concepts and methods from algebraic topology to models of concurrent processes in computer science and their analysis. Taking well-known discrete models for concurrent processes in resource management as a point of departure, the book goes on to refine combinatorial and topological models. In the process, it develops tools and invariants for the new discipline directed algebraic topology, which is driven by fundamental research interests as well as by applications, primarily in the static analysis of concurrent programs. The state space of a concurrent program is described as a higher-dimensional space, the topology of which encodes the essential properties of the system. In order to analyse all possible executions in the state space, more than "just" the topological properties have to be considered: Execution paths need to respect a partial order given by the time flow. As a result, tools and concepts from topology have to be extended to take privileged directions into account. The target audience for this book consists of graduate students, researchers and practitioners in the field, mathematicians and computer scientists alike.

Ontologies and formal representations of knowledge are extremely powerful tools for modeling and managing large applications in several domains ranging from knowledge engineering, to data mining, to the semantic web. Ontology Theory, Management and Design: Advanced Tools and Models, explores the wide range of applications for ontologies, while providing a complete view of the both the theory behind the design and the problems posed by the practical development and use of ontologies. This reference presents an in-depth and forward looking analysis of current research, illustrating the importance of this field and pointing toward to the future of knowledge engineering, management and information technology.

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.

Nature has long provided the inspiration for a variety of scientific discoveries in engineering, biomedicine, and computing, though only recently have these elements of nature been used directly in computational systems. Natural Computing for Simulation and Knowledge Discovery investigates the latest developments in nature-influenced technologies. Within its pages, readers will find an in-depth analysis of such advances as cryptographic solutions based on cell division, the creation and manipulation of biological computers, and particle swarm optimisation techniques. Scientists, practitioners, and students in fields such as computing, mathematics, and molecular science will make use of this essential reference to explore current trends in natural computation and advance nature-inspired technologies to the next generation.

Cloud service benchmarking can provide important, sometimes surprising insights into the quality of services and leads to a more quality-driven design and engineering of complex software architectures that use such services. Starting with a broad introduction to the field, this book guides readers step-by-step through the process of designing, implementing and executing a cloud service benchmark, as well as understanding and dealing with its results. It covers all aspects of cloud service benchmarking, i.e., both benchmarking the cloud and benchmarking in the cloud, at a basic level. The book is divided into five parts: Part I discusses what cloud benchmarking is, provides an overview of cloud services and their key properties, and describes the notion of a cloud system and cloud-service quality. It also addresses the benchmarking lifecycle and the motivations behind running benchmarks in particular phases of an application lifecycle. Part II then focuses on benchmark design by discussing key objectives (e.g., repeatability, fairness, or understandability) and defining metrics and measurement methods, and by giving advice on developing own measurement methods and metrics. Next, Part III explores benchmark execution and implementation challenges and objectives as well as aspects like runtime monitoring and result collection. Subsequently, Part IV addresses benchmark results, covering topics such as an abstract process for turning data into insights, data preprocessing, and basic data analysis methods. Lastly, Part V concludes the book with a summary, suggestions for further reading and pointers to benchmarking tools available on the Web. The book is intended for researchers and graduate students of computer science and related subjects looking for an introduction to benchmarking cloud services, but also for industry practitioners who are interested in evaluating the quality of cloud services or who want to assess key qualities of their own implementations through cloud-based experiments.

Creativity in Computing and DataFlow Supercomputing, the latest release in the Advances in Computers series published since 1960, presents detailed coverage of innovations in computer hardware, software, theory, design, and applications. In addition, it provides contributors with a medium in which they can explore topics in greater depth and breadth than journal articles typically allow. As a result, many articles have become standard references that continue to be of significant, lasting value in this rapidly expanding field.

Here's the first focused discussion of issues and technology in developing networked multimedia systems. This book includes a unique explanation of color specification and its role in achieving high picture quality, high compression ratio and high information retrieval performance, plus valuable coverage of principles and techniques of multimedia information indexing and retrieval critical for future systems.

Alfred Tarski was one of the two giants of the twentieth-century development of logic, along with Kurt Goedel. The four volumes of this collection contain all of Tarski's papers and abstracts published during his lifetime, as well as a comprehensive bibliography. Here will be found many of the works, spanning the period 1921 through 1979, which are the bedrock of contemporary areas of logic, whether in mathematics or philosophy. These areas include the theory of truth in formalized languages, decision methods and undecidable theories, foundations of geometry, set theory, and model theory, algebraic logic, and universal algebra.

This book addresses agent-based computing, concentrating in particular on evolutionary multi-agent systems (EMAS), which have been developed since 1996 at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Cracow, Poland. It provides the relevant background information on and a detailed description of this computing paradigm, along with key experimental results. Readers will benefit from the insightful discussion, which primarily concerns the efficient implementation of computing frameworks for developing EMAS and similar computing systems, as well as a detailed formal model. Theoretical deliberations demonstrating that computing with EMAS always helps to find the optimal solution are also included, rounding out the coverage.

Threshold graphs have a beautiful structure and possess many important mathematical properties. They have applications in many areas including computer science and psychology. Over the last 20 years the interest in threshold graphs has increased significantly, and the subject continues to attract much attention.

The book contains many open problems and research ideas which will appeal to graduate students and researchers interested in graph theory. But above all "Threshold Graphs and Related Topics" provides a valuable source of information for all those working in this field.