Knowledge-Based Intelligent Techniques in Character Recognition presents research results on intelligent character recognition techniques, reflecting the tremendous worldwide interest in the applications of knowledge-based techniques in this challenging field. This resource will interest anyone involved in computer science, computer engineering, applied mathematics, or related fields. It will also be of use to researchers, application engineers and students who wish to develop successful character recognition systems such as those used in reading addresses in a postal routing system or processing bank checks. Features

Hybrid computational intelligent techniques are efficient in dealing with the real-world problems encountered in engineering fields. The primary objective of this book is to provide an exhaustive introduction as well as review of the hybrid computational intelligent paradigm, with supportive case studies. In addition, it aims to provide a gallery of engineering applications where this computing paradigm can be effectively use. Finally, it focuses on the recent quantum inspired hybrid intelligence to develop intelligent solutions for the future. The book also incorporates video demonstrations of each application for better understanding of the subject matter.

The book familiarizes readers with fundamental concepts and issues related to computer vision and major approaches that address them. The focus of the book is on image acquisition and image formation models, radiometric models of image formation, image formation in the camera, image processing concepts, concept of feature extraction and feature selection for pattern classification/recognition, and advanced concepts like object classification, object tracking, image-based rendering, and image registration. Intended to be a companion to a typical teaching course on computer vision, the book takes a problem-solving approach.

When you invest in expensive technology and systems, you want to get the most out of them. Process improvement has been used for years as an effective strategy to reduce costs, shorten cycle times, improve quality, and increase user satisfaction in other areas of business such as Quality, Manufacturing, and Engineering. While there are many books available on process improvement and process re-engineering, few of them address the unique processes within information systems as clearly and succinctly as A Practical Guide to Information Systems Improvement. Process Improvement for IS Tailored specifically for IS processes, A Practical Guide to Information Systems Process Improvement provides a step-by-step method for creating a world class Information System organization. The authors introduce process management and highlight its application to information systems. The book outlines a practical, complete, and easy-to-understand method for improving or re-engineering the processes within the Information Systems organization - simplifying process improvement so that you can begin to use it immediately. Avoid common pitfalls and mistakes The evolving business environment puts new demands on your Information Systems. E-commerce, changing technology, ERP, and globalization are just a few of the areas that will benefit from process improvement. This easy-to-follow guide includes a corresponding process model for each step that serves as a starting point for process improvement effort. It provides a checklist to ensure your new process meets all the requirements for its particular purpose and identifies pitfalls and mistakes to avoid.

Existing ERP systems are being used to support an increasing amount of critical e-business initiatives, even though this is far from their original purpose. While ERP can form a foundation for successfully meeting e-business needs, future success will be derived not only from a firm, supportive foundation, but from a solid e-business superstructure that guides your company through a value chain that has grown longer and more complex. ERP Optimization provides a technology-centric approach to leading your company through an e-transformation. It shows you how to leverage current investments in information systems while minimizing disruptions to the core business of the enterprise. Written in a business vernacular, the book effectively bridges the gap between technology and business strategy. The author takes you through the process of defining e-business goals and accessing and maximizing current systems capabilities. She details the steps required to assume a leadership position within an integrated business community and demonstrates how to support secure information exchanges with customer, suppliers,and partners. ERP alone is not enough to secure and maintain a superior position in today's economy, but it can provide the backbone and infrastructure of enterprise applications that are the necessary, essential prerequisites to conducting e-business. Whether you are an executive today, or hope to be one in the future, ERP Optimization gives you the tools to lead your organization successfully into the e-business world.

Oracle 11i E-Business Suite from the Front Lines is the first book to compile the tips, techniques, and practical advice for administering Oracle E-Business Suite 11i. The author examines Active Directory Utilities, patching, cloning, and the new features that 11i brings to the market. The book benefits those with limited experience with Oracle Application but with more extensive background in Oracle Database Administration. This volume is valuable to systems administrators or DBAs who have experience with older versions of Oracle Financials and want to expand their knowledge to include the changes inherent in 11i. The book details the steps in installing a new 11i environment, and explains the process of upgrading from a 10.7 or an 11.0.3 release. It also explores the techniques and results of migrating from one maintenance release of 11i to another. This analysis offers you real-world hints and recommendations to help you with day-to-day tuning, troubleshooting, and maintenance and will help you deliver reliable service to your end users. It is also a helpful tool that enables managers and co-workers to understand the daily challenges that Apps DBAs face.

A developer's knowledge of a computing system's requirements is necessarily imperfect because organizations change. Many requirements lie in the future and are unknowable at the time the system is designed and built. To avoid burdensome maintenance costs developers must therefore rely on a system's ability to change gracefully-its flexibility. Flexible Software Design: Systems Development for Changing Requirements demonstrates the design principles and techniques that enable the design of software that empowers business staff to make functional changes to their systems with little or no professional IT intervention. The book concentrates on the design aspects of system development, the area with the most flexibility leverage. Divided into four parts, the text begins by introducing the fundamental concepts of flexibility, explaining the reality of imperfect knowledge and how development participants must change their thinking to implement flexible software. The second part covers design guidelines, stable identifiers, stable information structures, the Generic Entity Cloud concept, and regulatory mechanisms that give business staff control over system modifications. Part three relates strategic information systems planning to flexible systems. It examines the elicitation of requirements and the relevance of agile methods in a flexible systems environment. It also discusses practical aspects of stable identifier design and compares the testing of traditional and flexible software. In part four, the book concludes with details of the flexible UniverSIS system and an explanation of the applications and extensions of the Generic Entity Cloud tools. The combination of smart design and smart work offered in Flexible Software Design can materially benefit your organization by radically reducing the systems maintenance burden.

While global sourcing has expanded dramatically in terms of activities, consistent challenges remain for organizations that choose such a business decision. These challenges include maximizing the opportunity afforded by globalization, fully realizing potential gains, and managing the risks inherent to global development. In addition, while companies continue to start or expand their use of global resources, little is being done to help project managers, business analysts, architects, and others succeed in this new environment. Built upon real-world experiences, Managing Global Development Risk provides the tools, techniques, and knowledge necessary to achieve project success with offshore resources. By reading and utilizing the templates within this book, you will acquire: Knowledge of project management principles and their application Understanding of software development processes and their application Insight into the diverse personalities within your global development team and the appropriate management and communications style to achieve success Awareness of cultural issues and mannerisms that will enhance your ability to guide your team To fully realize the benefits of global development, a proper mix of local and offshore resources is essential. This book is an important tool that can help you gain the necessary competency and expand your skills in this critical area.

Information security teams are charged with developing and maintaining a set of documents that will protect the assets of an enterprise from constant threats and risks. In order for these safeguards and controls to be effective, they must suit the particular business needs of the enterprise. A guide for security professionals, Building an Effective Information Security Policy Architecture explains how to review, develop, and implement a security architecture for any size enterprise, whether it is a global company or a SMB. Through the use of questionnaires and interviews, the book demonstrates how to evaluate an organization's culture and its ability to meet various security standards and requirements. Because the effectiveness of a policy is dependent on cooperation and compliance, the author also provides tips on how to communicate the policy and gain support for it. Suitable for any level of technical aptitude, this book serves a guide for evaluating the business needs and risks of an enterprise and incorporating this information into an effective security policy architecture.

Originally designed as neutral entities, computerized bots are increasingly being used maliciously by online criminals in mass spamming events, fraud, extortion, identity theft, and software theft. Malicious Bots: An Inside Look into the Cyber-Criminal Underground of the Internet explores the rise of dangerous bots and exposes the nefarious methods of "botmasters". This valuable resource assists information security managers in understanding the scope, sophistication, and criminal uses of bots. With sufficient technical detail to empower IT professionals, this volume provides in-depth coverage of the top bot attacks against financial and government networks over the last several years. The book presents exclusive details of the operation of the notorious Thr34t Krew, one of the most malicious bot herder groups in recent history. Largely unidentified by anti-virus companies, their bots spread globally for months, launching massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and warez (stolen software distributions). For the first time, this story is publicly revealed, showing how the botherders got arrested, along with details on other bots in the world today. Unique descriptions of the criminal marketplace - how criminals make money off of your computer - are also a focus of this exclusive book! With unprecedented detail, the book goes on to explain step-by-step how a hacker launches a botnet attack, providing specifics that only those entrenched in the cyber-crime investigation world could possibly offer. Authors Ken Dunham and Jim Melnick serve on the front line of critical cyber-attacks and countermeasures as experts in the deployment of geopolitical and technical bots. Their work involves advising upper-level government officials and executives who control some of the largest networks in the world. By examining the methods of Internet predators, information security managers will be better able to proactively prote

Characterized by lightning quick innovation, abrupt shifts in technology, and shorter lifecycles, the marketing of IT products and services presents a unique set of challenges and often requires IT managers and developers to get involved in the marketing process. Marketing IT Products and Services is written to help busy IT managers and marketing managers get up to speed quickly and easily on what's needed to develop effective marketing strategies and campaigns. Focusing on the unique issues involved, this one-stop resource provides everything needed to understand the roles, responsibilities, and management techniques essential for the development of successful strategies. It covers strategic market planning, targeting markets, researching markets, understanding the competition, integrating market and sales strategies, nuances of global markets, developing marketing budgets, pricing, and implementing marketing campaigns. A plethora of appendices included on the book's downloadable resources allow you to get up and running right away. Aside from a complete marketing glossary, two complete marketing plans-one for a hardware product; the other for a software product-enable you to bypass the "scut" work of developing a marketing plan so you can focus on the creative aspects of marketing. Because a marketing plan is closely aligned with an organization's business and strategic plans, this book provides you with templates for both of these, as well as a template for that all-important business plan executive summary. The downloadable resources also feature loads of fill-in templates including customer and competitor analysis surveys, sample press releases, letters of agreement, demographic and target market worksheets, and cost benefit forms. If you have a marketing need, this book has an effective template to meet that need.

Modeling Software with Finite State Machines: A Practical Approach explains how to apply finite state machines to software development. It provides a critical analysis of using finite state machines as a foundation for executable specifications to reduce software development effort and improve quality. This book discusses the design of a state machine and of a system of state machines. It also presents a detailed analysis of development issues relating to behavior modeling with design examples and design rules for using finite state machines. This volume describes a coherent and well-tested framework for generating reliable software for even the most complex tasks. The authors demonstrate that the established practice of using a specification as a basis for coding is wrong. Divided into three parts, this book opens by delivering the authors' expert opinions on software, covering the evolution of development as well as costs, methods, programmers, and the development cycle. The remaining two parts encourage the use of state machines: promoting the virtual finite state machine (Vfsm) method and the StateWORKS development tools.

This book focuses on how advances in ICT have brought about a sea change in the way people work, live and share while also making them vulnerable. These advances exhibit a fundamentally reformed global context for development that has not just been restricted to the civilian domain but has simultaneously impacted the military domain. The exponential pace of advances in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, big data, quantum computing or IoT (Internet of Things) pioneers a significantly different vision of work and society. The current trends in warfighting present a very blurred picture of the future operating environment, but they give some shape to its likely direction. Military forces are trying to become much more flexible and have been adapting to these changes while emphasizing the importance of innovation and improvisation in order to counter challenges emanating from future scenarios. In this context, the book highlights the changing military strategies and tactics across nations vis-a-vis the hanging and emerging ICT technologies. It also highlights the importance of looking at present institutions, legal frameworks and principles as well as at the restraining factors inherent in realpolitik in order to understand if nation states are ready. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

Electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) is revolutionizing the billing process by offering online and real time presentment of bill content and payment choices. EBPP is the easy way of viewing billing status, remittance items, and presenting balances using a universal browser from any location. In contrast to paper-based bills, electronic billing enables service providers to combine billing with advanced customer care and improved customer relationship management. Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment presents the essentials about this new way of viewing and paying bills. The author defines basic business models, such as biller direct and various consolidator model options, allocates the right tools to each of the models, and differentiates between the needs of principal industries. The text describes how to build and implement value added capabilities such as personalization, up-selling, online dispute management, and better control of the accounts payable and receivable process can significantly improve customer care and customer relationship management on behalf of service providers. About the Author: Kornel Terplan is a telecommunication expert with more than 30 years of highly successful multi-national consulting experience. He has provided consulting, training, and product development services to over 75 national and international corporations on four continents. He has served on the editorial board for over 140 articles, 22 books, and 115 papers. Dr. Terplan has designed five network management related courses and conducted over 80 seminar presentations in 15 countries.

Project Managers leading massive IT projects--defined as projects rolling out deliverables across geographic boundaries with budgets ranging well into the millions--need a unique level of expertise and an arsenal of personal and professional skills to successfully accomplish their tasks. Large IT initiatives inherently contain business conditions, technology quirks, and participant and managerial agendas that make them exceedingly difficult to execute. Complex IT Project Management: Sixteen Steps to Success reveals a project management process that the author has proven to be successful in many complex real-world projects. Each step is presented in its logical sequence, with the connections between management methods and project goals clearly defined. The author often refers to the successful tactics he employed, providing you with a strategy to overcome the challenges found in even the most intricate IT projects. This book stands as the perfect tool for project managers at all levels of experience who plan to tackle a high-profile initiative. It also serves as a guide for project sponsors searching for the right manager, and for consultants recommending best practices for the workplace.

Telecommunications service providers face increasing information assistance requests to help law enforcement while they simultaneously struggle with CapEx and OpEx reductions. On the other hand, law enforcement agencies face expensive telecommunication interface options for data collection as they battle with a growing backlog of subpoena requests. Intelligence Support Systems: Technologies for Lawful Intercepts addresses the information and intelligence needs of service providers, law enforcement agencies, representatives of governments and international standards bodies, and product and service vendors. This volume offers solutions for many technological challenges, explaining how to provide networking equipment and probes for lawful intercepts, and detailing methods for reducing the performance impacts on network equipment that result from intercepts. It explores how to access, collect, and deliver information in real-time and how to improve mediation efficiency while serving multiple functions. The book also covers data retention and preservation issues and examines how to standardize intercept technologies for various service portfolios and infrastructure components. Focusing on intelligence support systems (ISS), the text demonstrates how the information that an ISS gathers can be applied toward security, and illustrates how an ISS interfaces with billing, ordering, provisioning, authenticating, and law enforcement systems.

Most widely available approaches to semantic integration provide ad-hoc, non-systematic, subjective manual mappings that lead to procrustean amalgamations to fit the target standard, an outcome that pleases no one. Written by experts in the field, Theories of Geographic Concepts: Ontological Approaches to Semantic Integration emphasizes the real issues involved in integrating existing geo-ontologies. The book addresses theoretical, formal, and pragmatic issues of geographic knowledge representation and integration based on an ontological approach. The authors highlight the importance of philosophical, cognitive, and formal theories in preserving the semantics of geographic concepts during ontology development and integration. They elucidate major theoretical issues, then introduce a number of formal tools. The book delineates a general framework with the necessary processes and guidelines to ontology integration and applies it to a selection of ontology integration cases. It concludes with a retrospection of key issues and identifies open research questions. Copiously illustrated, the book contains more than 80 illustrations and several examples to various approaches that provide a better understanding of the complexity of ontology integration tasks. The authors provide guidance on selecting the most appropriate approach and details on its application to indicative integration problems.

Are some areas of fast Fourier transforms still unclear to you? Do the notation and vocabulary seem inconsistent? Does your knowledge of their algorithmic aspects feel incomplete? The fast Fourier transform represents one of the most important advancements in scientific and engineering computing. Until now, however, treatments have been either brief, cryptic, intimidating, or not published in the open literature. Inside the FFT Black Box brings the numerous and varied ideas together in a common notational framework, clarifying vague FFT concepts. Examples and diagrams explain algorithms completely, with consistent notation. This approach connects the algorithms explicitly to the underlying mathematics. Reviews and explanations of FFT ideas taken from engineering, mathematics, and computer science journals teach the computational techniques relevant to FFT. Two appendices familiarize readers with the design and analysis of computer algorithms, as well. This volume employs a unified and systematic approach to FFT. It closes the gap between brief textbook introductions and intimidating treatments in the FFT literature. Inside the FFT Black Box provides an up-to-date, self-contained guide for learning the FFT and the multitude of ideas and computing techniques it employs.

An effective blend of carefully explained theory and practical applications, this text imparts the fundamentals of both information theory and data compression. Although the two topics are related, this unique text allows either topic to be presented independently, and it was specifically designed so that the data compression section requires no prior knowledge of information theory. The treatment of information theory, while theoretical and abstract, is quite elementary, making this text less daunting than many others. After presenting the fundamental definitions and results of the theory, the authors then apply the theory to memoryless, discrete channels with zeroth-order, one-state sources. The chapters on data compression acquaint students with a myriad of lossless compression methods and then introduce two lossy compression methods. Students emerge from this study competent in a wide range of techniques. The authors' presentation is highly practical but includes some important proofs, either in the text or in the exercises, so instructors can, if they choose, place more emphasis on the mathematics. Introduction to Information Theory and Data Compression, Second Edition is ideally suited for an upper-level or graduate course for students in mathematics, engineering, and computer science. Features: Expanded discussion of the historical and theoretical basis of information theory that builds a firm, intuitive grasp of the subject Reorganization of theoretical results along with new exercises, ranging from the routine to the more difficult, that reinforce students' ability to apply the definitions and results in specific situations. Simplified treatment of the algorithm(s) of Gallager and Knuth Discussion of the information rate of a code and the trade-off between error correction and information rate Treatment of probabilistic finite state source automata, including basic resul

Intelligent decision support relies on techniques from a variety of disciplines, including artificial intelligence and database management systems. Most of the existing literature neglects the relationship between these disciplines. By integrating AI and DBMS, Computational Intelligence for Decision Support produces what other texts don't: an explanation of how to use AI and DBMS together to achieve high-level decision making. Threading relevant disciplines from both science and industry, the author approaches computational intelligence as the science developed for decision support. The use of computational intelligence for reasoning and DBMS for retrieval brings about a more active role for computational intelligence in decision support, and merges computational intelligence and DBMS. The introductory chapter on technical aspects makes the material accessible, with or without a decision support background. The examples illustrate the large number of applications and an annotated bibliography allows you to easily delve into subjects of greater interest. The integrated perspective creates a book that is, all at once, technical, comprehensible, and usable. Now, more than ever, it is important for science and business workers to creatively combine their knowledge to generate effective, fruitful decision support. Computational Intelligence for Decision Support makes this task manageable.

Based on an extensive research project done by the author in the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland, Sweden, and Austria from December 1999 to June 2001, Enterprise Architecture and New Generation Information Systems focuses on four main themes: Next Generation Information Technology The Likely Technologies of this Decade Enterprise Computing The Internet as the 21st Century's Answer to Merchandising While the majority of books presently available on information systems are written from the viewpoint of system analysis, programming, or common applications, this text: Brings to the reader's attention the importance of organization and infrastructure Presents a wealth of case studies to explain the need for reengineering and restructuring Details the latest advances which influence the implementation of advanced technology Written in a simple, comprehensive manner without specific prerequisites and data processing jargon, with concepts and case studies properly explained, this book addresses itself to practitioners in computer technology, telecommunications and software development, who are interested in acquiring skills through knowledge of the most advanced applications, tools, and methods, both present and coming. Enterprise Architecture and New Generation Information Systems will prove appealing to every person charged with planning, developing, applying, and delivering advanced information systems, architectural solutions, and programming products.

Current standard numerical methods are of little use in solving mathematical problems involving boundary layers. In Robust Computational Techniques for Boundary Layers, the authors construct numerical methods for solving problems involving differential equations that have non-smooth solutions with singularities related to boundary layers. They present a new numerical technique that provides precise results in the boundary layer regions for the problems discussed in the book. They show that this technique can be adapted in a natural way to a real flow problem, and that it can be used to construct benchmark solutions for comparison with solutions found using other numerical techniques. Focusing on robustness, simplicity, and wide applicability rather than on optimality, Robust Computational Techniques for Boundary Layers provides readers with an understanding of the underlying principles and the essential components needed for the construction of numerical methods for boundary layer problems. It explains the fundamental ideas through physical insight, model problems, and computational experiments and gives details of the linear solvers used in the computations so that readers can implement the methods and reproduce the numerical results.

Originally published in 1990, the first edition of Subset Selection in Regression filled a significant gap in the literature, and its critical and popular success has continued for more than a decade. Thoroughly revised to reflect progress in theory, methods, and computing power, the second edition promises to continue that tradition. The author has thoroughly updated each chapter, incorporated new material on recent developments, and included more examples and references. New in the Second Edition: A separate chapter on Bayesian methods Complete revision of the chapter on estimation A major example from the field of near infrared spectroscopy More emphasis on cross-validation Greater focus on bootstrapping Stochastic algorithms for finding good subsets from large numbers of predictors when an exhaustive search is not feasible Software available on the Internet for implementing many of the algorithms presented More examples Subset Selection in Regression, Second Edition remains dedicated to the techniques for fitting and choosing models that are linear in their parameters and to understanding and correcting the bias introduced by selecting a model that fits only slightly better than others. The presentation is clear, concise, and belongs on the shelf of anyone researching, using, or teaching subset selecting techniques.

Computational Atomic Structure: An MCHF Approach deals with the field of computational atomic structure, specifically with the multiconfiguration Hartree-Fock (MCHF) approach and the manner in which this approach is used in modern physics. Beginning with an introduction to computational algorithms and procedures for atomic physics, the book describes the theory underlying nonrelativistic atomic structure calculations (making use of Brett-Pauli corrections for relativistic effects) and details how the MCHF atomic structure software package can be used to this end. The book concludes with a treatment of atomic properties, such as energy levels, electron affinities, transition probabilities, specific mass shift, fine structure, hyperfine-structure, and autoionization. This modern, reliable exposition of atomic structure theory proves invaluable to anyone looking to make use of the authors' MCHF atomic structure software package, which is available publicly via the Internet.