This is the first book to treat two areas of speech synthesis: natural language processing and the inherent problems it presents for speech synthesis; and digital signal processing, with an emphasis on the concatenative approach. The text guides the reader through the material in a step-by-step easy-to-follow way. The book will be of interest to researchers and students in phonetics and speech communication, in both academia and industry.

This research handbook provides a comprehensive, integrative, and authoritative resource on the main strategic management issues for companies within the e-business context. It covers an extensive set of topics, dealing with the major issues which articulate the e-business framework from a business perspective. The handbook is divided into the following e-business related parts: background; evolved strategic framework for the management of companies; key business processes, areas and activities; and, finally, emerging issues, trends and opportunities, with special attention to diverse Social Web-related implications. The articles are varied, timely and present high-quality research; many of these unique contributions will be especially valued and influential for business scholars and professionals interested in e-business. Many of the contributors are outstanding business scholars who are or have been editors-in-chief of top-ranked management and business journals or have made significant contributions to the development of their respective fields.

In the last few decades, multiscale algorithms have become a dominant trend in large-scale scientific computation. Researchers have successfully applied these methods to a wide range of simulation and optimization problems. This book gives a general overview of multiscale algorithms; applications to general combinatorial optimization problems such as graph partitioning and the traveling salesman problem; and VLSICAD applications, including circuit partitioning, placement, and VLSI routing. Additional chapters discuss optimization in reconfigurable computing, convergence in multilevel optimization, and model problems with PDE constraints.

Audience Written at the graduate level, the book is intended for engineers and mathematical and computational scientists studying large-scale optimization in electronic design automation.

This consistently written book provides a comprehensive presentation of a multitude of results stemming from the author's as well as various researchers' work in the field. It also covers functional decomposition for incompletely specified functions, decomposition for multi-output functions and non-disjoint decomposition.

This work introduces the benefits of object-oriented programming and discusses how the technology can be used to improve productivity in building software systems in the manufacturing domain. It addresses a wide range of issues from languages, design principles, research examples through to industrial applications and management issues. In essence, the main objective of the book is to interpret and apply object-oriented concepts in the context of designing manufacturing systems applications. The main audience for this book consists of professionals, engineers and managers, who deal with manufacturing systems, as well as students and educators looking for new directions in building software systems to solve problems in this area. The book should also be of special interest to engineering and computer professionals who have heard the term "object-oriented" and want to learn more about it and its importance, especially in designing software for manufacturing systems. This book should be of interest to: software and manufacturing engineers in industry; software consultants; technical managers; graduate students and researchers in computer-integrated manufacturing.

Microsoft (R) Office365/2019: In Practice offers a fresh approach to teaching today's students Microsoft (R) Office skills by clearly introducing skills in logical order through the TIP approach: 1) Topic 2) Instruction and 3) Practice. Nordell's TIP approach builds a foundation for success by helping students apply what they learn and provides transferable skills that allow students to grasp critical thinking beyond the textbook assignments. In Practice seamlessly integrates with SIMnet, McGraw Hill's online learning and assessment solution which houses content to help students practice and master computing concepts and Microsoft (R) Office skills in a fully simulated Office environment. In Practice auto-graded projects allow students to practice their skills in a live Office application and upon completion receive immediate feedback and insights saving instructors time. The integration of the The In Practice textbook series with SIMnet helps meet the diverse needs of students and accommodate individual learning styles.

Neurobiology research suggests that information can be represented by the location of an activity spot in a population of cells (place coding'), and that this information can be processed by means of networks of interconnections. Place Coding in Analog VLSI defines a representation convention of similar flavor intended for analog-integrated circuit design. It investigates its properties and suggests ways to build circuits on the basis of this coding scheme. In this electronic version of place coding, numbers are represented by the state of an array of nodes called a map, and computation is carried out by a network of links. In the simplest case, a link is just a wire connecting a node of an input map to a node of an output map. In other cases, a link is an elementary circuit cell. Networks of links are somewhat reminiscent of look-up tables in that they hardwire an arbitrary function of one or several variables. Interestingly, these structures are also related to fuzzy rules, as well as some types of artificial neural networks. The place coding approach provides several substantial benefits over conventional analog design: Networks of links can be synthesized by a simple procedure whatever the function to be computed. Place coding is tolerant to perturbations and noise in current-mode implementations. Tolerance to noise implies that the fundamental power dissipation limits of conventional analog circuits can be overcome by using place coding. The place coding approach is illustrated by three integrated circuits computing non-linear functions of several variables. The simplest one is made up of 80 links and achieves submicrowatt power consumption in continuous operation. The most complex one incorporates about 1800 links for a power consumption of 6 milliwatts, and controls the operation of an active vision system with a moving field of view. Place Coding in Analog VLSI is primarily intended for researchers and practicing engineers involved in analog and digital hardware design (especially bio-inspired circuits). The book is also a valuable reference for researchers and students in neurobiology, neuroscience, robotics, fuzzy logic and fuzzy control.

This book is designed to strengthen understanding of the critical information in the framework for technology application competencies for K-12 teachers.

In many organizations, Information Technology (IT) has become crucial in the support, the sustainability and the growth of the business. This pervasive use of technology has created a critical dependency on IT that calls for a specific focus on IT Governance. IT Governance consists of the leadership and organizational structures, processes and relational mechanisms that ensure that the organization's IT sustains and extends the organization's strategy and objectives. Strategies for Information Technology Governance records and interprets some important existing theories, models and practices in the IT Governance domain and aims to contribute to the understanding of IT Governance.

Technology Innovation discusses the fundamental aspects of processes and structures of technology innovation. It offers a new perspective concerning fundamentals aspects not directly involved in the complex relations existing between technology and the socio-economic system. By considering technology and its innovation from a scientific point of view, the book presents a novel definition of technology as a set of physical, chemical, and biological phenomena, producing an effect exploitable for human purposes. Expanding on the general model of technology innovation by linking the model of technology, based on a structure of technological operations, with the models of the structures for technology innovation, based on organization of fluxes of knowledge and capitals, the book considers various technological processes and the stages of the innovation process. Offers a perspective on the evolution of technology in the frame of an industrial platform network Explains a novel definition of technology as a set of physical, chemical, and biological phenomena producing an effect exploitable for human purposes Discusses technology innovation as result of structures organizing fluxes of knowledge and capitals Provides a technology model simulating the functioning of technology with its optimization Presents a technology innovation model explaining the territorial technology innovation process The book is intended for academics, graduate students, technology developers who are involved in operations management and research, innovation, and technology development.

Algorithms for VLSI Physical Design Automation, Third Edition covers all aspects of physical design. The book is a core reference for graduate students and CAD professionals. For students, concepts and algorithms are presented in an intuitive manner. For CAD professionals, the material presents a balance of theory and practice. An extensive bibliography is provided which is useful for finding advanced material on a topic. At the end of each chapter, exercises are provided, which range in complexity from simple to research level. Algorithms for VLSI Physical Design Automation, Third Edition provides a comprehensive background in the principles and algorithms of VLSI physical design. The goal of this book is to serve as a basis for the development of introductory-level graduate courses in VLSI physical design automation. It provides self-contained material for teaching and learning algorithms of physical design. All algorithms which are considered basic have been included, and are presented in an intuitive manner. Yet, at the same time, enough detail is provided so that readers can actually implement the algorithms given in the text and use them. The first three chapters provide the background material, while the focus of each chapter of the rest of the book is on each phase of the physical design cycle. In addition, newer topics such as physical design automation of FPGAs and MCMs have been included. The basic purpose of the third edition is to investigate the new challenges presented by interconnect and process innovations. In 1995 when the second edition of this book was prepared, a six-layer process and 15 million transistor microprocessors were in advanced stages of design. In 1998, six metal process and 20 million transistor designs are in production. Two new chapters have been added and new material has been included in almost allother chapters. A new chapter on process innovation and its impact on physical design has been added. Another focus of the third edition is to promote use of the Internet as a resource, so wherever possible URLs have been provided for further investigation. Algorithms for VLSI Physical Design Automation, Third Edition is an important core reference work for professionals as well as an advanced level textbook for students.

Examining the role and impact of technology on creative practice, and how technology evolution determines the forms and format of an artist's work, this book contextualizes technological revolutions with earlier encounters between craft and innovation, endorsing a notion of craft practice within computing that needs rescuing from tech industries.

Within the last 10-13 years Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs) have become the state-of-the-art data structure in VLSI CAD for representation and manipulation of Boolean functions. Today, BDDs are widely used and in the meantime have also been integrated in commercial tools, especially in the area of verification and synthesis. The interest in BDDs results from the fact that the data structure is generally accepted as providing a good compromise between conciseness of representation and efficiency of manipulation. With increasing numbers of applications, also in non-CAD areas, classical methods of handling BDDs are being improved and new questions and problems evolve and have to be solved. Binary Decision Diagrams: Theory and Implementation is intended both for newcomers to BDDs and for researchers and practitioners who need to implement them. Apart from giving a quick start for the reader who is not familiar with BDDs (or DDs in general), it also discusses several new aspects of BDDs, e.g. with respect to minimization and implementation of a package. It is an essential bookshelf item for any CAD designer or researcher working with BDDs.

This volume brings together recent theoretical work in Learning Classifier Systems (LCS), which is a Machine Learning technique combining Genetic Algorithms and Reinforcement Learning. It includes self-contained background chapters on related fields (reinforcement learning and evolutionary computation) tailored for a classifier systems audience and written by acknowledged authorities in their area - as well as a relevant historical original work by John Holland.

Probabilistic and Statistical Methods in Computer Science

This book reviews and summarizes the development and achievement in cartography and geographic information engineering in China over the past 60 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China. It comprehensively reflects cartography, as a traditional discipline, has almost the same long history with the world's first culture and has experienced extraordinary and great changes. The book consists of nineteen thematic chapters. Each chapter is in accordance with the unified directory structure, introduction, development process, major study achievements, problem and prospect, representative works, as well as a lot of references. It is useful as a reference both for scientists and technicians who are engaged in teaching, researching and engineering of cartography and geographic information engineering.

Knowledge Discovery today is a significant study and research area. In finding answers to many research questions in this area, the ultimate hope is that knowledge can be extracted from various forms of data around us. This book covers recent advances in unsupervised and supervised data analysis methods in Computational Intelligence for knowledge discovery. In its first part the book provides a collection of recent research on distributed clustering, self organizing maps and their recent extensions. If labeled data or data with known associations are available, we may be able to use supervised data analysis methods, such as classifying neural networks, fuzzy rule-based classifiers, and decision trees. Therefore this book presents a collection of important methods of supervised data analysis. "Classification and Clustering for Knowledge Discovery" also includes variety of applications of knowledge discovery in health, safety, commerce, mechatronics, sensor networks, and telecommunications.

As digital technologies play a key role across all aspects of our societies and in everyday life, teaching students about data is becoming increasingly important in schools and universities around the world. Bringing together international case studies of innovative responses to datafication, this book sets an agenda for how teachers, students and policy makers can best understand what kind of educational intervention works and why. Learning to Live with Datafication is unique in its focus on educational responses to datafication as well as critical analysis. Through case studies grounded in empirical research and practice, the book explores the dimensions of datafication from diverse perspectives that bring in a range of cultural aspects. It examines how educators conceptualise the social implications of datafication and what is at stake for learners and citizens as educational institutions try to define what datafication will mean for the next generation. Written by international leaders in this emerging field, this book will be of interest to teacher educators, researchers and post graduate students in education who have an interest in datafication and data literacies.

This book provides a framework for the design of competent optimization techniques by combining advanced evolutionary algorithms with state-of-the-art machine learning techniques. The primary focus of the book is on two algorithms that replace traditional variation operators of evolutionary algorithms, by learning and sampling Bayesian networks: the Bayesian optimization algorithm (BOA) and the hierarchical BOA (hBOA). They provide a scalable solution to a broad class of problems. The book provides an overview of evolutionary algorithms that use probabilistic models to guide their search, motivates and describes BOA and hBOA in a way accessible to a wide audience, and presents numerous results confirming that they are revolutionary approaches to black-box optimization.

Embedded computer systems use both off-the-shelf microprocessors and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) to implement specialized system functions. Examples include the electronic systems inside laser printers, cellular phones, microwave ovens, and an automobile anti-lock brake controller. Embedded computing is unique because it is a co-design problem - the hardware engine and application software architecture must be designed simultaneously. Hardware-Software Co-Synthesis of Distributed Embedded Systems proposes new techniques such as fixed-point iterations, phase adjustment, and separation analysis to efficiently estimate tight bounds on the delay required for a set of multi-rate processes preemptively scheduled on a real-time reactive distributed system. Based on the delay bounds, a gradient-search co-synthesis algorithm with new techniques such as sensitivity analysis, priority prediction, and idle- processing elements elimination are developed to select the number and types of processing elements in a distributed engine, and determine the allocation and scheduling of processes to processing elements. New communication modeling is also presented to analyze communication delay under interaction of computation and communication, allocate interprocessor communication links, and schedule communication. Hardware-Software Co-Synthesis of Distributed Embedded Systems is the first book to describe techniques for the design of distributed embedded systems, which have arbitrary hardware and software topologies. The book will be of interest to: academic researchers for personal libraries and advanced-topics courses in co-design as well as industrial designers who are building high-performance, real-time embedded systems with multiple processors.

Public and situated display technologies can have an important impact on individual and social behaviour and present us with particular interesting new design considerations and challenges. While there is a growing body of research exploring these design considerations and social impact this work remains somewhat disparate, making it difficult to assimilate in a coherent manner. This book brings together the perspectives of key researchers in the area of public and situated display technology. The chapters detail research representing the social, technical and interactional aspects of public and situated display technologies. The underlying concern common to these chapters is how these displays can be best designed for collaboration, coordination, community building and mobility. Presenting them together allows the reader to examine everyday display activities within the context of emerging technological possibilities.

With recent advances in IT in areas such as AI and IoT, collaboration systems such as business chat, cloud services, conferencing systems, and unified communications are rapidly becoming widely used as new IT applications in global corporations' strategic activities. Through in-depth longitudinal studies of global corporations, the book presents a new theoretical framework and implications for IT-enabled dynamic capabilities using collaboration systems from the perspective of micro strategy theory and organization theory. The content of the book is based on longitudinal analyses that employ various qualitative research methods including ethnography, participant observation, action research and in-depth case studies of global corporations in Europe, the United States and Asia that actively use collaboration systems. It presents a new concept of micro dynamism whereby dynamic "IT-enabled knowledge communities" such as "IT-enabled communities of practice" and "IT-enabled strategic communities" create "IT-enabled dynamic capabilities" through the integration of four research streams - an information systems view, micro strategy view, micro organization view and knowledge-based view. The book demonstrates that collaboration systems create, maintain and develop "IT-enabled knowledge communities" within companies and are strategic IT applications for enhancing the competitiveness of companies in the ongoing creation of new innovation and the realization of sustainable growth in a 21st century knowledge-based society. This book is primarily written for academics, researchers and graduate students, but will also offer practical implications for business leaders and managers. Its use is anticipated not only in business and management schools, graduate schools and university education environments around the world but also in the broad business environment including management and leadership development training.

Step up your presentation skills with our 6-page laminated guide, focusing on graphic features, animation, audio and a variety of ways presentations can be formatted and distributed. Joan Lambert, author of multiple books on the Microsoft Office Suite, creator of many Lynda.com videos and an experienced corporate trainer used her experience and knowledge to cover the most relevant functions for users at different levels. Also look for the "PowerPoint 2016" QuickStudy for more general coverage of software use, then use the pair to become a power user that can create presentations that "wow". Suggested uses: Workplace -- flat for easy storage and access at a moments notice to find a function you need to use, or to jog your memory for a function you do not use often; Company Training -- reduce help-desk calls and keep productivity flowing for a team or for your entire company; Students/Teachers/Parents -- help with the learning curve in a classroom or for your child and any projects requiring PowerPoint; College Professors/Students -- give polished presentations to your classes that give your hard work the look it deserves.

Rem tene, verba sequentur (Gaius J. Victor, Rome VI century b.c.)

The ultimate goal of this book is to bring the fundamental issues of information granularity, inference tools and problem solving procedures into a coherent, unified, and fully operational framework. The objective is to offer the reader a comprehensive, self-contained, and uniform exposure to the subject.The strategy is to isolate some fundamental bricks of Computational Intelligence in terms of key problems and methods, and discuss their implementation and underlying rationale within a well structured and rigorous conceptual framework as well as carefully related to various application facets. The main assumption is that a deep understanding of the key problems will allow the reader to compose into a meaningful mosaic the puzzle pieces represented by the immense varieties of approaches present in the literature and in the computational practice. All in all, the main approach advocated in the monograph consists of a sequence of steps offering solid conceptual fundamentals, presenting a carefully selected collection of design methodologies, discussing a wealth of development guidelines, and exemplifying them with a pertinent, accurately selected illustrative material.

Mathematical Visualization is a young new discipline. It offers efficient visualization tools to the classical subjects of mathematics, and applies mathematical techniques to problems in computer graphics and scientific visualization. Originally, it started in the interdisciplinary area of differential geometry, numerical mathematics, and computer graphics. In recent years, the methods developed have found important applications.
The current volume is the quintessence of an international workshop in September 1997 in Berlin, focusing on recent developments in this emerging area. Experts present selected research work on new algorithms for visualization problems, describe the application and experiments in geometry, and develop new numerical or computer graphical techniques.