Part of the broader research field of natural computing, Membrane Computing is an area within computing science that aims to abstract computing ideas and models from the structure and functioning of living cells, as well as from the way the cells are organized in tissues or higher order structures. It studies models of computation (known as P systems) inspired by the biochemistry of cells, in particular by the role of membranes in the compartmentalization of living cells into "protected reactors."
This handbook provides both a comprehensive survey of available knowledge and established research topics, and a guide to recent developments in the field, covering the subject from theory to applications. The handbook is suitable both for introducing novices to this area of research, and as a main source of reference for active researchers. It sets out the necessary biological and formal background, with the introductory chapter serving as a gentle introduction to and overview of membrane computing. Individual chapters, written by leading researchers in membrane computing, present the state of the art of all main research trends and include extensive bibliographies.

An understanding of the techniques used to make distributed computing systems and networks reliable, fault-tolerant and secure will be crucial to those who design and deploy the next generation of mission-critical applications and Web Services.

Reliable Distributed Systems reviews and describes the key concepts, principles and applications of modern distributed computing systems and architectures. This self-contained book consists of five parts. The first covers introductory material, including the basic architecture of the Internet, simple protocols such as RPC and TCP, object oriented architectures, operating systems enhance-ments for high performance, and reliability issues. The second covers the Web, with a focus on Web Services technologies, Microsofta (TM)s .NET and the Java Enterprise Edition. The last three parts look at a number of reliability and fault-tolerance issues and techniques, with an emphasis on replication applied in Web Services settings.

Topics and features:

* Explains fault-tolerance in clear, readily understood terms with concrete examples drawn from real-world settings

* A practical focus aimed at building "mission-critical" networked applications that keep working even when things go wrong

* Includes modern topics, such as Corba, Web Services, XML, .NET, J2EE, group communication, transactions, peer-to-peer systems, time-critical protocols, scalability and security

* Thorough coverage of fundamental mechanisms, with an emphasis on the idea of "consistent behavior" in systems that replicate critical components for availability

* Reviews more than 25 major research efforts, placing them in context with pointers to sources

*Includes 80 problems ranging from simple tests of understanding to challenging protocol and systems design topics suitable for semester-long projects

* Web-based materials for instructors, including a comprehensive slide set, available at: http: //www.cs.cornell.edu/ken/book

With its well-focused approach and clarity of presentation, this new text is an excellent resource for both advanced students and practitioners in computer science, computer networks and distributed systems. Anyone seeking a solid background in distributed computing and Web Services architectures will find the book an essential and practical learning tool.

Electronic Chips & Systems Design Languagesoutlines and describes the latest advances in design languages. The challenge of System on a Chip (SOC) design requires designers to work in a multi-lingual environment which is becoming increasingly difficult to master. It is therefore crucial for them to learn, almost in real time, from the experiences of their colleagues in the use of design languages and how these languages have become more advanced to cope with system design. System designers, as well as students willing to become system designers, often do not have the time to attend all scientific events where they could learn the necessary information. This book will bring them a selected digest of the best contributions and industry strength case studies. All the levels of abstraction that are relevant, from the informal user requirements down to the implementation specifications, are addressed by different contributors. The author, together with colleague authors who provide valuable additional experience, presents examples of actual industrial world applications. Furthermore the academic concepts presented in this book provide excellent theories to student readers and the concepts described are up to date and in so doing provide most suitable root information for Ph.D. postgraduates.

Absolute clarity is the aim with a new generation of revision guide for the 2020s. This guide has been expertly compiled and edited by successful former teachers of Computer Science, highly experienced examiners and a good dollop of scientific research into what makes revision most effective. Past examinations questions are essential to good preparation, improving understanding and confidence. This guide has combined revision with tips and more practice questions than you could shake a stick at. All the essential ingredients for getting a grade you can be really proud of. Each specification topic has been referenced and distilled into the key points to make in an examination for top marks. Questions on all topics assessing knowledge, application and analysis are all specifically and carefully devised throughout this book.

Reconfigurable computing brings immense flexibility to on-chip processing while network-on-chip has improved flexibility in on-chip communication. Integrating these two areas of research reaps the benefits of both and represents the promising future of multiprocessor systems-on-chip. Dynamic Reconfigurable Network-on-Chip Design: Innovations for Computational Processing and Communication is the one of the first compilations written to demonstrate this future for network -on-chip design. Through dynamic and creative research into questions ranging from integrating reconfigurable computing techniques, to task assigning, scheduling and arrival, to designing an operating system to take advantage of the computing and communication flexibilities brought about by run-time reconfiguration and network-on-chip, this book represents a complete source of the techniques and applications for reconfigurable network-on-chip necessary for understanding of future of this field.

Discover the great advantages and benefits of working in the medium film format or with the large digital sensor units in Hasselblad digital cameras and digital backs. Presented in an easily accessible format, this book shows the working and manipulation of the various cameras. Detailed illustrations dissect the equipment and provide insight into the ways in which these superb cameras and lenses are best utilized to create professional quality images. This edition of the Manual will bring you up to date with the latest features available within the popular Hasselblad camera systems emphasizing that camera and lens are the most important tools for creating exciting images whether you work digitally or with film. The complete Hasselblad camera system is discussed by renowned author and Hasselblad insider, Ernst Wildi, who provides a solid foundation of both traditional photography and digital capture techniques. Inside you'll also find inspiring photographs from well-known photographers, illustrating a variety of photographic techniques using a Hasselblad camera.

Introduction to Programming with Java: A Problem Solving Approach teaches the reader how to write programs using Java. It does so with a unique approach that combines fundamentals first with objects early. The book transitions smoothly through a carefully selected set of procedural programming fundamentals to object-oriented fundamentals. During this early transition and beyond, the book emphasizes problem solving. For example, Chapter 2 is devoted to algorithm development, Chapter 8 is devoted to program design, and problem-solving sections appear throughout the book. The third edition introduces several new Java language features, most of the end-of-chapter GUI sections and the final GUI chapters use JavaFX, and almost all end-of-chapter exercises are new.

This title discusses design strategies, implementation difficulties, and the effectiveness of online labs. It provides scholars, researchers, and practitioners support for lab-based e-learning, gives guidance on the selection of technologies for various projects, and illustrates Web-based teaching with case studies.

Conflicts between agents acting in a multi-agent environment arise for different reasons, involve different concepts, and are dealt with in different ways, depending on the kind of agents and on the domain where they are considered. Agents may have conflicting beliefs, conflicting goals, or may have to share limited resources. Consequently, conflicts may be expressed as mere differences, or as contradictions, or even as social conflicts. They may be avoided, solved, kept, or even created deliberately. Conflicting Agents studies conflicts in the context of multi-agent systems, i.e. artificial societies modeled on the basis of autonomous, interacting agents. This book addresses questions about types of conflicts, conflict definitions and the use of conflicts as trigger functions for activities in multi-agent systems. The book is also dedicated to questions of conflict management, resolution and avoidance, i.e. the question of how agents cope with conflicts and conflicting situations.

A practical introduction to writing synthesizable Verilog code

Rapid change in IC chip complexity and the pressure to design more complex IC chips at a faster pace has forced design engineers to find a more efficient and productive method to create schematics with large amounts of logic gates. This has led to the development of Verilog; one of the two types of Hardware Description Language (HDL) currently used in the industry.

Verilog Coding for Logic Synthesis is a practical text that has been written specifically for students and engineers who are interested in learning how to write synthesizable Verilog code. Starting with simple verilog coding and progressing to complex real-life design examples, Verilog Coding for Logic Synthesis prepares you for a variety of situations that are bound to occur while utilizing Verilog.

Expert design engineer Weng Fook Lee:

• Introduces the usage of Verilog and VHDL
• Describes a design flow for ASIC design
• Discusses basic concepts of Verilog coding
• Explores the common practices and coding style that are used when coding for synthesis and shows you the common coding style on Verilog operators
• Explains how a design project of a programmable timer is implemented
• Reveals the design of a programmable logic block for peripheral interface

Filled with practical advice, functional flowcharts and waveforms, and over ninety examples, Verilog Coding for Logic Synthesis will help you fully understand the concepts and coding style of important industry language.

The second half of this century will remain as the era of proliferation of electronic computers. They did exist before, but they were mechanical. During next century they may perform other mutations to become optical or molecular or even biological. Actually, all these aspects are only fancy dresses put on mathematical machines. This was always recognized to be true in the domain of software, where "machine" or "high level" languages are more or less rigourous, but immaterial, variations of the universaly accepted mathematical language aimed at specifying elementary operations, functions, algorithms and processes. But even a mathematical machine needs a physical support, and this is what hardware is all about. The invention of hardware description languages (HDL's) in the early 60's, was an attempt to stay longer at an abstract level in the design process and to push the stage of physical implementation up to the moment when no more technology independant decisions can be taken. It was also an answer to the continuous, exponential growth of complexity of systems to be designed. This problem is common to hardware and software and may explain why the syntax of hardware description languages has followed, with a reasonable delay of ten years, the evolution of the programming languages: at the end of the 60's they were" Algol like" , a decade later "Pascal like" and now they are "C or ADA-like". They have also integrated the new concepts of advanced software specification languages.

Workflow management systems (WFMS) are enjoying increasing popular ity due to their ability to coordinate and streamline complex organizational processes within organizations of all sizes. Organizational processes are de scriptions of an organization's activities engineered to fulfill its mission such as completing a business contract or satisfying a specific customer request. Gaining control of these processes allows an organization to reengineer and improve each process or adapt them to changing requirements. The goal of WFMSs is to manage these organizational processes and coordinate their execution. was demonstrated in the first half The high degree of interest in WFMSs of the 1990s by a significant increase in the number of commercial products (once estimated to about 250) and the estimated market size (in combined $2 billion in 1996. Ensuing maturity product sales and services) of about is demonstrated by consolidations during the last year. Ranging from mere e-mail based calendar tools and flow charting tools to very sophisticated inte grated development environments for distributed enterprise-wide applications and systems to support programming in the large, these products are finding an eager market and opening up important research and development op portunities. In spite of their early success in the market place, however, the current generation of systems can benefit from further research and develop ment, especially for increasingly complex and mission-critical applications.

This volume traces back the history of interaction between the "computational" or "algorithmic" aspects of elementary mathematics and mathematics education throughout ages. More specifically, the examples of mathematical practices analyzed by the historians of mathematics and mathematics education who authored the chapters in the present collection show that the development (and, in some cases, decline) of counting devices and related computational practices needs to be considered within a particular context to which they arguably belonged, namely, the context of mathematics instruction; in their contributions the authors also explore the role that the instruments played in formation of didactical approaches in various mathematical traditions, stretching from Ancient Mesopotamia to the 20th century Europe and North America.

Semantic interoperability provides the means to automatically process and integrate large amounts of information without human intervention. ""Cases on Semantic Interoperability for Information Systems Integration: Practices and Applications"" provides an in-depth analysis of issues involved with the application of semantic interoperability to information assimilation tasks followed by field professionals. This significant collection of research explains in-depth issues involved the integration of large amounts of heterogeneous information and points to deficiencies of current systems.

This book solicits meaningful contributions from key experts and practitioners that have been dealing with the emerging area of sustainability analytics. In doing so, readers would understand the cost, impact and performance of their sustainability initiatives. The book covers current analytical tools (eg: frameworks, standards, ESG indexes) to measure sustainability, and how these tools embed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In addition to that, a part of the book is also dedicated to the application of sustainability analytics, highlighting key challenges as well as the importance of engagement and communication in shaping the future direction of sustainability assessments. This book will be extremely useful to both researchers and practitioners who are looking for best--in-class practices to create value from their sustainability initiatives.

This third edition volume expands on the previous editions with new topics that cover drug discovery through translational bioinformatics, informatics, clinical research informatics, as well as clinical informatics. The chapters discuss new methods to study target identification, genome analysis, cheminformatics, protein analysis, and text mining. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials, software workflows, reagents and on-line resources, together with step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory and computational protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Cutting-edge and thorough, Bioinformatics and Drug Discovery, Third Edition is a valuable resource for anyone interested in drug design, including academicians (biologists, informaticists and data scientists, chemists, and biochemists), clinicians, and pharmaceutical scientists.

This book is a collection of contributions honouring Arnon Avron's seminal work on the semantics and proof theory of non-classical logics. It includes presentations of advanced work by some of the most esteemed scholars working on semantic and proof-theoretical aspects of computer science logic. Topics in this book include frameworks for paraconsistent reasoning, foundations of relevance logics, analysis and characterizations of modal logics and fuzzy logics, hypersequent calculi and their properties, non-deterministic semantics, algebraic structures for many-valued logics, and representations of the mechanization of mathematics. Avron's foundational and pioneering contributions have been widely acknowledged and adopted by the scientific community. His research interests are very broad, spanning over proof theory, automated reasoning, non-classical logics, foundations of mathematics, and applications of logic in computer science and artificial intelligence. This is clearly reflected by the diversity of topics discussed in the chapters included in this book, all of which directly relate to Avron's past and present works. This book is of interest to computer scientists and scholars of formal logic.

This textbook treats graph colouring as an algorithmic problem, with a strong emphasis on practical applications. The author describes and analyses some of the best-known algorithms for colouring graphs, focusing on whether these heuristics can provide optimal solutions in some cases; how they perform on graphs where the chromatic number is unknown; and whether they can produce better solutions than other algorithms for certain types of graphs, and why. The introductory chapters explain graph colouring, complexity theory, bounds and constructive algorithms. The author then shows how advanced, graph colouring techniques can be applied to classic real-world operational research problems such as designing seating plans, sports scheduling, and university timetabling. He includes many examples, suggestions for further reading, and historical notes, and the book is supplemented by an online suite of downloadable code. The book is of value to researchers, graduate students, and practitioners in the areas of operations research, theoretical computer science, optimization, and computational intelligence. The reader should have elementary knowledge of sets, matrices, and enumerative combinatorics.

Computer technology has developed remarkably in the field of neurosurgery during the past 10 to 20 years. Great achievements have been made recently in neuroimaging techniques and computer technology for neuronavigation, from frameless, armless systems to robotic microscopes. Contained in the present volume are all the papers presented at the International Symposium on Computer-Assisted Neurosurgery and selected papers presented at the 6th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Computers in Neurosurgery, which were held in Kobe, Japan, on January 24-26, 1997. This volume is a comprehensive description and review of current technical ad vancements in computer-assisted neurosurgery, with a special focus on advanced intraoperative neuroimaging, various neuronavigation system, robotic microscopes, and strategies for preoperative and intraoperative surgical planning using high-power workstations with three-dimensional software. We express our thanks to the contributors for their participation and cooperation, and to Springer-Verlag for personal and technical assistance in publishing this work. We sincerely hope that this volume will contribute to improving neurosurgical technology and outcomes.

This book records the new research findings and development in the field of industrial engineering, and it will serve as the guidebook for the potential development in industrial engineering and smart manufacturing. It gathers the accepted papers from the 24th International conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management held at Central South University of Forestry and Technology in Changsha during May 19-20, 2018. The aim of this conference was to provide a high-level international forum for experts, scholars and entrepreneurs at home and abroad to present the recent advances, new techniques and application, to promote discussion and interaction among academics, researchers and professionals to promote the developments and applications of the related theories and technologies in universities and enterprises, and to establish business or research relations to find global partners for future collaboration in the field of Industrial Engineering. It addresses diverse themes in smart manufacturing, artificial intelligence, ergonomics, simulation and modeling, quality and reliability, logistics engineering, data mining and other related fields. This timely book summarizes and promotes the latest achievements in the field of industrial engineering and related fields over the past year, proposing prospects and vision for the further development.

This book is designed to help students and researchers understand the latest research and development trends in the domain of geospatial information and communication (GeoICT) technologies. Accordingly, it covers the fundamentals of geospatial information systems, spatial positioning technologies, and networking and mobile communications, with a focus on OGC and OGC standards, Internet GIS, and location-based services. Particular emphasis is placed on introducing GeoICT as an integrated technology that effectively bridges various information-technology domains.