This book addresses two main themes. The first is, the discipline of informatics. Two major questions will be discussed: how can we obtain and keep track of a systematic and objective overview of the vast landscape in higher informatics education, both nationally and internationally? and would it be useful to rationalize and redesign the informatics curricula, leading to less fragmentation and more communality? The second theme is the relation between informatics and other disciplines, with the following main questions: what informatics do we need to offer a coherent curriculum which suits the needs of the actual information society with respect to specific disciplines? what is relevant in informatics and CIT to provide to others? and what informatics concepts, methods and techniques form the hard core needed in every other discipline?

This book is written from an engineer's perspective of the mind. "Artificial Mind System" exposes the reader to a broad spectrum of interesting areas in general brain science and mind-oriented studies. In this research monograph a picture of the holistic model of an artificial mind system and its behaviour is drawn, as concretely as possible, within a unified context, which could eventually lead to practical realisation in terms of hardware or software. With a view that "the mind is a system always evolving," ideas inspired by many branches of studies related to brain science are integrated within the text, i.e. artificial intelligence, cognitive science / psychology, connectionism, consciousness studies, general neuroscience, linguistics, pattern recognition / data clustering, robotics, and signal processing.

"Wireless is coming" was the message received by VLSI designers in the early 1990's. They believed it. But they never imagined that the wireless wave would be coming with such intensity and speed. Today one of the most challenging areas for VLSI designers is VLSI circuit and system design for wireless applications. New generation of wireless systems, which includes multimedia, put severe constraints on performance, cost, size, power and energy. The challenge is immense and the need for new generation of VLSI designers, who are fluent in wireless communication and are masters of mixed signal design, is great. No single text or reference book contains the necessary material to educate such needed new generation of VLSIdesigners. There are gaps. Excellent books exist on communication theory and systems, including wireless applications and others treat well basic digital, analog and mixed signal VLSI design. We feel that this book is the first of its kind to fill that gap. In the first half of this book we offer the reader (the VLSI designer) enough material to understand wireless communication systems. We start with a historical account. And then we present an overview of wireless communication systems. This is followed by detailed treatment of related topics; the mobile radio, digital modulation and schemes, spread spectrum and receiver architectures. The second half of the book deals with VLSI design issues related to mixed-signal design. These include analog-to-digital conversion, transceiver design, digital low-power techniques, amplifier design, phase locked loops and frequency synthesizers.

Written by one of the top most statisticians with experience in diverse fields of applications of statistics, the book deals with the philosophical and methodological aspects of information technology, collection and analysis of data to provide insight into a problem, whether it is scientific research, policy making by government or decision making in our daily lives.The author dispels the doubts that chance is an expression of our ignorance which makes accurate prediction impossible and illustrates how our thinking has changed with quantification of uncertainty by showing that chance is no longer the obstructor but a way of expressing our knowledge. Indeed, chance can create and help in the investigation of truth. It is eloquently demonstrated with numerous examples of applications that statistics is the science, technology and art of extracting information from data and is based on a study of the laws of chance. It is highlighted how statistical ideas played a vital role in scientific and other investigations even before statistics was recognized as a separate discipline and how statistics is now evolving as a versatile, powerful and inevitable tool in diverse fields of human endeavor such as literature, legal matters, industry, archaeology and medicine.Use of statistics to the layman in improving the quality of life through wise decision making is emphasized.

This book covers the recent applications of computational intelligence techniques in reliability engineering. This volume contains a survey of the contributions made to the optimal reliability design literature in recent years. It also contains chapters devoted to different applications of a genetic algorithm in reliability engineering and to combinations of this algorithm with other computational intelligence techniques.

This book presents an up-to-date account of research in important topics of fuzzy group theory. It concentrates on the theoretical aspects of fuzzy subgroups of a group. It includes applications to abstract recognition problems and to coding theory. The book begins with basic properties of fuzzy subgroups. Fuzzy subgroups of Hamiltonian, solvable, P-Hall, and nilpotent groups are discussed. Construction of free fuzzy subgroups is determined. Numerical invariants of fuzzy subgroups of Abelian groups are developed. The problem in group theory of obtaining conditions under which a group can be expressed as a direct product of its normal subgroups is considered. Methods for deriving fuzzy theorems from crisp ones are presented and the embedding of lattices of fuzzy subgroups into lattices of crisp groups is discussed as well as deriving membership functions from similarity relations. The material presented makes this book a good reference for graduate students and researchers working in fuzzy group theory.

The evolution of modern computers began more than 50 years ago and has been driven to a large extend by rapid advances in electronic technology during that period. The first computers ran one application (user) at a time. Without the benefit of operating systems or compilers, the application programmers were responsible for managing all aspects of the hardware. The introduction of compilers allowed programmers to express algorithms in abstract terms without being concerned with the bit level details of their implementation. Time sharing operating systems took computing systems one step further and allowed several users and/or applications to time share the computing services of com puters. With the advances of networks and software tools, users and applications were able to time share the logical and physical services that are geographically dispersed across one or more networks. Virtual Computing (VC) concept aims at providing ubiquitous open computing services in analogous way to the services offered by Telephone and Elec trical (utility) companies. The VC environment should be dynamically setup to meet the requirements of a single user and/or application. The design and development of a dynamically programmable virtual comput ing environments is a challenging research problem. However, the recent advances in processing and network technology and software tools have successfully solved many of the obstacles facing the wide deployment of virtual computing environments as will be outlined next."

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.

This book covers performance analysis of computer networks, and begins by providing the necessary background in probability theory, random variables, and stochastic processes. Queuing theory and simulation are introduced as the major tools analysts have access to. It presents performance analysis on local, metropolitan, and wide area networks, as well as on wireless networks. It concludes with a brief introduction to self-similarity. Designed for a one-semester course for senior-year undergraduates and graduate engineering students, it may also serve as a fingertip reference for engineers developing communication networks, managers involved in systems planning, and researchers and instructors of computer communication networks.

Systems designers have learned that many agents co-operating within the system can solve very complex problems with a minimal design effort. In general, multi-agent systems that use swarm intelligence are said to be swarm intelligent systems. Today, these are mostly used as search engines and optimization tools. This volume reviews innovative methodologies of swarm intelligence, outlines the foundations of engineering swarm intelligent systems and applications, and relates experiences using the particle swarm optimisation.

This book grants the reader a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art in system-level memory management (data transfer and storage) related issues for complex data-dominated real-time signal and data processing applications. The authors introduce their own system-level data transfer and storage exploration methodology for data-dominated video applications. This methodology tackles the power and area reduction cost components in the architecture for this target domain, namely the system-level busses and the background memories. For the most critical tasks in the methodology, prototype tools have been developed to reduce the design time. The approach is also very heavily application-driven which is illustrated by several realistic demonstrators, partly used as red-thread examples in the book. The quite general applicability and effectiveness has been substantiated for several industrial data-dominated applications, including H.263 video conferencing decoding and medical computer tomography (CT) back projection. To the researcher the book will serve as an excellent reference source, both for the overall description of the methodology and for the detailed descriptions of the system-level methodologies and synthesis techniques and algorithms. To the design engineers and CAD managers it offers an invaluable insight into the anticipated evolution of commercially available design tools as well as allowing them to utilize the book's concepts in their own research and development.

Grid Resource Management: State of the Art and Future Trends presents an overview of the state of the field and describes both the real experiences and the current research available today. Grid computing is a rapidly developing and changing field, involving the shared and coordinated use of dynamic, multi-institutional resources. Grid resource management is the process of identifying requirements, matching resources to applications, allocating those resources, and scheduling and monitoring Grid resources over time in order to run Grid applications as efficiently as possible.
While Grids have become almost commonplace, the use of good Grid resource management tools is far from ubiquitous because of the many open issues of the field, including the multiple layers of schedulers, the lack of control over resources, the fact that resources are shared, and that users and administrators have conflicting performance goals. These are the issues addressed in this book, in addition to elucidating the overlap with related areas including discussions of work with peer-to-peer computing, economic approaches, and operations research.
Grid Resource Management: State of the Art and Future Trends is an invaluable resource for today's user, application developer, or resource owners when working with Grid resource management systems.

Numerical methods are playing an ever-increasing role in physics and engineering. This is especially true after the recent explosion of computing power on the desk-top. This book is aimed at helping the user to make intelligent use of this power tool. Each method is introduced through realistic examples and actual computer programs. The explanations provide the background for making a choice between similar approaches and the knowledge to explore the network for the appropriate existing codes. Tedious proofs and derivations, on the other hand, are delegated to references. Examples of uncoventional methods are also given to stimulate readers in exploring new ways of solving problems.

E-government research has flourished as a way of disseminating information and providing services to citizens ever since the popularization of the Internet. Although there have been tremendous advancements in the world of e-government, critical evaluations on the effectiveness of such methods have yet to be determined. Citizens and E-Government: Evaluating Policy and Management examines the role that citizens play in the development of electronic government or e-government, specifically focusing on the impact of e-government and citizens while exploring issues of policy and management. This book not only focuses on the adoption of e-government and its impact on citizens, but it also discusses the effectiveness of this technology as a way of improving citizen access and engagement with their government. Overall, this book is essential for those interested in the importance of citizens in information technology adoption and development of electronic government.

In March 2002, the Naval Research Laboratory brought together leading researchers and government sponsors for a three-day workshop in Washington, D.C. on Multi-Robot Systems. The workshop began with presentations by various government program managers describing application areas and programs with an interest in multi robot systems. Government representatives were on hand from the Office of Naval Research, the Air Force, the Army Research Lab, the National Aeronau tics and Space Administration, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Top researchers then presented their current activities in the areas of multi robot systems and human-robot interaction. The first two days of the workshop of1ocalizatio . concentrated on multi-robot control issues, including the topics mapping, and navigation; distributed surveillance; manipulation; coordination and formations; and sensors and hardware. The third day was focused on hu man interactions with multi-robot teams. All presentations were given in a single-track workshop format. This proceedings documents the work presented by these researchers at the workshop. The invited presentations were followed by panel discussions, in which all participants interacted to highlight the challenges of this field and to develop possible solutions. In addition to the invited research talks, students were given an opportunity to present their work at poster sessions."

Global software development and productivity related technologies are the key to today's globalization with new technologies and concepts being developed continually. In such an ever-evolving environment, teachers, researchers, and professionals in the discipline need access to the most current information about the concepts, issues, trends, and technologies in this emerging field. ""The Handbook of Research on Software Engineering and Productivity Technologies: Implications of Globalization"" provides an authoritative collection of international research on software engineering and enterprise systems. Presenting unique coverage of topics such as agile software engineering, requirements traceability, and distributed software development, this Handbook of Research offers an innovative repository of knowledge useful to academicians, practitioners, and researchers in various related fields.

Short turnaround has become critical in the design of electronic systems. Software- programmable components such as microprocessors and digital signal processors have been used extensively in such systems since they allow rapid design revisions. However, the inherent performance limitations of software-programmable systems mean that they are inadequate for high-performance designs. Designers thus turned to gate arrays as a solution. User-programmable gate arrays (field-programmable gate arrays, FPGAs) have recently emerged and are changing the way electronic systems are designed and implemented. The growing complexity of the logic circuits that can be packed onto an FPGA chip means that it has become important to have automatic synthesis tools that implement logic functions on these architectures. Logic Synthesis for Field-Programmable Gate Arrays describes logic synthesis for both look-up table (LUT) and multiplexor-based architectures, with a balanced presentation of existing techniques together with algorithms and the system developed by the authors. Audience: A useful reference for VLSI designers, developers of computer-aided design tools, and anyone involved in or with FPGAs.

Text mining is an exciting application ?eld and an area of scienti?c - search that is currently under rapid development. It uses techniques from well-established scienti?c ?elds (e. g. data mining, machine learning, infor- tion retrieval, natural language processing, case-based reasoning, statistics and knowledge management) in an e?ort to help people gain insight, und- stand and interpret large quantities of (usually) semi-structured and unstr- tured data. Despite the advances made during the last few years, many issues remain unresolved. Proper co-ordination activities, dissemination of current trends and standardisation of the procedures have been identi?ed, as key needs. There are many questions still unanswered, especially to the potential users; what is the scope of Text Mining, who uses it and for what purpose, what constitutes the leading trends in the ?eld of Text Mining - especially in relation to IT - and whether there still remain areas to be covered. Knowledge Mining draws upon many of the key concepts of knowledge management, data mining and knowledge discovery, meta-analysis and data visualization. Within the context of scienti?c research, knowledge mining is principally concerned with the quantitative synthesis and visualization of - search results and ?ndings. The results of knowledge mining are increased scienti?c understanding along with improvements in research quality and value. Knowledge mining products can be used to highlight research opportunities, assist with the p- sentation of "best" scienti?c evidence, facilitate research portfolio mana- ment, as well as, facilitate policy setting and decision making.

Despite the fact that Maple V has become one of the most popular computer algebra systems on the market, surprisingly few users realize its potential in the field of scientific visualization. The purpose of this book is to equip the reader with a variety of graphics tools needed on the voyage of discovery into the complex and often beautiful world of curves and surfaces. A comprehensive treatment of Maple's graphics commands and structures is combined with an introduction to the main aspects of visual perception. Top priority is given to the use of light, color, perspective, and geometric transformations. Numerous examples, accompanied by pictures (many in color), cover all aspects of Maple graphics. The examples can be easily customized to suit the individual needs of the reader. The approach is context independent, and as such will appeal to students, educators, and researchers in a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines. For the general user at any level of experience, this book can serve as a comprehensive reference manual. For the beginner, it offers a user- friendly elementary introduction to the subject, with mathematical requirements kept to a minimum. For those interested in advanced mathematical visualization, it explains how to maximize Maple's graphical capabilities. In particular, this book shows how to turn Maple into an excellent modeling tool capable of generating elaborate surfaces that conventional modelers cannot produce. These surfaces can be exported to an external ray tracer (e.g. POV-ray) for sophisticated photo-realistic rendering. All of the Maple code segments which are presented in the book, as well as high-resolution pictures showing alternative renderingsof some of the book's color plates, are included on the accompanying DOS diskette.

In Finite Element Analysis of Electrical Machines the author covers two-dimensional analysis, emphasizing the use of finite elements to perform the most common calculations required of machine designers and analysts. The book explains what is inside a finite element program, and how the finite element method can be used to determine the behavior of electrical machines. The material is tutorial and includes several completely worked out examples. The main illustrative examples are synchronous and induction machines. The methods described have been used successfully in the design and analysis of most types of rotating and linear machines. Audience: A valuable reference source for academic researchers, practitioners and designers of electrical machinery.

Embedded computer systems are now everywhere: from alarm clocks to PDAs, from mobile phones to cars, almost all the devices we use are controlled by embedded computers. An important class of embedded computer systems is that of hard real-time systems, which have to fulfill strict timing requirements. As real-time systems become more complex, they are often implemented using distributed heterogeneous architectures. Analysis and Synthesis of Distributed Real-Time Embedded Systems addresses the design of real-time applications implemented using distributed heterogeneous architectures. The systems are heterogeneous not only in terms of hardware components, but also in terms of communication protocols and scheduling policies. Regarding this last aspect, time-driven and event-driven systems, as well as a combination of the two, are considered. Such systems are used in many application areas like automotive electronics, real-time multimedia, avionics, medical equipment, and factory systems. The proposed analysis and synthesis techniques derive optimized implementations that fulfill the imposed design constraints. An important part of the implementation process is the synthesis of the communication infrastructure, which has a significant impact on the overall system performance and cost. Analysis and Synthesis of Distributed Real-Time Embedded Systems considers the mapping and scheduling tasks within an incremental design process. To reduce the time-to-market of products, the design of real-time systems seldom starts from scratch. Typically, designers start from an already existing system, running certain applications, and the design problem is to implement new functionality on top of this system. Supporting such an incremental design process provides a high degree of flexibility, and can result in important reductions of design costs. Analysis and Synthesis of Distributed Real-Time Embedded Systems will be of interest to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, researchers and designers involved in the field of embedded systems.

This book is concerned with the prediction of thermodynamic and transport properties of gases and liquids. The prediction of such properties is essential for the solution of many problems encountered in chemical and process engineering as well as in other areas of science and technology. The book aims to present the best of those modern methods which are capable of practical application. It begins with basic scientific principles and formal results which are subsequently developed into practical methods of prediction. Numerous examples, supported by a suite of computer programmes, illustrate applications of the methods. The book is aimed primarily at the student market (for both undergraduate and taught postgraduate courses) but it will also be useful for those engaged in research and for chemical and process engineering professionals.

This book is concerned with the prediction of thermodynamic and transport properties of gases and liquids. The prediction of such properties is essential for the solution of many problems encountered in chemical and process engineering as well as in other areas of science and technology. The book aims to present the best of those modern methods which are capable of practical application. It begins with basic scientific principles and formal results which are subsequently developed into practical methods of prediction. Numerous examples, supported by a suite of computer programmes, illustrate applications of the methods. The book is aimed primarily at the student market (for both undergraduate and taught postgraduate courses) but it will also be useful for those engaged in research and for chemical and process engineering professionals.

Application Specific Processors is written for use by engineers who are developing specialized systems (application specific systems). Traditionally, most high performance signal processors have been realized with application specific processors. The explanation is that application specific processors can be tailored to exactly match the (usually very demanding) application requirements. The result is that no processing power' is wasted for unnecessary capabilities and maximum performance is achieved. A disadvantage is that such processors have been expensive to design since each is a unique design that is customized to the specific application. In the last decade, computer-aided design systems have been developed to facilitate the development of application specific integrated circuits. The success of such ASIC CAD systems suggests that it should be possible to streamline the process of application specific processor design. Application Specific Processors consists of eight chapters which provide a mixture of techniques and examples that relate to application specific processing. The inclusion of techniques is expected to suggest additional research and to assist those who are faced with the requirement to implement efficient application specific processors. The examples illustrate the application of the concepts and demonstrate the efficiency that can be achieved via application specific processors. The chapters were written by members and former members of the application specific processing group at the University of Texas at Austin. The first five chapters relate to specific arithmetic which often is the key to achieving high performance in application specific processors. The next two chapters focus on signal processing systems, and the final chapter examines the interconnection of possibly disparate elements to create systems.