This contributed volume discusses diverse topics to demystify the rapidly emerging and evolving blockchain technology, the emergence of integrated platforms and hosted third-party tools, and the development of decentralized applications for various business domains. It presents various applications that are helpful for research scholars and scientists who are working toward identifying and pinpointing the potential of as well as the hindrances to this technology.

This book introduces readers to the use of R codes for optimization problems. First, it provides the necessary background to understand data envelopment analysis (DEA), with a special emphasis on fuzzy DEA. It then describes DEA models, including fuzzy DEA models, and shows how to use them to solve optimization problems with R. Further, it discusses the main advantages of R in optimization problems, and provides R codes based on real-world data sets throughout. Offering a comprehensive review of DEA and fuzzy DEA models and the corresponding R codes, this practice-oriented reference guide is intended for masters and Ph.D. students in various disciplines, as well as practitioners and researchers.

Mapping and localization are two essential tasks in autonomous mobile robotics. Due to the unavoidable noise that sensors present, mapping algorithms usually rely on loop closure detection techniques, which entail the correct identification of previously seen places to reduce the uncertainty of the resulting maps. This book deals with the problem of generating topological maps of the environment using efficient appearance-based loop closure detection techniques. Since the quality of a visual loop closure detection algorithm is related to the image description method and its ability to index previously seen images, several methods for loop closure detection adopting different approaches are developed and assessed. Then, these methods are used in three novel topological mapping algorithms. The results obtained indicate that the solutions proposed attain a better performance than several state-of-the-art approaches. To conclude, given that loop closure detection is also a key component in other research areas, a multi-threaded image mosaicing algorithm is proposed. This approach makes use of one of the loop closure detection techniques previously introduced in order to find overlapping pairs between images and finally obtain seamless mosaics of different environments in a reasonable amount of time.

This book introduces readers to the background, general framework, main operators, and other basic characteristics of biogeography-based optimization (BBO), which is an emerging branch of bio-inspired computation. In particular, the book presents the authors' recent work on improved variants of BBO, hybridization of BBO with other algorithms, and the application of BBO to a variety of domains including transportation, image processing, and neural network learning. The content will help to advance research into and application of not only BBO but also the whole field of bio-inspired computation. The algorithms and applications are organized in a step-by-step manner and clearly described with the help of pseudo-codes and flowcharts. The readers will learn not only the basic concepts of BBO but also how to apply and adapt the algorithms to the engineering optimization problems they actually encounter.

This volume focuses on smart medical and healthcare systems (modern intelligent systems for medicine and healthcare) and includes 31 papers presenting recent trends and innovations in medicine and healthcare, including biomedical engineering research and technologies; machine learning and labeling for biomedical visual data analysis and understanding; advanced ICT for medicine and healthcare; and healthcare support systems. Innovation in medicine and healthcare is an interdisciplinary research area, which combines advanced technologies and problem-solving skills with medical and biological science, and smart medical and healthcare systems can provide efficient and accurate solution to problems faced by healthcare and medical practitioners today by using advanced information communication techniques, computational intelligence, mathematics, robotics and other advanced technologies. Discussing the techniques developed in this area, which will have a significant effect on future medicine and healthcare, the book is a valuable resource for researchers, students, engineers, and professionals working in the fields of medical systems, medical technology, and intelligent systems.

Due to increasing potential in real-world applications such as visual communications, computer assisted biomedical imaging, and video surveillance, image and video interpretations have become an area of growing interest. Intelligent Image and Video Interpretation: Algorithms and Applications covers all aspects of image and video analysis from low-level early visions to high-level recognition. This publication highlights how these techniques have become applicable and will prove to be a valuable tool for researchers, professionals, and graduate students working or studying the fields of imaging and video processing.

This book offers a detailed description of the histogram probabilistic multi-hypothesis tracker (H-PMHT), providing an accessible and intuitive introduction to the mathematical mechanics of H-PMHT as well as a definitive reference source for the existing literature on the method. Beginning with basic concepts, the authors then move on to address extensions of the method to a broad class of tracking problems. The latter chapters present applications using recorded data from experimental radar, sonar and video sensor systems. The book is supplemented with software that both furthers readers' understanding and acts as a toolkit for those who wish to apply the methods to their own problems.

Agenda Relevance is the first volume in the authors' omnibus investigation of
the logic of practical reasoning, under the collective title, A Practical Logic
of Cognitive Systems. In this highly original approach, practical reasoning is
identified as reasoning performed with comparatively few cognitive assets,
including resources such as information, time and computational capacity. Unlike
what is proposed in optimization models of human cognition, a practical reasoner
lacks perfect information, boundless time and unconstrained access to
computational complexity. The practical reasoner is therefore obliged to be a
cognitive economizer and to achieve his cognitive ends with considerable
efficiency. Accordingly, the practical reasoner avails himself of various
scarce-resource compensation strategies. He also possesses neurocognitive
traits that abet him in his reasoning tasks. Prominent among these is the
practical agent's striking (though not perfect) adeptness at evading irrelevant
information and staying on task. On the approach taken here, irrelevancies are
impediments to the attainment of cognitive ends. Thus, in its most basic sense,
relevant information is cognitively helpful information. Information can then be
said to be relevant for a practical reasoner to the extent that it advances or
closes some cognitive agenda of his. The book explores this idea with a
conceptual detail and nuance not seen the standard semantic, probabilistic and
pragmatic approaches to relevance; but wherever possible, the authors seek to
integrate alternative conceptions rather than reject them outright. A further
attraction of the agenda-relevance approach is the extent to which its principal
conceptual findings lend themselves to technically sophisticated re-expression
in formal models that marshal the resources of time and action logics and
label led deductive systems.

Agenda Relevance is necessary reading for researchers in logic, belief
dynamics, computer science, AI, psychology and neuroscience, linguistics,
argumentation theory, and legal reasoning and forensic science, and will repay
study by graduate students and senior undergraduates in these same fields.

Key features:

relevance
action and agendas
practical reasoning
belief dynamics
non-classical logics
labelled deductive systems

"

Based on the idea of a universal rule for problem solving, the book suggests that the "System-Fuzzy Approach (SFA)" Model can be applied to various complex real-world problems. It is the first book for problem solving in complicated problems with a universal project management tool. Systematic searching is an essential step in identifying the right direction in problem solving; and the fuzzy steps in concrete problem solving reflect the flexibility and compromises involved in the process. Nevertheless, the fuzzy steps also demonstrate human beings' impressively flexible problem-solving skills. Simulating human decision-making processes based on fuzzy information processing is essential in our digital era, in which many problems need to be solved by means of artificial intelligence; hence the Fuzzy-AI Model emerged. As a universal rule and tool, it can be applied to a broad range of real-world problems. Offering a valuable guide to fuzzy decision-making, this book is intended for researchers, scientists and graduate students in the fields of Engineering, Economics, Sociology, Managerial Science, Project Management etc.

This book addresses new challenges and emerging ideas in Distributed Information Filtering and Retrieval. It gathers extended papers presented at DART 2013 (the 7th International Workshop on Information Filtering and Retrieval), held on December 6, 2013 in Turin, Italy, and co-hosted with the XIII International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence. The main focus of DART was to discuss and compare suitable novel solutions based on intelligent techniques and applied to real-world contexts. The papers presented here offer a comprehensive review of related work and state-of-the-art techniques. The authors - a mix of respected practitioners and researchers - share their findings on a range of topics, including data leak protection on text comparison, natural language processing, ambient intelligence, information retrieval and web portals, and knowledge management. All contributions were carefully reviewed by experts in the respective area, who also provided useful suggestions to improve the book's overall quality.

This self-contained book presents a framework for solving a general class of linear systems with coefficients being continuous functions of parameters varying within prescribed intervals. It also provides a comprehensive overview of the theory related to solving parametric interval linear systems and the basic properties of parametric interval matrices. In particular, it develops several new algorithms delivering sharp rigorous bounds for the solutions of such systems with full mathematical rigor. The framework employs the arithmetic of revised affine forms that enables the readers to handle dependent data. The book is intended not only for researchers interested in developing rigorous methods of numerical linear algebra, but also for engineers dealing with problems involving uncertain data. The theory discussed is also useful in various other fields of numerical analysis, in computer graphics, economics, computational geometry, computer-aided design, computer-assisted proofs, computer graphics, control theory, solving constraint satisfaction problems, and global optimization.

This book presents novel research ideas and offers insights into radar system design, artificial intelligence and signal processing applications. Further, it proposes a new concept of antenna spatial polarization characteristics (SPC), suggesting that the antenna polarization is a function of the spatial direction and providing new ideas for radar signal processing (RSP) and anti-jamming. It also discusses the design of an advanced signal-processing algorithm, and proposes new polarimetric and anti-jamming methods using antenna inherent properties. The book helps readers discover the potential of radar information processing and improve its anti-interference and target identification ability. It is of interest to university researchers, radar engineers and graduate students in computer science and electronics who wish to learn the core principles, methods, algorithms, and applications of RSP.

This book describes computational problems related to kernel density estimation (KDE) - one of the most important and widely used data smoothing techniques. A very detailed description of novel FFT-based algorithms for both KDE computations and bandwidth selection are presented. The theory of KDE appears to have matured and is now well developed and understood. However, there is not much progress observed in terms of performance improvements. This book is an attempt to remedy this. The book primarily addresses researchers and advanced graduate or postgraduate students who are interested in KDE and its computational aspects. The book contains both some background and much more sophisticated material, hence also more experienced researchers in the KDE area may find it interesting. The presented material is richly illustrated with many numerical examples using both artificial and real datasets. Also, a number of practical applications related to KDE are presented.

Wagman gives a broad, structured, and detailed account of advancing intellectual developments in both psychological and computational theories of the nature of problem- solving. Known for originating the PLATO computer-based Dilemma Counseling System, psychologist Wagman is the author of 17 books, including "Scientific Discovery Processes in Humans and Computers "(Praeger, 2000).

In this book, Professor Emeritus Morton Wagman gives a broad, structured, and detailed account of advancing intellectual developments in both psychological and computational theories of the nature of problem solving. Known for originating the PLATO computer-based Dilemma Counseling System, psychologist Wagman is the author of 17 books, including "Scientific Discovery Processes in Humans and Computers, "(Praeger, 2000)

Of special interest to readers will be Wagman's conclusion that artificial intelligence problem-solving systems are deepening and broadening theories of human problem solving from scientific to everyday approaches. Scholars and professionals in psychology, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science will consider this a volume a valuable addition to their collections.

Gathering 20 chapters contributed by respected experts, this book reports on the latest advances in and applications of sliding mode control in science and engineering. The respective chapters address applications of sliding mode control in the broad areas of chaos theory, robotics, electrical engineering, physics, chemical engineering, memristors, mechanical engineering, environmental engineering, finance, and biology. Special emphasis has been given to papers that offer practical solutions, and which examine design and modeling involving new types of sliding mode control such as higher order sliding mode control, terminal sliding mode control, super-twisting sliding mode control, and integral sliding mode control. This book serves as a unique reference guide to sliding mode control and its recent applications for graduate students and researchers with a basic knowledge of electrical and control systems engineering.

The book offers an integrated vision on Cloud and HPC, Big Data, Analytics and virtualization in computing-oriented manufacturing, combining information and communication technologies, service-oriented control of holonic architectures as well as enterprise integration solutions based on SOA principles. It is structured in eight parts, each one grouping research and trends in digital manufacturing and service oriented manufacturing control: Cloud and Cyber-Physical Systems for Smart Manufacturing, Reconfigurable and Self-organized Multi-Agent Systems for Industry and Service, Sustainability Issues in Intelligent Manufacturing Systems, Holonic and Multi-agent System Design for Industry and Service, Should Intelligent Manufacturing Systems be Dependable and Safe?, Service-oriented Management and Control of Manufacturing Systems, Engineering and Human Integration in Flexible and Reconfigurable Industrial Systems,Virtualization and Simulation in Computing-oriented Industry and Service.p>

This book explains how to teach better and presents the latest research on processing educational data and presents traditional statistical techniques as well as probabilistic, interval, and fuzzy approaches. Teaching is a very rewarding activity; it is also a very difficult one - because it is largely an art. There is a lot of advice on teaching available, but it is usually informal and is not easy to follow. To remedy this situation, it is reasonable to use techniques specifically designed to handle such imprecise knowledge: the fuzzy logic techniques. Since there are a large number of statistical studies of different teaching techniques, the authors combined statistical and fuzzy approaches to process the educational data in order to provide insights into improving all the stages of the education process: from forming a curriculum to deciding in which order to present the material to grading the assignments and exams. The authors do not claim to have solved all the problems of education. Instead they show, using numerous examples, that an innovative combination of different uncertainty techniques can improve teaching. The book offers teachers and instructors valuable advice and provides researchers in pedagogical and fuzzy areas with techniques to further advance teaching.

This book presents cutting-edge research on various ways to bridge the semantic gap in image and video analysis. The respective chapters address different stages of image processing, revealing that the first step is a future extraction, the second is a segmentation process, the third is object recognition, and the fourth and last involve the semantic interpretation of the image. The semantic gap is a challenging area of research, and describes the difference between low-level features extracted from the image and the high-level semantic meanings that people can derive from the image. The result greatly depends on lower level vision techniques, such as feature selection, segmentation, object recognition, and so on. The use of deep models has freed humans from manually selecting and extracting the set of features. Deep learning does this automatically, developing more abstract features at the successive levels. The book offers a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, students and professors in Computer Engineering, Computer Science and related fields whose work involves images, video analysis, image interpretation and so on.

This volume consists of 52 peer-reviewed papers, presented at the International Conference on Sustainable Design and Manufacturing (SDM-19) held in Budapest, Hungary in July 2019. Leading-edge research into sustainable design and manufacturing aims to enable the manufacturing industry to grow by adopting more advanced technologies, and at the same time improve its sustainability by reducing its environmental impact. The topic includes the sustainable design of products and services; the sustainable manufacturing of all products; energy efficiency in manufacturing; innovation for eco-design; circular economy; industry 4.0; industrial metabolism; automotive and transportation systems. Application areas are wide and varied. The book will provide an excellent overview of the latest developments in the Sustainable Design and Manufacturing Area.

The healthcare industry is starting to adopt digital twins to improve personalized medicine, healthcare organization performance, and new medicine and devices. These digital twins can create useful models based on information from wearable devices, omics, and patient records to connect the dots across processes that span patients, doctors, and healthcare organizations as well as drug and device manufacturers. Digital twins are digital representations of human physiology built on computer models. The use of digital twins in healthcare is revolutionizing clinical processes and hospital management by enhancing medical care with digital tracking and advancing modelling of the human body. These tools are of great help to researchers in studying diseases, new drugs, and medical devices. Digital Twins and Healthcare: Trends, Techniques, and Challenges facilitates the advancement and knowledge dissemination in methodologies and applications of digital twins in the healthcare and medicine fields. This book raises interest and awareness of the uses of digital twins in healthcare in the research community. Covering topics such as deep neural network, edge computing, and transfer learning method, this premier reference source is an essential resource for hospital administrators, pharmacists, medical professionals, IT consultants, students and educators of higher education, librarians, and researchers.

This book presents recent research on the hybridization of intelligent methods, which refers to combining methods to solve complex problems. It discusses hybrid approaches covering different areas of intelligent methods and technologies, such as neural networks, swarm intelligence, machine learning, reinforcement learning, deep learning, agent-based approaches, knowledge-based system and image processing. The book includes extended and revised versions of invited papers presented at the 6th International Workshop on Combinations of Intelligent Methods and Applications (CIMA 2016), held in The Hague, Holland, in August 2016. The book is intended for researchers and practitioners from academia and industry interested in using hybrid methods for solving complex problems.

There are many different approaches to understanding human consciousness. By conducting research to better understand various biological mechanisms, these can be redefined and utilized for technological purposes. Advanced Research on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures is an essential reference source for the latest scholarly research on the biological elements of human cognition and examines the applications of consciousness within computing environments. Featuring exhaustive coverage on a broad range of innovative topics and perspectives, such as artificial intelligence, bio-robotics, and human-computer interaction, this publication is ideally designed for academics, researchers, professionals, graduate students, and practitioners seeking current research on the exploration of the intricacies of consciousness and different approaches of perception.

This book discusses the principle of automotive intelligent technology from the point of view of modern sensing and intelligent control. Based on the latest research in the field, it explores safe driving with intelligent vision; intelligent monitoring of dangerous driving; intelligent detection of automobile power and transmission systems; intelligent vehicle navigation and transportation systems; and vehicle-assisted intelligent technology. It draws on the author's research in the field of automotive intelligent technology to explain the fundamentals of vehicle intelligent technology, from the information sensing principle to mathematical models and the algorithm basis, enabling readers to grasp the concepts of automotive intelligent technology. Opening up new scientific horizons and fostering innovative thinking, the book is a valuable resource for researchers as well as undergraduate and graduate students.

Complex problems usually cannot be solved by individual methods or techniques and require the synergism of more than one of them to be solved. This book presents a number of current efforts that use combinations of methods or techniques to solve complex problems in the areas of sentiment analysis, search in GIS, graph-based social networking, intelligent e-learning systems, data mining and recommendation systems. Most of them are connected with specific applications, whereas the rest are combinations based on principles. Most of the chapters are extended versions of the corresponding papers presented in CIMA-15 Workshop, which took place in conjunction with IEEE ICTAI-15, in November 2015. The rest are invited papers that responded to special call for papers for the book. The book is addressed to researchers and practitioners from academia or industry, who are interested in using combined methods in solving complex problems in the above areas.