In the last decade we have seen the emergence of a new inter-disciplinary field concentrating on the understanding large networks which are dynamic, large, open, and have a structure that borders order and randomness. The field of Complex Networks has helped us better understand many complex phenomena such as spread of decease, protein interaction, social relationships, to name but a few.

The field of Complex Networks has received a major boost caused by the widespread availability of huge network data resources in the last years. One of the most surprising findings is that real networks behave very distinct from traditional assumptions of network theory. Traditionally, real networks were supposed to have a majority of nodes of about the same number of connections around an average. This is typically modeled by random graphs. But modern network research could show that the majority of nodes of real networks is very low connected, and, by contrast, there exists some nodes of very extreme connectivity (hubs).

The current theories coupled with the availability of data makes the field of Complex Networks (sometimes called Network Sciences) one of the most promising interdisciplinary disciplines of today. This sample of works in this book gives as a taste of what is in the horizon such controlling the dynamics of a network and in the network, using social interactions to improve urban planning, ranking in music, and the understanding knowledge transfer in influence networks."

This book covers diverse aspects of advanced computer and communication engineering, focusing specifically on industrial and manufacturing theory and applications of electronics, communications, computing and information technology. Experts in research, industry, and academia present the latest developments in technology, describe applications involving cutting-edge communication and computer systems and explore likely future directions. In addition, access is offered to numerous new algorithms that assist in solving computer and communication engineering problems. The book is based on presentations delivered at ICOCOE 2014, the 1st International Conference on Communication and Computer Engineering. It will appeal to a wide range of professionals in the field, including telecommunication engineers, computer engineers and scientists, researchers, academics and students.

This book addresses the impacts of various types of services such as infrastructure, platforms, software, and business processes that cloud computing and Big Data have introduced into business. Featuring chapters which discuss effective and efficient approaches in dealing with the inherent complexity and increasing demands in data science, a variety of application domains are covered. Various case studies by data management and analysis experts are presented in these chapters. Covered applications include banking, social networks, bioinformatics, healthcare, transportation and criminology. Highlighting the Importance of Big Data Management and Analysis for Various Applications will provide the reader with an understanding of how data management and analysis are adapted to these applications. This book will appeal to researchers and professionals in the field.

This book explains the application of recent advances in computational intelligence - algorithms, design methodologies, and synthesis techniques - to the design of integrated circuits and systems. It highlights new biasing and sizing approaches and optimization techniques and their application to the design of high-performance digital, VLSI, radio-frequency, and mixed-signal circuits and systems. This second of two related volumes addresses digital and network designs and applications, with 12 chapters grouped into parts on digital circuit design, network optimization, and applications. It will be of interest to practitioners and researchers in computer science and electronics engineering engaged with the design of electronic circuits.

This volume provides a comprehensive state of the art overview of a series of advanced trends and concepts that have recently been proposed in the area of green information technologies engineering as well as of design and development methodologies for models and complex systems architectures and their intelligent components. The contributions included in the volume have their roots in the authors' presentations, and vivid discussions that have followed the presentations, at a series of workshop and seminars held within the international TEMPUS-project GreenCo project in United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, Sweden and the Ukraine, during 2013-2015 and at the 1st - 5th Workshops on Green and Safe Computing (GreenSCom) held in Russia, Slovakia and the Ukraine. The book presents a systematic exposition of research on principles, models, components and complex systems and a description of industry- and society-oriented aspects of the green IT engineering. A chapter-oriented structure has been adopted for this book following a "vertical view" of the green IT, from hardware (CPU and FPGA) and software components to complex industrial systems. The 15 chapters of the book are grouped into five sections: (1) Methodology and Principles of Green IT Engineering for Complex Systems, (2) Green Components and Programmable Systems, (3) Green Internet Computing, Cloud and Communication Systems, (4) Modeling and Assessment of Green Computer Systems and Infrastructures, and (5) Gree

This book presents the methodology and techniques of thermographic applications with focus primarily on medical thermography implemented for parametrizing the diagnostics of the human body. The first part of the book describes the basics of infrared thermography, the possibilities of thermographic diagnostics and the physical nature of thermography. The second half includes tools of intelligent engineering applied for the solving of selected applications and projects. Thermographic diagnostics was applied to problematics of paraplegia and tetraplegia and carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). The results of the research activities were created with the cooperation of the four projects within the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic entitled Digital control of complex systems with two degrees of freedom, Progressive methods of education in the area of control and modeling of complex object oriented systems on aircraft turbocompressor engines, Center for research of control of technical, environmental and human risks for permanent development of production and products in mechanical engineering and Research of new diagnostic methods in invasive implantology.

What are the key channels to change in blended instructional practice as they relate to the use of a learning management system (LMS)? What role LMS users' profiles play in facilitating change in practice? Can we model users' quality of interaction (QoI) with LMS? How inclusiveness and affectiveness could lead to a personalized intelligent LMS (iLMS)? If these questions sound intrinsic to you and to your own experience and circumstance, then this book fits absolutely to you. Here, the term Blended - viewed as a fuzzy concept - is understood as a stepping-stone on the way to the future, to explain the multiple ways human beings think/act/feel of society in the 21st century and to embrace the opportunity of humans to re/co-construct new knowledge through the intermediation role of the technology. Initially, based on an online learning environment' theoretical framework, some current issues of the educational processes in the digital age of Web 2.0 are analyzed. Then, after exploring the main methodological procedures, characteristic examples of research case studies follow, including LMS users' trends and profiles and modeling of their QoI using fuzzy logic. This book offers useful information that evokes initiatives towards rethinking of the value, efficiency, inclusiveness, affectiveness and personalization of the iLMS-based b-learning environment, both by the educators, the LMS designers and educational policy decision makers.

This book contains research contributions from leading global scholars in nature-inspired computing. It includes comprehensive coverage of each respective topic, while also highlighting recent and future trends. The contributions provides readers with a snapshot of the state of the art in the field of nature-inspired computing and its application. This book has focus on the current researches while highlighting the empirical results along with theoretical concepts to provide a comprehensive reference for students, researchers, scholars, professionals and practitioners in the field of Advanced Artificial Intelligence, Nature-Inspired Algorithms and Soft Computing.

Addressing the open problem of engineering normative open systems using the multi-agent paradigm, normative open systems are explained as systems in which heterogeneous and autonomous entities and institutions coexist in a complex social and legal framework that can evolve to address the different and often conflicting objectives of the many stakeholders involved. Presenting a software engineering approach which covers both the analysis and design of these kinds of systems, and which deals with the open issues in the area, ROMAS (Regulated Open Multi-Agent Systems) defines a specific multi-agent architecture, meta-model, methodology and CASE tool. This CASE tool is based on Model-Driven technology and integrates the graphical design with the formal verification of some properties of these systems by means of model checking techniques. Utilizing tables to enhance reader insights into the most important requirements for designing normative open multi-agent systems, the book also provides a detailed and easy to understand description of the ROMAS approach and the advantages of using ROMAS. This method is illustrated with case studies, in which the reader may develop a comprehensive understanding of applying ROMAS to a given problem. The case studies are presented with illustrations of the developments. Reading this book will help readers to understand the increasing demand for normative open systems and their development requirements; understand how multi-agent systems approaches can be used to deal with the development of systems of this kind; to learn an easy to use and complete engineering method for large-scale and complex normative systems and to recognize how Model-Driven technology can be used to integrate the analysis, design, verification and implementation of multi-agent systems.

This book presents a collection of representative and novel work in the field of data mining, knowledge discovery, clustering and classification, based on expanded and reworked versions of a selection of the best papers originally presented in French at the EGC 2014 and EGC 2015 conferences held in Rennes (France) in January 2014 and Luxembourg in January 2015. The book is in three parts: The first four chapters discuss optimization considerations in data mining. The second part explores specific quality measures, dissimilarities and ultrametrics. The final chapters focus on semantics, ontologies and social networks. Written for PhD and MSc students, as well as researchers working in the field, it addresses both theoretical and practical aspects of knowledge discovery and management.

This volume presents recent research, challenging problems and solutions in Intelligent Systems- covering the following disciplines: artificial and computational intelligence, fuzzy logic and other non-classic logics, intelligent database systems, information retrieval, information fusion, intelligent search (engines), data mining, cluster analysis, unsupervised learning, machine learning, intelligent data analysis, (group) decision support systems, intelligent agents and multi-agent systems, knowledge-based systems, imprecision and uncertainty handling, electronic commerce, distributed systems, etc. The book defines a common ground for sometimes seemingly disparate problems and addresses them by using the paradigm of broadly perceived intelligent systems. It presents a broad panorama of a multitude of theoretical and practical problems which have been successfully dealt with using the paradigm of intelligent computing.

This book contains the extended papers presented at the 2nd Workshop on Supervised and Unsupervised Ensemble Methods and their Applications (SUEMA)heldon21-22July,2008inPatras,Greece,inconjunctionwiththe 18thEuropeanConferenceon Arti?cial Intelligence(ECAI 2008). This wo- shop was a successor of the smaller event held in 2007 in conjunction with 3rd Iberian Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis, Girona, Spain. The success of that event as well as the publication of workshop - pers in the edited book "Supervised and Unsupervised Ensemble Methods and their Applications", published by Springer-Verlag in Studies in Com- tational Intelligence Series in volume 126, encouraged us to continue a good tradition. The scope of both SUEMA workshops (hence, the book as well) is the application of theoretical ideas in the ?eld of ensembles of classi?cation and clusteringalgorithmstoreal/lifeproblemsinscienceandindustry. Ensembles, which represent a number of algorithms whose class or cluster membership predictions are combined together to produce a single outcome value, have alreadyprovedto be a viable alternativeto a single best algorithmin various practical tasks under di?erent scenarios, from bioinformatics to biometrics, from medicine to network security. The ensemble approach is caused to life by the famous "no free lunch" theorem, stating that there is no absolutely best algorithm to solve all problems. Although ensembles cannot be cons- ered as absolute remedy of a single algorithm de?ciency, it is widely believed thatensemblesprovideabetteranswerto"nofreelunch"theoremthanas- glebestalgorithm. Statistical,algorithmical,representational,computational and practical reasons can explain the success of ensemble methods.

This book presents innovative and high-quality research regarding the implementation of Semantic Web technologies for knowledge representation and developing intelligent applications in various domains. Semantic Web technologies have inspired many people to create innovative technologies and applications for knowledge representation, Semantic Searches, NLP and Social Networks. The goal of this book is to collect and consolidate novel and high-quality research contributions on Semantic Web technologies and their theoretical and practical application to a range of different domains. In addition to researchers, the book offers a valuable resource for PhD students, master and undergraduate students in IT-related fields such as Computer Science and Information Systems.

This collection of papers, published in honour of Hector J. Levesque on the occasion of his 60th birthday, addresses a number of core areas in the field of knowledge representation and reasoning. In a broad sense, the book is about knowledge and belief, tractable reasoning, and reasoning about action and change. More specifically, the book contains contributions to Description Logics, the expressiveness of knowledge representation languages, limited forms of inference, satisfiablity (SAT), the logical foundations of BDI architectures, only-knowing, belief revision, planning, causation, the situation calculus, the action language Golog, and cognitive robotics.

Adaptation and personalization have been extensively studied in CSCL research community aiming to design intelligent systems that adaptively support eLearning processes and collaboration. Yet, with the fast development in Internet technologies, especially with the emergence of new data technologies and the mobile technologies, new opportunities and perspectives are opened for advanced adaptive and personalized systems. Adaptation and personalization are posing new research and development challenges to nowadays CSCL systems. In particular, adaptation should be focused in a multi-dimensional way (cognitive, technological, context-aware and personal). Moreover, it should address the particularities of both individual learners and group collaboration. As a consequence, the aim of this book is twofold. On the one hand, it discusses the latest advances and findings in the area of intelligent adaptive and personalized learning systems. On the other hand it analyzes the new implementation perspectives for intelligent adaptive learning and collaborative systems that are brought by the advances in scripting languages, IMS LD, educational modeling languages and learning activity management systems. Given the variety of learning needs as well as the existence of different technological solutions, the book exemplifies the methodologies and best practices through several case studies and adaptive real-world collaborative learning scenarios, which show the advancement in the field of analysis, design and implementation of intelligent adaptive and personalized systems.

This book describes the advances and applications in Sliding mode control (SMC) which is widely used as a powerful method to tackle uncertain nonlinear systems. The book is organized into 21 chapters which have been organised by the editors to reflect the various themes of sliding mode control. The book provides the reader with a broad range of material from first principles up to the current state of the art in the area of SMC and observation presented in a clear, matter-of-fact style. As such it is appropriate for graduate students with a basic knowledge of classical control theory and some knowledge of state-space methods and nonlinear systems. The resulting design procedures are emphasized using Matlab/Simulink software.

This carefully edited volume aims at providing readers with the most recent progress on intelligent autonomous systems, with its particular emphasis on intelligent autonomous ground, aerial and underwater vehicles as well as service robots for home and healthcare under the context of the aforementioned convergence. "Frontiers of Intelligent Autonomous Systems" includes thoroughly revised and extended papers selected from the 12th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS-12), held in Jeju, Korea, June 26-29, 2012. The editors chose 35 papers out of the 202 papers presented at IAS-12 which are organized into three chapters: Chapter 1 is dedicated to autonomous navigation and mobile manipulation, Chapter 2 to unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles and Chapter 3 to service robots for home and healthcare. To help the readers to easily access this volume, each chapter starts with a chapter summary introduced by one of the editors: Chapter 1 by Sukhan Lee, Chapter 2 by Kwang Joon Yoon and Chapter 3 by Jangmyung Lee.

The present book includes extended and revised versions of a set of selected papers from the Fourth International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence (IJCCI 2012)., held in Barcelona, Spain, from 5 to 7 October, 2012. The conference was sponsored by the Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information, Control and Communication (INSTICC) and was organized in cooperation with the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). The conference brought together researchers, engineers and practitioners in computational technologies, especially those related to the areas of fuzzy computation, evolutionary computation and neural computation. It is composed of three co-located conferences, each one specialized in one of the aforementioned -knowledge areas. Namely: - International Conference on Evolutionary Computation Theory and Applications (ECTA) - International Conference on Fuzzy Computation Theory and Applications (FCTA) - International Conference on Neural Computation Theory and Applications (NCTA) Recent progresses in scientific developments and applications in these three areas are reported in this book This book includes revised and extended versions of a strict selection of the best papers presented at the conference.

The Finite Element Method, shortly FEM, is a widely used computational tool in structural engineering. For basic design purposes it usually suf ces to apply a linear-elastic analysis. Only for special structures and for forensic investigations the analyst need to apply more advanced features like plasticity and cracking to account for material nonlinearities, or nonlinear relations between strains and displacements for geometrical nonlinearity to account for buckling. Advanced analysis techniques may also be necessary if we have to judge the remaining structural capacity of aging structures. In this book we will abstain from such special cases and focus on everyday jobs. Our goal is the worldwide everyday use of linear-elastic analysis, and dimensioning on basis of these elastic computations. We cover steel and concrete structures, though attention to structural concrete prevails. Structural engineers have access to powerful FEM packages and apply them intensively. Experience makes clear that often they do not understand the software that they are using. This book aims to be a bridge between the software world and structural engineering. Many problems are related to the correct input data and the proper interpretation and handling of output. The book is neither a text on the Finite Element Method, nor a user manual for the software packages. Rather it aims to be a guide to understanding and handling the results gained by such software. We purposely restrict ourselves to structure types which frequently occur in practise.

This book presents emerging trends in the evolution of service-oriented and enterprise architectures. New architectures and methods of both business and IT are integrating services to support mobility systems, Internet of Things, Ubiquitous Computing, collaborative and adaptive business processes, Big Data, and Cloud ecosystems. They inspire current and future digital strategies and create new opportunities for the digital transformation of next digital products and services. Services Oriented Architectures (SOA) and Enterprise Architectures (EA) have emerged as a useful framework for developing interoperable, large-scale systems, typically implementing various standards, like Web Services, REST, and Microservices. Managing the adaptation and evolution of such systems presents a great challenge. Service-Oriented Architecture enables flexibility through loose coupling, both between the services themselves and between the IT organizations that manage them. Enterprises evolve continuously by transforming and extending their services, processes and information systems. Enterprise Architectures provide a holistic blueprint to help define the structure and operation of an organization with the goal of determining how an organization can most effectively achieve its objectives. The book proposes several approaches to address the challenges of the service-oriented evolution of digital enterprise and software architectures.

This book discusses human-machine interactions, specifically focusing on making them as natural as human-human interaction. It is based on the premise that to get the right connect between human and machines, it is essential to understand not only the behavior of the person interacting with the machine, but also the limitations of the technology. Firstly, the authors review the evolution of language as a spontaneous, natural phenomenon in the overall scheme of the evolutionary development of living beings. They then go on to examine the possible approaches to understanding and representing the meaning and the common aspects of human-human and human-machine interactions, and introduce the keyconcept-keyword (also called minimal parsing) approach as a convenient and realistic way to implement usable human-machine interface (HMI) systems. For researchers looking for practical approaches, way beyond the realms of theory, this book is a must read.

The human capacity to abstract complex systems and phenomena into simplified models has played a critical role in the rapid evolution of our modern industrial processes and scienti c research. As a science and an art, Modelling and Simulation have been one of the core enablers of this remarkable human trace, and have become a topic of great importance for researchers and practitioners.

This book was created to compile some of the most recent concepts, advances, challenges and ideas associated with Intelligent Modelling and Simulation frameworks, tools and applications. The rst chapter discusses the important aspects of a human interaction and the correct interpretation of results during simulations. The second chapter gets to the heart of the analysis of entrepreneurship by means of agent-based modelling and simulations.

The following three chapters bring together the central theme of simulation frameworks, rst describing an agent-based simulation framework, then a simulator for electrical machines, and nally an airborne network emulation environment. The two subsequent chapters discuss power distribution networks from different points of view-anticipation and optimization of multi-echelon inventory policy. After that, the book includes also a group of chapters discussing the mathematical modelling supported by veri cation simulations, and a set of chapters with models synthesised by means of arti cial intelligence tools and complex automata framework. Lastly, the book includes a chapter introducing the use of graph-grammar model for generation of threedimensional computational meshes and a chapter focused on the experimental and computational results regarding simulation of aero engine vortexes. Authors believe, that this book is a valuable reference to researchers and practitioners in the eld, as well as an inspiration to those interested in the area of Intelligent Modelling and Simulation.

From the inventor of the PalmPilot comes a new and compelling theory of intelligence, brain function, and the future of intelligent machines
Jeff Hawkins, the man who created the PalmPilot, Treo smart phone, and other handheld devices, has reshaped our relationship to computers. Now he stands ready to revolutionize both neuroscience and computing in one stroke, with a new understanding of intelligence itself.
Hawkins develops a powerful theory of how the human brain works, explaining why computers are not intelligent and how, based on this new theory, we can finally build intelligent machines.
The brain is not a computer, but a memory system that stores experiences in a way that reflects the true structure of the world, remembering sequences of events and their nested relationships and making predictions based on those memories. It is this memory-prediction system that forms the basis of intelligence, perception, creativity, and even consciousness.
In an engaging style that will captivate audiences from the merely curious to the professional scientist, Hawkins shows how a clear understanding of how the brain works will make it possible for us to build intelligent machines, in silicon, that will exceed our human ability in surprising ways.
Written with acclaimed science writer Sandra Blakeslee, "On Intelligence" promises to completely transfigure the possibilities of the technology age. It is a landmark book in its scope and clarity.

Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems 2008 (June 24-27, 2008; S o Lu s, Brazil) brought together leading scientists and engineers who use analytic, syntactic and computational methods both to understand the prodigious processing properties of biological systems and, specifically, of the brain, and to exploit such knowledge to advance computational methods towards ever higher levels of cognitive competence.

This book includes the papers presented at four major symposia:

Part I - Cognitive Neuroscience

Part II - Biologically Inspired Systems

Part III - Neural Computation

Part IV - Models of Consciousness.

The Handbook on Socially Interactive Agents provides a comprehensive overview of the research fields of Embodied Conversational Agents, Intelligent Virtual Agents, and Social Robotics. Socially Interactive Agents (SIAs), whether virtually or physically embodied, are autonomous agents that are able to perceive an environment including people or other agents, reason, decide how to interact, and express attitudes such as emotions, engagement, or empathy. They are capable of interacting with people and one another in a socially intelligent manner using multimodal communicative behaviors, with the goal to support humans in various domains. Written by international experts in their respective fields, the book summarizes research in the many important research communities pertinent for SIAs, while discussing current challenges and future directions. The handbook provides easy access to modeling and studying SIAs for researchers and students, and aims at further bridging the gap between the research communities involved. In two volumes, the book clearly structures the vast body of research. The first volume starts by introducing what is involved in SIAs research, in particular research methodologies and ethical implications of developing SIAs. It further examines research on appearance and behavior, focusing on multimodality. Finally, social cognition for SIAs is investigated using different theoretical models and phenomena such as theory of mind or pro-sociality. The second volume starts with perspectives on interaction, examined from different angles such as interaction in social space, group interaction, or long-term interaction. It also includes an extensive overview summarizing research and systems of human-agent platforms and of some of the major application areas of SIAs such as education, aging support, autism, and games.