This volume collects recent advances in nonlinear delay systems, with an emphasis on constructive generalized Lyapunov and predictive approaches that certify stability properties. The book is written by experts in the field and includes two chapters by Miroslav Krstic, to whom this volume is dedicated.  This volume is suitable for all researchers in mathematics and engineering who deal with nonlinear delay control problems and students who would like to understand the current state of the art in the control of nonlinear delay systems.

This book is concerned with the associated issues between the differing paradigms of academic and organizational computing infrastructures. Driven by the increasing impact Information Communication Technology (ICT) has on our working and social lives, researchers within the Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) field try and find ways to situate new hardware and software in rapidly changing socio-digital ecologies. Adopting a design-orientated research perspective, researchers from the European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies (EUSSET) elaborate on the challenges and opportunities  we face through the increasing permeation of society by ICT from  commercial, academic, design and organizational perspectives. Designing Socially Embedded Technologies in the Real-World is directed at researchers, industry practitioners and will be of great interest to any other societal actors who are involved with the design of IT systems.

This volume brings together contributions representing the state-of-the-art in new multimedia and future technology information research, currently a major topic in computer science and electronic engineering. Researchers aim to interoperate multimedia frameworks, transforming the way people work and interact with multimedia data. This book covers future information technology topics including digital and multimedia convergence, ubiquitous and pervasive computing, intelligent computing and applications, embedded systems, mobile and wireless communications, bio-inspired computing, grid and cloud computing, semantic web, human-centric computing and social networks, adaptive and context-aware computing, security and trust computing and related areas. Representing the combined proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering (MUE-15) and the 10th International Conference on Future Information Technology (Future Tech 2015), this book aims to provide a complete coverage of the areas outlined and to bring together researchers from academic and industry and other practitioners to share their research ideas, challenges and solutions. 

In this volume, top seismic experts and researchers from Europe and around the world, including the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) in the USA, present the most recent outcome of their work in experimental testing, as well as the results of the transnational access activities of external researchers who have used Europe's seven largest and most advanced seismic testing facilities in the framework of the Seismic Engineering Research Infrastructures for European Synergies (SERIES) Project financed by the European Commission in its 7th Framework Programme (2007-2013). This includes EU’s largest reaction wall facility, EU's four largest shaking table laboratories and its two major centrifuges. The work presented includes state-of-the-art research towards the seismic design, assessment and retrofitting of structures, as well as the development of innovative research toward new fundamental technologies and techniques promoting efficient and joint use of the research infrastructures. The contents of this volume demonstrate the fruits of the effort of the European Commission in supporting research in earthquake engineering.

This book examines the signal processing perspective in haptic teleoperation systems. This text covers the topics of prediction, estimation, architecture, data compression and error correction that can be applied to haptic teleoperation systems. The authors begin with an overview of haptic teleoperation systems, then look at a Bayesian approach to haptic teleoperation systems. They move onto a discussion of haptic data compression, haptic data digitization and forward error correction.

This timely book presents Applications in Recommender Systems which are making recommendations using machine learning algorithms trained via examples of content the user likes or dislikes. Recommender systems built on the assumption of availability of both positive and negative examples do not perform well when negative examples are rare. It is exactly this problem that the authors address in the monograph at hand. Specifically, the books approach is based on one-class classification methodologies that have been appearing in recent machine learning research. The blending of recommender systems and one-class classification provides a new very fertile field for research, innovation and development with potential applications in “big data� as well as “sparse data� problems. The book will be useful to researchers, practitioners and graduate students dealing with problems of extensive and complex data. It is intended for both the expert/researcher in the fields of Pattern Recognition, Machine Learning and Recommender Systems, as well as for the general reader in the fields of Applied and Computer Science who wishes to learn more about the emerging discipline of Recommender Systems and their applications. Finally, the book provides an extended list of bibliographic references which covers the relevant literature completely.

This book contains a selection of papers from the 16th International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling (SDH), the premier long-running forum in geographical information science. This collection offers readers exemplary contributions to geospatial scholarship and practice from the conference's 30th anniversary.

This book introduces new trends of theory and practice of information technologies in tourism. The book does not handle only the fundamental contribution, but also discusses innovative and emerging technologies to promote and develop new generation tourism informatics theory and their applications. Some chapters are concerned with data analysis, web technologies, social media and their case studies. Travel information on the web provided by travelers is very useful for other travelers make their travel plan. A chapter in this book proposes a method for interactive retrieval of information on accommodation facilities to support travelling customers in their travel preparations. Also an adaptive user interface for personalized transportation guidance system is proposed. Another chapter in this book shows a novel support system for the collaborative tourism planning by using the case reports that are collected via Internet. Also, a system for recommending hotels for the users is proposed and evaluated. Other chapters are concerned with recommendation, personalization and other emerging technologies.

This engaging volume celebrates the life and work of Theodor Holm “Ted� Nelson, a pioneer and legendary figure from the history of early computing. Presenting contributions from world-renowned computer scientists and figures from the media industry, the book delves into hypertext, the docuverse, Xanadu and other products of Ted Nelson’s unique mind. Features: includes a cartoon and a sequence of poems created in Nelson’s honor, reflecting his wide-ranging and interdisciplinary intellect; presents peer histories, providing a sense of the milieu that resulted from Nelson’s ideas; contains personal accounts revealing what it is like to collaborate directly with Nelson; describes Nelson’s legacy from the perspective of his contemporaries from the computing world; provides a contribution from Ted Nelson himself. With a broad appeal spanning computer scientists, science historians and the general reader, this inspiring collection reveals the continuing influence of the original visionary of the World Wide Web.

This work introduces a new method for analysing measured signals: nonlinear mode decomposition, or NMD. It justifies NMD mathematically, demonstrates it in several applications and explains in detail how to use it in practice. Scientists often need to be able to analyse time series data that include a complex combination of oscillatory modes of differing origin, usually contaminated by random fluctuations or noise. Furthermore, the basic oscillation frequencies of the modes may vary in time; for example, human blood flow manifests at least six characteristic frequencies, all of which wander in time. NMD allows us to separate these components from each other and from the noise, with immediate potential applications in diagnosis and prognosis. Mat Lab codes for rapid implementation are available from the author. NMD will most likely come to be used in a broad range of applications.

This book illustrates how Interactive Systems can help elderly and disabled populations engage with the world around them by finding methods of overcoming the difficulties these communities face when using such systems by presenting the latest in state-of-the-art technology and providing a vision for accessibility for the near future. The challenges faced by accessibility practitioners are discussed and the different phases of delivering accessible products and services are explored. A collection of eminent researchers from around the world cover topics on developing and standardizing user models for inclusive design, adaptable multimodal system development for digital TV and ubiquitous devices, presenting research on intelligent voice recognition, adaptable pointing, browsing and navigation, and affect and gesture recognition. The research not only focuses on how these can be hugely beneficial to primary users, but often finding useful applications for their able-bodied counterparts. For this new edition, new chapters have been added focusing on the latest developments in games for the visually impaired, inclusive interfaces for  the agricultural industry in India and technologies to improve accessibility in broadcasting in Japan. A Multimodal End-2-End Approach to Accessible Computing will be an invaluable resource for both researchers and practitioners alike.  

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 is a comprehensive collection of extended contributions from the Workshop on Computational Optimization 2014, held at Warsaw, Poland, September 7-10, 2014. The book presents recent advances in computational optimization. The volume includes important real problems like parameter settings for controlling processes in bioreactor and other processes, resource constrained project scheduling, infection distribution, molecule distance geometry, quantum computing, real-time management and optimal control, bin packing, medical image processing, localization the abrupt atmospheric contamination source and so on. It shows how to develop algorithms for them based on new metaheuristic methods like evolutionary computation, ant colony optimization, constrain programming and others. This research demonstrates how some real-world problems arising in engineering, economics, medicine and other domains can be formulated as optimization tasks.

The purpose of this book is to examine the geospatial and temporal linkage between offshore supply vessels and oil and gas activity in the Outer Continental Shelf Gulf of Mexico, and to model OSV activity expected to result from future lease sales. Oil and gas operations occur throughout the world wherever commercial accumulations exist, but no quantitative assessment has ever been performed on the marine vessels that support offshore activity. The OCS Gulf of Mexico is the largest and most prolific offshore oil and gas basin in the world, and a large number of marine vessels are engaged in operations in the region, but tracking their activity is difficult and requires specialized data sources and the development of empirical models. The challenge of modeling arises from the complexity and size of the system, and the particular limitations governing stochastic difficult-to-observe networks. This book bridges the gap with the latest technological perspective and provides insight and computational methods to inform and better understand the offshore sector. Offshore Service Industry and Logistics Modeling in the Gulf of Mexico is presented in three parts.  In Part 1, background information on the life cycle stages of offshore development and activity is reviewed, along with a description of the service vessels and port infrastructure in the region.  In Part 2, OSV activity in the Gulf of Mexico is baselined using PortVision data to establish spatial and temporal characteristics of vessel activity. In Part 3, the analytic framework used to quantify the connection between OSVs, ports, and offshore activity is described, and activity expected to arise from the 2012-2017 OCS lease program is forecast. Providing an invaluable resource for academics and researchers, this book is also intended for government regulators, energy and environmental analysts, industry professionals, and others interested in this often-overlooked sector.

Collaboration in highly distributed organizations of people, robots, and autonomous systems is and must be revolutionized by engineering augmentation. The aim is to augment humans’ abilities at work and, through this augmentation, improve organizations’ abilities to accomplish their missions. This book establishes the theoretical foundations and design principles of collaborative e-Work, e-Business and e-Service, their models and applications, design and implementation techniques. The fundamental premise is that without effective e-Work and e-Services, the potential of emerging activities, such as e-Commerce, virtual manufacturing, tele-robotic medicine, automated construction, smart energy grid, cyber-supported agriculture, and intelligent transportation cannot be fully materialized. Typically, workers and managers of such value networks are frustrated with complex information systems, originally designed and built to simplify and improve performance. Even if the human-computer interface for such systems is well designed, the information and task overloads can be overwhelming. Effective delivery of expected outcomes may not occur. Challenges and emerging solutions in the context of the recently developed CCT, Collaborative Control Theory, are described, with emphasis on issues of computer-supported and communication-enabled integration, coordination and augmented collaboration. Research results and analyses of engineering design methods and complex systems management techniques are explained and illustrated.

This volume contains nineteen research papers belonging to the areas of computational statistics, data mining, and their applications. Those papers, all written specifically for this volume, are their authors’ contributions to honour and celebrate Professor Jacek Koronacki on the occcasion of his 70th birthday. The book’s related and often interconnected topics, represent Jacek Koronacki’s research interests and their evolution. They also clearly indicate how close the areas of computational statistics and data mining are.

“Propagation, which looks at spreading in complex networks, can be seen from many viewpoints; it is undesirable, or desirable, controllable, the mechanisms generating that propagation can be the topic of interest, but in the end all depends on the setting. This book covers leading research on a wide spectrum of propagation phenomenon and the techniques currently used in its modelling, prediction, analysis and control. Fourteen papers range over topics including epidemic models, models for trust inference, coverage strategies for networks, vehicle flow propagation, bio-inspired routing algorithms, P2P botnet attacks and defences, fault propagation in gene-cellular networks, malware propagation for mobile networks, information propagation in crisis situations, financial contagion in interbank networks, and finally how to maximize the spread of influence in social networks. The compendium will be of interest to researchers, those working in social networking, communications and finance and is aimed at providing a base point for further studies on current research. Above all, by bringing together research from such diverse fields, the book seeks to cross-pollinate ideas, and give the reader a glimpse of the breath of current research.�

This book presents several intelligent approaches for tackling and solving challenging practical problems facing those in the petroleum geosciences and petroleum industry. Written by experienced academics, this book offers state-of-the-art working examples and provides the reader with exposure to the latest developments in the field of intelligent methods applied to oil and gas research, exploration and production. It also analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of each method presented using benchmarking, whilst also emphasizing essential parameters such as robustness, accuracy, speed of convergence, computer time, overlearning and the role of normalization. The intelligent approaches presented include artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic, active learning method, genetic algorithms and support vector machines, amongst others. Integration, handling data of immense size and uncertainty, and dealing with risk management are among crucial issues in petroleum geosciences. The problems we have to solve in this domain are becoming too complex to rely on a single discipline for effective solutions and the costs associated with poor predictions (e.g. dry holes) increase. Therefore, there is a need to establish a new approach aimed at proper integration of disciplines (such as petroleum engineering, geology, geophysics and geochemistry), data fusion, risk reduction and uncertainty management. These intelligent techniques can be used for uncertainty analysis, risk assessment, data fusion and mining, data analysis and interpretation, and knowledge discovery, from diverse data such as 3-D seismic, geological data, well logging, and production data. This book is intended for petroleum scientists, data miners, data scientists and professionals and post-graduate students involved in petroleum industry.

The papers in this volume aim at obtaining a common understanding of the challenging research questions in web applications comprising web information systems, web services, and web interoperability; obtaining a common understanding of verification needs in web applications; achieving a common understanding of the available rigorous approaches to system development, and the cases in which they have succeeded; identifying how rigorous software engineering methods can be exploited to develop suitable web applications; and at developing a European-scale research agenda combining theory, methods and tools that would lead to suitable web applications with the potential to implement systems for computation in the public domain.

This book covers a wide spectrum of systems such as linear and nonlinear multivariable systems as well as control problems such as disturbance, uncertainty and time-delays. The purpose of this book is to provide researchers and practitioners a manual for the design and application of advanced discrete-time controllers. The book presents six different control approaches depending on the type of system and control problem. The first and second approaches are based on Sliding Mode control (SMC) theory and are intended for linear systems with exogenous disturbances. The third and fourth approaches are based on adaptive control theory and are aimed at linear/nonlinear systems with periodically varying parametric uncertainty or systems with input delay. The fifth approach is based on Iterative learning control (ILC) theory and is aimed at uncertain linear/nonlinear systems with repeatable tasks and the final approach is based on fuzzy logic control (FLC) and is intended for highly uncertain systems with heuristic control knowledge. Detailed numerical examples are provided in each chapter to illustrate the design procedure for each control method. A number of practical control applications are also presented to show the problem solving process and effectiveness with the advanced discrete-time control approaches introduced in this book.

This volume is devoted to interactive and iterative processes of decision-making– I2 Fuzzy Decision Making, in brief. Decision-making is inherently interactive. Fuzzy sets help realize human-machine communication in an efficient way by facilitating a two-way interaction in a friendly and transparent manner. Human-centric interaction is of paramount relevance as a leading guiding design principle of decision support systems. The volume provides the reader with an updated and in-depth material on the conceptually appealing and practically sound methodology and practice of I2 Fuzzy Decision Making. The book engages a wealth of methods of fuzzy sets and Granular Computing, brings new concepts, architectures and practice of fuzzy decision-making providing the reader with various application studies. The book is aimed at a broad audience of researchers and practitioners in numerous disciplines in which decision-making processes play a pivotal role and serve as a vehicle to produce solutions to existing problems. Those involved in operations research, management, various branches of engineering, social sciences, logistics, and economics will benefit from the exposure to the subject matter. The book may serve as a useful and timely reference material for graduate students and senior undergraduate students in courses on decision-making, Computational Intelligence, operations research, pattern recognition, risk management, and knowledge-based systems.

This book is written as an introduction to annotated logics. It provides logical foundations for annotated logics, discusses some interesting applications of these logics and also includes the authors' contributions to annotated logics. The central idea of the book is to show how annotated logic can be applied as a tool to solve problems of technology and of applied science. The book will be of interest to pure and applied logicians, philosophers and computer scientists as a monograph on a kind of paraconsistent logic. But, the layman will also take profit from its reading.

This book represents an attempt to fully review the phenomenon of the blogosphere. The intention is to provide a reliable guide to understanding and analyzing the world of the unimaginable number of diverse blogs, each consisting of innumerable posts, which in their entirety form the blogosphere. We go on to answer the questions of how to grasp the complexity of the blogosphere and extract useful knowledge from it. In setting out to write this book, our central aim was to increase the reader’s awareness and understanding of the blogosphere phenomenon, including its structure and characteristics. This can be achieved through a better understanding of individual blogs and their particular technical characteristics, as well as a deeper knowledge of how a single blog is embedded and interconnected within the entire blogosphere. The shape and form of the blogosphere can be described using the analogy of different continents. In our description the defining features and characteristics of the continents are illustrated by paradigmatic example blogs. Following on from the structural analysis we provide details of the available methods and describe the complex challenge of automatically retrieving information from the abundance of data contained in the blogosphere. Finally, we present our blog search platform, called BLOGINTELLIGENCE and describe all the tools and features we have developed during the last couple of years to explore the blogosphere.  

This book proposes an applied epistemological framework for investigating science, social cognition and religious thinking based on inferential patterns that recur in the different domains. It presents human rationality as a tool that allows us to make sense of our (physical or social) surroundings. It shows that the resulting cognitive activity produces a broad spectrum of outputs, such as scientific models and experimentation, gossip and social networks, but also ancient and contemporary deities. The book consists of three parts, the first of which addresses scientific modeling and experimentation, and their application to the analysis of scientific rationality. Thus, this part continues the tradition of eco-cognitive epistemology and abduction studies. The second part deals with the relationship between social cognition and cognitive niche construction, i.e. the evolutionarily relevant externalization of knowledge onto the environment, while the third part focuses on what is commonly defined as “irrational�, thus being in a way dialectically opposed to the first part. Here, the author demonstrates that the “irrational� can be analyzed by applying the same epistemological approach used to study scientific rationality and social cognition; also in this case, we see the emergence of patterns of rationality that regulate the relationships between agents and their environment. All in all, the book offers a coherent and unitary account of human rationality, providing a basis for new conceptual connections and theoretical speculations.

The new multimedia standards (for example, MPEG-21) facilitate the seamless integration of multiple modalities into interoperable multimedia frameworks, transforming the way people work and interact with multimedia data. These key technologies and multimedia solutions interact and collaborate with each other in increasingly effective ways, contributing to the multimedia revolution and having a significant impact across a wide spectrum of consumer, business, healthcare, education, and governmental domains. This book aims to provide a complete coverage of the areas outlined and to bring together the researchers from academic and industry as well as practitioners to share ideas, challenges, and solutions relating to the multifaceted aspects of this field.