This book presents the latest scientific research related to the field of Robotics. It involves different topics such as biomedicine, energy efficiency and home automation and robotics. The book is written by technical experts and researchers from academia and industry working on robotics applications. The book could be used as supplementary material for courses related to Robotics and Domotics.

This book provides an overview of state-of-the-art research on “Systems and Optimization Aspects of Smart Grid Challenges.� The authors have compiled and integrated different aspects of applied systems optimization research to smart grids, and also describe some of its critical challenges and requirements. The promise of a smarter electricity grid could significantly change how consumers use and pay for their electrical power, and could fundamentally reshape the current Industry. Gaining increasing interest and acceptance, Smart Grid technologies combine power generation and delivery systems with advanced communication systems to help save energy, reduce energy costs and improve reliability. Taken together, these technologies support new approaches for load balancing and power distribution, allowing optimal runtime power routing and cost management. Such unprecedented capabilities, however, also present a set of new problems and challenges at the technical and regulatory levels that must be addressed by Industry and the Research Community.

This book presents the result of a joint effort from different European Institutions within the framework of the EU funded project called SPARK II, devoted to device an insect brain computational model, useful to be embedded into autonomous robotic agents. Part I reports the biological background on Drosophila melanogaster with particular attention to the main centers which are used as building blocks for the implementation of the insect brain computational model. Part II reports the mathematical approach to model the Central Pattern Generator used for the gait generation in a six-legged robot. Also the Reaction-diffusion principles in non-linear lattices are exploited to develop a compact internal representation of a dynamically changing environment for behavioral planning. In Part III a software/hardware framework, developed to integrate the insect brain computational model in a simulated/real robotic platform, is illustrated. The different robots used for the experiments are also described. Moreover the problems related to the vision system were addressed proposing robust solutions for object identification and feature extraction. Part IV includes the relevant scenarios used in the experiments to test the capabilities of the insect brain-inspired architecture taking as comparison the biological case. Experimental results are finally reported, whose multimedia can be found in the SPARK II web page: www.spark2.diees.unict.it

This book includes extended and revised versions of a set of selected papers from the Ninth International Conference on Informatics in Control Automation and Robotics (ICINCO 2012), held in Rome, Italy, from 28 to 31 July 2012. The conference was organized in four simultaneous tracks: Intelligent Control Systems and Optimization, Robotics and Automation, Systems Modeling, Signal Processing and Control and Industrial Engineering, Production and Management.   ICINCO 2012 received 360 paper submissions, from 58 countries in all continents. From these, after a blind review process, only 40 were accepted as full papers, of which 20 were selected for inclusion in this book, based on the classifications provided by the Program Committee. The selected papers reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the conference as well as the logic equilibrium between the four abovementioned tracks. The diversity of topics is an important feature of this conference, enabling an overall perception of several important scientific and technological trends.

Metaheuristics exhibit desirable properties like simplicity, easy parallelizability and ready applicability to different types of optimization problems such as real parameter optimization, combinatorial optimization and mixed integer optimization. They are thus beginning to play a key role in different industrially important process engineering applications, among them the synthesis of heat and mass exchange equipment, synthesis of distillation columns and static and dynamic optimization of chemical and bioreactors. This book explains cutting-edge research techniques in related computational intelligence domains and their applications in real-world process engineering. It will be of interest to industrial practitioners and research academics.

This book summarizes research carried out in workshops of the SAGA project, an Initial Training Network exploring the interplay of Shapes, Algebra, Geometry and Algorithms. Written by a combination of young and experienced researchers, the book introduces new ideas in an established context. Among the central topics are approximate and sparse implicitization and surface parametrization; algebraic tools for geometric computing; algebraic geometry for computer aided design applications and problems with industrial applications. Readers will encounter new methods for the (approximate) transition between the implicit and parametric representation; new algebraic tools for geometric computing; new applications of isogeometric analysis and will gain insight into the emerging research field situated between algebraic geometry and computer aided geometric design.

The increasing penetration of IT in organizations calls for an integrative perspective on enterprises and their supporting information systems. MERODE offers an intuitive and practical approach to enterprise modelling and using these models as core for building enterprise information systems. From a business analyst perspective, benefits of the approach are its simplicity and the possibility to evaluate the consequences of modeling choices through fast prototyping, without requiring any technical experience. The focus on domain modelling ensures the development of a common language for talking about essential business concepts and of a shared understanding of business rules. On the construction side, experienced benefits of the approach are a clear separation between specification and implementation, more generic and future-proof systems, and an improved insight in the cost of changes. A first distinguishing feature is the method’s grounding in process algebra provides clear criteria and practical support for model quality. Second, the use of the concept of business events provides a deep integration between structural and behavioral aspects. The clear and intuitive semantics easily extend to application integration (COTS software and Web Services). Students and practitioners are the book’s main target audience, as both groups will benefit from its practical advice on how to create complete models which combine structural and behavioral views of a system-to-be and which can readily be transformed into code, and on how to evaluate the quality of those models. In addition, researchers in the area of conceptual or enterprise modelling will find a concise overview of the main findings related to the MERODE project. The work is complemented by a wealth of extra material on the author’s web page at KU Leuven, including a free CASE tool with code generator, a collection of cases with solutions, and a set of domain modelling patterns that have been developed on the basis of the method’s use in industry and government.

This book illustrates in detail how digital video can be utilized throughout a design process, from the early user studies, through making sense of the video content and envisioning the future with video scenarios, to provoking change with video artifacts. The text offers first-hand case studies in both academic and industrial contexts, and is complemented by video excerpts. It is a must-read for those wishing to create value through insightful design.

Machine learning is concerned with the analysis of large data and multiple variables. It is also often more sensitive than traditional statistical methods to analyze small data. The first and second volumes reviewed subjects like optimal scaling, neural networks, factor analysis, partial least squares, discriminant analysis, canonical analysis, fuzzy modeling, various clustering models, support vector machines, Bayesian networks, discrete wavelet analysis, association rule learning, anomaly detection, and correspondence analysis. This third volume addresses more advanced methods and includes subjects like evolutionary programming, stochastic methods, complex sampling, optional binning, Newton's methods, decision trees, and other subjects. Both the theoretical bases and the step by step analyses are described for the benefit of non-mathematical readers. Each chapter can be studied without the need to consult other chapters. Traditional statistical tests are, sometimes, priors to machine learning methods, and they are also, sometimes, used as contrast tests. To those wishing to obtain more knowledge of them, we recommend to additionally study (1) Statistics Applied to Clinical Studies 5th Edition 2012, (2) SPSS for Starters Part One and Two 2012, and (3) Statistical Analysis of Clinical Data on a Pocket Calculator Part One and Two 2012, written by the same authors, and edited by Springer, New York.

Today, as hundreds of genomes have been sequenced and thousands of proteins and more than ten thousand metabolites have been identi?ed, navigating safely through this wealth of information without getting completely lost has become crucial for research in, and teaching of, molecular biology. Consequently, a considerable number of tools have been developed and put on the market in the last two decades that describe the multitude of potential/putative interactions between genes, proteins, metabolites, and other biologically relevant compounds in terms of metabolic, genetic, signaling, and other networks, their aim being to support all sorts of explorations through bio-data bases currently called Systems Biology. As a result, navigating safely through this wealth of information-processing tools has become equally crucial for successful work in molecular biology. To help perform such navigation tasks successfully, this book starts by providing an extremely useful overview of existing tools for ?nding (or designing) and inv- tigating metabolic, genetic, signaling, and other network databases, addressing also user-relevant practical questions like • Is the database viewable through a web browser? • Is there a licensing fee? • What is the data type (metabolic, gene regulatory, signaling, etc. )? • Is the database developed/maintained by a curator or a computer? • Is there any software for editing pathways? • Is it possible to simulate the pathway? It then goes on to introduce a speci?c such tool, that is, the fabulous “Cell - lustrator 3. 0� tool developed by the authors.

“We live in the age of data. In the last few years, the methodology of extracting insights from data or "data science" has emerged as a discipline in its own right. The R programming language has become one-stop solution for all types of data analysis. The growing popularity of R is due its statistical roots and a vast open source package library. The goal of “Beginning Data Science with R� is to introduce the readers to some of the useful data science techniques and their implementation with the R programming language. The book attempts to strike a balance between the how: specific processes and methodologies, and understanding the why: going over the intuition behind how a particular technique works, so that the reader can apply it to the problem at hand. This book will be useful for readers who are not familiar with statistics and the R programming language.

In this completely updated edition covering Excel 2021, Microsoft 365, and previous versions, Microsoft Excel Functions & Formulas 6/E demonstrates the secrets of Excel through the use of practical and useful examples in a quick reference format. New chapters have been added on data analytics and shortcut keys. The book's extensive examples and additional video tutorials make it an excellent resource for all Excel users who want to understand, create, and apply formulas. Experienced users will also find it to be an excellent reference for the program's advanced formulas and functions. The text is easy to understand with numerous step-by-step instructions and the actual, ready to use, Excel screenshots of the input and output from the formulas. The book includes companion files with video tutorials, over 250 worksheet files of examples for numerous functions, formulas, and all the figures from the text. Features Includes companion files with new video tutorials, over 250 Excel worksheet examples, and all of the figures from the text (including 4-color) Adds new chapters on data analytics and shortcut keys Completely updated to cover Excel 2021, Microsoft 365, and previous versions

The 6th International Conference in Methodologies and intelligent Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning held in Seville (Spain) is host by the University of Seville from 1st to 3rd June, 2016. The 6th edition of this conference expands the topics of the evidence-based TEL workshops series in order to provide an open forum for discussing intelligent systems for TEL, their roots in novel learning theories, empirical methodologies for their design or evaluation, stand-alone solutions or web-based ones. It intends to bring together researchers and developers from industry, the education field and the academic world to report on the latest scientific research, technical advances and methodologies.

Nikolaos Karras behandelt die Senkung des Kühlenergiebedarfs batterieelektrischer Fahrzeuge als Beitrag zur Reichweitensteigerung. Kernaspekt ist hierbei die Untersuchung neuer, effizienterer Wassermantelgeometrien für Elektromotoren, die über eine hohe Wärmeabfuhr bei gleichzeitig geringem Druckverlust verfügen. Neben gängigen Geometrien werden auch alternative Strukturen untersucht. Die Analyse und Beurteilung erfolgt rein numerisch durch ein validiertes 3D-Simulationswerkzeug. Zur zusätzlichen Entlastung des Fahrzeugenergiespeichers werden weitere Kühlkreislauf- bzw. Fahrzeugparameter betrachtet. Für die Bewertung der einzelnen Maßnahmen dient eine 1D-Simulationsumgebung des Elektrofahrzeugs. Dessen Validierung erfolgt durch Klimawindkanal- sowie Streckentests. Abschließend wird die Basis-Fahrzeugkonfiguration mit der optimierten Fahrzeugkonfiguration verglichen.

Through Silicon Via (TSV) is a key technology for realizing three-dimensional integrated circuits (3D ICs) for future high-performance and low-power systems with small form factors. This book covers both qualitative and quantitative approaches to give insights of modeling TSV in a various viewpoints such as signal integrity, power integrity and thermal integrity. Most of the analysis in this book includes simulations, numerical modelings and measurements for verification. The author and co-authors in each chapter have studied deep into TSV for many years and the accumulated technical know-hows and tips for related subjects are comprehensively covered.

How the autonomous digital forces jolting our lives - as uncontrollable as the weather and plate tectonics - are transforming life, society, culture, and politics. David Auerbach's exploration of the phenomenon he has identified as the meganet begins with a simple, startling revelation: There is no hand on the tiller of some of the largest global digital forces that influence our daily lives: from corporate sites such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit to the burgeoning metaverse encompassing cryptocurrencies and online gaming to government systems such as China's Social Credit System and India's Aadhaar. As we increasingly integrate our society, culture and politics within a hyper-networked fabric, Auerbach explains how the interactions of billions of people with unfathomably large online networks have produced a new sort of beast: ever-changing systems that operate beyond the control of the individuals, companies, and governments that created them. Meganets, Auerbach explains, have a life of their own, actively resisting attempts to control them as they accumulate data and produce spontaneous, unexpected social groups and uprisings that could not have even existed twenty years ago. And they constantly modify themselves in response to user behavior, resulting in collectively authored algorithms none of us intend or control. These enormous invisible organisms exerting great force on our lives are the new minds of the world, increasingly commandeering our daily lives and inner realities. Auerbach's analysis of these gargantuan opaque digital forces yield important insights such as: - The conventional wisdom that the Googles and Facebook of this world are tightly run algorithmic entities is a myth. No one is really in control. - The efforts at reform - to get lies and misinformation off meganets - run into a brick wall because the companies and executives who run them are trapped by the persistent, evolving, and opaque systems they have created. - Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are uncontrollable and their embrace by elite financial institutions threatens the entire economy - We are asking the wrong questions in assuming that if only the Facebooks of this world could be better regulated or broken up that they would be better, more ethical citizens - Why questions such as making algorithms fair and bias-free and whether AI can be a tool for good or evil are wrong and misinformed Auerbach then comes full circle, showing that while we cannot ultimately control meganets we can tame them through the counterintuitive measures he describes in detail.

This book focuses on the development of 3D design and implementation methodologies for Tree-based FPGA architecture. It also stresses the needs for new and augmented 3D CAD tools to support designs such as, the design for 3D, to manufacture high performance 3D integrated circuits and reconfigurable FPGA-based systems. This book was written as a text that covers the foundations of 3D integrated system design and FPGA architecture design. It was written for the use in an elective or core course at the graduate level in field of Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering and Doctoral Research programs. No previous background on 3D integration is required, nevertheless fundamental understanding of 2D CMOS VLSI design is required. It is assumed that reader has taken the core curriculum in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering, with courses like CMOS VLSI design, Digital System Design and Microelectronics Circuits being the most important. It is accessible for self-study by both senior students and professionals alike.

This is the first book to present field studies on the application of subject-oriented business process management (S-BPM). Each case presents a specific story and focuses on an essential modeling or implementation issue, and most end with implications or suggestions for further studies. Significant variables and success factors are identified that were discovered during the respective study and lead to suggesting S-BPM novelties. For each case, the authors explain step-by-step how the story develops, and provide readers guidance by detailing the respective rationale. The studies covered are clustered according to three main S-BPM themes: Part I “Business Operation Support� documents approaches to the practical development of S-BPM solutions in various application domains and organizational settings, while Part II “Consultancy and Education Support� highlights cases that can help to train readers in S-BPM modeling and knowledge acquisition for S-BPM lifecycle iterations. It also refers to architecting S-BPM solutions for application cases based on hands-on experience. Part III “Technical Execution Support� focuses on concepts for utilizing specific theories and technologies to execute S-BPM models. It also addresses how to create reference models for certain settings in the field. Lastly, the appendix covers all relevant aspects needed to grasp S-BPM modeling and apply it based on fundamental examples. Its format reconciles semantic precision with syntactic rigor.>Addressing the needs of developers, educators and practitioners, this book will help companies to learn from the experiences of first-time users and to develop systems that fit their business processes, explaining the latest key methodological and technological S-BPM developments in the fields of training, research and application.

The main focus of this edited volume is on three major areas of statistical quality control: statistical process control (SPC), acceptance sampling and design of experiments. The majority of the papers deal with statistical process control, while acceptance sampling and design of experiments are also treated to a lesser extent. The book is organized into four thematic parts, with Part I addressing statistical process control. Part II is devoted to acceptance sampling. Part III covers the design of experiments, while Part IV discusses related fields. The twenty-three papers in this volume stem from The 11th International Workshop on Intelligent Statistical Quality Control, which was held in Sydney, Australia from August 20 to August 23, 2013. The event was hosted by Professor Ross Sparks, CSIRO Mathematics, Informatics and Statistics, North Ryde, Australia and was jointly organized by Professors S. Knoth, W. Schmid and Ross Sparks. The papers presented here were carefully selected and reviewed by the scientific program committee, before being revised and adapted for this volume.

This book presents a collection of computational intelligence algorithms that addresses issues in visual pattern recognition such as high computational complexity, abundance of pattern features, sensitivity to size and shape variations and poor performance against complex backgrounds. The book has 3 parts. Part 1 describes various research issues in the field with a survey of the related literature. Part 2 presents computational intelligence based algorithms for feature selection and classification. The algorithms are discriminative and fast. The main application area considered is hand posture recognition. The book also discusses utility of these algorithms in other visual as well as non-visual pattern recognition tasks including face recognition, general object recognition and cancer / tumor classification. Part 3 presents biologically inspired algorithms for feature extraction. The visual cortex model based features discussed have invariance with respect to appearance and size of the hand, and provide good inter class discrimination. A Bayesian model of visual attention is described which is effective in handling complex background problem in hand posture recognition. The book provides qualitative and quantitative performance comparisons for the algorithms outlined, with other standard methods in machine learning and computer vision. The book is self-contained with several figures, charts, tables and equations helping the reader to understand the material presented without instruction.

An emerging trend in the automobile industry is its convergence with information technology (IT). Indeed, it has been estimated that almost 90% of new automobile technologies involve IT in some form. Smart driving technologies that improve safety as well as green fuel technologies are quite representative of the convergence between IT and automobiles. The smart driving technologies include three key elements: sensing of driving environments, detection of objects and potential hazards and the generation of driving control signals including warning signals. Although radar-based systems are primarily used for sensing the driving environments, the camera has gained importance in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). This book covers system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs—including both algorithms and hardware—related with image sensing and object detection by using the camera for smart driving systems. It introduces a variety of algorithms such as lens correction, super resolution, image enhancement and object detections from the images captured by low-cost vehicle camera. This is followed by implementation issues such as SoC architecture, hardware accelerator, software development environment and reliability techniques for automobile vision systems. This book is aimed for the new and practicing engineers in automotive and chip-design industries to provide some overall guidelines for the development of automotive vision systems. It will also help graduate students understand and get started for the research work in this field.

This book describes how evolutionary algorithms (EA), including genetic algorithms (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) can be utilized for solving multi-objective optimization problems in the area of embedded and VLSI system design. Many complex engineering optimization problems can be modelled as multi-objective formulations. This book provides an introduction to multi-objective optimization using meta-heuristic algorithms, GA and PSO and how they can be applied to problems like hardware/software partitioning in embedded systems, circuit partitioning in VLSI, design of operational amplifiers in analog VLSI, design space exploration in high-level synthesis, delay fault testing in VLSI testing and scheduling in heterogeneous distributed systems. It is shown how, in each case, the various aspects of the EA, namely its representation and operators like crossover, mutation, etc, can be separately formulated to solve these problems. This book is intended for design engineers and researchers in the field of VLSI and embedded system design. The book introduces the multi-objective GA and PSO in a simple and easily understandable way that will appeal to introductory readers.

Membrane Computing was introduced as a computational paradigm in Natural Computing. The models introduced, called Membrane (or P) Systems, provide a coherent platform to describe and study living cells as computational systems. Membrane Systems have been investigated for their computational aspects and employed to model problems in other fields, like: Computer Science, Linguistics, Biology, Economy, Computer Graphics, Robotics, etc. Their inherent parallelism, heterogeneity and intrinsic versatility allow them to model a broad range of processes and phenomena, being also an efficient means to solve and analyze problems in a novel way. Membrane Computing has been used to model biological systems, becoming with time a thorough modeling paradigm comparable, in its modeling and predicting capabilities, to more established models in this area. This book is the result of the need to collect, in an organic way, different facets of this paradigm. The chapters of this book, together with the web pages accompanying them, present different applications of Membrane Systems to Biology. Deterministic, non-deterministic and stochastic systems paired with different algorithms and methodologies show the full potential of this framework. The book is addressed to researchers interested in applications of discrete biological models and the interplay between Membrane Systems and other approaches to analyze complex systems.

This book analyzes the philosophical foundations of sensorimotor theory and discusses the most recent applications of sensorimotor theory to human computer interaction, child’s play, virtual reality, robotics, and linguistics. Why does a circle look curved and not angular? Why does red not sound like a bell? Why, as I interact with the world, is there something it is like to be me? An analytic philosopher might suggest: ``if we ponder the concept of circle we find that it is the essence of a circle to be round’’. However, where does this definition come from? Was it set in stone by the Gods, in other words by divine arbiters of circleness, redness and consciousness? Particularly, with regard to visual consciousness, a first attempt to explain why our conscious experience of the world appears as it does has been attributed to Kevin O’Regan and Alva Noe, who published their sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness in 2001. Starting with a chapter by Kevin O’Regan, Contemporary Sensorimotor Theory continues by presenting fifteen additional essays on as many developments achieved in recent years in this field. It provides readers with a critical review of the sensorimotor theory and in so doing introduces them to a radically new enactive approach in cognitive science.