Kansei Engineering and Soft Computing: Theory and Practice offers readers a comprehensive review of kansei engineering, soft computing techniques, and the fusion of these two fields from a variety of viewpoints. It explores traditional technologies, as well as solutions to real-world problems through the concept of kansei and the effective utilization of soft computing techniques. This publication is an essential read for professionals, researchers, and students in the field of kansei information processing and soft computing providing both theoretical and practical viewpoints of research in humanized technology.

This book chronicles a 10-year introduction of blended learning into the delivery at a leading technological university, with a longstanding tradition of technology-enabled teaching and learning, and state-of-the-art infrastructure. Hence, both teachers and students were familiar with the idea of online courses. Despite this, the longitudinal experiment did not proceed as expected. Though few technical problems, it required behavioural changes from teachers and learners, thus unearthing a host of socio-technical issues, challenges, and conundrums. With the undercurrent of design ideals such as "tech for good", any industrial sector must examine whether digital platforms are credible substitutes or at best complementary. In this era of Industry 4.0, higher education, like any other industry, should not be about the creative destruction of what we value in universities, but their digital transformation. The book concludes with an agenda for large, repeatable Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) to validate digital platforms that could fulfil the aspirations of the key stakeholder groups - students, faculty, and regulators as well as delving into the role of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as surrogates for "fees-free" higher education and whether the design of such a HiEd 4.0 platform is even a credible proposition. Specifically, the book examines the data-driven evidence within a design-based research methodology to present outcomes of two alternative instructional designs evaluated - traditional lecturing and blended learning. Based on the research findings and statistical analysis, it concludes that the inexorable shift to online delivery of education must be guided by informed educational management and innovation.

This book provides a concise point of reference for the most commonly used regression methods. It begins with linear and nonlinear regression for normally distributed data, logistic regression for binomially distributed data, and Poisson regression and negative-binomial regression for count data. It then progresses to these regression models that work with longitudinal and multi-level data structures. The volume is designed to guide the transition from classical to more advanced regression modeling, as well as to contribute to the rapid development of statistics and data science. With data and computing programs available to facilitate readers' learning experience, Statistical Regression Modeling promotes the applications of R in linear, nonlinear, longitudinal and multi-level regression. All included datasets, as well as the associated R program in packages nlme and lme4 for multi-level regression, are detailed in Appendix A. This book will be valuable in graduate courses on applied regression, as well as for practitioners and researchers in the fields of data science, statistical analytics, public health, and related fields.

Inverse problems such as imaging or parameter identification deal with the recovery of unknown quantities from indirect observations, connected via a model describing the underlying context. While traditionally inverse problems are formulated and investigated in a static setting, we observe a significant increase of interest in time-dependence in a growing number of important applications over the last few years. Here, time-dependence affects a) the unknown function to be recovered and / or b) the observed data and / or c) the underlying process. Challenging applications in the field of imaging and parameter identification are techniques such as photoacoustic tomography, elastography, dynamic computerized or emission tomography, dynamic magnetic resonance imaging, super-resolution in image sequences and videos, health monitoring of elastic structures, optical flow problems or magnetic particle imaging to name only a few. Such problems demand for innovation concerning their mathematical description and analysis as well as computational approaches for their solution.

The nonequilibrium behavior of nanoscopic and biological systems, which are typically strongly fluctuating, is a major focus of current research. Lately, much progress has been made in understanding such systems from a thermodynamic perspective. However, new theoretical challenges emerge when the fluctuating system is additionally subject to time delay, e.g. due to the presence of feedback loops. This thesis advances this young and vibrant research field in several directions. The first main contribution concerns the probabilistic description of time-delayed systems; e.g. by introducing a versatile approximation scheme for nonlinear delay systems. Second, it reveals that delay can induce intriguing thermodynamic properties such as anomalous (reversed) heat flow. More generally, the thesis shows how to treat the thermodynamics of non-Markovian systems by introducing auxiliary variables. It turns out that delayed feedback is inextricably linked to nonreciprocal coupling, information flow, and to net energy input on the fluctuating level.

This book presents theoretical modeling and numerical simulations applied to drive several applications towards Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0). The topics discussed range from theoretical parts to extensive simulations involving many efficient algorithms as well as various statistical techniques. This book is suitable for postgraduate students, researchers as well as other scientists who are working in mathematics, statistics and numerical modeling and simulation.

This book shows how information theory, probability, statistics, mathematics and personal computers can be applied to the exploration of numbers and proportions in music. It brings the methods of scientific and quantitative thinking to questions like: What are the ways of encoding a message in music and how can we be sure of the correct decoding? How do claims of names hidden in the notes of a score stand up to scientific analysis? How many ways are there of obtaining proportions and are they due to chance? After thoroughly exploring the ways of encoding information in music, the ambiguities of numerical alphabets and the words to be found "hidden" in a score, the book presents a novel way of exploring the proportions in a composition with a purpose-built computer program and gives example results from the application of the techniques. These include information theory, combinatorics, probability, hypothesis testing, Monte Carlo simulation and Bayesian networks, presented in an easily understandable form including their development from ancient history through the life and times of J. S. Bach, making connections between science, philosophy, art, architecture, particle physics, calculating machines and artificial intelligence. For the practitioner the book points out the pitfalls of various psychological fallacies and biases and includes succinct points of guidance for anyone involved in this type of research. This book will be useful to anyone who intends to use a scientific approach to the humanities, particularly music, and will appeal to anyone who is interested in the intersection between the arts and science.With a foreword by Ruth Tatlow (Uppsala University), award winning author of Bach's Numbers: Compositional Proportion and Significance and Bach and the Riddle of the Number Alphabet."With this study Alan Shepherd opens a much-needed examination of the wide range of mathematical claims that have been made about J. S. Bach's music, offering both tools and methodological cautions with the potential to help clarify old problems." Daniel R. Melamed, Professor of Music in Musicology, Indiana University

Metaheuristic algorithms are present in various applications for different domains. Recently, researchers have conducted studies on the effectiveness of these algorithms in providing optimal solutions to complicated problems. Advancements in Applied Metaheuristic Computing is a crucial reference source for the latest empirical research on methods and approaches that include metaheuristics for further system improvements, and it offers outcomes of employing optimization algorithms. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as manufacturing, genetic programming, and medical imaging, this publication is ideal for researchers, academicians, advanced-level students, and technology developers seeking current research on the use of optimization algorithms in several applications.

This book presents an introduction to linear univariate and multivariate time series analysis, providing brief theoretical insights into each topic, and from the beginning illustrating the theory with software examples. As such, it quickly introduces readers to the peculiarities of each subject from both theoretical and the practical points of view. It also includes numerous examples and real-world applications that demonstrate how to handle different types of time series data. The associated software package, SSMMATLAB, is written in MATLAB and also runs on the free OCTAVE platform. The book focuses on linear time series models using a state space approach, with the Kalman filter and smoother as the main tools for model estimation, prediction and signal extraction. A chapter on state space models describes these tools and provides examples of their use with general state space models. Other topics discussed in the book include ARIMA; and transfer function and structural models; as well as signal extraction using the canonical decomposition in the univariate case, and VAR, VARMA, cointegrated VARMA, VARX, VARMAX, and multivariate structural models in the multivariate case. It also addresses spectral analysis, the use of fixed filters in a model-based approach, and automatic model identification procedures for ARIMA and transfer function models in the presence of outliers, interventions, complex seasonal patterns and other effects like Easter, trading day, etc. This book is intended for both students and researchers in various fields dealing with time series. The software provides numerous automatic procedures to handle common practical situations, but at the same time, readers with programming skills can write their own programs to deal with specific problems. Although the theoretical introduction to each topic is kept to a minimum, readers can consult the companion book 'Multivariate Time Series With Linear State Space Structure', by the same author, if they require more details.

This thesis presents a revolutionary technique for modelling the dynamics of a quantum system that is strongly coupled to its immediate environment. This is a challenging but timely problem. In particular it is relevant for modelling decoherence in devices such as quantum information processors, and how quantum information moves between spatially separated parts of a quantum system. The key feature of this work is a novel way to represent the dynamics of general open quantum systems as tensor networks, a result which has connections with the Feynman operator calculus and process tensor approaches to quantum mechanics. The tensor network methodology developed here has proven to be extremely powerful: For many situations it may be the most efficient way of calculating open quantum dynamics. This work is abounds with new ideas and invention, and is likely to have a very significant impact on future generations of physicists.

This text is intended for a broad audience as both an introduction to predictive models as well as a guide to applying them. Non- mathematical readers will appreciate the intuitive explanations of the techniques while an emphasis on problem-solving with real data across a wide variety of applications will aid practitioners who wish to extend their expertise. Readers should have knowledge of basic statistical ideas, such as correlation and linear regression analysis. While the text is biased against complex equations, a mathematical background is needed for advanced topics. Dr. Kuhn is a Director of Non-Clinical Statistics at Pfizer Global R&D in Groton Connecticut. He has been applying predictive models in the pharmaceutical and diagnostic industries for over 15 years and is the author of a number of R packages. Dr. Johnson has more than a decade of statistical consulting and predictive modeling experience in pharmaceutical research and development. He is a co-founder of Arbor Analytics, a firm specializing in predictive modeling and is a former Director of Statistics at Pfizer Global R&D. His scholarly work centers on the application and development of statistical methodology and learning algorithms. Applied Predictive Modeling covers the overall predictive modeling process, beginning with the crucial steps of data preprocessing, data splitting and foundations of model tuning. The text then provides intuitive explanations of numerous common and modern regression and classification techniques, always with an emphasis on illustrating and solving real data problems. Addressing practical concerns extends beyond model fitting to topics such as handling class imbalance, selecting predictors, and pinpointing causes of poor model performance-all of which are problems that occur frequently in practice. The text illustrates all parts of the modeling process through many hands-on, real-life examples. And every chapter contains extensive R code f

This book provides insights into important new developments in the area of statistical quality control and critically discusses methods used in on-line and off-line statistical quality control. The book is divided into three parts: Part I covers statistical process control, Part II deals with design of experiments, while Part III focuses on fields such as reliability theory and data quality. The 12th International Workshop on Intelligent Statistical Quality Control (Hamburg, Germany, August 16 - 19, 2016) was jointly organized by Professors Sven Knoth and Wolfgang Schmid. The contributions presented in this volume were carefully selected and reviewed by the conference's scientific program committee. Taken together, they bridge the gap between theory and practice, making the book of interest to both practitioners and researchers in the field of quality control.

This contributed book focuses on major aspects of statistical quality control, shares insights into important new developments in the field, and adapts established statistical quality control methods for use in e.g. big data, network analysis and medical applications. The content is divided into two parts, the first of which mainly addresses statistical process control, also known as statistical process monitoring. In turn, the second part explores selected topics in statistical quality control, including measurement uncertainty analysis and data quality. The peer-reviewed contributions gathered here were originally presented at the 13th International Workshop on Intelligent Statistical Quality Control, ISQC 2019, held in Hong Kong on August 12-14, 2019. Taken together, they bridge the gap between theory and practice, making the book of interest to both practitioners and researchers in the field of statistical quality control.

This book is published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book presents computer programming as a key method for solving mathematical problems. This second edition of the well-received book has been extensively revised: All code is now written in Python version 3.6 (no longer version 2.7). In addition, the two first chapters of the previous edition have been extended and split up into five new chapters, thus expanding the introduction to programming from 50 to 150 pages. Throughout the book, the explanations provided are now more detailed, previous examples have been modified, and new sections, examples and exercises have been added. Also, a number of small errors have been corrected. The book was inspired by the Springer book TCSE 6: A Primer on Scientific Programming with Python (by Langtangen), but the style employed is more accessible and concise, in keeping with the needs of engineering students. The book outlines the shortest possible path from no previous experience with programming to a set of skills that allows students to write simple programs for solving common mathematical problems with numerical methods in the context of engineering and science courses. The emphasis is on generic algorithms, clean program design, the use of functions, and automatic tests for verification.

For courses on SPSS. SPSS is, essentially, a visually-driven program, but most texts rely primarily on a verbal approach to describe its use. A Visual Approach to SPSS for Windows is the first text of its kind to employ what the author refers to as "visual sequencing" to teach students how to use SPSS.

This book provides a tutorial in the use of Altair Compose and Altair Activate, software packages that provide system modeling and simulation facilities. Advanced system modeling software provide multiple ways of creating models: models can be programmed in specialized languages, graphically constructed as block-diagrams and state machines, or expressed mathematically in equation-based languages. Compose and Activate are introduced in this text in two parts. The first part introduces the multi-language environment of Compose and its use for modeling, simulation and optimization. The second describes the graphical system modeling and optimization with Activate, an open-system environment providing signal-based modeling as well as physical system component-based modeling. Throughout both parts are applied examples from mechanical, biological, and electrical systems, as well as control and signal processing systems. This book will be an invaluable addition with many examples both for those just interested in OML and those doing industrial scale modeling, simulation, and design. All examples are worked using the free basic editions of Activate and Compose that are available.

This book is dedicated to the systematization and development of models, methods, and algorithms for queuing systems with correlated arrivals. After first setting up the basic tools needed for the study of queuing theory, the authors concentrate on complicated systems: multi-server systems with phase type distribution of service time or single-server queues with arbitrary distribution of service time or semi-Markovian service. They pay special attention to practically important retrial queues, tandem queues, and queues with unreliable servers. Mathematical models of networks and queuing systems are widely used for the study and optimization of various technical, physical, economic, industrial, and administrative systems, and this book will be valuable for researchers, graduate students, and practitioners in these domains.

This book provides practical applications of doubly classified models by using R syntax to generate the models. It also presents these models in symbolic tables so as to cater to those who are not mathematically inclined, while numerous examples throughout the book illustrate the concepts and their applications. For those who are not aware of this modeling approach, it serves as a good starting point to acquire a basic understanding of doubly classified models. It is also a valuable resource for academics, postgraduate students, undergraduates, data analysts and researchers who are interested in examining square contingency tables.

This book offers postgraduate and early career researchers in accounting and information systems a guide to choosing, executing and reporting appropriate data analysis methods to answer their research questions. It provides readers with a basic understanding of the steps that each method involves, and of the facets of the analysis that require special attention. Rather than presenting an exhaustive overview of the methods or explaining them in detail, the book serves as a starting point for developing data analysis skills: it provides hands-on guidelines for conducting the most common analyses and reporting results, and includes pointers to more extensive resources. Comprehensive yet succinct, the book is brief and written in a language that everyone can understand - from students to those employed by organizations wanting to study the context in which they work. It also serves as a refresher for researchers who have learned data analysis techniques previously but who need a reminder for the specific study they are involved in.

Six Sigma statistical methodology using Minitab

"Problem Solving and Data Analysis using Minitab "presents example-based learning to aid readers in understanding how to use MINITAB 16 for statistical analysis and problem solving. Each example and exercise is broken down into the exact steps that must be followed in order to take the reader through key learning points and work through complex analyses. Exercises are featured at the end of each example so that the reader can be assured that they have understood the key learning points.

"Key features: "Provides readers with a step by step guide to problem solving and statistical analysis using Minitab 16 which is also compatible with version 15.Includes fully worked examples with graphics showing menu selections and Minitab outputs.Uses example based learning that the reader can work through at their pace.Contains hundreds of screenshots to aid the reader, along with explanations of the statistics being performed and interpretation of results.Presents the core statistical techniques used by Six Sigma Black Belts. Contains examples, exercises and solutions throughout, and is supported by an accompanying website featuring the numerous example data sets.

Making Six Sigma statistical methodology accessible to beginners, this book is aimed at numerical professionals, students or academics who wish to learn and apply statistical techniques for problem solving, process improvement or data analysis whilst keeping mathematical theory to a minimum.