The term "mechatronics" was coined in 1969, merging "mecha" from mechanism and "tronics" from electronics, to reflect the original idea at the basis of this discipline, that is, the integration of electrical and mechanical systems into a single device. The spread of this term, and of mechatronics itself, has been growing in the years, including new aspects and disciplines, like control engineering, computer engineering and communication/information engineering. Nowadays mechatronics has a well-defined and fundamental role, in strict relation with robotics. Drawing a sharp border between mechatronics and robotics is impossible, as they share many technologies and objectives. Advanced robots could be defined as mechatronic devices equipped with a "smart brain", but there are also up-to-date mechatronic devices, used in tight interaction with humans, that are governed by smart architectures (for example, for safety purposes). Aim of this book is to offer a wide overview of new research trends and challenges for both mechatronics and robotics, through the contribution of researchers from different institutions, providing their view on specific subjects they consider as "hot topics" in both fields, with attention to new fields of application, new challenges to the research communities and new technologies available. The reader of this book will enjoy the various contributions, as they have been prepared with actual applications in mind, along a journey from advanced actuators and sensors to human-robot interaction, through robot control, navigation, planning and programming issues. The book presents several state-of-the-art solutions, like multiple-stage actuation to cope with conflicting specification of large motion-spans, ultra-high accuracy, model-based control for high-tech mechatronic systems, modern approaches of software systems engineering to robotics, aand humanoids for human assistance. The reader can also find new techniques in approaching the design of mechatronic systems in some possible industrial and service robotics scenarios, with a particular attention for the interaction between humans and mechanisms.

Although multicore is now a mainstream architecture, there are few textbooks that cover parallel multicore architectures. Filling this gap, Fundamentals of Parallel Multicore Architecture provides all the material for a graduate or senior undergraduate course that focuses on the architecture of multicore processors. The book is also useful as a reference for professionals who deal with programming on multicore or designing multicore chips. The text's coverage of fundamental topics prepares students to study research papers in the multicore architecture area. The text offers many pedagogical features, including: Sufficiently short chapters that can be comfortably read over a weekend Introducing each concept by first describing the problem and building intuition that leads to the need for the concept "Did you know?" boxes that present mini case studies, alternative points of view, examples, and other interesting facts or discussion items Thought-provoking interviews with experts who share their perspectives on multicore architectures in the past, present, and future Online programming assignments and solutions that enhance students' understanding The first several chapters address programming issues in shared memory multiprocessors, such as the programming model and techniques to parallelize regular and irregular applications. The core of the book covers the architectures for shared memory multiprocessors. The final chapter contains interviews with experts in parallel multicore architecture.

"The Student's Guide to VHDL" is a condensed edition of "The Designer's Guide to VHDL, " the most widely used textbook on VHDL for digital system modeling. "The Student's Guide" is targeted as a supplemental reference book for computer organization and digital design courses.
Since publication of the first edition of "The Student's Guide, " the IEEE VHDL and related standards have been revised. The "Designer's Guide" has been revised to reflect the changes, so it is appropriate that "The Student's Guide" also be revised.
"In The Student's Guide to VHDL, 2nd Edition, " we have included a design case study illustrating an FPGA-based design flow. The aim is to show how VHDL modeling fits into a design flow, starting from high-level design and proceeding through detailed design and verification, synthesis, FPGA place and route, and final timing verification. Inclusion of the case study helps to better serve the educational market. Currently, most college courses do not formally address the details of design flow. Students may be given informal guidance on how to proceed with lab projects. In many cases, it is left to students to work it out for themselves. The case study in "The Student's Guide" provides a reference design flow that can be adapted to a variety of lab projects.

VHDL-2008: Just the New Stuff, as its title says, introduces the new features added to the latest revision of the IEEE standard for the VHDL hardware description language. Written by the Chair and Technical Editor of the IEEE working group, the book is an authoritative guide to how the new features work and how to use them to improve design productivity. It will be invaluable for early adopters of the new language version, for tool implementers, and for those just curious about where VHDL is headed.
* First in the market describing the new features of VHDL 2008;
* Just the new features, so existing users and implementers can focus on what's new;
* Helps readers to learn the new features soon, rather than waiting for new editions of complete VHDL reference books.
* Authoritative, written by experts in the area;
* Tutorial style, making it more accessible than the VHDL Standard Language Reference Manual.

mental improvements during the same period. What is clearly needed in verification techniques and technology is the equivalent of a synthesis productivity breakthrough. In the second edition of Writing Testbenches, Bergeron raises the verification level of abstraction by introducing coverage-driven constrained-random transaction-level self-checking testbenches all made possible through the introduction of hardware verification languages (HVLs), such as e from Verisity and OpenVera from Synopsys. The state-of-art methodologies described in Writing Test benches will contribute greatly to the much-needed equivalent of a synthesis breakthrough in verification productivity. I not only highly recommend this book, but also I think it should be required reading by anyone involved in design and verification of today's ASIC, SoCs and systems. Harry Foster Chief Architect Verplex Systems, Inc. xviii Writing Testbenches: Functional Verification of HDL Models PREFACE If you survey hardware design groups, you will learn that between 60% and 80% of their effort is now dedicated to verification."

This volume provides an introduction to and overview of the emerging field of interconnected networks which include multilayer or multiplex networks, as well as networks of networks. Such networks present structural and dynamical features quite different from those observed in isolated networks. The presence of links between different networks or layers of a network typically alters the way such interconnected networks behave - understanding the role of interconnecting links is therefore a crucial step towards a more accurate description of real-world systems. While examples of such dissimilar properties are becoming more abundant - for example regarding diffusion, robustness and competition - the root of such differences remains to be elucidated. Each chapter in this topical collection is self-contained and can be read on its own, thus making it also suitable as reference for experienced researchers wishing to focus on a particular topic.

This book offers a friendly presentation of the fundamental principles and practices of modern digital design. Unlike any other book in this field, transistor-level implementations are also included, which allow the readers to gain a solid understanding of a circuit's real potential and limitations, and to develop a realistic perspective on the practical design of actual integrated circuits. Coverage includes the largest selection available of digital circuits in all categories (combinational, sequential, logical, or arithmetic). Coverage also includes detailed digital design techniques, with a thorough discussion on state-machine modeling for the analysis and design of complex sequential systems. Key technologies used in modern circuits are also described, including Bipolar, MOS, ROM/RAM, and CPLD/FPGA chips, as well as codes and techniques used in data storage and transmission. Designs are illustrated by means of complete, realistic applications using VHDL, where the complete code, comments and simulation results are included.
* Comprehensive coverage of fundamental digital concepts and principles, as well as complete, realistic, industry-standard designs
* Many circuits shown with internal details at the transistor-level, as in real integrated circuits
* Actual technologies used in state-of-the-art digital circuits presented in conjunction with fundamental concepts and principles
* Six chapters dedicated to VHDL-based techniques, with all VHDL-based designs synthesized onto CPLD/FPGA chips

Tsutomu Sasao - Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan The material covered in this book is quite unique especially for p- ple who are reading English, since such material is quite hard to ?nd in the U.S. literature. German and Russian people have independently developed their theories, but such work is not well known in the U.S. societies. On the other hand, the theories developed in the U.S. are not conveyed to the other places. Thus, the same theory is re-invented or re-discovered in various places. For example, the switching theory was developed independently in the U.S., Europe, and Japan, almost at the same time [4, 18, 19]. Thus, the same notions are represented by di?- ent terminologies. For example, the Shegalkin polynomial is often called complement-free ring-sum, Reed-Muller expression [10], or Positive - larityReed-Mullerexpression [19].Anyway,itisquitedesirablethatsuch a unique book like this is written in English, and many people can read it without any di?culties. The authors have developed a logic system called XBOOLE.Itp- forms logical operations on the given functions. With XBOOLE, the readers can solve the problems given in the book. Many examples and complete solutions to the problems are shown, so the readers can study at home. I believe that the book containing many exercises and their solutions [9] is quite useful not only for the students, but also the p- fessors.

Control systems are pervasive in our lives. Our homes have environmental controls. The appliances we use, such as the washing machine, microwave, etc. carry embedded controllers in them. We fly in airplanes and drive automobiles that extensively use control systems. The industrial plants that produce consumer goods run on process control systems. The recent drive toward automation has increased our reliance on control systems technology. This book discusses control systems design from a model-based perspective for dynamic system models of single-input single-output type. The emphasis in this book is on understanding and applying the techniques that enable the design of effective control systems in multiple engineering disciplines. The book covers both time-domain and the frequency-domain design methods, as well as controller design for both continuous-time and discrete-time systems. MATLAB (c) and its Control Systems Toolbox are extensively used for design. Technical topics discussed in the book include: Mathematical models of physical systems Analysis of transfer function and state variable models Control systems design objectives Control system design with root locus Control system design in the state-space Control system design of sampled-data systems Compensator design with frequency response methods

Applied Systems Analysis: Science and Art of Solving Real-Life Problems Subject Guide: Engineering - Industrial and Manufacturing Any activity is aimed at solving certain problems, which means transferring a system from an existing unsatisfactory problematic state to a desired state. The success or failure of the system depends on how its natural properties were implemented during the planning of improvement and intervention state. This book covers the theory and experience of successfully solving problems in a practical and general way. This book includes a general survey of modern systems analysis; offers several original results; presents the latest methodological and technological results of the theory of systems; introduces achievements; and discusses the transition from the ideology of the machine age to the ideology of the systems age. This book will be of interest to both professionals and academicians.

This book discusses Change Management Impact Analysis and how this method is used to analysis the risks and benefits of a change management initiative when it pertains to obtaining critical insight into how the change management program budget should be allotted. The process also offers useful indicators for what areas within the system should be monitored during the change management process. This book presents theoretical analysis of practical implications and surveys, along with analysis. It covers the functions aimed at identifying various stakeholders associated with the software such as requirement component, design component, and class component. The book talks about the interrelationship between the change and the effects on the rest of the system and dives deeper to include the critical role that the analysis places on the existing multiple functions such as estimating the development costs, the project overhead costs, cost for the modification of the system, and system strength or detecting errors in the system during the process. Case studies are also included to help researchers and practitioners to absorb the material presented. This book is useful to graduate students, researchers, academicians, institutions, and professionals that interested in exploring the areas of Impact Analysis.

The author has spent approximately 50 years in the field of systems engineering. This Focus book provides a "looking back" at his 50-year run and the lessons he learned and would like to share with other engineers, so they can use these lessons in their day-to-day work in systems engineering and related fields. The book is written from a systems engineering perspective. It offers 50 lessons learned working for a variety of different companies, which can be used across many other engineering fields. The book will be of interested to students and engineers across many fields, as well as students and engineers working in business and management fields.

Along with the increasingly important runtime engines pervasive in our daily-life computing, there is a strong demand from the software community for a solid presentation on the design and implementation of modern virtual machines, including the Java virtual machine, JavaScript engine and Android execution engine. The community expects to see not only formal algorithm description, but also pragmatic code snippets; to understand not only research topics, but also engineering solutions. This book meets these demands by providing a unique description that combines high level design with low level implementations and academic advanced topics with commercial solutions. This book takes a holistic approach to the design of VM architecture, with contents organized into a consistent framework, introducing topics and algorithms in an easily understood step by step process. It focuses on the critical aspects of VM design, which are often overlooked in other works, such as runtime helpers, stack unwinding and native interface. The algorithms are fully illustrated in figures and implemented in easy to digest code snippets, making the abstract concepts tangible and programmable for system software developers.

Computer simulation is an effective and popular universal tool that can be applied to almost all disciplines. Requiring only basic knowledge of programming, mathematics, and probability theory, Computer Simulation: A Foundational Approach Using Python takes a hands-on approach to programming to introduce the fundamentals of computer simulation. The main target of the book is computer science and engineering students who are interested mainly in directly applying the techniques to their research problems. The book will be of great interest to senior undergraduate and starting graduate students in the fields of computer science and engineering and industrial engineering.

Nature-Inspired Computing: Physics and Chemistry-Based Algorithms provides a comprehensive introduction to the methodologies and algorithms in nature-inspired computing, with an emphasis on applications to real-life engineering problems. The research interest for Nature-inspired Computing has grown considerably exploring different phenomena observed in nature and basic principles of physics, chemistry, and biology. The discipline has reached a mature stage and the field has been well-established. This endeavour is another attempt at investigation into various computational schemes inspired from nature, which are presented in this book with the development of a suitable framework and industrial applications. Designed for senior undergraduates, postgraduates, research students, and professionals, the book is written at a comprehensible level for students who have some basic knowledge of calculus and differential equations, and some exposure to optimization theory. Due to the focus on search and optimization, the book is also appropriate for electrical, control, civil, industrial and manufacturing engineering, business, and economics students, as well as those in computer and information sciences. With the mathematical and programming references and applications in each chapter, the book is self-contained, and can also serve as a reference for researchers and scientists in the fields of system science, natural computing, and optimization.

From the Foreword "Getting CPS dependability right is essential to forming a solid foundation for a world that increasingly depends on such systems. This book represents the cutting edge of what we know about rigorous ways to ensure that our CPS designs are trustworthy. I recommend it to anyone who wants to get a deep look at these concepts that will form a cornerstone for future CPS designs." --Phil Koopman, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA Trustworthy Cyber-Physical Systems Engineering provides practitioners and researchers with a comprehensive introduction to the area of trustworthy Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) engineering. Topics in this book cover questions such as What does having a trustworthy CPS actually mean for something as pervasive as a global-scale CPS? How does CPS trustworthiness map onto existing knowledge, and where do we need to know more? How can we mathematically prove timeliness, correctness, and other essential properties for systems that may be adaptive and even self-healing? How can we better represent the physical reality underlying real-world numeric quantities in the computing system? How can we establish, reason about, and ensure trust between CPS components that are designed, installed, maintained, and operated by different organizations, and which may never have really been intended to work together? Featuring contributions from leading international experts, the book contains sixteen self-contained chapters that analyze the challenges in developing trustworthy CPS, and identify important issues in developing engineering methods for CPS. The book addresses various issues contributing to trustworthiness complemented by contributions on TCSP roadmapping, taxonomy, and standardization, as well as experience in deploying advanced system engineering methods in industry. Specific approaches to ensuring trustworthiness, namely, proof and refinement, are covered, as well as engineering methods for dealing with hybrid aspects.

This book introduces fundamental concepts and theories in pervasive computing as well as its key technologies and applications. It explains how to design and implement pervasive middleware and real application systems, covering nearly all aspects related to pervasive computing. Key technologies in the book include pervasive computing-oriented resource management and task migration, mobile pervasive transaction, human computer interface, and context collection-oriented wireless sensor networks.

With the ubiquitous diffusion of the IoT, Cloud Computing, 5G and other evolved wireless technologies into our daily lives, the world will see the Internet of the future expand ever more quickly. Driving the progress of communications and connectivity are mobile and wireless technologies, including traditional WLANs technologies and low, ultra-power, short and long-range technologies. These technologies facilitate the communication among the growing number of connected devices, leading to the generation of huge volumes of data. Processing and analysis of such "big data" brings about many opportunities, as well as many challenges, such as those relating to efficient power consumptions, security, privacy, management, and quality of service. This book is about the technologies, opportunities and challenges that can drive and shape the networks of the future. Written by established international researchers and experts, Networks of the Future answers fundamental and pressing research challenges in the field, including architectural shifts, concepts, mitigation solutions and techniques, and key technologies in the areas of networking. The book starts with a discussion on Cognitive Radio (CR) technologies as promising solutions for improving spectrum utilization, and also highlights the advances in CR spectrum sensing techniques and resource management methods. The second part of the book presents the latest developments and research in the areas of 5G technologies and Software Defined Networks (SDN). Solutions to the most pressing challenges facing the adoption of 5G technologies are also covered, and the new paradigm known as Fog Computing is examined in the context of 5G networks. The focus next shifts to efficient solutions for future heterogeneous networks. It consists of a collection of chapters that discuss self-healing solutions, dealing with Network Virtualization, QoS in heterogeneous networks, and energy efficient techniques for Passive Optical Networks and Wireless Sensor Networks. Finally, the areas of IoT and Big Data are discussed, including the latest developments and future perspectives of Big Data and the IoT paradigms.

The Unified Modeling Language is rapidly gaining acceptance as the mechanism of choice to model complex software systems at various steps of their specification and design, using a number of orthogonal views that illustrate use cases, class diagrams and even detailed state machine-based behaviors of objects.
UML for Real: Design of Embedded Real-Time Systems aims to show the reality of UML as a medium for specification and implementation of real-time systems, illustrating both the current capabilities and limits of UML for this task, and future directions that will improve its usefulness for real-time and embedded product design. It will also cover selected applications examples. The book is an edited volume of solicited chapters.
The table of contents covers:

-UML and the Real-time/Embedded Domain, with chapters on the role of UML in software development and on UML and Real-Time Systems.
-Representing Key Real-Time Concepts with UML, with chapters on logical structure, on modeling system-level behavior using MSCs and extensions, on platform modeling, on hardware and software object modeling, on fine-grain and high-level patterns for real-time systems, on modeling Quality Of Service and metric time, and finally on performance and schedulability analysis using UML.
-Specific Applications, with chapters on UML in the automotive and telecom domains.
-Process and Tools, with chapters on software performance engineering and on UML tools for real-time processes.

Systems Engineering for Business Process Change: New Directions is a collection of papers resulting from an EPSRC managed research programme set up to investigate the relationships between Legacy IT Systems and Business Processes. The papers contained in this volume report the results from the projects funded by the programme, which ran between 1997 and 2001. An earlier volume, published in 2000, reported interim results.
Bringing together researchers from diverse backgrounds in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering and Business Schools, this book explores the problems experienced by IT-dependent businesses that have to implement changing business processes in the context of their investment in legacy systems. The book presents some of the solutions investigated through the collaborations set up within the research programme.
Whether you are a researcher interested in the ideas that were generated by the research programme, or a user trying to understand the nature of the problems and their solutions, you cannot fail to be inspired by the writings contained in this volume.

The book begins with an introduction to software reliability, models and techniques. The book is an informative book covering the strategies needed to assess software failure behaviour and its quality, as well as the application of optimization tools for major managerial decisions related to the software development process. It features a broad range of topics including software reliability assessment and apportionment, optimal allocation and selection decisions and upgradations problems. It moves through a variety of problems related to the evolving field of optimization of software reliability engineering, including software release time, resource allocating, budget planning and warranty models, which are each explored in depth in dedicated chapters. This book provides a comprehensive insight into present-day practices in software reliability engineering, making it relevant to students, researchers, academics and practising consultants and engineers.

Calculation is the main function of a computer. The central unit is responsible for executing the programs. The microprocessor is its integrated form. This component, since the announcement of its marketing in 1971, has not stopped breaking records in terms of computing power, price reduction and integration of functions (calculation of basic functions, storage with integrated controllers). It is present today in most electronic devices. Knowing its internal mechanisms and programming is essential for the electronics engineer and computer scientist to understand and master the operation of a computer and advanced concepts of programming. This first volume focuses more particularly on the first generations of microprocessors, that is to say those that handle integers in 4 and 8-bit formats. The first chapter presents the calculation function and reminds the memory function. The following is devoted to notions of calculation model and architecture. The concept of bus is then presented. Chapters 4 and 5 can then address the internal organization and operation of the microprocessor first in hardware and then software. The mechanism of the function call, conventional and interrupted, is more particularly detailed in a separate chapter. The book ends with a presentation of architectures of the first microcomputers for a historical perspective. The knowledge is presented in the most exhaustive way possible with examples drawn from current and old technologies that illustrate and make accessible the theoretical concepts. Each chapter ends if necessary with corrected exercises and a bibliography. The list of acronyms used and an index are at the end of the book.

Our fascination with new technologies is based on the assumption that more powerful automation will overcome human limitations and make our systems 'faster, better, cheaper,' resulting in simple, easy tasks for people. But how does new technology and more powerful automation change our work? Research in Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) looks at the intersection of people, technology, and work. What it has found is not stories of simplification through more automation, but stories of complexity and adaptation. When work changed through new technology, practitioners had to cope with new complexities and tighter constraints. They adapted their strategies and the artifacts to work around difficulties and accomplish their goals as responsible agents. The surprise was that new powers had transformed work, creating new roles, new decisions, and new vulnerabilities. Ironically, more autonomous machines have created the requirement for more sophisticated forms of coordination across people, and across people and machines, to adapt to new demands and pressures. This book synthesizes these emergent Patterns though stories about coordination and mis-coordination, resilience and brittleness, affordance and clumsiness in a variety of settings, from a hospital intensive care unit, to a nuclear power control room, to a space shuttle control center. The stories reveal how new demands make work difficult, how people at work adapt but get trapped by complexity, and how people at a distance from work oversimplify their perceptions of the complexities, squeezing practitioners. The authors explore how CSE observes at the intersection of people, technology, and work, how CSE abstracts patterns behind the surface details and wide variations, and how CSE discovers promising new directions to help people cope with complexities. The stories of CSE show that one key to well-adapted work is the ability to be prepared to be surprised. Are you ready?