This book covers the issues related to optimization of engineering and management problems using soft computing techniques with an industrial outlook. It covers a broad area related to real life complex decision making problems using a heuristics approach. It also explores a wide perspective and future directions in industrial engineering research on a global platform/scenario. The book highlights the concept of optimization, presents various soft computing techniques, offers sample problems, and discusses related software programs complete with illustrations. Features Explains the concept of optimization and relevance to soft computing techniques towards optimal solution in engineering and management Presents various soft computing techniques Offers problems and their optimization using various soft computing techniques Discusses related software programs, with illustrations Provides a step-by-step tutorial on how to handle relevant software for obtaining the optimal solution to various engineering problems

In an age where digital technology makes just about anything possible, Interactive Design for New Media and the Web demonstrates how to realize that promise through the creation of outstanding interactive programs. This hands-on, practical book examines the ever-expanding capabilities of all forms of digital presentation for increasing interactivity, and the design principles and interface guidelines needed to deliver the required message or story with this technology.
Interactive Design for New Media and the Web covers the technology as well as the tools and practices of interactive design, including the creation of site maps and flow charts, and the writing of design documents. It examines the latest interactive features of DVD, as well as the newest techniques and technologies for other forms of digital presentation. New design templates, 3D graphics and animation, polling and use of cookies, distance learning, html, and intranet learning games are among the topics covered in this book. Examples and case studies demonstrate the broad range of applications from websites to CD-ROM games to successful web commerce sites, including the capacity for user participation in e-commerce.
The companion Website shows numerous examples discussed in the text of all types of programs and their applications.
Companion Website provides examples of interactive technologies and techniques
Hands-on practical guide that uses numerous examples and case studies to demonstrate a broad range of applications
Includes sections on new interactive applications and tools such as Inspiration; MacroMedia Director, Microsoft FrontPage, and more

A hands-on introduction to VHDL synthesis and FPGA prototyping

Hardware Descriptive Language (HDL) and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices

allow designers to quickly develop and simulate a sophisticated digital circuit, realize it on a prototyping device, and verify the operation of its physical implementation. As these technologies have matured, they have become accepted mainstream practice so that it is possible to use a PC and an inexpensive FPGA prototyping board to construct a complex digital system.

This book uses a "learn by doing" approach to introduce the concepts and techniques of VHDL and FPGA to designers through a series of hands-on experiments. FPGA Prototyping by VHDL Examples provides:

A collection of clear, easy-to-follow templates for quick code development

A large number of practical examples to illustrate and reinforce the concepts and design techniques

Realistic projects that can be implemented and tested on a Xilinx prototyping board

A thorough exploration of the Xilinx PicoBlaze soft-core microcontroller

Although the book is an introductory text, the examples are developed in a rigorous manner and the derivations follow strict design guidelines and coding practices used for large, complex systems. It lays a solid foundation for students and new engineers and prepares them for future development tasks. FPGA Prototyping by VHDL Examples is an indispensable companion text for introductory digital design courses and also serves as a valuable self-teaching guide for practicing engineers who wish to learn more about this emerging area of interest.

"User Interfaces for All" is the first book dedicated to the issues of Universal Design and Universal Access in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Universal Design (or Design for All) is an inclusive and proactive approach seeking to accommodate diversity in the users and usage contexts of interactive products, applications, and services, starting from the design phase of the development life cycle. The ongoing paradigm shift toward a knowledge-intensive information society is already bringing about radical changes in the way people work and interact with each other and with information. The requirement for Universal Design stems from the growing impact of the fusion of the emerging technologies, and from the different dimensions of diversity, which are intrinsic to the information society.
This book unfolds the various aspects of this ongoing evolution from a variety of viewpoints. It's a collection of 30 chapters written by leading international authorities, affiliated with academic, research, and industrial organizations, and non-market institutions. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the field, and includes contributions from a variety of theoretical and applied disciplines and research themes.
This book can also be used for teaching purposes in HCI courses at the undergraduate as well as graduate level. Students will be introduced to the human-, organizational-, and technology-oriented dimensions that call for a departure from traditional approaches to user interface development. Students will also get an overview of novel methods, techniques, tools, and frameworks for the design, implementation, and evaluation of user interfaces that are universally accessible and usable by the broadest possible end-user population.
This comprehensive book is targeted to a broad readership, including HCI researchers, user interface designers, computer scientists, software engineers, ergonomists and usability engineers, Human Factors researchers and practitioners, organizational psychologists, system/product designers, sociologists, policy- and decision makers, scientists in government, industry and education, as well as assistive technology and rehabilitation experts.

Systems-Level Modelling of Microbial Communities: Theory and Practice introduces various aspects of modelling microbial communities and presents a detailed overview of the computational methods which have been developed in this area. This book is aimed at researchers in the field of computational/systems biology as well as biologists/experimentalists studying microbial communities, who are keen on embracing the concepts of computational modelling. The primary focus of this book is on methods for modelling interactions between micro-organisms in a community, with special emphasis on constraint-based and network-based modelling techniques. A brief overview of population- and agent-based modelling is also presented. Lastly, it covers the experimental methods to understand microbial communities, and provides an outlook on how the field may evolve in the coming years.

Complex Systems are natural systems that science is unable to describe exhaustively. Examples of Complex Systems are both unicellular and multicellular living beings; human brains; human immune systems; ecosystems; human societies; the global economy; the climate and geology of our planet. This book is an account of a marvelous interdisciplinary journey the author made to understand properties of the Complex Systems. He has undertaken his trip, equipped with the fundamental principles of physical chemistry, in particular, the Second Law of Thermodynamics that describes the spontaneous evolution of our universe, and the tools of Non-linear dynamics. By dealing with many disciplines, in particular, chemistry, biology, physics, economy, and philosophy, the author demonstrates that Complex Systems are intertwined networks, working in out-of-equilibrium conditions, which exhibit emergent properties, such as self-organization phenomena and chaotic behaviors in time and space.

The Systems Development Handbook provides practical guidance for the r ange of new applications problems, featuring contributions from many i ndustry experts. The book provides step-by-step charts, tables, schema tics, and a comprehensive index for easy access to topics and areas of related interest. Topics include cooperative processing; the transiti on to object-oriented development; rapid application development tools and graphical user interfaces (GUIs); database architecture in distri buted computing; development tools and techniques, including design, m easurement, and production; and more.

Future requirements for computing speed, system reliability, and cost-effectiveness entail the development of alternative computers to replace the traditional von Neumann organization. As computing networks come into being, one of the latest dreams is now possible - distributed computing.
Distributed computing brings transparent access to as much computer power and data as the user needs for accomplishing any given task - simultaneously achieving high performance and reliability.
The subject of distributed computing is diverse, and many researchers are investigating various issues concerning the structure of hardware and the design of distributed software. Distributed System Design defines a distributed system as one that looks to its users like an ordinary system, but runs on a set of autonomous processing elements (PEs) where each PE has a separate physical memory space and the message transmission delay is not negligible. With close cooperation among these PEs, the system supports an arbitrary number of processes and dynamic extensions.
Distributed System Design outlines the main motivations for building a distributed system, including:
inherently distributed applications
performance/cost
resource sharing
flexibility and extendibility
availability and fault tolerance
scalability
Presenting basic concepts, problems, and possible solutions, this reference serves graduate students in distributed system design as well as computer professionals analyzing and designing distributed/open/parallel systems.
Chapters discuss:
the scope of distributed computing systems
general distributed programming languages and a CSP-like distributed control description language (DCDL)
expressing parallelism, interprocess communication and synchronization, and fault-tolerant design
two approaches describing a distributed system: the time-space view and the interleaving view
mutual exclusion and related issues, including election, bidding, and self-stabilization
prevention and detection of deadlock
reliability, safety, and security as well as various methods of handling node, communication, Byzantine, and software faults
efficient interprocessor communication mechanisms as well as these mechanisms without specific constraints, such as adaptiveness, deadlock-freedom, and fault-tolerance
virtual channels and virtual networks
load distribution problems
synchronization of access to shared data while supporting a high degree of concurrency

This textbook serves as an introduction to fault-tolerance, intended for upper-division undergraduate students, graduate-level students and practicing engineers in need of an overview of the field. Readers will develop skills in modeling and evaluating fault-tolerant architectures in terms of reliability, availability and safety. They will gain a thorough understanding of fault tolerant computers, including both the theory of how to design and evaluate them and the practical knowledge of achieving fault-tolerance in electronic, communication and software systems. Coverage includes fault-tolerance techniques through hardware, software, information and time redundancy. The content is designed to be highly accessible, including numerous examples and exercises. Solutions and powerpoint slides are available for instructors.

This book is the first to directly address the question of how to bridge what has been termed the "great divide" between the approaches of systems developers and those of social scientists to computer supported cooperative work--a question that has been vigorously debated in the systems development literature. Traditionally, developers have been trained in formal methods and oriented to engineering and formal theoretical problems; many social scientists in the CSCW field come from humanistic traditions in which results are reported in a narrative mode. In spite of their differences in style, the two groups have been cooperating more and more in the last decade, as the "people problems" associated with computing become increasingly evident to everyone.
The authors have been encouraged to examine, rigorously and in depth, the theoretical basis of CSCW. With contributions from field leaders in the United Kingdom, France, Scandinavia, Mexico, and the United States, this volume offers an exciting overview of the cutting edge of research and theory. It constitutes a solid foundation for the rapidly coalescing field of social informatics.
Divided into three parts, this volume covers social theory, design theory, and the sociotechnical system with respect to CSCW. The first set of chapters looks at ways of rethinking basic social categories with the development of distributed collaborative computing technology--concepts of the group, technology, information, user, and text. The next section concentrates more on the lessons that can be learned at the design stage given that one wants to build a CSCW system incorporating these insights--what kind of work does one need to do and how is understanding of design affected? The final part looks at the integration of social and technical in the operation of working sociotechnical systems. Collectively the contributors make the argument that the social and technical are irremediably linked in practice and so the "great divide" not only should be a thing of the past, it should never have existed in the first place.

This book is the first to directly address the question of how to bridge what has been termed the "great divide" between the approaches of systems developers and those of social scientists to computer supported cooperative work--a question that has been vigorously debated in the systems development literature. Traditionally, developers have been trained in formal methods and oriented to engineering and formal theoretical problems; many social scientists in the CSCW field come from humanistic traditions in which results are reported in a narrative mode. In spite of their differences in style, the two groups have been cooperating more and more in the last decade, as the "people problems" associated with computing become increasingly evident to everyone. The authors have been encouraged to examine, rigorously and in depth, the theoretical basis of CSCW. With contributions from field leaders in the United Kingdom, France, Scandinavia, Mexico, and the United States, this volume offers an exciting overview of the cutting edge of research and theory. It constitutes a solid foundation for the rapidly coalescing field of social informatics. Divided into three parts, this volume covers social theory, design theory, and the sociotechnical system with respect to CSCW. The first set of chapters looks at ways of rethinking basic social categories with the development of distributed collaborative computing technology--concepts of the group, technology, information, user, and text. The next section concentrates more on the lessons that can be learned at the design stage given that one wants to build a CSCW system incorporating these insights--what kind of work does one need to do and how is understanding of design affected? The final part looks at the integration of social and technical in the operation of working sociotechnical systems. Collectively the contributors make the argument that the social and technical are irremediably linked in practice and so the "great divide" not only should be a thing of the past, it should never have existed in the first place.

Under the vast umbrella of Plant Sciences resides a plethora of highly specialized fields. Botanists, agronomists, horticulturists, geneticists, and physiologists each employ a different approach to the study of plants and each for a different end goal. Yet all will find themselves in the laboratory engaging in what can broadly be termed biotechnology. Addressing a wide variety of related topics, Plant Tissue Culture, Development, and Biotechnology gives the practical and technical knowledge needed to train the next generation of plant scientists regardless of their ultimate specialization. With the detailed perspectives and hands-on training signature to the authors previous bestselling books, Plant Development and Biotechnology and Plant Tissue Culture Concepts and Laboratory Exercises, this book discusses relevant concepts supported by demonstrative laboratory experiments. It provides critical thinking questions, concept boxes highlighting important ideas, and procedure boxes giving precise instruction for experiments, including step-by-step procedures, such as the proper microscope use with digital photography, along with anticipated results, and a list of materials needed to perform them. Integrating traditional plant sciences with recent advances in plant tissue culture, development, and biotechnology, chapters address germplasm preservation, plant growth regulators, embryo rescue, micropropagation of roses, haploid cultures, and transformation of meristems. Going beyond the scope of a simple laboratory manual, this book also considers special topics such as copyrights, patents, legalities, trade secrets, and the business of biotechnology. Focusing on plant culture development and its applications in biotechnology across a myriad of plant science specialties, this text uses a broad range of species and practical laboratory exercises to make it useful fo

Present book covers new paradigms in Blockchain, Big Data and Machine Learning concepts including applications and case studies. It explains dead fusion in realizing the privacy and security of blockchain based data analytic environment. Recent research of security based on big data, blockchain and machine learning has been explained through actual work by practitioners and researchers, including their technical evaluation and comparison with existing technologies. The theoretical background and experimental case studies related to real-time environment are covered as well. Aimed at Senior undergraduate students, researchers and professionals in computer science and engineering and electrical engineering, this book: Converges Blockchain, Big Data and Machine learning in one volume. Connects Blockchain technologies with the data centric applications such Big data and E-Health. Easy to understand examples on how to create your own blockchain supported by case studies of blockchain in different industries. Covers big data analytics examples using R. Includes lllustrative examples in python for blockchain creation.

Contents:
1. Basic Principles: The Operating Regime Approach 2. Modelling: Fuzzy Set Methods for Local Modelling Identification 3. Modelling of Electrically Stimulated Muscle 4. Process Modelling Using a Functional State Approach 5. Markov Mixtures of Experts 6. Active Learning With Mixture Models 7. Local Learning in Local Model Networks 8. Side Effects of Normalising Basic Functions 9. Control: Heterogeneous Control Laws 10. Local Laguerre Models 11. Multiple Model Adaptive Control 12. H Control Using Multiple Linear Models 13. Synthesis of Fuzzy Control Systems Based on Linear Takagi-Sugeno Fuzzy Models

Systems Engineering Guidebook: A Process for Developing Systems and Products is intended to provide readers with a guide to understanding and becoming familiar with the systems engineering process, its application, and its value to the successful implementation of systems development projects. The book describes the systems engineering process as a multidisciplinary effort. The process is defined in terms of specific tasks to be accomplished, with great emphasis placed on defining the problem that is being addressed prior to designing the solution.

Hybrid Intelligent Techniques for Pattern Analysis and Understanding outlines the latest research on the development and application of synergistic approaches to pattern analysis in real-world scenarios. An invaluable resource for lecturers, researchers, and graduates students in computer science and engineering, this book covers a diverse range of hybrid intelligent techniques, including image segmentation, character recognition, human behavioral analysis, hyperspectral data processing, and medical image analysis.

In recent years, the use of technology for the purposes of improving and enriching traditional instructional practices has received a great deal of attention. However, few works have explicitly examined cognitive, psychological, and educational principles on which technology-supported learning environments are based. This volume attempts to cover the need for a thorough theoretical analysis and discussion of the principles of system design that underlie the construction of technology-enhanced learning environments. It presents examples of technology-supported learning environments that cover a broad range of content domains, from the physical sciences and mathematics to the teaching of language and literacy.
The emphasis in this book is not on the design of educational software but on the design of learning environments. A great deal of research on learning and instruction has recently moved out of the laboratory into the design of applications in instructional settings. By designing technology-supported learning environments instructional scientists attempt to better understand the theories and principles that are explicit in their theories of learning. The contributors to this volume examine how factors such as social interaction, the creation of meaningful activities, the use of multiple perspectives, and the construction of concrete representations influence the acquisition of new information and transfer.

This book gives an in-depth introduction to the areas of modeling, identification, simulation, and optimization. These scientific topics play an increasingly dominant part in many engineering areas such as electrotechnology, mechanical engineering, aerospace, and physics. This book represents a unique and concise treatment of the mutual interactions among these topics.
Techniques for solving general nonlinear optimization problems as they arise in identification and many synthesis and design methods are detailed. The main points in deriving mathematical models via prior knowledge concerning the physics describing a system are emphasized. Several chapters discuss the identification of black-box models. Simulation is introduced as a numerical tool for calculating time responses of almost any mathematical model. The last chapter covers optimization, a generally applicable tool for formulating and solving many engineering problems.

The TransNav 2011 Symposium held at the Gdynia Maritime University, Poland in June 2011 has brought together a wide range of participants from all over the world. The program has offered a variety of contributions, allowing to look at many aspects of the navigational safety from various different points of view. Topics presented and discussed at the Symposium were: navigation, safety at sea, sea transportation, education of navigators and simulator-based training, sea traffic engineering, ship's manoeuvrability, integrated systems, electronic charts systems, satellite, radio-navigation and anti-collision systems and many others. This book is part of a series of six volumes and provides an overview of Navigational Systems and Simulators and is addressed to scientists and professionals involved in research and development of navigation, safety of navigation and sea transportation.

Develops a Comprehensive, Global Model for Contextually Based Processing Systems A new perspective on global information systems operation Helping to advance a valuable paradigm shift in the next generation and processing of knowledge, Introduction to Contextual Processing: Theory and Applications provides a comprehensive model for constructing a contextually based processing system. It explores the components of this system, the interactions of the components, key mathematical foundations behind the model, and new concepts necessary for operating the system. After defining the key dimensions of a model for contextual processing, the book discusses how data is used to develop a semantic model for contexts as well as language-driven context-specific processing actions. It then applies rigorous mathematical methods to contexts, examines basic sensor data fusion theory and applies it to the contextual fusion of information, and describes the means to distribute contextual information. The authors also illustrate a new type of data repository model to manage contextual data, before concluding with the requirements of contextual security in a global environment. This seminal work presents an integrated framework for the design and operation of the next generation of IT processing. It guides the way for developing advanced IT systems and offers new models and concepts that can support advanced semantic web and cloud computing capabilities at a global scale.

Coarse-grained reconfigurable architecture (CGRA) has emerged as a solution for flexible, application-specific optimization of embedded systems. Helping you understand the issues involved in designing and constructing embedded systems, Design of Low-Power Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Architectures offers new frameworks for optimizing the architecture of components in embedded systems in order to decrease area and save power. Real application benchmarks and gate-level simulations substantiate these frameworks. The first half of the book explains how to reduce power in the configuration cache. The authors present a low-power reconfiguration technique based on reusable context pipelining that merges the concept of context reuse into context pipelining. They also propose dynamic context compression capable of supporting required bits of the context words set to enable and the redundant bits set to disable. In addition, they discuss dynamic context management for reducing power consumption in the configuration cache by controlling a read/write operation of the redundant context words. Focusing on the design of a cost-effective processing element array to reduce area and power consumption, the second half of the text presents a cost-effective array fabric that uniquely rearranges processing elements and their interconnection designs. The book also describes hierarchical reconfigurable computing arrays consisting of two reconfigurable computing blocks with two types of communication structure. The two computing blocks share critical resources, offering an efficient communication interface between them and reducing the overall area. The final chapter takes an integrated approach to optimization that draws on the design schemes presented in earlier chapters. Using a case study, the authors demonstrate the synergy effect of combining multiple design schemes.

This volume's goal is to begin to document the dialogue processes in naturally-occurring human tutoring, in the context of informing the design of intelligent tutoring systems, and of interactive systems in general. This project represents the first empirical study of human tutorial dialogue from a conversation analytic perspective -- the conversational interaction is the focus of analysis rather than larger scale techniques for teaching. It is also the first study of tutoring to make use of large quantities of carefully transcribed tutoring conversations/dialogues.
The motivation for this focus comes from two sources: First, although all tutoring systems have implicit theory or theories of minute-level interaction built into them, little research has been done to form an empirical foundation for such theories. Therefore, current systems tend to be based on the designers' intuitions rather than on data. This fact almost certainly makes systems unnecessarily brittle in actual use. Second, of the small but growing collection of empirical studies of tutoring, almost all have been designed and carried out by computer scientists, whose training naturally leads them to be concerned with interaction at the level of knowledge transfer and teaching techniques. Fox's training as a linguist brings attention to the minute-by-minute details of the interaction, in particular to the processes that bring the interaction into existence and allow it to develop relatively smoothly.

The voices in this collection are primarily those of researchers and developers concerned with bringing knowledge of technological possibilities to bear on informed and effective system design. Their efforts are distinguished from many previous writings on system development by their central and abiding reliance on direct and continuous interaction with those who are the ultimate arbiters of system adequacy; namely, those who will use the technology in their everyday lives and work. A key issue throughout is the question of who does what to whom: whose interests are at stake, who initiates action and for what reason, who defines the problem and who decides that there is one.
The papers presented follow in the footsteps of a small but growing international community of scholars and practitioners of participatory systems design. Many of the original European perspectives are represented here as well as some new and distinctively American approaches. The collection is characterized by a rich and diverse set of perspectives and experiences that, despite their differences, share a distinctive spirit and direction -- a more humane, creative, and effective relationship between those involved in technology's design and use, and between technology and the human activities that motivate the technology.

This handbook offers a comprehensive overview of cloud computing security technology and implementation while exploring practical solutions to a wide range of cloud computing security issues. As more organizations use cloud computing and cloud providers for data operations, the need for proper security in these and other potentially vulnerable areas has become a global priority for organizations of all sizes. Research efforts from academia and industry, as conducted and reported by experts in all aspects of security related to cloud computing, are gathered within one reference guide. Features * Covers patching and configuration vulnerabilities of a cloud server * Evaluates methods for data encryption and long-term storage in a cloud server * Demonstrates how to verify identity using a certificate chain and how to detect inappropriate changes to data or system configurations John R. Vacca is an information technology consultant and internationally known author of more than 600 articles in the areas of advanced storage, computer security, and aerospace technology. John was also a configuration management specialist, computer specialist, and the computer security official (CSO) for NASA's space station program (Freedom) and the International Space Station Program from 1988 until his retirement from NASA in 1995.

From fundamental concepts and theories to implementation protocols and cutting-edge applications, the Handbook of Mobile Systems Applications and Services supplies a complete examination of the evolution of mobile services technologies. It examines service-oriented architecture (SOA) and explains why SOA and service oriented computing (SOC) will play key roles in the development of future mobile services. Investigating current service discovery frameworks, the book covers the basics of mobile services and applications developed in various contexts. The first section provides readers with the required background in mobile services architecture. Next, it details of middleware support for mobile services. The final section discusses security and applications of mobile services. Containing the contributions of leading researchers and academics from around the world, the book: Introduces a new location-based access control model Unveils a simple, yet powerful enhancement that enables Web services to locally manage workflow dependencies and handle messages resulting from multiple workflows Examines an event-based location aware query model that continuously aggregates data in specific areas around mobile sensors of interest Addresses the problem of location-based access control in the context of privacy protection Presents a layered architecture of context-aware middleware Considers the development of assistive technology solutions for the blind or visually impaired Discussing architecture for supporting multi-mode terminals in integrated heterogeneous wireless networks, this book addresses the network availability constraint to serve all mobile services originating from a single-user terminal. It examines QoS protocols and their enhancements in supporting user mobility. Analyzing mobile services security vulnerabilities, it details security design best practices that mobile service developers can use to improve the security of their mobile systems.