This book discusses a number of real-world applications of computational intelligence approaches. Using various examples, it demonstrates that computational intelligence has become a consolidated methodology for automatically creating new competitive solutions to complex real-world problems. It also presents a concise and efficient synthesis of different systems using computationally intelligent techniques.

As embedded systems become more complex, designers face a number of challenges at different levels: they need to boost performance, while keeping energy consumption as low as possible, they need to reuse existent software code, and at the same time they need to take advantage of the extra logic available in the chip, represented by multiple processors working together. This book describes several strategies to achieve such different and interrelated goals, by the use of adaptability. Coverage includes reconfigurable systems, dynamic optimization techniques such as binary translation and trace reuse, new memory architectures including homogeneous and heterogeneous multiprocessor systems, communication issues and NOCs, fault tolerance against fabrication defects and soft errors, and finally, how one can combine several of these techniques together to achieve higher levels of performance and adaptability. The discussion also includes how to employ specialized software to improve this new adaptive system, and how this new kind of software must be designed and programmed.

A systematic computer-aided approach provides a versatile setting for the control engineer to overcome the complications of controller design for highly nonlinear systems. Computer-aided Nonlinear Control System Design provides such an approach based on the use of describing functions. The text deals with a large class of nonlinear systems without restrictions on the system order, the number of inputs and/or outputs or the number, type or arrangement of nonlinear terms. The strongly software-oriented methods detailed facilitate fulfillment of tight performance requirements and help the designer to think in purely nonlinear terms, avoiding the expedient of linearization which can impose substantial and unrealistic model limitations and drive up the cost of the final product. Design procedures are presented in a step-by-step algorithmic format each step being a functional unit with outputs that drive the other steps. This procedure may be easily implemented on a digital computer with example problems from mechatronic and aerospace design being used to demonstrate the techniques discussed. The author's commercial MATLAB (R)-based environment, available separately from insert URL here, can be used to create simulations showing the results of using the computer-aided control system design ideas characterized in the text. Academic researchers and graduate students studying nonlinear control systems and control engineers dealing with nonlinear plant, particularly mechatronic or aerospace systems will find Computer-aided Nonlinear Control System Design to be of great practical assistance adding to their toolbox of techniques for dealing with system nonlinearities. A basic knowledge of calculus, nonlinear analysis and software engineering will enable the reader to get the best from this book.

Digital video for user-centred co-design is an emerging field of design, gaining increasing interest in both industry and academia. It merges the traditions of design ethnography, participatory design, interaction analysis, scenario-based design, and usability studies into an integrated approach, which values the designer's capacity to study and change the world creatively.Designing with Video: Focusing the User-Centred Design Process covers the whole user-centred design project. The book illustrates in detail how digital video can be utilised 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 artefacts. A must-read for those wishing to create more value through insightful design, the text builds upon a wealth of real, first-hand case studies both in academic and industrial contexts, and is complemented by video excerpts. Teachers, students and professionals in design will all benefit from this approach for developing new ways of enhancing their design processes.

Regular Nanofabrics in Emerging Technologies gives a deep insight into both fabrication and design aspects of emerging semiconductor technologies, that represent potential candidates for the post-CMOS era. Its approach is unique, across different fields, and it offers a synergetic view for a public of different communities ranging from technologists, to circuit designers, and computer scientists. The book presents two technologies as potential candidates for future semiconductor devices and systems and it shows how fabrication issues can be addressed at the design level and vice versa. The reader either for academic or research purposes will find novel material that is explained carefully for both experts and non-initiated readers. Regular Nanofabrics in Emerging Technologies is a survey of post-CMOS technologies. It explains processing, circuit and system level design for people with various backgrounds.

On November 9-11, 1998,85 participants, representing 17 countries, gathered in Aubum Hills, Michigan, at the Chrysler Tech Center, to attend a workshop "SSM'98" (or Sculptured Surface Machining '98) organized by IFIP Working Group 5.3. This was the first major workshop on sculptured surface machining since the CAM-I sponsored conference "Machining Impossible Surfaces" held in 1981. The purpose of the SSM'98 workshop, entitled "Machining Impossible Shapes," was to promote a cross-fertilization of ideas among three communities: industrial users, CAM software developers and academic researchers. There were 17 participants who were "industrial users," 15 represented CAM software developers, 4 were from the machine tool industry, with the remainder being academic researchers. The format of the meeting included 40 presentations in 9 sessions, 4 keynote speeches and a sufficient amount of time for informal discussion amongst the participants. One of the most valuable aspects of the workshop was the opportunity for participants to meet informally and to discuss their mutual interests. This led to two "participant organized" sessions on five axis machining and on machine tool controllers.

Presenting the concept and design and implementation of configurable intelligent optimization algorithms in manufacturing systems, this book provides a new configuration method to optimize manufacturing processes. It provides a comprehensive elaboration of basic intelligent optimization algorithms, and demonstrates how their improvement, hybridization and parallelization can be applied to manufacturing. Furthermore, various applications of these intelligent optimization algorithms are exemplified in detail, chapter by chapter. The intelligent optimization algorithm is not just a single algorithm; instead it is a general advanced optimization mechanism which is highly scalable with robustness and randomness. Therefore, this book demonstrates the flexibility of these algorithms, as well as their robustness and reusability in order to solve mass complicated problems in manufacturing. Since the genetic algorithm was presented decades ago, a large number of intelligent optimization algorithms and their improvements have been developed. However, little work has been done to extend their applications and verify their competence in solving complicated problems in manufacturing. This book will provide an invaluable resource to students, researchers, consultants and industry professionals interested in engineering optimization. It will also be particularly useful to three groups of readers: algorithm beginners, optimization engineers and senior algorithm designers. It offers a detailed description of intelligent optimization algorithms to algorithm beginners; recommends new configurable design methods for optimization engineers, and provides future trends and challenges of the new configuration mechanism to senior algorithm designers.

Intelligent technical systems, which combine mechanical, electrical and software engineering with methods from control engineering and advanced mathematics, go far beyond the state of the art in mechatronics and open up fascinating perspectives. Among these systems are so-called self-optimizing systems, which are able to adapt their behavior autonomously and flexibly to changing operating conditions. The Collaborative Research Center 614 "Self-optimizing concepts and structures in mechanical engineering" pursued the long-term aim to enable others to develop dependable self-optimizing systems. Assuring their dependability poses new challenges. However, self-optimization also offers the possibility to adapt the system's behavior to improve dependability during operation.

The aim of this book is to provide methods and techniques to master the challenges and to exploit the possibilities given by self-optimization. The reader will be able to develop self-optimizing systems that fulfill and surpass today s dependability requirements easily.

This book is directed to researchers and practitioners alike. It gives a brief introduction to the holistic development approach for self-optimizing mechatronic systems and the steps required to assure a dependable product design starting with the very early conceptual design phase. A guideline to select suitable methods for each step and the methods themselves are included. Each method is individually introduced, many examples and full references are given.

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Mechanical design includes an optimization process in which designers always consider objectives such as strength, deflection, weight, wear, corrosion, etc. depending on the requirements. However, design optimization for a complete mechanical assembly leads to a complicated objective function with a large number of design variables. It is a good practice to apply optimization techniques for individual components or intermediate assemblies than a complete assembly. Analytical or numerical methods for calculating the extreme values of a function may perform well in many practical cases, but may fail in more complex design situations. In real design problems, the number of design parameters can be very large and their influence on the value to be optimized (the goal function) can be very complicated, having nonlinear character. In these complex cases, advanced optimization algorithms offer solutions to the problems, because they find a solution near to the global optimum within reasonable time and computational costs.

"Mechanical Design Optimization Using Advanced Optimization Techniques" presents a comprehensive review on latest research and development trends for design optimization of mechanical elements and devices. Using examples of various mechanical elements and devices, the possibilities for design optimization with advanced optimization techniques are demonstrated. Basic and advanced concepts of traditional and advanced optimization techniques are presented, along with real case studies, results of applications of the proposed techniques, and the best optimization strategies to achieve best performance are highlighted. Furthermore, a novel advanced optimization method named teaching-learning-based optimization (TLBO) is presented in this book and this method shows better performance with less computational effort for the large scale problems.

"Mechanical Design Optimization Using Advanced Optimization Techniques" is intended for designers, practitioners, managers, institutes involved in design related projects, applied research workers, academics, and graduate students in mechanical and industrial engineering and will be useful to the industrial product designers for realizing a product as it presents new models and optimization techniques to make tasks easier, logical, efficient and effective. .

How Can Reliability Analysis Impact Your Company's Bottom Line? While reliability investigations can be expensive, they can also add value to a product that far exceeds its cost. Affordable Reliability Engineering: Life-Cycle Cost Analysis for Sustainability & Logistical Support shows readers how to achieve the best cost for design development testing and evaluation and compare options for minimizing costs while keeping reliability above specifications. The text is based on the premise that all system sustainment costs result from part failure. It examines part failure in the design and sustainment of fielded parts and outlines a design criticality analysis procedure that reflects system design and sustainment. Achieve the Best Cost for Life-Cycle Sustainment Providing a framework for managers and engineers to develop and implement a reliability program for their organizations, the authors present the practicing professional with the tools needed to manage a system at a high reliability at the best cost. They introduce analytical methods that provide the methodology for integrating part reliability, failure, maintainability, and logistic math models. In addition, they include examples on how to run reliability simulations, highlight tools that are commercially available for such analysis, and explain the process required to ensure a design will meet specifications and minimize costs in the process. This text: Demonstrates how to use information gathered from reliability investigations Provides engineers and managers with an understanding of a reliability engineering program so that they can perform reliability analyses Seeks to resolve uncertainty and establish the value of reliability engineering Affordable Reliability Engineering: Life-Cycle Cost Analysis for Sustainability & Logistical Support focuses on reliability-centered maintenance and is an ideal resource for reliability engineers and managers. This text enables reliability professionals to determine the lowest life-cycle costs for part selection, design configuration options, and the implementation of maintenance practices, as well as spare parts strategies, and logistical resources.

This book makes the case that far too much work undertaken under the banner of 'behavioural safety' is overly person-focused. 'If you can walk on hot coals, you can do anything - so be safe' needs to be dismissed out of hand, but also more advanced techniques based on coaching and empowerment fail to reflect the fact that, as 'Just Culture' models show, the great majority of causes of unsafe behaviour are environmental. Our methodologies mustn't focus on the person with an open mind that there may be an underlying root cause; they must start from the statistically proven assumption that there is an underlying cause. This shift in mindset has a profound impact on the type of methodologies we must lead with, how they are used, how they are perceived, and last but certainly not least, their efficacy. A Definitive Guide to Behavioural Safety is a one-stop guide to all of the core theories and principles that underpin behaviour-based safety. All front-line behaviours that lead to incidents and injury are covered by the term behavioural safety, and getting to grips with the behaviours that might lead people to engage in unsafe or risky behaviour is crucial to prevention. In this book, internationally acclaimed behavioural safety expert Tim Marsh leads the reader through the three main strands: The awareness approach. The walk-and-talk approach. The Six Sigma safety or the Deming-inspired 'full' approach. Going through the very latest innovations in the field, the book covers the systemic approach to safety observation, measurement, intervention and analysis, but also incorporates emotional intelligence training aimed at enhancing supervisor-worker trust and communication more generally. A Definite Guide to Behavioural Safety is a perfect guide for any professional, whether you're aiming to set up an ambitious and wide-ranging behavioural safety programme from scratch or you're looking to refresh or extend an existing approach.

This book comprises an edited version of the Proceedings of the 2nd Interna tional Conference on Applications of Supercomputers in Engineering which took place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA during August 1991. The Conference was organized by the Wessex Insti tute of Technology, Southampton, UK with the support of the International Society for Boundary Elements. The first International Conference on Ap plications of Supercomputers in Engineering held in Southampton, UK in September 1989 was a very successful meeting and the resulting Conference Proceedings are now widely distributed throughout the world. The revolutionary aspects of the next generation of computers are now fully recognised by many engineers and scientists. Vector and parallel computers form the basis of the computing power needed to address the complex prob lems with which engineers are faced. The new machines not only increase the size of the problems which can be solved, but also require a different computational approach to obtain the most efficient results.

Knighting in sequence biology Edward N. Trifonov Genome classification, construction of phylogenetic trees, became today a major approach in studying evolutionary relatedness of various species in their vast - versity. Although the modern genome clustering delivers the trees which are very similar to those generated by classical means, and basic terminology is the same, the phenotypic traits and habitats are not anymore the playground for the classi- cation. The sequence space is the playground now. The phenotypic traits are - placed by sequence characteristics, "words", in particular. Matter-of-factually, the phenotype and genotype merged, to confusion of both classical and modern p- logeneticists. Accordingly, a completely new vocabulary of stringology, information theory and applied mathematics took over. And a new brand of scientists emerged - those who do know the math and, simultaneously, (do?) know biology. The book is written by the authors of this new brand. There is no way to test their literacy in biology, as no biologist by training would even try to enter into the elite circle of those who masters their almost occult language. But the army of - formaticians, formal linguists, mathematicians humbly (or aggressively) longing to join modern biology, got an excellent introduction to the field of genome cl- tering, written by the team of their kin.

This book details timing analysis and optimization techniques for circuits with level-sensitive memory elements. It contains a linear programming formulation applicable to the timing analysis of large scale circuits and includes a delay insertion methodology that improves the efficiency of clock skew scheduling. Coverage also provides a framework for and results from implementing timing optimization algorithms in a parallel computing environment.

Presently, general-purpose optimization techniques such as Simulated Annealing, and Genetic Algorithms, have become standard optimization techniques. Concerted research efforts have been made recently in order to invent novel optimization techniques for solving real life problems, which have the attributes of memory update and population-based search solutions. The book describes a variety of these novel optimization techniques which in most cases outperform the standard optimization techniques in many application areas. New Optimization Techniques in Engineering reports applications and results of the novel optimization techniques considering a multitude of practical problems in the different engineering disciplines presenting both the background of the subject area and the techniques for solving the problems. "

This book highlights and explains the significance of philosophical, logical, and scientific principles for engineering education/training and engineering works. In so doing, it aims to help to rectify the neglect of philosophy and logic in current education and training programs, which emphasize analytical and numerical methods at the expense of the innovative practical and creative abilities so important for engineering in the past. Individual chapters examine the relation of philosophy, logic, and science to engineering, drawing attention to, for example, the significance of ethics, the relevance of the philosophy of science, and the increasing importance of application of fuzzy logic to engineering. Modeling principles and philosophy in engineering are discussed, and the impact of different education systems, examined. Too often engineers have become reliant on readily available formulations and software; this book offers an antidote, promoting the recognition of artistic and humanitarian aspects and their integration in engineering works.

The 5th International Congress on Design and Modeling of Mechanical Systems (CMSM) was held in Djerba, Tunisia on March 25-27, 2013 and followed four previous successful editions, which brought together international experts in the fields of design and modeling of mechanical systems, thus contributing to the exchange of information and skills and leading to a considerable progress in research among the participating teams. The fifth edition of the congress (CMSM2013), organized by the Unit of Mechanics, Modeling and Manufacturing (U2MP) of the National School of Engineers of Sfax, Tunisia, the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory (MBL) of the National School of Engineers of Monastir, Tunisia and the Mechanics Laboratory of Sousse (LMS) of the National School of Engineers of Sousse, Tunisia, saw a significant increase of the international participation. This edition brought together nearly 300 attendees who exposed their work on the following topics: mechatronics and robotics, dynamics of mechanical systems, fluid structure interaction and vibroacoustics, modeling and analysis of materials and structures, design and manufacturing of mechanical systems. This book is the proceedings of CMSM2013 and contains a careful selection of high quality contributions, which were exposed during various sessions of the congress. The original articles presented here provide an overview of recent research advancements accomplished in the field mechanical engineering.

This book presents the select proceedings of the International Conference on Recent Advances in Manufacturing (RAM 2020). This volume, in particular, provides insights into current research trends and opportunities within the manufacturing processes domain such as conventional and unconventional manufacturing, micro and nano manufacturing, chemical and biochemical manufacturing, and computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM). The topics covered include emerging areas of the fourth industrial revolution such as additive manufacturing, sustainable and energy-efficient manufacturing, smart manufacturing, artificial intelligence in manufacturing application, and computer-integrated manufacturing. This book will be useful for to researchers and practitioners alike.

Formal Design Theory (PDT) is a mathematical theory of design. The main goal of PDT is to develop a domain independent core model of the design process. The book focuses the reader's attention on the process by which ideas originate and are developed into workable products. In developing PDT, we have been striving toward what has been expressed by the distinguished scholar Simon (1969): that "the science of design is possible and some day we will be able to talk in terms of well-established theories and practices. " The book is divided into five interrelated parts. The conceptual approach is presented first (Part I); followed by the theoretical foundations of PDT (Part II), and from which the algorithmic and pragmatic implications are deduced (Part III). Finally, detailed case-studies illustrate the theory and the methods of the design process (Part IV), and additional practical considerations are evaluated (Part V). The generic nature of the concepts, theory and methods are validated by examples from a variety of disciplines. FDT explores issues such as: algebraic representation of design artifacts, idealized design process cycle, and computational analysis and measurement of design process complexity and quality. FDT's axioms convey the assumptions of the theory about the nature of artifacts, and potential modifications of the artifacts in achieving desired goals or functionality. By being able to state these axioms explicitly, it is possible to derive theorems and corollaries, as well as to develop specific analytical and constructive methodologies.

Discusses process variation, model accuracy, design flow and many other practical engineering, reliability and manufacturing issues

Gives a good overview for a person who is not an expert in modeling and simulation, enabling them to extract the necessary information to competently use modeling and simulation programs

Written for engineering students and product design engineers

This book focuses on the behavioral and personality areas that can be used to strengthen one's skills and to make wise decisions about when and how to lead. It was written for the working professional who wants to learn what he or she can do by working with their personality to become more satisfied with and masterful in their leadership roles. Good leaders have learned to succeed over time by acquiring the needed range of personal skills, much like one learns a second language. Geared for entry and mid-term leaders, this book is an empirically based training guide to acquire knowledge and implement a plan to help increase one's leadership skills. Within the framework of 10 chapters, this book: * promotes a shared recognition of the role that personality plays in leadership by reviewing a case study of representative leadership situation that both identifies familiar personal struggles and organizational changes; * offers a way of thinking about how personality in general and the Big 5 in particular fills in the gaps and connects the pieces when it comes to how people become effective leaders; * illustrates how--within the Big 5 framework--to use the 2nd language approach to leverage natural personality strengths and manage weaknesses in an effort to build greater leadership effectiveness; * makes available 2nd language tools including effective intervention strategies and goal setting techniques based on enabling philosophies to understand what makes this approach accessible and practical to use; and * reassures that most leadership failures are reversible and that through using the 2nd language approach, these inevitable and sometimes necessary setbacks afford clarity about how to use your style to the best advantage.

This book describes the important role of emotion in a hyper-connected society and how product development and manufacture change. It explores how our work and lifestyle may be affected by forthcoming technologies and presents key research on multisensory informatics, one of the most important tools for making the most of emotion. This fourth volume of the Emotional Engineering Series focuses on the human issues relating to Cyber Physical Systems, or Industrie 4.0, and discusses the important role emotion plays in these smart environments. Introducing related works in the field of multisensory research, which provide the basic tools for becoming context- and situation aware in this imminent revolutionary society, it discusses not only the changes in production and product development this new revolution will bring about, but also highlights how emotion plays a crucial role in making us happy in such a connected society and in bringing about harmonization between human and human, between human and machine and, last but not least, in maintaining a good work-life balance.

Intelligent agents are one of the most promising business tools in our information rich world. An intelligent agent consists of a software system capable of performing intelligent tasks within a dynamic and unpredictable environment. They can be characterised by various attributes including: autonomous, adaptive, collaborative, communicative, mobile, and reactive. Many problems are not well defined and the information needed to make decisions is not available. These problems are not easy to solve using conventional computing approaches. Here, the intelligent agent paradigm may play a major role in helping to solve these problems. This book, written for application researchers, covers a broad selection of research results that demonstrate, in an authoritative and clear manner, the applications of agents within our information society.