Disaster management is a process or strategy that is implemented when any type of catastrophic event takes place. The process may be initiated when anything threatens to disrupt normal operations or puts the lives of human beings at risk. Governments on all levels as well as many businesses create some sort of disaster plan that make it possible to overcome the catastrophe and return to normal function as quickly as possible. Response to natural disasters (e.g., floods, earthquakes) or technological disaster (e.g., nuclear, chemical) is an extreme complex process that involves severe time pressure, various uncertainties, high non-linearity and many stakeholders. Disaster management often requires several autonomous agencies to collaboratively mitigate, prepare, respond, and recover from heterogeneous and dynamic sets of hazards to society. Almost all disasters involve high degrees of novelty to deal with most unexpected various uncertainties and dynamic time pressures. Existing studies and approaches within disaster management have mainly been focused on some specific type of disasters with certain agency oriented. There is a lack of a general framework to deal with similarities and synergies among different disasters by taking their specific features into account. This book provides with various decisions analysis theories and support tools in complex systems in general and in disaster management in particular. The book is also generated during a long-term preparation of a European project proposal among most leading experts in the areas related to the book title. Chapters are evaluated based on quality and originality in theory and methodology, application oriented, relevance to the title of the book.

Disaster management is a process or strategy that is implemented when any type of catastrophic event takes place. The process may be initiated when anything threatens to disrupt normal operations or puts the lives of human beings at risk. Governments on all levels as well as many businesses create some sort of disaster plan that make it possible to overcome the catastrophe and return to normal function as quickly as possible. Response to natural disasters (e.g., floods, earthquakes) or technological disaster (e.g., nuclear, chemical) is an extreme complex process that involves severe time pressure, various uncertainties, high non-linearity and many stakeholders. Disaster management often requires several autonomous agencies to collaboratively mitigate, prepare, respond, and recover from heterogeneous and dynamic sets of hazards to society. Almost all disasters involve high degrees of novelty to deal with most unexpected various uncertainties and dynamic time pressures. Existing studies and approaches within disaster management have mainly been focused on some specific type of disasters with certain agency oriented. There is a lack of a general framework to deal with similarities and synergies among different disasters by taking their specific features into account. This book provides with various decisions analysis theories and support tools in complex systems in general and in disaster management in particular. The book is also generated during a long-term preparation of a European project proposal among most leading experts in the areas related to the book title. Chapters are evaluated based on quality and originality in theory and methodology, application oriented, relevance to the title of the book.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 4th World Summit on the Knowledge Society, WSKS 2011, held in Mykonos, Greece, in September 2011. The 90 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 198 submissions. The papers address issues such as information technology, e-learning, e-business, cultural heritage, e-government.

Fuzzy Set Theory and Advanced Mathematical Applications contains contributions by many of the leading experts in the field, including coverage of the mathematical foundations of the theory, decision making and systems science, and recent developments in fuzzy neural control. The book supplies a readable, practical toolkit with a clear introduction to fuzzy set theory and its evolution in mathematics and new results on foundations of fuzzy set theory, decision making and systems science, and fuzzy control and neural systems. Each chapter is self-contained, providing up-to-date coverage of its subject. Audience: An important reference work for university students, and researchers and engineers working in both industrial and academic settings.

During the last three decades, interest has increased significantly in the representation and manipulation of imprecision and uncertainty. Perhaps the most important technique in this area concerns fuzzy logic or the logic of fuzziness initiated by L. A. Zadeh in 1965. Since then, fuzzy logic has been incorporated into many areas of fundamental science and into the applied sciences. More importantly, it has been successful in the areas of expert systems and fuzzy control. The main body of this book consists of so-called IF-THEN rules, on which experts express their knowledge with respect to a certain domain of expertise. Fuzzy IF-THEN Rules in Computational Intelligence: Theory and Applications brings together contributions from leading global specialists who work in the domain of representation and processing of IF-THEN rules. This work gives special attention to fuzzy IF-THEN rules as they are being applied in computational intelligence. Included are theoretical developments and applications related to IF-THEN problems of propositional calculus, fuzzy predicate calculus, implementations of the generalized Modus Ponens, approximate reasoning, data mining and data transformation, techniques for complexity reduction, fuzzy linguistic modeling, large-scale application of fuzzy control, intelligent robotic control, and numerous other systems and practical applications. This book is an essential resource for engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists working in fuzzy sets, soft computing, and of course, computational intelligence.

Intelligent Hybrid Systems: Fuzzy Logic, Neural Networks, and Genetic Algorithms is an organized edited collection of contributed chapters covering basic principles, methodologies, and applications of fuzzy systems, neural networks and genetic algorithms. All chapters are original contributions by leading researchers written exclusively for this volume. This book reviews important concepts and models, and focuses on specific methodologies common to fuzzy systems, neural networks and evolutionary computation. The emphasis is on development of cooperative models of hybrid systems. Included are applications related to intelligent data analysis, process analysis, intelligent adaptive information systems, systems identification, nonlinear systems, power and water system design, and many others. Intelligent Hybrid Systems: Fuzzy Logic, Neural Networks, and Genetic Algorithms provides researchers and engineers with up-to-date coverage of new results, methodologies and applications for building intelligent systems capable of solving large-scale problems.

Risk is a crucial element in virtually all problems people in diverse areas face in their activities. It is impossible to find adequate models and solutions without taking it into account. Due to uncertainty and complexity in those problems, traditional "hard" tools and techniques may be insufficient for their formulation and solution.
This is the first book in the literature that shows how soft computing methods (fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms, etc.) can be employed to deal with various problems related to risk analysis, evaluation and management in various fields of technology, environment and finance.

Fuzzy systems and soft computing are new computing techniques that are tolerant to imprecision, uncertainty and partial truths. Applications of these techniques in nuclear engineering present a tremendous challenge due to its strict nuclear safety regulation. The fields of nuclear engineering, fuzzy systems and soft computing have nevertheless matured considerably during the last decade. This book presents new application potentials for Fuzzy Systems and Soft Computing in Nuclear Engineering. The root of this book can be traced back to the series of the first, second and third international workshops on Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Technologies in Nuclear Science (FUNS), which were successfully held in Mol, September 14-16, 1994 (FLINS'94), in Mol, September 25-27, 1996 (FLINS'96), and in Antwerp, September 14-16, 1998 (FLINS'98). The conferences were organised by the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCKeCEN) and aimed at bringing together scientists, researchers, and engineers from academia and industry, at introducing the principles of fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms and other soft computing methodologies, to the field of nuclear engineering, and at applying these techniques to complex problem solving within nuclear industry and related research fields. This book, as its title suggests, consists of nuclear engineering applications of fuzzy systems (Chapters 1-10) and soft computing (Chapters 11-21). Nine pertinent chapters are based on the extended version of papers at FLINS'98 and the other 12 chapters are original contributions with up-to-date coverage of fuzzy and soft computing applications by leading researchers written exclusively for this book."

Fuzzy Logic Foundations and Industrial Applications is an organized edited collection of contributed chapters covering basic fuzzy logic theory, fuzzy linear programming, and applications. Special emphasis has been given to coverage of recent research results, and to industrial applications of fuzzy logic. The chapters are new works that have been written exclusively for this book by many of the leading and prominent researchers (such as Ronald Yager, Ellen Hisdal, Etienne Kerre, and others) in this field. The contributions are original and each chapter is self-contained. The authors have been careful to indicate direct links between fuzzy set theory and its industrial applications. Fuzzy Logic Foundations and Industrial Applications is an invaluable work that provides researchers and industrial engineers with up-to-date coverage of new results on fuzzy logic and relates these results to their industrial use.

Edited book reporting recent results in AI research in power plant surveillance and diagnostics. High quality and applicability of the contributions through a thorough peer-reviewing process. Condition Monitoring and Early Fault Detection provide for better efficiency of energy systems, at lower costs.

Inhalt

Featured Topics: Analysis of important issues relating to specification, development and use of systems for computer-assisted plant surveillance and diagnosis.- Empirical and analytical methods for on-line calibration monitoring and data reconciliation.- Noise analysis methods for early fault detection, condition monitoring, leak detection and loose part monitoring.- Predictive maintenance and condition monitoring techniques.- Empirical and analytical methods for fault detection and recognition.

Business organizations and governments are nowadays developing and providing internet based electronic services (e-services) featuring various intelligent functions. This book offers a thorough introduction and systematic overview of the new field e-service intelligence. It covers the state-of-the-art of e-service intelligence including both theorems and applications, and a broad range of topics are discussed.

In today's industrial companies, sensory evaluation is widely used in quality inspection of products, in marketing study and in many other fields such as risk evaluation, investment evaluation and safety evaluation. This book collects a number of representative methods on sensory evaluation. The book reports recent research results and provides a state of the art on intelligent techniques-based sensory evaluation in industrial applications. The focus is especially on theoretical/analytical solutions to the problems of real interest in intelligent techniques with applications to engineers and managers of different industrial departments such as production, quality inspection, product design and development and marketing.

Lattice-valued Logic aims at establishing the logical foundation for uncertain information processing routinely performed by humans and artificial intelligence systems. In this textbook for the first time a general introduction on lattice-valued logic is given. It systematically summarizes research from the basic notions up to recent results on lattice implication algebras, lattice-valued logic systems based on lattice implication algebras, as well as the corresponding reasoning theories and methods. The book provides the suitable theoretical logical background of lattice-valued logic systems and supports newly designed intelligent uncertain-information-processing systems and a wide spectrum of intelligent learning tasks.

How far can you take fuzzy logic, the brilliant conceptual framework made famous by George Klir? With this book, you can find out. The authors of this updated edition have extended Klir s work by taking fuzzy logic into even more areas of application. It serves a number of functions, from an introductory text on the concept of fuzzy logic to a treatment of cutting-edge research problems suitable for a fully paid-up member of the fuzzy logic community.

This edited book reports recent research results and provides a state-of-the-art on intelligent decision support systems applications, lessons learned and future research directions. The book covers a balanced mixture of theory and practice, including new methods and developments of intelligent decision support systems applications in Society and Policy Support. Its main objective is to gather a peer-reviewed collection of high quality contributions in the relevant topic areas.

"Intelligent Data Mining - Techniques and Applications" is an organized edited collection of contributed chapters covering basic knowledge for intelligent systems and data mining, applications in economic and management, industrial engineering and other related industrial applications. The main objective of this book is to gather a number of peer-reviewed high quality contributions in the relevant topic areas. The focus is especially on those chapters that provide theoretical/analytical solutions to the problems of real interest in intelligent techniques possibly combined with other traditional tools, for data mining and the corresponding applications to engineers and managers of different industrial sectors. Academic and applied researchers and research students working on data mining can also directly benefit from this book.

This book contains an edited collection of eighteen contributions on soft and hard computing techniques and their applications to autonomous robotic systems. Each contribution has been exclusively written for this volume by a leading researcher. The volume demonstrates the various ways that the soft computing and hard computing techniques can be used in different integrated manners to better develop autonomous robotic systems that can perform various tasks of vision, perception, cognition, thinking, pattern recognition, decision-making, and reasoning and control, amongst others. Each chapter of the book is self-contained and points out the future direction of research.

"It is a must reading for students and researchers interested in exploring the potentials of the fascinating field that will form the basis for the design of the intelligent machines of the future"
(Madan M. Gupta)

Mathematics of Fuzziness - Basic Issues introduces a basic notion of 'fuzziness' and provides a conceptual mathematical framework to characterize such fuzzy phenomena in Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing. The book systematically presents a self-contained introduction to the essentials of mathematics of fuzziness ranging from fuzzy sets, fuzzy relations, fuzzy numbers, fuzzy algebra, fuzzy measures, fuzzy integrals, and fuzzy topology to fuzzy control in a strictly mathematical manner. It contains most of the authors' research results in the field of fuzzy set theory and has evolved from the authors' lecture notes to both undergraduate and graduate students over the last three decades. A lot of exercises in each chapter of the book are particularly suitable as a textbook for any undergraduate and graduate student in mathematics, computer science and engineering. The reading of the book will surely lay a solid foundation for further research on fuzzy set theory and its applications.

Mathematics of Fuzziness - Basic Issues introduces a basic notion of 'fuzziness' and provides a conceptual mathematical framework to characterize such fuzzy phenomena in Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing. The book systematically presents a self-contained introduction to the essentials of mathematics of fuzziness ranging from fuzzy sets, fuzzy relations, fuzzy numbers, fuzzy algebra, fuzzy measures, fuzzy integrals, and fuzzy topology to fuzzy control in a strictly mathematical manner. It contains most of the authors' research results in the field of fuzzy set theory and has evolved from the authors' lecture notes to both undergraduate and graduate students over the last three decades. A lot of exercises in each chapter of the book are particularly suitable as a textbook for any undergraduate and graduate student in mathematics, computer science and engineering. The reading of the book will surely lay a solid foundation for further research on fuzzy set theory and its applications.

This edited book reports recent research results and provides a state-of-the-art on intelligent decision support systems applications, lessons learned and future research directions. The book covers a balanced mixture of theory and practice, including new methods and developments of intelligent decision support systems applications in Society and Policy Support. Its main objective is to gather a peer-reviewed collection of high quality contributions in the relevant topic areas.

How far can you take fuzzy logic, the brilliant conceptual framework made famous by George Klir? With this book, you can find out. The authors of this updated edition have extended Klir s work by taking fuzzy logic into even more areas of application. It serves a number of functions, from an introductory text on the concept of fuzzy logic to a treatment of cutting-edge research problems suitable for a fully paid-up member of the fuzzy logic community.

Since 1950 s, computational techniques have been widely applied in textile industry and garment industry for process and materials structure modeling, simulation and control, optimization of product quality, product design, textile market forecasting, and production management. The related computational techniques include classical methods such as statistics, differential equations, classical signal and image processing and statistical pattern recognition, and intelligent techniques such as soft computing and data mining. This edited book collects a number of representative applications of computational techniques in textile and garment industry. These applications cover the following issues: Textile quality assessment by image analysis, Modeling and simulation of textile structures, Computer aided garment design, Computerized textile management and textile Supply Chain, Textile quality subjective and objective evaluation; Computational thermal bioengineering of textiles and clothing; Computational biomechanical engineering of textiles and clothing."

Business organizations and governments are nowadays developing and providing internet based electronic services (e-services) featuring various intelligent functions. This book offers a thorough introduction and systematic overview of the new field e-service intelligence. It covers the state-of-the-art of e-service intelligence including both theorems and applications, and a broad range of topics are discussed.

"Intelligent Data Mining Techniques and Applications" is an organized edited collection of contributed chapters covering basic knowledge for intelligent systems and data mining, applications in economic and management, industrial engineering and other related industrial applications. The main objective of this book is to gather a number of peer-reviewed high quality contributions in the relevant topic areas. The focus is especially on those chapters that provide theoretical/analytical solutions to the problems of real interest in intelligent techniques possibly combined with other traditional tools, for data mining and the corresponding applications to engineers and managers of different industrial sectors. Academic and applied researchers and research students working on data mining can also directly benefit from this book.

In today's industrial companies, sensory evaluation is widely used in quality inspection of products, in marketing study and in many other fields such as risk evaluation, investment evaluation and safety evaluation. This book collects a number of representative methods on sensory evaluation. The book reports recent research results and provides a state of the art on intelligent techniques-based sensory evaluation in industrial applications. The focus is especially on theoretical/analytical solutions to the problems of real interest in intelligent techniques with applications to engineers and managers of different industrial departments such as production, quality inspection, product design and development and marketing.