The series Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology impacts all areas of the control discipline. New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies, .... , new challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports, feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial control for wider and rapid dissemination. Within the control community there has been much discussion of and interest in the new Emerging Technologies and Methods. Neural networks along with Fuzzy Logic and Expert Systems is an emerging methodology which has the potential to contribute to the development of intelligent control technologies. This volume of some thirteen chapters edited by Kenneth Hunt, George Irwin and Kevin Warwick makes a useful contribution to the literature of neural network methods and applications. The chapters are arranged systematically progressing from theoretical foundations, through the training aspects of neural nets and concluding with four chapters of applications. The applications include problems as diverse as oven tempera ture control, and energy/load forecasting routines. We hope this interesting but balanced mix of material appeals to a wide range of readers from the theoretician to the industrial applications engineer.

This book merges two major areas of control: the design of control systems and adaptive control. Original contributions are made in the polynomial approach to stochastic optimal control and the resulting control laws are then manipulated into a form suitable for application in the self-tuning control framework. A major contribution is the derivation of both scalar and multivariable optimal controllers for the rejection of measurable disturbances using feedforward. A powerful feature of the book is the presentation of a case-study in which the LQG self-tuner was tested on the pressure control loop of a power station. The broad coverage of the book should appeal not only to research workers, teachers and students of control engineering, but also to practicing industrial control engineers.

This issue of Foot and Ankle Clinics, guest edited by Dr. Kenneth Hunt, will cover concepts surrounding Avascular Necrosis of the Foot and Ankle. Under the guidance of long-time series Consulting Editor Dr. Mark Myerson, Dr. Hunt and his contributing authors will explore topics of interest for practitioners in the field. Articles include, but are not limited to: Diagnostic Imaging for Avascular Necrosis of the Foot and Ankle; Natural History of AVN in the talus; Prevention of AVN in the talus; Avascular Necrosis of the Sesamoids; Kohlers disease and Avascular Necrosis of the Tarsal Navicular in the child; Management of Muller Weiss disease; Bone Grafting and Core Decompression for AVN of the Talus; AVN of the tibial plafond following rotational ankle fracture; Vascularized pedicle graft for talar AVN; Ankle arthrodesis for Talar AVN and arthrodesis non-union; Tibiotalar-Calcaneal Arthrodesis for Severe Talar AVN; and Total Talar Replacement Prosthesis.