The idea about this book has evolved during the process of its preparation as some of the results have been achieved in parallel with its writing. One reason for this is that in this area of research results are very quickly updated. Another is, possibly, that a strong, unchallenged theoretical basis in this field still does not fully exist. From other hand, the rate of innovation, competition and demand from different branches of industry (from biotech industry to civil and building engineering, from market forecasting to civil aviation, from robotics to emerging e-commerce) is increasingly pressing for more customised solutions based on learning consumers behaviour. A highly interdisciplinary and rapidly innovating field is forming which focus is the design of intelligent, self-adapting systems and machines. It is on the crossroads of control theory, artificial and computational intelligence, different engineering disciplines borrowing heavily from the biology and life sciences. It is often called intelligent control, soft computing or intelligent technology. Some other branches have appeared recently like intelligent agents (which migrated from robotics to different engineering fields), data fusion, knowledge extraction etc., which are inherently related to this field. The core is the attempts to enhance the abilities of the classical control theory in order to have more adequate, flexible, and adaptive models and control algorithms.

This book provides a 'one-stop source' for all readers who are interested in a new, empirical approach to machine learning that, unlike traditional methods, successfully addresses the demands of today's data-driven world. After an introduction to the fundamentals, the book discusses in depth anomaly detection, data partitioning and clustering, as well as classification and predictors. It describes classifiers of zero and first order, and the new, highly efficient and transparent deep rule-based classifiers, particularly highlighting their applications to image processing. Local optimality and stability conditions for the methods presented are formally derived and stated, while the software is also provided as supplemental, open-source material. The book will greatly benefit postgraduate students, researchers and practitioners dealing with advanced data processing, applied mathematicians, software developers of agent-oriented systems, and developers of embedded and real-time systems. It can also be used as a textbook for postgraduate coursework; for this purpose, a standalone set of lecture notes and corresponding lab session notes are available on the same website as the code. Dimitar Filev, Henry Ford Technical Fellow, Ford Motor Company, USA, and Member of the National Academy of Engineering, USA: "The book Empirical Approach to Machine Learning opens new horizons to automated and efficient data processing." Paul J. Werbos, Inventor of the back-propagation method, USA: "I owe great thanks to Professor Plamen Angelov for making this important material available to the community just as I see great practical needs for it, in the new area of making real sense of high-speed data from the brain." Chin-Teng Lin, Distinguished Professor at University of Technology Sydney, Australia: "This new book will set up a milestone for the modern intelligent systems." Edward Tunstel, President of IEEE Systems, Man, Cybernetics Society, USA: "Empirical Approach to Machine Learning provides an insightful and visionary boost of progress in the evolution of computational learning capabilities yielding interpretable and transparent implementations."

This two volume set of books constitutes the proceedings of the 2014 7th IEEE International Conference Intelligent Systems (IS), or IEEE IS'2014 for short, held on September 24-26, 2014 in Warsaw, Poland. Moreover, it contains some selected papers from the collocated IWIFSGN'2014 - Thirteenth International Workshop on Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets and Generalized Nets. The conference was organized by theSystems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Department IV of Engineering Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, and Industrial Institute of Automation and Measurements - PIAP. The papers included in the two proceedings volumes have been subject to a thorough review process by three highly qualified peer reviewers.Comments and suggestions from them have considerable helped improve the quality of the papers but also the division of the volumes into parts, and assignment of the papers to the best suited parts.

The idea about this book has evolved during the process of its preparation as some of the results have been achieved in parallel with its writing. One reason for this is that in this area of research results are very quickly updated. Another is, possibly, that a strong, unchallenged theoretical basis in this field still does not fully exist. From other hand, the rate of innovation, competition and demand from different branches of industry (from biotech industry to civil and building engineering, from market forecasting to civil aviation, from robotics to emerging e-commerce) is increasingly pressing for more customised solutions based on learning consumers behaviour. A highly interdisciplinary and rapidly innovating field is forming which focus is the design of intelligent, self-adapting systems and machines. It is on the crossroads of control theory, artificial and computational intelligence, different engineering disciplines borrowing heavily from the biology and life sciences. It is often called intelligent control, soft computing or intelligent technology. Some other branches have appeared recently like intelligent agents (which migrated from robotics to different engineering fields), data fusion, knowledge extraction etc., which are inherently related to this field. The core is the attempts to enhance the abilities of the classical control theory in order to have more adequate, flexible, and adaptive models and control algorithms.

This book provides a 'one-stop source' for all readers who are interested in a new, empirical approach to machine learning that, unlike traditional methods, successfully addresses the demands of today's data-driven world. After an introduction to the fundamentals, the book discusses in depth anomaly detection, data partitioning and clustering, as well as classification and predictors. It describes classifiers of zero and first order, and the new, highly efficient and transparent deep rule-based classifiers, particularly highlighting their applications to image processing. Local optimality and stability conditions for the methods presented are formally derived and stated, while the software is also provided as supplemental, open-source material. The book will greatly benefit postgraduate students, researchers and practitioners dealing with advanced data processing, applied mathematicians, software developers of agent-oriented systems, and developers of embedded and real-time systems. It can also be used as a textbook for postgraduate coursework; for this purpose, a standalone set of lecture notes and corresponding lab session notes are available on the same website as the code. Dimitar Filev, Henry Ford Technical Fellow, Ford Motor Company, USA, and Member of the National Academy of Engineering, USA: "The book Empirical Approach to Machine Learning opens new horizons to automated and efficient data processing." Paul J. Werbos, Inventor of the back-propagation method, USA: "I owe great thanks to Professor Plamen Angelov for making this important material available to the community just as I see great practical needs for it, in the new area of making real sense of high-speed data from the brain." Chin-Teng Lin, Distinguished Professor at University of Technology Sydney, Australia: "This new book will set up a milestone for the modern intelligent systems." Edward Tunstel, President of IEEE Systems, Man, Cybernetics Society, USA: "Empirical Approach to Machine Learning provides an insightful and visionary boost of progress in the evolution of computational learning capabilities yielding interpretable and transparent implementations."

There is increasing interest in the potential of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and MAV (Micro Air Vehicle) technology and their wide ranging applications including defence missions, reconnaissance and surveillance, border patrol, disaster zone assessment and atmospheric research. High investment levels from the military sector globally is driving research and development and increasing the viability of autonomous platforms as replacements for the remotely piloted vehicles more commonly in use.

UAV/UAS pose a number of new challenges, with the autonomy and in particular collision avoidance, detect and avoid, or sense and avoid, as the most challenging one, involving both regulatory and technical issues.

"Sense and Avoid in UAS: Research and Applications" covers the problem of detect, sense and avoid in UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) in depth and combines the theoretical and application results by leading academics and researchers from industry and academia.

Key features: Presents a holistic view of the sense and avoid problem in the wider application of autonomous systemsIncludes information on human factors, regulatory issues and navigation, control, aerodynamics and physics aspects of the sense and avoid problem in UASProvides professional, scientific and reliable content that is easy to understand, andIncludes contributions from leading engineers and researchers in the field"Sense and Avoid in UAS: Research and Applications" is an invaluable source of original and specialised information. It acts as a reference manual for practising engineers and advanced theoretical researchers and also forms a useful resource for younger engineers and postgraduate students. With its credible sources and thorough review process, Sense and Avoid in UAS: Research and Applications provides a reliable source of information in an area that is fast expanding but scarcely covered.

"Autonomous Learning Systems" is the result of over a decade of focused research and studies in this emerging area which spans a number of well-known and well-established disciplines that include machine learning, system identification, data mining, fuzzy logic, neural networks, neuro-fuzzy systems, control theory and pattern recognition. The evolution of these systems has been both industry-driven with an increasing demand from sectors such as defence and security, aerospace and advanced process industries, bio-medicine and intelligent transportation, as well as research-driven - there is a strong trend of innovation of all of the above well-established research disciplines that is linked to their on-line and real-time application; their adaptability and flexibility.

Providing an introduction to the key technologies, detailed technical explanations of the methodology, and an illustration of the practical relevance of the approach with a wide range of applications, this book addresses the challenges of autonomous learning systems with a systematic approach that lays the foundations for a fast growing area of research that will underpin a range of technological applications vital to both industry and society.

Key features: Presents the subject systematically from explaining the fundamentals to illustrating the proposed approach with numerous applications.Covers a wide range of applications in fields including unmanned vehicles/robotics, oil refineries, chemical industry, evolving user behaviour and activity recognition.Reviews traditional fields including clustering, classification, control, fault detection and anomaly detection, filtering and estimation through the prism of evolving and autonomously learning mechanisms.Accompanied by a website hosting additional material, including the software toolbox and lecture notes.

"Autonomous Learning Systems" provides a 'one-stop shop' on the subject for academics, students, researchers and practicing engineers. It is also a valuable reference for Government agencies and software developers.

From theory to techniques, the first all-in-one resource for EIS

There is a clear demand in advanced process industries, defense, and Internet and communication (VoIP) applications for intelligent yet adaptive/evolving systems. Evolving Intelligent Systems is the first self- contained volume that covers this newly established concept in its entirety, from a systematic methodology to case studies to industrial applications. Featuring chapters written by leading world experts, it addresses the progress, trends, and major achievements in this emerging research field, with a strong emphasis on the balance between novel theoretical results and solutions and practical real-life applications.

Explains the following fundamental approaches for developing evolving intelligent systems (EIS): the Hierarchical Prioritized Structure

the Participatory Learning Paradigm

the Evolving Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy systems (eTS+)

the evolving clustering algorithm that stems from the well-known Gustafson-Kessel offline clustering algorithm

Emphasizes the importance and increased interest in online processing of data streams

Outlines the general strategy of using the fuzzy dynamic clustering as a foundation for evolvable information granulation

Presents a methodology for developing robust and interpretable evolving fuzzy rule-based systems

Introduces an integrated approach to incremental (real-time) feature extraction and classification

Proposes a study on the stability of evolving neuro-fuzzy recurrent networks

Details methodologies for evolving clustering and classification

Reveals different applications of EIS to address real problems in areas of:

evolving inferential sensors in chemical and petrochemical industry

learning and recognition in robotics

Features downloadable software resources

Evolving Intelligent Systems is the one-stop reference guide for both theoretical and practical issues for computer scientists, engineers, researchers, applied mathematicians, machine learning and data mining experts, graduate students, and professionals.