Aimed at manufacturing managers and engineers looking for an introduction to computer vision and its potential, this book discusses the areas in which machine vision is being used, explains different types of machine vision hardware and software and summarizes research at several universities. The book's key chapter highlights the use of machine vision for automated inspections, discussing cases in bottling, parts, printed circuit board inspection and inspection and other areas. The authors explain how to pinpoint areas where machine vision can be applied effectively and the factors to consider. Included is a glossary of computer vision terms and a list of machine vision companies. This book should be of interest to manufacturing managers and engineers.

These are exciting times for manufacturing engineers. It has been said that American industry will undergo greater changes during the 1980 and 1990 decades than it did during the entire eight preceding decades of this century. The industrial robot has become the symbol of this progress in computer-integrated manufacturing. This book is for engineers and managers in manufacturing industries who are involved in implementing robotics in their operations. With tens of thousands of industrial robots already in use in the United States, there are plenty of role models for proposed applications to be patterned after. This book provides an overview of robot applications and presents case histories that might suggest applications to engineers and managers for implementation in their own facilities. The application of industrial robots were well developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While the reader may note some of the examples discussed in this handbook incorporate older robot models, it is the application that is of interest. As Joseph Engelberger, the founding father of robotics has pointed out, industrial robots in 1988 are "doing pretty much the same kind of work" as they did in 1980.

Each year since 1961, the Rochester Trophoblast Conference has grown in the diversity of its approaches to trophoblast research. At the Ninth Conference, Professors Klopper, Villee and Winick molded the conference with their state of the art addresses on Endocrinology, Metabolism and Nutrition of the Trophoblast. The Conference was favored with a multitude of creative studies and with warm, sunny, autumn weather to discuss these results. In October of 1982, one hundred and five investigators from 12 countries and 21 states discussed 42 different presentations at the Holiday Inn in Rochester, New York. The Ninth Conference introduced workshops on Metabolism, Nutrition, Endocrinology and Trophoblastic Neoplasia. The chairmen of these workshops were: Metabolism -Villee and Miller; Nutrition - Winick and Maulik; Endocrinology - Klopper and Muechler; and Trophoblastic Neoplasia -Szulman and Helmkamp. These two-hour, intimate discussion groups were well-received by all who attended. As with the Eighth Conference, the University of Rochester will no longer produce a transcript of the Conference. Beginning with the Ninth Conference, Plenum Press in association with the University, will publish a peer-reviewed series entitled Trophoblast Research. An international editorial advisory board has been named to assure the direction of the series. The editorial board and the organizing committee will develop the future meetings of the Rochester Trophoblast Conference. Trophoblast Research will be published as single bound volumes with original contributions and editorial reports of presentations from the Conference.