This book reflects the latest developments in variable structure systems (VSS) and sliding mode control (SMC), highlighting advances in various branches of the VSS/SMC field, e.g., from conventional SMC to high-order SMC, from the continuous-time domain to the discrete-time domain, from theories to applications, etc. The book consists of three parts and 16 chapters: in the first part, new VSS/SMC algorithms are proposed and their properties are analyzed, while the second focuses on the use of VSS/SMC techniques to solve a variety of control problems; the third part examines the applications of VSS/SMC to real-time systems. The book introduces postgraduates and researchers to the state-of-the-art in VSS/SMC field, including the theory, methodology, and applications. Relative academic disciplines include Automation, Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Instrument Science and Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Computer Science and Technology, Transportation Engineering, Energy and Power Engineering, etc.

This volume is dedicated to Professor Okyay Kaynak to commemorate his life time impactful research and scholarly achievements and outstanding services to profession. The 21 invited chapters have been written by leading researchers who, in the past, have had association with Professor Kaynak as either his students and associates or colleagues and collaborators. The focal theme of the volume is the Sliding Modes covering a broad scope of topics from theoretical investigations to their significant applications from Control to Intelligent Mechatronics.

Soft computing has provided sophisticated methodologies for the development of intelligent decision support systems. Fast advances in soft computing technologies, such as fuzzy logic and systems, artificial neural networks and evolutionary computation, have made available powerful problem representation and modelling paradigms, and learning and optimisation mechanisms for addressing modern decision making issues. This book provides a comprehensive coverage of up-to-date conceptual frameworks in broadly perceived decision support systems and successful applications. Different from other existing books, this volume predominately focuses on applied decision support with soft computing. Areas covered include planning, management finance and administration in both the private and public sectors.

This elementary book provides some state-of-the-art research results on broad disciplinary sciences on complex networks. It presents an in-depth study with detailed description of dynamics, controls and applications of complex networks. The contents of this book can be summarized as follows. First, the dynamics of complex networks, for example, the cluster dynamic analysis by using kernel spectral methods, community detection algorithms in bipartite networks, epidemiological modeling with demographics and epidemic spreading on multi-layer networks, are studied. Second, the controls of complex networks are investigated including topics like distributed finite-time cooperative control of multi-agent systems by applying homogenous-degree and Lyapunov methods, composite finite-time containment control for disturbed second-order multi-agent systems, fractional-order observer design of multi-agent systems, chaos control and anticontrol of complex systems via Parrondos game and many more. Third, the applications of complex networks provide some applicable carriers, which show the importance of theories developed in complex networks. In particular, a general model for studying time evolution of transition networks, deflection routing in complex networks, recommender systems for social networks analysis and mining, strategy selection in networked evolutionary games, integration and methods in computational biology, are discussed in detail.

Random fading communication is a type of attenuation damage of data over certain propagation media. Establishing a systematic framework for the design and analysis of learning control schemes, the book studies in depth the iterative learning control for stochastic systems with random fading communication. The authors introduce both cases where the statistics of the random fading channels are known in advance and unknown. They then extend the framework to other systems, including multi-agent systems, point-to-point tracking systems, and multi-sensor systems. More importantly, a learning control scheme is established to solve the multi-objective tracking problem with faded measurements, which can help practical applications of learning control for high-precision tracking of networked systems. The book will be of interest to researchers and engineers interested in learning control, data-driven control and networked control systems.

Successful strategies and principles for using information technology to transform regional and community economies exist, and they are presented here with clarity and insight in a way that is useful to both practitioners and researchers. Although the communities discussed here range far and wide, from those in Russia to Australia and to Kenya, any community can benefit from enhanced utilization of information and communication technologies. The ways in which technology can help improve economic, social, cultural, and political conditions are as numerous and various as the communities themselves. In Central Queensland, Australia, community leaders have brought in a high-tech expert advisory system to help them control weed infestation. New Zealand and Australia have pioneered telehealth, the exchange of health care information and the delivery of some services across great distances. In Russia, wiring a community was found to be about more than mere hardware and software; vital to the process was understanding how communities provide access to information technology, how authorities and volunteers can improve computer literacy among citizens, and how connectivity can be extended to greater numbers of people. In some areas of south Asia, nongovernmental organizations have teamed up with local governments to increase access, empowerment, and e-commerce opportunities. These are but a few of the ways this volume contributes to our knowledge base about the impact of technology on economic development.

This book reflects the latest developments in variable structure systems (VSS) and sliding mode control (SMC), highlighting advances in various branches of the VSS/SMC field, e.g., from conventional SMC to high-order SMC, from the continuous-time domain to the discrete-time domain, from theories to applications, etc. The book consists of three parts and 16 chapters: in the first part, new VSS/SMC algorithms are proposed and their properties are analyzed, while the second focuses on the use of VSS/SMC techniques to solve a variety of control problems; the third part examines the applications of VSS/SMC to real-time systems. The book introduces postgraduates and researchers to the state-of-the-art in VSS/SMC field, including the theory, methodology, and applications. Relative academic disciplines include Automation, Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Instrument Science and Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Computer Science and Technology, Transportation Engineering, Energy and Power Engineering, etc.

This volume is dedicated to Professor Okyay Kaynak to commemorate his life time impactful research and scholarly achievements and outstanding services to profession. The 21 invited chapters have been written by leading researchers who, in the past, have had association with Professor Kaynak as either his students and associates or colleagues and collaborators. The focal theme of the volume is the Sliding Modes covering a broad scope of topics from theoretical investigations to their significant applications from Control to Intelligent Mechatronics.

This elementary book provides some state-of-the-art research results on broad disciplinary sciences on complex networks. It presents an in-depth study with detailed description of dynamics, controls and applications of complex networks. The contents of this book can be summarized as follows. First, the dynamics of complex networks, for example, the cluster dynamic analysis by using kernel spectral methods, community detection algorithms in bipartite networks, epidemiological modeling with demographics and epidemic spreading on multi-layer networks, are studied. Second, the controls of complex networks are investigated including topics like distributed finite-time cooperative control of multi-agent systems by applying homogenous-degree and Lyapunov methods, composite finite-time containment control for disturbed second-order multi-agent systems, fractional-order observer design of multi-agent systems, chaos control and anticontrol of complex systems via Parrondos game and many more. Third, the applications of complex networks provide some applicable carriers, which show the importance of theories developed in complex networks. In particular, a general model for studying time evolution of transition networks, deflection routing in complex networks, recommender systems for social networks analysis and mining, strategy selection in networked evolutionary games, integration and methods in computational biology, are discussed in detail.

Soft computing has provided sophisticated methodologies for the development of intelligent decision support systems. Fast advances in soft computing technologies, such as fuzzy logic and systems, artificial neural networks and evolutionary computation, have made available powerful problem representation and modelling paradigms, and learning and optimisation mechanisms for addressing modern decision making issues. This book provides a comprehensive coverage of up-to-date conceptual frameworks in broadly perceived decision support systems and successful applications. Different from other existing books, this volume predominately focuses on applied decision support with soft computing. Areas covered include planning, management finance and administration in both the private and public sectors.

Chaos control refers to purposefully manipulating chaotic dynamical behaviors of some complex nonlinear systems. There exists no similar control theory-oriented book available in the market that is devoted to the subject of chaos control, written by control engineers for control engineers.  World-renowned leading experts in the field provide their state-of-the-art survey about the extensive research that has been done over the last few years in this subject. The new technology of chaos control has major impact on novel engineering applications such as telecommunications, power systems, liquid mixing, internet technology, high-performance circuits and devices, biological systems modeling like the brain and the heart, and decision making. The book is not only aimed at active researchers in the field of chaos control involving control and systems engineers, theoretical and experimental physicists, and applied mathematicians, but also at a general audience in related fields.

Bifurcation control refers to the task of designing a controller that can modify the bifurcation properties of a given nonlinear system, so as to achieve some desirable dynamical behaviors. There exists no similar control theory-oriented book available in the market that is devoted to the subject of bifurcation control, written by control engineers for control engineers. World-renowned leading experts in the field provide their state-of-the-art survey about the extensive research that has been done over the last few years in this subject. The book is not only aimed at active researchers in the field of bifurcation control and its applications, but also at a general audience in related fields.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 34th Australasian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AI 2021, held in Sydney, NSW, Australia, in February 2022.* The 64 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 120 submissions. The papers were organized in topical sections named: Ethical AI, Applications, Classical AI, Computer Vision and Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and Data Mining, and Network Analysis. *The conference was postponed from December 2021 to February 2022 and held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The book is a collection of papers concerning the theories, applications and perspectives of Variable Structure Systems (VSS), which have been a main control design methodology. The 20th century has seen the formation and consolidation of VSS theory and its applications. It has also seen an emerging trend of cross-fertilization and integration of VSS with other control and non-control areas such as feedback linearization, flatness, passivity based control, adaptive and learning control, system identification, pulse width modulation, geometric and algebraic methods, artificial intelligence, modeling and optimization, neural networks, fuzzy logic, to name just a few. To reflect these major developments in the 20th century, this book includes specially invited surveys and contributions from well-known experts in VSS as well as selected extended papers from the 6th International Workshop on VSS held on the Gold Coast, Australia 7-9 December 2000.