This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the variety of tools and techniques used today for the design and modeling of efficient and robust swarm-intelligence based systems: highly (or fully) decentralized, semi-autonomous, highly-scalable infrastructures in various real-life scenarios. Among others, the book reviews the use of the swarm intelligence paradigm in financial investment, blockchain protocols design, shared transportation systems, communication networks, and military applications. Theoretical and practical limitations of such systems are discussed, as well as trade-offs between the various economic and operational parameters of the systems. The book is intended for researchers and engineers in the fields of swarms systems, economics and operation research. Key Features • Explains, in a detailed and clear way, the mathematical principles behind swarm intelligence • Illustrates how swarm intelligence can be used in real-world systems • Reviews leading state-of-the-art approaches in the design and modeling of swarm systems today

"Security and Privacy in Social Networks" brings to the forefront innovative approaches for analyzing and enhancing the security and privacy dimensions in online social networks, and is the first comprehensive attempt dedicated entirely to this field. In order to facilitate the transition of such methods from theory to mechanisms designed and deployed in existing online social networking services, the book aspires to create a common language between the researchers and practitioners of this new area- spanning from the theory of computational social sciences to conventional security and network engineering.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the theory and tools needed for the development of an efficient and robust infrastructure for the design of collaborative patrolling unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms, focusing on its applications for tactical intelligence drones. It discusses frameworks for robustly and near-optimally analyzing flocks of semi-autonomous vehicles designed to efficiently perform the ongoing dynamic patrolling and scanning of pre-defined "search regions". It discusses the theoretical limitations of such systems, as well as the trade-offs between the systems' various economic and operational parameters. Current UAV systems rely mainly on human operators for the design and adaptation of drones' flying routes. However, recent technological advances have introduced new systems, comprised of a small number of self-organizing vehicles, manually guided at the swarm level by a human operator. With the growing complexity of such man-supervised architectures, it is becoming increasingly harder to guarantee a pre-defined level of performance. The use of large scale swarms of UAVs as a combat and reconnaissance platform therefore necessitates the development of an efficient optimization mechanism of their utilization, specifically in the design and maintenance of their patrolling routes. The book is intended for researchers and engineers in the fields of swarms systems and autonomous drones.