Springer aug 2004 (346 risultati)

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Many organizations have an urgent need of mining their multiple databases inherently distributed in branches (distributed data). In particular, as the Web is rapidly becoming an information flood, individuals and organizations can take into account low-cost information and knowledge on the Internet when making decisions. How to efficiently identify quality knowledge from different data sources has become a significant challenge. This challenge has attracted a great many researchers including the au thors who have developed a local pattern analysis, a new strategy for dis covering some kinds of potentially useful patterns that cannot be mined in traditional multi-database mining techniques. Local pattern analysis deliv ers high-performance pattern discovery from multiple databases. There has been considerable progress made on multi-database mining in such areas as hierarchical meta-learning, collective mining, database classification, and pe culiarity discovery. While these techniques continue to be future topics of interest concerning multi-database mining, this book focuses on these inter esting issues under the framework of local pattern analysis. The book is intended for researchers and students in data mining, dis tributed data analysis, machine learning, and anyone else who is interested in multi-database mining. It is also appropriate for use as a text supplement for broader courses that might also involve knowledge discovery in databases and data mining.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Remote Sensing image analysis is mostly done using only spectral information on a pixel by pixel basis. Information captured in neighbouring cells, or information about patterns surrounding the pixel of interest often provides useful supplementary information. This book presents a wide range of innovative and advanced image processing methods for including spatial information, captured by neighbouring pixels in remotely sensed images, to improve image interpretation or image classification. Presented methods include different types of variogram analysis, various methods for texture quantification, smart kernel operators, pattern recognition techniques, image segmentation methods, sub-pixel methods, wavelets and advanced spectral mixture analysis techniques. Apart from explaining the working methods in detail a wide range of applications is presented covering land cover and land use mapping, environmental applications such as heavy metal pollution, urban mapping and geological applications to detect hydrocarbon seeps. The book is meant for professionals, PhD students and graduates who use remote sensing image analysis, image interpretation and image classification in their work related to disciplines such as geography, geology, botany, ecology, forestry, cartography, soil science, engineering and urban and regional planning.…

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - I was a Medical Student in 1966 when the Millis Report on the training of the generalist physician was published,de ning the concept of primary care. According to the Report, the primary provider has four major responsib- ities or roles. The rst role is that of initial contact care of the undiffer- tiated patient. The second is to provide comprehensive care based on the belief that the primary provider should be able to manage the overwhe- ing majority of problems with which patients present. Equally important is the third role-continuity and coordination of care within the health care system. Finally,the primary provider is responsible for demonstrating le- ership in the community. This Report's description of a primary provider seems as relevant today as it was when it was written. In 1994,the Institute of Medicine's assessment of primary care added the responsibility of family and community integration of care to the Millis Report description. Without question there are many challenges to a contemporary imp- mentation of this comprehensive description of primary care, beginning with the level of individual patients who so often suffer from complex pr- lems, such as mental disorders and obesity. Treating these conditions in a brief primary care visit is dif cult. At the level of the larger system, re- bursement is often inadequate and can represent policies that are uns- portive of primary care, such as those that compromise payment for preventive services that help patients to quit smoking or lose weight.; Despite a well publicized shift away from the traditional family structure, the family remains the most basic relational unit in society and the physician's most potent ally. A family orientation in health care can provide a wider understanding of illness and broader range of solutions than the classic biomedical model. Family-Oriented Primary Care: A Manual for Medical Providers offers practical guidance for the physician who would like to take greater advantage of this resource. The result is a readable guide, structured around step by step protocols that are vividly illustrated with case studies drawn from the authors' extensive collaboration at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. The preliminary chapters give a common sense grounding to family systems theory, family research, and family assessment. The family conference is carefully examined with step-by-step instructions on when and how to call and conduct one. The majority of the book offers practical guidelines for family oriented approaches to transitional events in the life cycle, such as pregnancy or nursing home placement, as well as specific medical problems, such as chronic illness and somatization of the family systems approach in the office or in the hospital. This manual is an indispensable and unique resource for all primary care physicians and residents as well as nurses, family therapists, social workers and other members of the 'helping professions.'.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - In the first, 1986, edition of this book, inverse problems in vibration were interpreted strictly: problems concerning the reconstruction of a unique, undamped vibrating system, of a specified type, from specified vibratory behaviour, particularly specified natural frequencies and/or natural mode shapes. In this new edition the scope of the book has been widened to include topics such as isospectral systems- families of systems which all exhibit some specified behaviour; applications of the concept of Toda flow; new, non-classical approaches to inverse Sturm-Liouville problems; qualitative properties of the modes of some finite element models; damage identification.With its emphasis on analysis, on qualitative results, rather than on computation, the book will appeal to researchers in vibration theory, matrix analysis, differential and integral equations, matrix analysis, non-destructive testing, modal analysis, vibration isolation, etc. 'This book is a necessary addition to the library of engineers and mathematicians working in vibration theory.' Mathematical Reviews.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Have you ever wondered where the safety factors come from Why is it that deterministic analysis has reached a very sophisticated level, but in the end empirical factors are still needed Is there a way to select them, rather than assigning them arbitrarily as is often done This book clearly shows that safety factors are closely related with the reliability of structures, giving yet another demonstration of Albert Einstein's maxim that 'It is incomprehensible that Nature is comprehensible'. The book shows that the safety factors are much more comprehensible if they are seen in a probabilistic context. Several definitions of the safety factors are given, analytical results on insightful numbers are presented, nonprobabilistic safety factors are shown, as well as their estimates derived by the inequalities of Bienayme, Markov, Chebushev and Camp-Meidell. A special chapter is devoted to important contributions by Japanese experts. This volume will help to critically re-think the issue of safety factors, which can create a false feeling of security. The deterministic paradigm can be enhanced by incorporating probabilistic concepts wisely where they are needed without treating all variables as probabilistic ones. The book shows that there is a need of their integration rather than separation. This book is intended for engineers, graduate students, lecturers and researchers.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Recent years have brought many changes to the world of mass media. The In ternet and mobile communications technology have provided consumers with interactive digital services. Television is catching up with this trend through the digitalization process. Digital television is a hybrid platform combining elements from classical analog television and the Internet, providing modern multimedia services on a familiar platform. In short, digital TV is a gateway to the world of interactive digital media. Digital TV brings consumers into the television service arena and offers them new degrees of freedom. However, as the service and multimedia content types diversify and the services and their content increase, television is facing many of the same challenges of complexity and information overflow faced by other digital media. Metadata can handle the diverse services and content of digital TV effi. ciently and in a consumer-friendly way. Metadata means that the data are accompanied by other data which describe them. As data about data, meta data can provide an insight into syntactically and semantically complex data by distilling their essence to a set of simple descriptors. Metadata also helps to structure and manage information in diverse settings. The use of metadata in broadcast multimedia should not be restricted to being merely a tool for coping with the challenges of a complex networked multimedia environment. Instead, metadata ofTers new opportunities for the development of innovative services.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Web caching and content delivery technologies provide the infrastructure on which systems are built for the scalable distribution of information. This proceedings of the eighth annual workshop, captures a cross-section of the latest issues and techniques of interest to network architects and researchers in large-scale content delivery. Topics covered include the distribution of streaming multimedia, edge caching and computation, multicast, delivery of dynamic content, enterprise content delivery, streaming proxies and servers, content transcoding, replication and caching strategies, peer-to-peer content delivery, and Web prefetching. Web Content Caching and Distribution encompasses all areas relating to the intersection of storage and networking for Internet content services. The book is divided into eight parts: mobility, applications, architectures, multimedia, customization, peer-to-peer, performance and measurement, and delta encoding.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Applied Geography, A World Perspective reviews progress in applied geography in different regions of the world. It does this through the eyes of an international panel of highly regarded academic practitioners. The book offers new prospects on the use of established approaches and explores exciting new territories. Together, the contributors provide a comprehensive picture of applied geography today. This book is of relevance to faculty and graduate students in the fields of geography, planning, public policy, regional science and other related social and behavioural sciences.…

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology attempts to provide concise, critical reviews of timely advances, philosophy, and significant areas of accomplished or needed endeavor in the total field of xenobiotics, in any segment of the environment, as well as toxicological implications. …

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - This monograph is planned to provide the application of the soliton theory to solve certain practical problems selected from the fields of solid mechanics, fluid mechanics and biomechanics. The work is based mainly on the authors' research carried out at their home institutes, and on some specified, significant results existing in the published literature. The methodology to study a given evolution equation is to seek the waves of permanent form, to test whether it possesses any symmetry properties, and whether it is stable and solitonic in nature. Students of physics, applied mathematics, and engineering are usually exposed to various branches of nonlinear mechanics, especially to the soliton theory. The soliton is regarded as an entity, a quasi-particle, which conserves its character and interacts with the surroundings and other solitons as a particle. It is related to a strange phenomenon, which consists in the propagation of certain waves without attenuation in dissipative media. This phenomenon has been known for about 200 years (it was described, for example, by the Joule Verne's novel Les histoires de Jean Marie Cabidoulin, Éd. Hetzel), but its detailed quantitative description became possible only in the last 30 years due to the exceptional development of computers. The discovery of the physical soliton is attributed to John Scott Russell. In 1834, Russell was observing a boat being drawn along a narrow channel by a pair of horses.…

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Most recent publications on spin-related phenomena focus on technological aspects of spin-dependent transport, with emphasis on the specific needs of spintronics. The present publication targets rather fundamental problems related to the physics of spin in solids, such as: (1) manifestation of spin and orbital polarization in spectroscopy, including valence and X-ray photoemission, magneto-optics, low-energy electron scattering on the surface; (2) application of new methods for interpretation and determination of magnetic low-lying excitations in the bulk and on the surface; (3) recent progress in evaluation of different type of magnetic forces including spin-orbit and exchange interaction, with subsequent determination of anisotropy and spin-ordering structure; (4) general problems of spin-dependent transport in semiconductors and metals, such as current-caused torque effect on spins at interfaces and spin injection in quantum dot systems; (5) problems in understanding the spin-dependent trends in unconventional superconductors; (6) many-body problems in solid state physics and recent progress in evaluation of self-energy effects; (7) fabrication of new magnetic materials with pre-programmed properties based on assembly from nano-particles, etc.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Environmentally compatible polymers (green polymers) are the key to sustainable developments for our rich and convenient life. In order to develop green polymers, it is essential to understand that nature constructs a variety of materials that can be used. Plant materials such as cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin are the largest organic resources. Thermal Properties of Green Polymers and Biocomposites is unique in that it introduces thermal analysis applicable to green polymers and provides fundamental thermal properties of cellulose, polysaccharides and lignin. The book includes over 370 figures concerning thermal properties of green polymers with detailed experimental conditions. It also introduces newly patented environmentally compatible green polymers. Thermal properties provided include: thermogravimetry (TG), differential thermal analysis (DTA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermomechanometry (TMA) and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). This book covers two domains: -Fundamentals of thermal properties of cellulose, polysaccharides and lignin (Chapters 3 to 5); -Developments of new biocompatible polymers derived from plant materials (Chapters 6 to 8). This book is aimed at advanced users and specialists who are interested in green polymers and who utilize thermal analyses for the above polymers, especially in research laboratories, both academic and industrial.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - The IUTAM Symposium on Evolutionary Methods in Mechanics was held in Cracow, Poland, September 24-27, 2002. The site of the S- posium was Cracow University of Technology. The Symposium was - tended by 50 persons from 18 countries. In addition, several Polish students, Ph. D. students and research associates participated in the meeting. The Symposium provided an excellent opportunity for scholars of - chanics, computer sciences and arti cial intelligence to interact and - change their points of view on the advanced computational and appli- tion aspects of the evolutionary methods in analysis and design of - chanical systems. Recently evolutionary methods have become the most e ective tools for solving speci c kinds of problems in mechanics, es- cially in structural and multidisciplinary optimization. The meeting was devotedtoboththeoreticalandpracticaldevelopmentsofcomputational mechanics methods drawing their inspiration from nature with part- ular emphasis on evolutionary models of computation such as genetic algorithms, evolutionary strategies, classi er systems, evolutionary p- gramming and other evolutionary computation techniques in mechanics. The objective of the Symposium was to provide an international forum forfacilitatingtheexchangeofinformationamongresearchersinvolvedin computational intelligence methods based on evolutionary nature. The Symposium put special emphasis on evolutionary optimization in va- ous eldsof mechanics. Thesubject of evolutionary optimization has- cently experienced a remarkable growth. New concepts, approaches and applicationsarebeing continually developed and exploited to provide- cient tools for solving a variety of optimization problems in mechanics.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - This book examines both the potential application of electronic nose technology, and the current state of development of chemical sensors for the detection of vapours from explosives, such as those used in landmines. The two fields have developed, somewhat in parallel, over the past decade and so one of the purposes of this workshop, on which the book is based, was to bring together scientists from the two fields in order to challenge the two communities and, mutually, stimulate both fields.It begins with a review of the basic principles of an electronic nose and explores possible ways in which the detection limit of conventional electronic nose technology can be reduced to the level required for the trace levels observed for many explosive materials. Next are reviews of the use of several different types of solid-state chemical sensors: polymer-based sensors, i.e. chemiluminescent, fluorescent and optical, to detect explosive materials; metal oxide semiconducting resistive sensors; and then electrochemical sensors. Next, different pattern recognition techniques are presented to enhance the performance of chemical sensors. Then biological systems are considered as a possible blue-print for chemical sensing. The biology can be employed either to understand the way insects locate odorant sources, or to understand the signal processing neural pathways. Next is a discussion of some of the new types of electronic noses; namely, a fast GC column with a SAW detector and a micromechanical sensor. Finally, the important issues of sampling technologies and the design of the microfluidic systems are considered. In particular, the use of pre-concentrators and solid phase micro extractors to boost the vapour concentration before it is introduced to the chemical sensor or electronic nose.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Mesoscopic physics deals with effects at submicron and nanoscales where the conventional wisdom of macroscopic averaging is no longer applicable. A wide variety of new devices have recently evolved, all extremely promising for major novel directions in technology, including carbon nanotubes, ballistic quantum dots, hybrid mesoscopic junctions made of different type of normal, superconducting and ferromagnetic materials. This, in turn, demands a profound understanding of fundamental physical phenomena on mesoscopic scales. As a result, the forefront of fundamental research in condensed matter has been moved to the areas where the interplay between electron-electron interactions and quantum interference of phase-coherent electrons scattered by impurities and/or boundaries is the key to such understanding. An understanding of decoherence as well as other effects of the interactions is crucial for developing future electronic, photonic and spintronic devices, including the element base for quantum computation. …

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Biomedical EPR - Part A focuses on applications of EPR spectroscopy in the areas of free radicals, metals, medicine, and physiology. The book celebrates the 70th birthday of Prof. James S. Hyde, Medical College of Wisconsin, and his contributions to this field. Chapters are written to provide introductory material for new-comers to the field which lead into up-to-date reviews that provide perspective on the wide range of questions that can be addressed by EPR. Key Features:Free Radicals in Medicine Radicals in vivo and in Model Systems, and their Study by Spin Trapping In vivo EPR, including Oximetry and Imaging Time Domain EPR at Radio Frequencies EPR of Copper Complexes: Motion and Frequency Dependence Time Domain EPR and Electron Spin Echo Envelope Modulation. …

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Der Autor betrachtetalle etablierten Methoden der Datenmodellierung, angefangen bei der Semantischen Datenmodellierung ERM (Entity-Relationship-Modellierung), ihrer Präzisierung als SERM (Strukturierte ERM) und ihrer Konkretisierung in den Datenbanken der SAP-Unternehmensmodelle als SAP SERM bis zur relationalen Datenmodellierung, die zum konkreten Datenbankentwurf führt. Außerdem wird die objektorientierte Datenmodellierung, wie sie sich in der UML (Unified Modeling Language) entwickelt hat, dargestellt. 300 pp. Deutsch.…

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Measure, Integral and Probability is a gentle introduction that makes measure and integration theory accessible to the average third-year undergraduate student. The ideas are developed at an easy pace in a form that is suitable for self-study, with an emphasis on clear explanations and concrete examples rather than abstract theory. For this second edition, the text has been thoroughly revised and expanded. New features include: a substantial new chapter, featuring a constructive proof of the Radon-Nikodym theorem, an analysis of the structure of Lebesgue-Stieltjes measures, the Hahn-Jordan decomposition, and a brief introduction to martingales key aspects of financial modelling, including the Black-Scholes formula, discussed briefly from a measure-theoretical perspective to help the reader understand the underlying mathematical framework. In addition, further exercises and examples are provided to encourage the reader to become directly involved with the material. 328 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Following NASA's very recent discovery of vast amounts of water just beneath the Martian surface, Jeffrey Kargel presents a brand new treatment of Martian geologic and climatic history. A fresh perspective on the ideas of oceans and glaciation and young water runoff features - at best poorly represented in current books - will capture every reader's imagination and enthusiasm for the Red Planet. 640 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Thisvolume provides a self-contained introduction to some topics in orbit equivalence theory, a branch of ergodic theory. The first two chapters focus on hyperfiniteness and amenability. Included here are proofs of Dye's theorem that probability measure-preserving, ergodic actions of the integers are orbit equivalent and of the theorem of Connes-Feldman-Weiss identifying amenability and hyperfiniteness for non-singular equivalence relations. The presentation here is often influenced by descriptive set theory, and Borel and generic analogs of various results are discussed. The final chapter is a detailed account of Gaboriau's recent results on the theory of costs for equivalence relations and groups and its applications to proving rigidity theorems for actions of free groups. 148 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This is the first book to provide a systematic exposition of promising techniques for the reconstruction of small inhomogeneities from boundary measurements. In particular, theoretical results and numerical procedures for the inverse problems for the conductivity equation, the Lamé system, as well as the Helmholtz equation are discussed in a readable and informative manner. The general approach developed in this book is based on layer potential techniques and modern asymptotic analysis of partial differential equations. The book is particularly suitable for graduate students in mathematics. 252 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This compelling study traces the changes in women's lives in France from 1789 to the present. Susan K. Foley surveys the patterns of women's experiences in the socially-segregated society of the early nineteenth century, and then traces the evolution of their lifestyles to the turn of the twenty-first century, when many of the earlier social distinctions had disappeared. Focusing on women's contested place within the political nation, Women in France since 1789 examines:- the on-going strength of notions of sexual difference- recurrent debates over gender- the anxiety created by women's perceived departure from ideals of womanhood- major controversies over matters such as reproductive rights, significant cultural changes, and women's often under-estimated political roles. By addressing and exploring these key issues, Foley demonstrates women's efforts over two centuries to create a place in society on their own terms. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Informed choice in maternity care is government policy and is therefore an important issue in the education of midwives and obstetricians. This book brings together key research in the area and provides a forum for the concerns of all involved. Contributors are drawn from a wide range of perspectives, including service users, lay support groups, midwives, social scientists, obstetricians, nursing and law. Informed Choice in Maternity Care is timely, topical and covers a number of current debates. 320 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -On behalf of the AH 2004 Program Committee, we were pleased to welcome att- dees to Eindhoven for the 3rd International Conference on Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-Based Systems. Similar to previous years, the number of research groups involved in research and innovative applications of personalization and adaptation functionalities has continued to grow, resulting in a further increase of 33% in the number of papers submitted to the conference, compared to the previous conference. From the 138 submissions we received, the program committee, in a rigorous review process, accepted 27 submissions (i.e., 20%) as full papers and 18 (i.e., 13%) as short papers. The large number of papers submitted generated a tremendous amount of work for the program committee members and the external reviewers, and we are immensely greatful for the effort they put into the process of selecting the very best papers. Together with three invited talks (by Emile Aarts, Philips Research, Candy Sidner, Mitsubishi Research, and Eric Horvitz, Microsoft Research), the AH 2004 - pers provide an excellent view on the successful approaches for innovative person- ization and adaptation functionalities in a variety of areas, including eLearning, eC- merce, mobile tourist guides and many more. They also show the integration of pers- alization functionalities being employed in Web environments, in ambient intelligence and intelligent agent contexts, and building upon adaptive hypermedia and Semantic Web technologies, Web search, Web services, social and peer-to-peer networks, and recommender systems, among others. 464 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Who is responsible for the terror, atrocities, and violations of human rights that occur in civil wars Blame can be directly attributed to the actual perpetrators of the massacres, rapes, and pillaging - but it can also be placed on the leaders who often hide behind their ambivalent orders. Placing responsibility clearly in the hands of political leadership, Mitchell explores the interaction of leaders, their management practices and repressive policies, using the Arab-Israeli conflict and the English and Russian civil wars to shed light on when leaders are more or less likely to turn to atrocities to achieve their goals. With civil wars continuing to rage around the world, Agents of Atrocity provides a timely history of atrocities and the leaders and henchmen who carried them out, while providing a new context for understanding why they occur and how they can be prevented in the future. 228 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Criminologists have despaired that modernization and crime are inseparable. The more modern we become, the more criminal. Japan has long been seen as an exception to the rule. The reasons for this, however, have not been well understood. In this book, the independent value of culture is explored to reveal new insights. The author finds that while it remains the case that crime reduction may come at some cost to individual autonomy, the 'West' can learn from Japan to reduce the social harm of too much freedom. Instead of endless crime prevention programs through 'social engineering', policy makers could pay more attention to sociological insights concerning responsibility, obligations and collective identities. 227 pp. Englisch. …

Buch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Does the proliferation of security communities around the world presage a new era of competition between regions or an era of intensified global integration This important new study assesses the relationship between security communities and their neighbours and asks whether processes of regional integration will contribute to a global 'clash of civilizations'. Drawing on four detailed case studies (Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the Persian Gulf and North America), Alex J. Bellamy argues that the more mature a security community becomes, the less likely it is to become a 'regional fortress'. 221 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Process Management, with its key concepts of internal customer and process ownership, is becoming one of the most important competitive weapons for firms and can determine a strategic change in the way business is carried out (Business Process Reengineering - B.P.R.). In this context, the flow of information increases, passes through the internal departments, to then extend beyond the traditional boundaries of the enterprise and form operational and knowledge networks with other business units, selected suppliers and clients, etc. These (internal and external) networks harness the great power offered by Web technologies (Internet, Intranet, Extranet) and create the Extended Enterprise.This book explores innovative themes that will trace the business paths for many firms in the near future. It is based on research and experience in several major companies, in particular the Snaidero Group (Europe's leading company in the kitchen sector), with contributions by leading Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) companies. 288 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -1 With its fourth edition, the ANTS series of workshops has changed its name. Theoriginal ANTS FromAntColoniestoArti cialAnts:InternationalWo- shop on Ant Algorithms has become ANTS International Workshop on Ant Colony Optimization and Swarm Intelligence . This change is mainly due to the following reasons. First, the term ant algorithms was slower in spreading in the research community than the term swarm intelligence , while at the sametime research inso-calledswarm robotics wasthesubjectofincreasingactivity:itwastherefore an obvious choice to substitute the term ant algorithms with the more accepted and used term swarm intelligence. Second, although swarm intelligence research has undoubtedly produced a 2 number of interesting and promising research directions , we think it is fair to say that its most successful strand is the one known as ant colony optimi- tion .Ant colony optimization, rst introducedin the early1990sasa noveltool fortheapproximatesolutionofdiscreteoptimizationproblems,hasrecentlyseen an explosion in the number of its applications, both to academic and real-world problems, and is currently being extended to the realm of continuous optimi- tion (a few papers on this subject being published in these proceedings). It is therefore a reasonable choice to have the term ant colony optimization as part of the workshop name. 452 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This volume contains the postproceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Computational Autonomy - Potential, Risks, Solutions (AUTONOMY 2003), held at the 2nd International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-agentSystems(AAMAS2003),July14,2003,Melbourne,Australia.Apart from revised versions of the accepted workshop papers, we have included invited contributions from leading experts in the eld. With this, the present volume represents the rst comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art of research on autonomy, capturing di erent theories of autonomy, perspectives on autonomy in di erent kinds of agent-based systems, and practical approaches to dealing with agent autonomy. Agent orientation refers to a software development perspective that has evolved in the past 25 years in the elds of computational agents and multiagent systems. The basic notion underlying this perspective is that of a computational agent, that is, an entity whose behavior deserves to be called exible, social, and autonomous. As an autonomous entity, an agent possesses action choice and is at least to some extent capable of deciding and acting under self-control. Through its emphasis on autonomy, agent orientation signi cantly di ers from traditional engineering perspectives such as structure orientation or object o- entation. These perspectives are targeted on the development of systems whose behavior is fully determined and controlled by external units (e.g., by a p- grammer at design time and/or a user at run time), and thus inherently fail to capture the notion of autonomy. 292 pp. Englisch.…