Springer London

This book reviews and defines the current state of the art for informatics education in medicine and health care. This field has undergone considerable change as the field of informatics itself has evolved. Twenty years ago almost the only individuals involved in health care who had even heard the term "informatics" were those who identified themselves as medical or nursing informaticians.  Today, we have a variety of subfields of informatics including not just medical and nursing informatics, but informatics applied to specific health professions (such as dental or pharmacy informatics), as well as biomedical informatics, bioinformatics and public health informatics.

Informatics Education in Health Care addresses the broad range of informatics education programs available today.  The Editor and very experienced internationally recognized informatics educators who have contributed to this work have made the tacit knowledge explicit and shared some of the lessons they have learned. This book therefore represents the key reference for all involved in the informatics education whether they be trainers or trainees.

This edition revises the original core chapters and adds 15 contributions from artists who shed new light on the progress made in the early decades of the 21^st Century.

Explorations in Art and Technology is about the creative process in action, seen through the eyes of practitioners and researchers. It brings together artists, technologists and researchers who have written about emerging correspondences between virtual and physical worlds, between human and machine processes, between abstract concepts and their physical realizations, between music and visualization and between film and painting. It is a story of new visions and new forms.

First published in 2002, this revised edition updates much of the original material and adds contributions from fifteen artists who shed new light on the progress that has been made in the early decades of the 21^st Century. The book describes how artists have conceived and made novel digitalworks from a historical perspective and how inter-disciplinary research has had a profound effect on the take up of digital technology in the wider community. It shows that a practice-based action research approach to case studies of artist residencies enabled art and technology practitioners to take a significant role in the research and explores the nature of collaboration in this context. What emerges is a compelling story of inspirational creative work in a field that is transforming traditional norms in both art and technology.

This important text/reference presents a comprehensive guide to the field of computing and information security and assurance. The book takes a broad view of computer network security, encompassing online social networks, and wireless and mobile systems.

This fully updated new edition explores the security issues, vulnerabilities and dangers encountered by the users of modern computing and communication devices, highlighting the need to develop improved algorithms, protocols, and best practices to enhance the security of public, private and enterprise systems alike.

Topics and features:

· Introduces the fundamentals of traditional computer networks, the security threats they face, and the best practices currently in use

· Discusses the security challenges introduced by virtualization software, cloud computing and mobile systems

· Examines the security quagmire presented by the home computing environment and the growing number of home hotspots (NEW)

· Raises important legislative, legal, social, technical and ethical security issues, including the tension between the needs of individual privacy and collective security

· Provides both quickly workable and more thought-provoking exercises at the end of each chapter, with one chapter devoted entirely to lab exercises

· Supplies additional support material for instructors at an associated website, including laboratory exercises and projects, answers to selected exercises, and course slides

This unique work is suitable as both a teaching and a reference tool for all those interested in learning about security in the evolving computing ecosystem. Computer network and data security personnel and policy makers will also find the guide to be a useful and unique source of ideas.

A typical plant control system will be subject to the undesirable influence of exogenous commands and disturbances. In order to track and reject these Professor Isidori and his co-authors have designed a feedback control system based on embedding a model of these disturbances within the controller itself - the so-called "internal model".

Beginning with a review of the fundamental principles of internal-model-based feedback control design, Robust Autonomous Guidance moves on to expound recent enhancements to such designs and then to their implementation in systems operating under conditions of great uncertainty.

The three case studies presented: attitude control of a low-Earth-orbit satellite and the landing of fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft on a ship involve control systems coping with a high degree of nonlinear behaviour. The key issues addressed in each case study are the design of an adaptive internal model for the specific tracking task and of stabilizing control capable of steering the tracking error to zero while keeping all internal states bounded for any arbitrarily large but bounded envelope of initial data and uncertain parameters. Nested saturated controls form the basis of novel tools for asymptotic analysis and design.

Robust Autonomous Guidance will be of great interest to academic and industrial researchers working with nonlinear control systems and to engineers involved in the design of aerospatial guidance systems. It will also be a useful reference for graduate students working with non-linear systems.

Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage the transfer of technology in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of new work in all aspects of industrial control.

Artificial Intelligence and Human Institutions argues that successful applications of artificial intelligence are possible only within an understanding of human institutions and the limitations of technology. Products of artificial intelligence research are becoming widely available to non-specialists using low-cost computer systems, but there has been a lack of communication between re- searchers and community groups. Taking the "weak AI" position, the book explores the way insights and tools from artificial intelligence can be valuable in coming to terms with real world problems. Drawing on the author's extensive practical experience in AI research and research management, the book brings together case studies from the fields of education, training, business, engineering, defence, health, and community work, and suggests future directions. This book deals with advanced concepts of artificial intelligence for non-specialist readers, while providing an introduction to state-of-the-art developments. It seeks to use AI concepts to illuminate the practical and theoretical concerns of institutions and organisations, opening up possibilities for new areas of collaborative work, and revealing new sources of references and ideas. This is the latest title in the Artificial Intelligence and Society series and will be of interest to lecturers and students in AI, education, social and political sciences, and business studies.

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers three such religions-Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam . In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very  beginnings  are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India's pioneering nationalist in the figure ofDadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature,that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India.

Large-scale video networks are of increasing importance in a wide range of applications. However, the development of automated techniques for aggregating and interpreting information from multiple video streams in real-life scenarios is a challenging area of research.

Collecting the work of leading researchers from a broad range of disciplines, this timely text/reference offers an in-depth survey of the state of the art in distributed camera networks. The book addresses a broad spectrum of critical issues in this highly interdisciplinary field: current challenges and future directions; video processing and video understanding; simulation, graphics, cognition and video networks; wireless video sensor networks, communications and control; embedded cameras and real-time video analysis; applications of distributed video networks; and educational opportunities and curriculum-development.

Topics and features:

• Presents an overview of research in areas of motion analysis, invariants, multiple cameras for detection, object tracking and recognition, and activities in video networks
• Provides real-world applications of distributed video networks, including force protection, wide area activities, port security, and recognition in night-time environments
• Describes the challenges in graphics and simulation, covering virtual vision, network security, human activities, cognitive architecture, and displays
• Examines issues of multimedia networks, registration, control of cameras (in simulations and real networks), localization and bounds on tracking
• Discusses system aspects of video networks, with chapters on providing testbed environments, data collection on activities, new integrated sensors for airborne sensors, face recognition, and building sentient spaces
• Investigates educational opportunities and curriculum development from the perspective of computer science and electrical engineering

This unique text will be of great interest to researchers and graduate students of computer vision and pattern recognition, computer graphics and simulation, image processing and embedded systems, and communications, networks and controls. The large number of example applications will also appeal to application engineers.

Dr. Bir Bhanu is Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering, and Director of the Center for Research in Intelligent Systems, at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), USA. Dr. Chinya V. Ravishankar is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Dr. Amit K. Roy-Chowdhury is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, also both at UCR. Dr. Hamid Aghajan is a Professor of Electrical Engineering (Consulting) at Stanford University, USA. Dr. Demetri Terzopoulos is Chancellor's Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA.

This book incorporates recent advances in the design of feedback laws to the purpose of globally stabilizing nonlinear systems via state or output feedback. It is a continuation of the first volume by Alberto Isidori on Nonlinear Control Systems. Specifically this second volume will cover:

. Stability analysis of interconnected nonlinear systems. The notion of Input-to-State stability and its role in analysing stability of cascade-connected or feedback-connected systems. The notion of dissipativity and its consequences (passivity and "gain").

. Robust stabilization in the case of parametric uncertainties. The case of state feedback: global or semi-global stabilization. The case of output feedback: semi-global stabilization.

. Robust stabilization in the case of unstructured perturbations. Feedback design via the small-gain approach. Robust semi-global stabilization via output feedback.

. Methods for asymptotic tracking, disturbance rejection and model following. Global and semi-global analysis.

. Normal forms for multi-input multi-output nonlinear systems form a global point of view. Their role in feedback design.

Critically examining the case for and against screening people for early detection of cancer, this book reviews research-based knowledge on the value of early diagnosis for several different cancers ranging from neuroblastoma in infants to prostate cancer in old age. For each cancer site, the natural history of disease progression is reviewed and how the course may be altered by early intervention. Available screening tests are assessed both for their potential benefit and disadvantage. The information presented in this thoughtful review will assist health policy-makers to make decisions on cancer screening. Clinical researchers considering setting up screening studies will be made aware of the pitfalls of evaluation; practitioners and postgraduate students will find a readable introduction to the subject.

Tantrasangraha, composed by the renowned Kerala astronomer Nilakantha Somayaji (c. 1444-1545 CE) ranks along with Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata and Siddhantasiromani of Bhaskaracarya as one of the major works that significantly influenced further work on astronomy in India. One of the distinguishing features of this text is the introduction of a major revision of the traditional planetary models which includes a unified theory of planetary latitudes and a better formulation of the equation of centre for the interior planets (Mercury and Venus) than was previously available.

Several important innovations in mathematical technique are also to be found in Tantrasangraha, especially related to the computation of accurate sine tables, the use of series for evaluating the sine and cosine functions, and a systematic treatment of the problems related to the diurnal motion of the celestial objects. The spherical trigonometry relations presented in the text-applied to a variety of problemssuch as the computation eclipses, elevation of the moon's cusps and so forth-are also exact.

In preparing the translation and explanatory notes, the authors have used authentic Sanskrit editions of Tantrasangraha by Suranad Kunjan Pillai and K V Sarma. The text consists of eight chapters-mean londitudes, true longitues, gnomonic shadow, lunar eclipse, solar eclipse, vyatipata, reduction to observation and elevation of the moon's cusps-and 432 verses. All the verses have been translated into English and are supplemented with detailed explanations including all mathematical relations, figures and tables using modern mathematical notation.

This edition of Tantrasangraha will appeal to historians of astronomy as well as those who are keen to know about the actual computational procedures employed in Indian astronomy. It is a self-contained text with several appendices included, enabling the reader to comprehend the subject matter without the need for further research.

This is a book of elementary geometric topology, in which geometry, frequently illustrated, guides calculation. The book starts with a wealth of examples, often subtle, of how to be mathematically certain whether two objects are the same from the point of view of topology.

After introducing surfaces, such as the Klein bottle, the book explores the properties of polyhedra drawn on these surfaces. More refined tools are developed in a chapter on winding number, and an appendix gives a glimpse of knot theory. Moreover, in this revised edition, a new section gives a geometrical description of part of the Classification Theorem for surfaces. Several striking new pictures show how given a sphere with any number of ordinary handles and at least one Klein handle, all the ordinary handles can be converted into Klein handles.

Numerous examples and exercises make this a useful textbook for a first undergraduate course in topology, providing a firm geometrical foundation for further study. For much of the book the prerequisites are slight, though, so anyone with curiosity and tenacity will be able to enjoy the Aperitif.

"...distinguished by clear and wonderful exposition and laden with informal motivation, visual aids, cool (and beautifully rendered) pictures...This is a terrific book and I recommend it very highly."

MAA Online

"Aperitif conjures up exactly the right impression of this book. The high ratio of illustrations to text makes it a quick read and its engaging style and subject matter whet the tastebuds for a range of possible main courses."

Mathematical Gazette

"A Topological Aperitif provides a marvellous introduction to the subject, with many different tastes of ideas."

Professor Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS, Mathematical Institute, Oxford, UK

Stellar evolution - the birth, development and death of stars - is central to our current understanding of astronomy. This area of astrophysics is often portrayed as being difficult and mathematical, but Mike Inglis brings it to life in a unique way, combining a step-by-step introduction with suggestions for making practical observations of stars at different stages in their evolution. Every amateur astronomer - regardless of their current level of knowledge - will find this book fascinating and informative.

In process modelling, knowledge of the process under consideration is typically partial with significant unknown inputs (disturbances) to the model. Disturbances militate against the desirable trait of model reproducibility. "Grey-box" identification can assist, in these circumstances, by taking advantage of the two sources of information that may be available: any invariant prior knowledge and response data from experiments.

Practical Grey-box Process Identification is a three-stranded response to the following questions which are frequently raised in connection with grey-box methods:

? How much of my prior knowledge is useful and even correct in this environment?

? Are my experimental data sufficient and relevant?

? What do I do about the disturbances that I can't get rid of?

? How do I know when my model is good enough?

The first part of the book is a short review of the theoretical fundamentals of grey-box identification, focussing particularly on the theory necessary for the software presented in the second part. Part II puts the spotlight on MoCaVa, a MATLAB^®-compatible software tool, downloadable from springeronline.com, for facilitating the procedure of effective grey-box identification. Part III demonstrates the application of MoCaVa using two case studies drawn from the paper and steel industries. More advanced theory is laid out in an appendix and the MoCaVa source code enables readers to expand on its capabilities to their own ends.

Practical Grey-box Process Identification will be of great interest and help to process control engineers and researchers and the software show-cased here will be of much practical assistance to students doing project work in this field.

Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage the transfer of technology in control engineering. The rapiddevelopment of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of new work in all aspects of industrial control.

This edited book discusses the exciting field of Digital Creativity. Through exploring the current state of the creative industries, the authors show how technologies are reshaping our creative processes and how they are affecting the innovative creation of new products.

Readers will discover how creative production processes are dominated by digital data transmission which makes the connection between people, ideas and creative processes easy to achieve within collaborative and co-creative environments.  Since we rely on our senses to understand our world, perhaps of more significance is that technologies through 3D printing are returning from the digital to the physical world.

Written by an interdisciplinary group of researchers this thought provoking book will appeal to academics and students from a wide range of backgrounds working or interested in the technologies that are shaping our experiences of the future.

The aim of this monograph is to give a self-contained introduction to the modern theory of finite transformation semigroups with a strong emphasis on concrete examples and combinatorial applications. It covers the following topics on the examples of the three classical finite transformation semigroups: transformations and semigroups, ideals and Green's relations, subsemigroups, congruences, endomorphisms, nilpotent subsemigroups, presentations, actions on sets, linear representations, cross-sections and variants. The book contains many exercises and historical comments and is directed, first of all, to both graduate and postgraduate students looking for an introduction to the theory of transformation semigroups, but should also prove useful to tutors and researchers.

The modular representation theory of Iwahori-Hecke algebras and this theory's connection to groups of Lie type is an area of rapidly expanding interest; it is one that has also seen a number of breakthroughs in recent years. In classifying the irreducible representations of Iwahori-Hecke algebras at roots of unity, this book is a particularly valuable addition to current research in this field. Using the framework provided by the Kazhdan-Lusztig theory of cells, the authors develop an analogue of James' (1970) "characteristic-free'' approach to the representation theory of Iwahori-Hecke algebras in general.

Presenting a systematic and unified treatment of representations of Hecke algebras at roots of unity, this book is unique in its approach and includes new results that have not yet been published in book form. It also serves as background reading to further active areas of current research such as the theory of affine Hecke algebras and Cherednik algebras.

The main results of this book are obtained by an interaction of several branches of mathematics, namely the theory of Fock spaces for quantum affine Lie algebras and Ariki's theorem, the combinatorics of crystal bases, the theory of Kazhdan-Lusztig bases and cells, and computational methods.

This book will be of use to researchers and graduate students in representation theory as well as any researchers outside of the field with an interest in Hecke algebras.

A study of the latest research results in the theory of robot control, structured so as to echo the gradual development of robot control over the last fifteen years. In three major parts, the editors deal with the modelling and control of rigid and flexible robot manipulators and mobile robots. Most of the results on rigid robot manipulators in part I are now well established, while for flexible manipulators in part II, some problems still remain unresolved. Part III deals with the control of mobile robots, a challenging area for future research. The whole is rounded off with an appendix reviewing basic definitions and the mathematical background for control theory. The particular combination of topics makes this an invaluable source of information for both graduate students and researchers.

The theory of table algebras was introduced in 1991 by Z. Arad and H.Blau in order to treat, in a uniform way, products of conjugacy classes and irreducible characters of finite groups.  Today, table algebra theory is a well-established branch of modern algebra with various applications, including  the representation theory of finite groups, algebraic combinatorics and fusion rules algebras.

This book presents the latest developments in this area.  Its main goal is to  give a classification of the Normalized Integral Table Algebras (Fusion Rings) generated by a faithful non-real element of degree 3. Divided into 4 parts, the first gives an outline of the classification approach, while remaining parts separately treat special cases that appear during classification. A particularly unique contribution to the field, can be found in part four, whereby a number of the algebras are linked to the polynomial irreducible representations of the group SL3(C).

This book will be of interest to research mathematicians and PhD students working in table algebras, group representation theory, algebraic combinatorics and integral fusion rule algebras.

With the emergence of cloud computing, traditional approaches to software engineering must be adapted in order to take full advantage of the benefits promised by cloud technologies.

This timely and authoritative text/reference presents the latest research on Software Engineering Frameworks for the Cloud Computing Paradigm, drawn from an international selection of researchers and practitioners. The book offers both a discussion of relevant software engineering approaches and practical guidance on enterprise-wide software deployment in the cloud environment, together with real-world case studies.

Topics and features:

• Presents the state of the art in software engineering approaches for developing cloud-suitable applications
• Discusses the impact of the cloud computing paradigm on software engineering, including the semantic web
• Offers guidance and best practices for students and practitioners of cloud-based applications architecture
• Examines the stages of the software development lifecycle, with a focus on the requirements engineering and testing of cloud-based applications
• Reviews the efficiency and performance of cloud-based applications
• Explores feature-driven and cloud-aided software design, presenting strategies for cloud adoption and migration
• Provides relevant theoretical frameworks, practical approaches and current and future research directions

This practical and clearly-structured volume is an ideal self-study primer for students of cloud computing and software engineering. Software engineers, application developers and IT infrastructure managers will also find the work to be an invaluable reference.

Dr. Zaigham Mahmood is a researcher in the School of Computing at the University of Derby, UK, and a Senior Technology Consultant at Debesis Education. His other publications include the successful Springerbook Cloud Computing for Enterprise Architectures. Dr. Saqib Saeed is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Bahria University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

The manufacturing industry will reap significant benefits from encouraging the development of digital manufacturing science and technology. Digital Manufacturing Science uses theorems, illustrations and tables to introduce the definition, theory architecture, main content, and key technologies of digital manufacturing science.

Readers will be able to develop an in-depth understanding of the emergence and the development, the theoretical background, and the techniques and methods of digital manufacturing science. Furthermore, they will also be able to use the basic theories and key technologies described in Digital Manufacturing Science to solve practical engineering problems in modern manufacturing processes.

Digital Manufacturing Science is aimed at advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students, academic researchers and researchers in the manufacturing industry. It allows readers to integrate the theories and technologies described with their own research works, and to propose new ideas and new methods to improve the theory and application of digital manufacturing science.

This comprehensive guide provides a uniquely practical, application-focused introduction to medical image analysis. The text presents a concise examination of each of the key concepts, enabling the reader to understand the interdependencies between them before delving deeper into the derivations and technical details. This fully updated new edition has been enhanced with material on the latest developments in the field, whilst retaining the original focus on segmentation, classification and registration.

Topics and features:

Presents learning objectives, exercises and concluding remarks in each chapter, in addition to a glossary of abbreviations
• Describes a range of common imaging techniques, reconstruction techniques and image artifacts, and discusses the archival and transfer of images
• Reviews an expanded selection of techniques for image enhancement, feature detection, feature generation, segmentation, registration, and validation (NEW)
• Examines analysis methods in view of image-based guidance in the operating room, designed to aid the operator in adapting their intervention during an operation (NEW)
• Discusses the use of deep convolutional networks for segmentation and labeling tasks, describing how this network architecture differs from multi-layer perceptrons (NEW)
• Includes appendices on Markov random field optimization, variational calculus and principal component analysis

This clearly-written guide/reference serves as a classroom-tested textbook for courses on medical image processing and analysis, with suggestions for course outlines supplied in the preface. Professionals in medical imaging technology, as well as computer scientists and electrical engineers specializing in medical applications, will also find the book an ideal resource for self-study.

This book provides an introduction to the design of a variety of telescopes, mounts, and drives suitable for the home-constructor. Projects include instruments that range from a shoestring budget to specialist devices that are not commercially available. The skill level of each project is indicated and advice is provided as to what is sensible to construct, given what is commercially available. Hints and tips are included, as well as listings of reputable mail order sources of materials and components.

Spoken Dialogue Technology provides extensive coverage of spoken dialogue systems, ranging from the theoretical underpinnings of the study of dialogue through to a detailed look at a number of well-established methods and tools for developing spoken dialogue systems. The book enables students and practitioners to design and test dialogue systems using several available development environments and languages, including the CSLU toolkit, VoiceXML, SALT, and XHTML+ voice. This practical orientation is usually available otherwise only in reference manuals supplied with software development kits. The latest research in spoken dialogue systems is presented along with extensive coverage of the most relevant theoretical issues and a critical evaluation of current research prototypes. A dedicated web site containing supplementary materials, code, links to resources will enable readers to develop and test their own systems (). Previously such materials have been difficult to track down, available only on a range of disparate web sites and this web site provides a unique and useful reference source which will prove invaluable.

The rapid advancement in chemical vapour deposition (CVD) technology has reached many fields of application, including thin film coating, microelectronics and communications. Chemical Vapour Deposition: An Integrated Engineering Design for Advanced Materials focuses on the application of this technology to engineering coatings and, in particular, to the manufacture of high performance materials, such as fibre reinforced ceramic composite materials, for structural applications at high temperatures.

While previous discourses on CVD have had a tendency to focus solely on electronics, this book aims to provide a thorough exploration of the design and applications of advanced materials, and their manufacture in engineering. It addresses a wide range of topics related to CVD theories and applications. From physical fundamentals and principles, to optimisation of processing parameters and other current practices, this book is designed to guide readers through the development of both high performance materials and the design of CVD systems to manufacture such materials.

Chemical Vapour Deposition: An Integrated Engineering Design for Advanced Materials introduces integrated design and manufacture of advanced materials to researchers, industrial practitioners, postgraduates and senior undergraduate students. It also features a large body of appendices to provide references for further study.

The Engineering Materials and Processes series focuses on all forms of materials and the processes used to synthesise and formulate them as they relate to the various engineering disciplines. The series deals with a diverse range of materials: ceramics; metals (ferrous and non-ferrous); semiconductors; composites, polymers, biomimetics etc. Each monograph in the series is written by a specialist and demonstrates how enhancements in materials and the processes associated with them can improve performance in the field of engineering in which they are used.

Decision forests (also known as random forests) are an indispensable tool for automatic image analysis.

This practical and easy-to-follow text explores the theoretical underpinnings of decision forests, organizing the vast existing literature on the field within a new, general-purpose forest model. A number of exercises encourage the reader to practice their skills with the aid of the provided free software library. An international selection of leading researchers from both academia and industry then contribute their own perspectives on the use of decision forests in real-world applications such as pedestrian tracking, human body pose estimation, pixel-wise semantic segmentation of images and videos, automatic parsing of medical 3D scans, and detection of tumors. The book concludes with a detailed discussion on the efficient implementation of decision forests.

Topics and features:

• With a foreword by Prof. Yali Amit and Prof. Donald Geman, recounting their participation in the development of decision forests
• Introduces a flexible decision forest model, capable of addressing a large and diverse set of image and video analysis tasks
• Investigates both the theoretical foundations and the practical implementation of decision forests
• Discusses the use of decision forests for such tasks as classification, regression, density estimation, manifold learning, active learning and semi-supervised classification
• Includes exercises and experiments throughout the text, with solutions, slides, demo videos and other supplementary material provided at an associated website
• Provides a free, user-friendly software library, enabling the reader to experiment with forests in a hands-on manner

With its clear, tutorial structure and supporting exercises, this text will be of great value to students wishing to learn the basics of decision forests, researchers wanting to become more familiar with forest-basedlearning, and practitioners interested in exploring modern and efficient image analysis techniques.

Dr. A. Criminisi and Dr. J. Shotton are Senior Researchers in the Computer Vision Group at Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK.

From the reviews:

"This book is a comprehensive presentation of the theory and use of decision forests in a wide range of applications, centered on computer vision and medical imaging. The book is strikingly well integrated. ? This is an excellent volume on the concept, theory, and application of decision forests. ? I highly recommend it to those currently working in the field, as well as researchers desiring an introduction to the application of random forests for imaging applications." (Creed Jones, Computing Reviews, March, 2014)

Over the last 15 years, the application of innovative steel concepts in the automotive industry has increased steadily. Numerical simulation technology of hot forming of high-strength steel allows engineers to modify the formability of hot forming steel metals and to optimize die design schemes. Theories, Methods and Numerical Technology of Sheet Metal Cold and Hot Forming focuses on hot and cold forming theories, numerical methods, relative simulation and experiment techniques for high-strength steel forming and die design in the automobile industry.

Theories, Methods and Numerical Technology of Sheet Metal Cold and Hot Forming introduces the general theories of cold forming, then expands upon advanced hot forming theories and simulation methods, including:

? the forming process,
? constitutive equations,
? hot boundary constraint treatment, and
? hot forming equipment and experiments.

Various calculation methods of cold and hot forming, based on the authors' experience in commercial CAE software for sheet metal forming, are provided, as well as a discussion of key issues, such as hot formability with quenching process, die design and cooling channel design in die, and formability experiments.

Theories, Methods and Numerical Technology of Sheet Metal Cold and Hot Forming will enable readers to develop an advanced knowledge of hot forming, as well as to apply hot forming theories, calculation methods and key techniques to direct their die design. It is therefore a useful reference for students and researchers, as well as automotive engineers.

Markov decision process (MDP) models are widely used for modeling sequential decision-making problems that arise in engineering, economics, computer science, and the social sciences.  Many real-world problems modeled by MDPs have huge state and/or action spaces, giving an opening to the curse of dimensionality and so making practical solution of the resulting models intractable.  In other cases, the system of interest is too complex to allow explicit specification of some of the MDP model parameters, but simulation samples are readily available (e.g., for random transitions and costs). For these settings, various sampling and population-based algorithms have been developed to overcome the difficulties of computing an optimal solution in terms of a policy and/or value function.  Specific approaches include adaptive sampling, evolutionary policy iteration, evolutionary random policy search, and model reference adaptive search.
This substantially enlarged new edition reflects the latest developments in novel algorithms and their underpinning theories, and presents an updated account of the topics that have emerged since the publication of the first edition. Includes:
. innovative material on MDPs, both in constrained settings and with uncertain transition properties;
. game-theoretic method for solving MDPs;
. theories for developing roll-out based algorithms; and
. details of approximation stochastic annealing, a population-based on-line simulation-based algorithm.
The self-contained approach of this book will appeal not only to researchers in MDPs, stochastic modeling, and control, and simulation but will be a valuable source of tuition and reference for students of control and operations research.

The Communications and Control Engineering series reports major technological advances which have potential for great impact in the fields ofcommunication and control. It reflects

research in industrial and academic institutions around the world so that the readership can exploit new possibilities as they become available.

Most mathematicians' knowledge of Euclid's lost work on Porisms comes from a very brief and general description by Pappus of Alexandria. While Fermat and others made earlier attempts to explain the Porisms, it is Robert Simson who is generally recognised as the first person to achieve a genuine insight into the true nature of the subject. In this book, Ian Tweddle, a recognised authority on 18th century Scottish mathematics, presents for the first time a full and accessible translation of Simson's work. Based on Simson's early paper of 1723, the treatise, and various extracts from Simson's notebooks and correspondence, this book provides a fascinating insight into the work of an often-neglected figure. Supplemented by historical and mathematical notes and comments, this book is a valuable addition to the literature for anyone with an interest in mathematical history or geometry.

Algebraic Geometry is a fascinating branch of Mathematics that combines methods from both Algebra and Geometry. It transcends the limited scope of pure Algebra by means of geometric construction principles. Putting forward this idea, Grothendieck revolutionized Algebraic Geometry in the late 1950s by inventing schemes. Schemes now also play an important role in Algebraic Number Theory, a field that used to be far away from Geometry. The new point of view paved the way for spectacular progress, such as the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem by Wiles and Taylor.

This book explains the scheme-theoretic approach to Algebraic Geometry for non-experts, while more advanced readers can use it to broaden their view on the subject. A separate part presents the necessary prerequisites from Commutative Algebra, thereby providing an accessible and self-contained introduction to advanced Algebraic Geometry.

Every chapter of the book is preceded by a motivating introduction with an informal discussion of its contents and background. Typical examples, and an abundance of exercises illustrate each section. Therefore the book is an excellent companion for self-studying or for complementing skills that have already been acquired. It can just as well serve as a convenient source for (reading) course material and, in any case, as supplementary literature. The present edition is a critical revision of the earlier text.

Algorithms for intelligent fault diagnosis of automated operations offer significant benefits to the manufacturing and process industries. Furthermore, machine learning methods enable such monitoring systems to handle nonlinearities and large volumes of data.

This unique text/reference describes in detail the latest advances in Unsupervised Process Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis with Machine Learning Methods. Abundant case studies throughout the text demonstrate the efficacy of each method in real-world settings. The broad coverage examines such cutting-edge topics as the use of information theory to enhance unsupervised learning in tree-based methods, the extension of kernel methods to multiple kernel learning for feature extraction from data, and the incremental training of multilayer perceptrons to construct deep architectures for enhanced data projections.

Topics and features:

• Reviews the application of machine learning to process monitoring and fault diagnosis
• Discusses machine learning frameworks based on artificial neural networks, statistical learning theory and kernel-based methods, and tree-based methods
• Examines the application of machine learning to steady state and dynamic operations, with a focus on unsupervised learning
• Describes the use of spectral methods in process fault diagnosis

This highly practical and clearly-structured work is an invaluable resource for all researchers and practitioners involved in process control, multivariate statistics and machine learning.

Dr. Chris Aldrich is a Professor in the Department of Metallurgical and Minerals Engineering at Curtin University, Perth, Australia. Dr. Lidia Auret is a Lecturer in the Department of Process Engineering at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

This book provides a simple and unified approach to the mechanics of discontinuous-fibre reinforced composites, and introduces readers as generally as possible to the key concepts regarding the mechanics of elastic stress transfer, intermediate modes of stress transfer, plastic stress transfer, fibre pull-out, fibre fragmentation and matrix rupture. These concepts are subsequently applied to progressive stages of the loading process, through to the composite fractures. 

The book offers a valuable guide for advanced undergraduate and graduate students attending lecture courses on fibre composites. It is also intended for beginning researchers who wish to develop deeper insights into how discontinuous fibre provides reinforcement to composites, and for engineers, particularly those who wish to apply the concepts presented here to design and develop discontinuous-fibre reinforced composites.

This star guide enables astronomers to choose a class of object, and for any month of the year find an observation list that begins with the easiest through to progressively more difficult targets. Following detailed descriptive summaries of each class of object, it includes extensive lists of deep-sky targets which are classified according to type of object. Amateur astronomers of all levels will find this book invaluable for its broad-ranging background material, its lists of fascinating objects, and for its power to improve practical observing skills while viewing many different types of deep-sky objects.

This text introduces the basic concepts and techniques in VIR. In doing so, it develops a foundation for further research and study. Divided into two parts, the first part describes the fundamental principles. A chapter is devoted to each of the main features of VIR, such as colour, texture and shape-based search. There is coverage of search techniques for time-based image sequences or videos, and an overview of how to combine all the basic features described and integrate them into the search process. The second part looks at advanced topics such as multimedia query. This book is essential reading for researchers in VIR, and final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students on courses such as Multimedia Information Retrieval, Multimedia Databases, and others.

Sintering is a manufacturing technique that has existed for centuries to make bricks, china and pottery and is now used to produce high-tech materials and products. The process forms ceramic and metallic solids from powders and is used to manufacture automotive parts, valves & pumps, magnets, bio-ceramics and materials for nanotechnology. Modern modelling techniques are now employed to improve the efficiency of sintering.

This book covers modern techniques in sintering and bridges the gap between the mathematical nature of some modelling techniques and the practical needs of industry. Sintering models are shown to be applied at three length scales. Sintering is viewed as a multi-scale process and the mathematical techniques linking the models at the three scales are discussed. Powder compaction models are outlined and programming and numerical issues discussed. Two computer programmes used for modelling sintering are provided on the CD.

In the past decade, feature-based design and manufacturing has gained some momentum in various engineering domains to represent and reuse semantic patterns with effective applicability. However, the actual scope of feature application is still very limited. Semantic Modeling and Interoperability in Product and Process Engineering provides a systematic solution for the challenging engineering informatics field aiming at the enhancement of sustainable knowledge representation, implementation and reuse in an open and yet practically manageable scale.

This semantic modeling technology supports uniform, multi-facet and multi-level collaborative system engineering with heterogeneous computer-aided tools, such as CADCAM, CAE, and ERP.  This presented unified feature model can be applied to product and process representation, development, implementation and management. Practical case studies and test samples are provided to illustrate applications which can be implemented by the readers in real-world scenarios.

By expanding on well-known feature-based design and manufacturing approach, Semantic Modeling and Interoperability in Product and Process Engineering provides a valuable reference for researchers, practitioners and students from both academia and engineering field.

The theory of directed graphs has developed enormously over recent decades, yet this book (first published in 2000) remains the only book to cover more than a small fraction of the results. New research in the field has made a second edition a necessity.

Substantially revised, reorganised and updated, the book now comprises eighteen chapters, carefully arranged in a straightforward and logical manner, with many new results and open problems.

As well as covering the theoretical aspects of the subject, with detailed proofs of many important results, the authors present a number of algorithms, and whole chapters are devoted to topics such as branchings, feedback arc and vertex sets, connectivity augmentations, sparse subdigraphs with prescribed connectivity, and also packing, covering and decompositions of digraphs. Throughout the book, there is a strong focus on applications which include quantum mechanics, bioinformatics, embedded computing, and the travelling salesman problem.

Detailed indices and topic-oriented chapters ease navigation, and more than 650 exercises, 170 figures and 150 open problems are included to help immerse the reader in all aspects of the subject.

Digraphs is an essential, comprehensive reference for undergraduate and graduate students, and researchers in mathematics, operations research and computer science. It will also prove invaluable to specialists in related areas, such as meteorology, physics and computational biology.

Jørgen Bang-Jensen is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.

Gregory Gutin is Professor of Computer Science at Royal Holloway College, University of London, UK.

This book presents the proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Experimental Robotics held in Sydney in March 1999. The editors and contributors represent the leading robotics research efforts from around the world. Micro-machines, interplanetary exploration, minimally invasive surgery and emerging humanoid robots are among the most obvious attainments of leading robotics research teams reported in this volume. Less obvious but equally significant are the fundamental advances in robot map-building and methods of communication between humans and machines that are demonstrated through experimental results. This collection of papers will provide the reader with a concise report on the current achievements and future trends in robotics research across the world.

As the first of its kind, this handbook presents state-of-the-art information and analysis concerning the state of affairs in bioethics in around 40 countries.

The country reports point out the most important discussions as well as the emerging topics in the field. Readers can orientate themselves quickly with regard to the various relevant issues, institutional structures and expertise available in these countries.

The authorship of this reference work is truly global as it involves contributions from the best authors with innate knowledge of the bioethics situation in these countries.

Although the field of texture processing is now well-established, research in this area remains predominantly restricted to texture analysis and simple and approximate static textures.

This comprehensive text/reference presents a survey of the state of the art in multidimensional, physically-correct visual texture modeling. Starting from basic principles and building upon the fundamentals to the latest advanced methods, the book brings together research from computer vision, pattern recognition, computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality. The text assumes a graduate-level understanding of statistics and probability theory, and a knowledge of basic computer graphics principles, but is accessible to newcomers to the field.

Topics and features:

• Reviews the entire process of texture synthesis, including material appearance representation, measurement, analysis, compression, modeling, editing, visualization, and perceptual evaluation
• Explains the derivation of the most common representations of visual texture, discussing their properties, advantages, and limitations
• Describes a range of techniques for the measurement of visual texture, including BRDF, SVBRDF, BTF and BSSRDF
• Investigates the visualization of textural information, from texture mapping and mip-mapping to illumination- and view-dependent data interpolation
• Examines techniques for perceptual validation and analysis, covering both standard pixel-wise similarity measures and also methods of visual psychophysics
• Reviews the applications of visual textures, from visual scene analysis in image processing and medical applications, to high-quality visualizations for cultural heritage and the automotive industry

Researchers, lecturers, students and practitioners will all find this book an invaluable reference on the rapidly developing new field of texture modeling.

We hope that all readers will find the papers included in this volume of interest. All were presented at the 14th BCS IRSG Research Colloquium held at Lancaster University on 13th-14th April 1992. The papers display very well the scope and breadth of information retrieval, as indeed did the workshop ilself. They also present a good cross-section of current IR research, and as such provide a useful signpost for trends in information retrieval. Before we finish we must thank the following colleagues: Simon Botley, Paul Rayson and Paul Jones for their help in the organization of the conference. We would also like to extend a special message of thanks to Professor G.N. Leech of the Department of Linguistics at Lancaster and Roger Garside of the Department of Computing at Lancaster for their support during the conference period. Tony McEnery would also like to express his thanks and gratitude to Paul Baker for his help during the production of this book. September 1992 Tony McEnery Chris Paice Contents A Logical Model of Information Retrieval Based on Situation Theory M. La/mas and K. van Rijsbergen ........................................................ .

The Scottish mathematician Colin MacLaurin (1698-1746) is best known for developing and extending Newton's work in calculus, geometry and gravitation; his 2-volume work "Treatise of Fluxions" (1742) was the first systematic exposition of Newton's methods. It is well known that MacLaurin was awarded prizes by the Royal Academy of Sciences, Paris, for his earlier work on the collision of bodies (1724) and the tides (1740); however, the contents of these essays are less familiar - although some of the material is discussed in the Treatise of Fluxions - and the essays themselves often hard to obtain. This book presents these important works in translation for the first time, preceded by a translation of MacLaurin's MA dissertation on gravity (Glasgow, 1713) which provides evidence of his early study of Newtonian principles.

In his essentially descriptive discussion of gravity MacLaurin ranges over planetary orbits, vortices and theology. His discussion of collisions includes a disputatious account of what should be understood by the force of a moving body, a contentious topic at the time. The essay on the tides has the original version of his celebrated theorem on the equilibrium of a spheroidal fluid mass and employs a remarkable combination of geometry and calculus to determine forces of attraction.

The aim is to make this material more generally accessible to researchers and students in mathematics and physics, and indeed to anyone with an interest in the historical development of these subjects. A general introduction puts the works in context and gives an outline of MacLaurin's career. Each translation is then accompanied by an introduction and a series of notes and appendices in which individual results are analysed, both in modern terms and from a historical point of view. Background material is also provided.

Stochastic geometry is a relatively new branch of mathematics. Although its predecessors such as geometric probability date back to the 18th century, the formal concept of a random set was developed in the beginning of the 1970s. Theory of Random Sets presents a state of the art treatment of the modern theory, but it does not neglect to recall and build on the foundations laid by Matheron and others, including the vast advances in stochastic geometry, probability theory, set-valued analysis, and statistical inference of the 1990s.

The book is entirely self-contained, systematic and exhaustive, with the full proofs that are necessary to gain insight. It shows the various interdisciplinary relationships of random set theory within other parts of mathematics, and at the same time, fixes terminology and notation that are often varying in the current literature to establish it as a natural part of modern probability theory, and to provide a platform for future development. An extensive, searchable bibliography to accompany the book is freely available via the web.

The book will be an invaluable reference for probabilists, mathematicians in convex and integral geometry, set-valued analysis, capacity and potential theory, mathematical statisticians in spatial statistics and image analysis, specialists in mathematical economics, and electronic and electrical engineers interested in image analysis.

-Integrates the investigation of the echocardiographic findings with the pathologic, clinical and surgical aspects of heart disease

-Includes stunning color echocardiographic images of various heart diseases with reference to their pathologic appearance and physiology

-Includes clinical comments on patient management, which is not included in other echocardiography texts

The Meade ETX range of telescopes is one of the most successful ever made. It is low-cost, has sold in its tens of thousands, and is available in almost every country. Here, ETX expert Mike Weasner reveals everything any amateur astronomer ever wanted to know about the telescope. First book dedicated entirely to the ETX. Written by an acknowledged world authority. Describes the "best" 100 objects to begin observing. Contains detailed hints and tips aimed at getting the best out of the ETX. Features imaging (photographic and digital) as well as visual observing.

This highlights ongoing research efforts on different aspects of polymer nanocomposites and explores their potentials to exhibit multi-functional properties. In this context, it addresses both fundamental and advanced concepts, while delineating the parameters and mechanisms responsible for these potentials. Aspects considered include embrittlement/toughness; wear/scratch behaviour; thermal stability and flame retardancy; barrier, electrical and thermal conductivity; and optical and magnetic properties.

Further, the book was written as a coherent unit rather than a collection of chapters on different topics. As such, the results, analyses and discussions presented herein provide a guide for the development of a new class of multi-functional nanocomposites. Offering an invaluable resource for materials researchers and postgraduate students in the polymer composites field, they will also greatly benefit materials  

Twenty-five years ago the notion that terminology should be concept-based was all but unknown in healthcare; now almost all important terminologies are at least partly concept-based.  With no general model of what a terminology was or should be, there were no tools to support terminology development and maintenance.  Steady progress since then has improved both terminology content and the technology and processes used to sustain that content.

For students, practitioners and managers, terminology and its understanding will be an asset to be leveraged in care and research. As the first book devoted to the story of terminology in healthcare, Terminology and Terminological Systems emphasizes the central topics of terminology, such as inter-enterprise clinical and research data aggregation,  and will become vital to the professional lives of students of informatics.

For students, practitioners and managers, terminology and its understanding will be an asset tobe leveraged in care and research. As the first book devoted to the story of terminology in healthcare, Terminology and Terminological Systems emphasizes the central topics of terminology, such as inter-enterprise clinical and research data aggregation,  and will become vital to the professional lives of students of informatics.

As open, distributed systems like the Web continue to grow, and more and more content created by users becomes available, the question of whom and what can be trusted becomes increasingly important. This book looks at one solution - social trust relationships - and examines the challenging research problems raised by computing with social trust.

In bringing together important research in computing social trust from both computer science and related disciplines, this book provides an invaluable overview of the area. Divided into three parts, the first - Models of Social Trust - addresses theory, behaviour and trust management, analysing how trust is developed, the dynamics of trust relationships, and systems for trust management. Part Two - Propagation of Trust - describes algorithms and methods for computing trust in social contexts. Social networks, profile similarity, and participation in online communities are all sources from which trust can be computed. The final part - Applications of Trust - contains applications such as recommender systems, website access control, and email filtering, where trust can improve functionality.

With contributions from leading researchers in the area of social trust, this book will be welcomed by researchers and graduate students in computer science and information systems, as well as those working in related disciplines where trust may be an issue (such as communications and psychology).

Porous semiconductor materials are finding applications in many areas of science and technology. Porous Semiconductors: Optical Properties and Applications provides an examination of these new types of materials, with an emphasis on optical properties and applications. Beginning with a description of the basic electrochemistry of porous semiconductors and the different kinds of porous semiconductor materials that can be fabricated, the book moves on to describe the fabrication processes used in the production of porous semiconductor optical components. This is then followed by a detailed description of peculiar light propagation phenomena. Concluding the text, a number of optical components based on porous semiconductor materials are discussed in depth.

Porous Semiconductors: Optical Properties and Applications provides a thorough grounding in the design, fabrication and theory behind the optical applications of porous semiconductor materials for graduate and undergraduate students interested in optics, photonics, MEMS, and material science. The book is also a valuable reference for scientists, researchers, and engineers in the field of optics and materials science, who are looking to increase their understanding of the optical properties and applications of porous semiconductors.

The Engineering Materials and Processes series focuses on all forms of materials and the processes used to synthesise and formulate them as they relate to the various engineering disciplines. The series deals with a diverse range of materials: ceramics, metals (ferrous and non-ferrous), semiconductors, composites, polymers, biomimetics, etc. Each monograph in the series is written by a specialist and demonstrates how enhancements in materials and the processes associated with them can improve performance in the field of engineering in which they are used.

Principles of Visual Information Retrieval introduces the basic concepts and techniques in VIR and develops a foundation that can be used for further research and study. Divided into 2 parts, the first part describes the fundamental principles. A chapter is devoted to each of the main features of VIR, such as colour, texture and shape-based search. There is coverage of search techniques for time-based image sequences or videos, and an overview of how to combine all the basic features described and integrate context into the search process. The second part looks at advanced topics such as multimedia query, specification, visual learning and semantics, and offers state-of-the-art coverage that is not available in any other book on the market. This book will be essential reading for researchers in VIR, and for final year undergraduate and postgraduate students on courses such as Multimedia Information Retrieval, Multimedia Databases, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.

In contrast with trichromatic image sensors, imaging spectroscopy can capture the properties of the materials in a scene. This implies that scene analysis using imaging spectroscopy has the capacity to robustly encode material signatures, infer object composition and recover photometric parameters.

This landmark text/reference presents a detailed analysis of spectral imaging, describing how it can be used in elegant and efficient ways for the purposes of material identification, object recognition and scene understanding. The opportunities and challenges of combining spatial and spectral information are explored in depth, as are a wide range of applications from surveillance and computational photography, to biosecurity and resource exploration.

Topics and features:

• Discusses spectral image acquisition by hyperspectral cameras, and the process of spectral image formation
• Examines models of surface reflectance, the recovery of photometric invariants, and the estimation of the illuminant power spectrum from spectral imagery
• Describes spectrum representations for the interpolation of reflectance and radiance values, and the classification of spectra
• Reviews the use of imaging spectroscopy for material identification
• Explores the recovery of reflection geometry from image reflectance
• Investigates spectro-polarimetric imagery, and the recovery of object shape and material properties using polarimetric images captured from a single view

An essential resource for researchers and graduate students of computer vision and pattern recognition, this comprehensive introduction to imaging spectroscopy for scene analysis will also be of great use to practitioners interested in shape analysis employing polarimetric imaging, and material recognition and classification using hyperspectral or multispectral data.