Artificial neural networks are used to model systems that receive inputs and produce outputs. The relationships between the inputs and outputs and the representation parameters are critical issues in the design of related engineering systems, and sensitivity analysis concerns methods for analyzing these relationships. Perturbations of neural...

Complex Automated Negotiations have been widely studied and are becoming an important, emerging area in the field of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. In general, automated negotiations can be complex, since there are a lot of factors that characterize such negotiations. These factors include the number of issues, dependency between...

In today’s dynamic business environment, IT departments are under permanent pressure to meet two divergent requirements: to reduce costs and to support business agility with higher flexibility and responsiveness of the IT infrastructure. Grid and Cloud Computing enable a new approach towards IT. They enable increased scalability and more...

Web 2.0 has taken on buzzword status. It's now shorthand for everything that is new, cutting-edge, and gaining momentum online. Web 2.0 can describe particular Web sites; cultural trends like social networking, blogging, or podcasting; or the underlying technology that makes today's coolest Web applications possible. Many Web 2.0 innovations...

We humans are collectively driven by a powerful - yet not fully explained - instinct to understand. We would like to see everything established, proven, laid bare. The more important an issue, the more we desire to see it clarified, stripped of all secrets, all shades of gray. What could be more important than to understand the Universe and...

Shape interrogation is the process of extraction of information from a geometric model. It is a fundamental component of Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) systems. The authors focus on shape interrogation of geometric models bounded by free-form surfaces. Free-form surfaces, also called sculptured surfaces, are widely used in the...

Business Intelligence (BI) software aims to bring together different pieces of a business into views that can make comprehending mountains of data easier. BI is everywhere. Applications that include reports, analytics, statistics, and historical and predictive modeling are all examples of BI applications. Currently, we are in the second...

This book examines key issues in designing semantics-oriented natural language processing systems. A broad conceptual framework for describing structured meanings of NL-texts is obtained by defining a new class of formal languages called standard knowledge languages (SK-languages) using a system theoretical approach. Readers will gain knowledge...

Programming Mobile Robots with Aria and Player provides a comprehensive guide to creating object-oriented C++ programs for robots using the Player and Aria APIs within a Linux environment. A basic knowledge of object-oriented techniques is assumed, but the text is written in a user-friendly style, and is equally suitable for researchers...