Data Engineering has become a necessary and critical activity for business, engineering, and scientific organizations as the move to service oriented architecture and web services moves into full swing. Notably, the US Department of Defense is mandating that all of its agencies and contractors assume a defining presence on the Net-centric...

Performance-aware Component-based Software-Development A characteristic of an engineering discipline is the ability to predict the impact of design decisions. For example, in civil engineering accurate predictions of the impact of adding an additional ?oor on a construction’s statics are available. Having a similar ability in software...

Pro Oracle SQL unlocks the power of SQL in the Oracle Database—one of the most potent SQL implementations on the market today. To master it requires a three-pronged approach: learn the language features, learn the supporting features that Oracle provides to help use the language effectively, and learn to think and work in...

The increasing use of computer technology in many areas of economic, scientific, and social life is resulting in large collections of digital data. The amount of data which is created on and stored in computers is growing from day to day. Electronic database facilities are common everywhere and can now be considered a standard technology....

The explosive increase in information and the miniaturization of electronic devices demand new recording technologies and materials that combine high density, fast response, long retention time and rewriting capability. As predicted, the current silicon-based computer circuits are reaching their physical limits. Further miniaturization of the...

As diverse as tomorrow’s society constituent groups may be, they will share the common requirements that their life should become safer and healthier, offering higher levels of effectiveness, communication and personal freedom. The key common part to all potential solutions fulfilling these requirements is wearable embedded systems,...

LaTeX is a high-quality open source typesetting software that produces professional prints and PDF files. However, as LaTeX is a powerful and complex tool, getting started can be intimidating. There is no official support and certain aspects such as layout modifications can seem rather complicated. It may seem more straightforward to use Word...

Algorithms specify the way computers process information and how they execute tasks. Many recent technological innovations and achievements rely on algorithmic ideas – they facilitate new applications in science, medicine, production, logistics, traffic, communi¬cation and entertainment. Efficient algorithms not only enable your...

Nowadays, there is software everywhere in our life. It controls cars, airplanes, factories, medical implants. Without software, banking, logistics and transportation, media, and even scientific research would not function in the accustomed way. Building and maintaining software is a knowledge-intensive endeavour and requires that specific...

The 20th ICPR (International Conference on Pattern Recognition) Conference took place in Istanbul, Turkey, during August 23–26, 2010. For the first time in the ICPR history, several scientific contests (http://www.icpr2010.org/ contests.php) were organized in parallel to the conference main tracks. The purpose of these contests was to...

This book exclusively surveys the active on-going research of the current maturity of fuzzy logic over the last four decades. Many world leaders of fuzzy logic have enthusiastically contributed their best research results into five theoretical, philosophical and fundamental sub areas and nine distinctive applications, including two PhD...