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Adaptive Bidding in Single-Sided Auctions under Uncertainty : An Agent-based Approach in Market Engineering
In the last years electronic markets, especially online auctions, have become very popular and received more and more attention in both, business (B2B) as well as in public practice (B2C and C2C). Science, however, is still far from having studied all phenomena and effects which can be observed on electronic markets. This book shows that and how software agents can be used to simulate bidding behaviour in electronic auctions. The main emphasis of this book is to apply computational economics to market theory. It summarizes the most common and up-to-date agent-based simulation methods and tools and develops the simulation software AMASE. On basis of the introduced methods a model is established to simulate bidding behaviour under uncertainty.
Adaptive and Personalized Semantic Web
Web Personalization can be defined as any set of actions that can tailor the Web experience to a particular user or set of users. To achieve effective personalization, organizations must rely on all available data, including the usage and click-stream data (reflecting user behaviour), the site content, the site structure, domain knowledge, as well as user demographics and profiles. In addition, efficient and intelligent techniques are needed to mine this data for actionable knowledge, and to effectively use the discovered knowledge to enhance the users' Web experience.
Active Sensor Planning for Multiview Vision Tasks
Describes some effective strategies to generate a sequence of viewing poses and sensor settings for optimally completing a perception task. Several methods are proposed to solve the problems in both model-based and nonmodel-based vision tasks. For model-based applications, the method involves determination of the optimal sensor placements and a shortest path through these viewpoints for automatic generation of a perception plan.
Acoustics and Hearing
When one listens to music at home, one would like to have an acoustic impression close to that of being in the concert hall. Until recently this meant elaborate multi-channelled sound systems with 5 or more speakers. But head-related stereophony achieves the surround-sound effect in living rooms with only two loudspeakers. By virtue of their slight directivity as well as an electronic filter the limitations previously common to two-speaker systems can be overcome and this holds for any arbitrary two-channel recording. The book also investigates the question of how a wide and diffuse sound image can arise in concert halls and shows that the quality of concert halls decisively depends on diffuse sound images arising in the onset of reverberation. For this purpose a strong onset of reverberation is modified in an anechoic chamber by electroacoustic means.
Acoustic sensing techniques for the shallow water environment : Inversion methods and experiments
Contains the collection of papers from the second workshop on Experimental Acoustic Inversion Techniques for Exploration of the Shallow Water Environment. Acoustic techniques provide the most effective means for remote sensing of ocean and sea floor processes, and for probing the structure beneath the sea floor. No other energy propagates as efficiently in the ocean: radio waves and visible light are severely limited in range because the ocean is a highly conductive medium. However, sound from breaking waves and coastal shipping can be heard throughout the ocean, and marine mammals communicate acoustically over basin scale distances.
Acne vulgaris in Syria : Epidemiology and treatment
Acne vulgaris, a chronic inflammatory disorder of the pilosebaceous unit, exerts significant physical and psychosocial burdens among adolescents. Despite anecdotal evidence of high prevalence in Syria, systematic epidemiological and treatment data are scarce, highlighting the need for local investigation. This study quantifies acne prevalence and severity among Syrian youths, evaluates treatment patterns and preventive practices, identifies patient-perceived triggers and advere effects, assesses psychosocial impacts, and synthesizes dermatologist recommendations to optimize acne management strategies within the Syrian healthcare context.
Acid Rain - Deposition to Recovery
Acid rain is still with us. Although it is a problem that people have worked diligently to solve, there are still many problem areas throughout the world. In reality the focus of acid rain research has shifted, and this book adds new vision to the topic. It contains papers, selected from Acid Rain 2005, the 7th International Conference on Acid Deposition, that take a broad perspective of the issues, emphasizing a number of themes: - the emission, concentration and deposition of pollutants / - nitrogen and trace elements in ecosystems and their effects on forests, water and soil / - studies of material damage and recovery - critical loads / The book is aimed at scientists and researchers who are working in the area of acid rain and its effects, and on nutrient cycling. This latest research will be of value to those concerned with the mitigation of acid rain effects.
Achieving high performance
Gives you the tools to succeed in a business environment. Discover how to improve your performance and boost productivity by prioritising tasks and managing your time effectively. You'll learn how to improve your skills, develop drive, and lead effectively. In a slim, portable format, Essential Managers- Achieving High Performance gives you a practical "how-to" approach with step-by-step instructions, tips, checklists, and "ask yourself" features showing you how to build your confidence, develop your "brand", and make an impact.
Academic Study of Common Diets
The foods you choose to eat can have a direct impact on your ability to enjoy life to its fullest. Perhaps the most obvious positive effect of food is the pleasurable feeling you get from eating a good-tasting meal. Over the past decade there has been an increasing concern about the impact of chronic diseases on the health of developing world populations. Traditionally, major causes of illness and death in developing countries have been linked to infectious diseases and undernutrition, and these are still major public health problems in several regions of the world. Obesity is recognized as an underlying risk factor for many of these chronic conditions. As in developed societies, the risk of obesity in developing countries is also strongly influenced by diet and lifestyle, which are changing dramatically as a result of the economic and nutrition transition.
Abstraction, Reformulation, and Approximation ; 7th International Symposium, SARA 2007, Whistler, Canada, July 18-21, 2007, Proceedings
This volume contains the proceedings of SARA 2007, the seventh symposium, held at Whistler Village, British Columbia, Canada, July 18-21. Three distinguished speakers were invited to give keynote presentations, and their abstracts are included herein,It has been recognized since the inception of artificial intelligence that abstractions, problem reformulations and approximations (AR&A) are central to human common-sense reasoning and problem solving and to the ability of systems to reason effectively in complex domains.AR&A techniques have been used in a variety of problem-solving settings, including automated reasoning, cognitive modelling.
Abstract Computing Machines : A Lambda Calculus Perspective
The book addresses ways and means of organizing computations, highlighting the relationship between algorithms and the basic mechanisms and runtime structures necessary to execute them using machines. It completely abstracts from concrete programming languages and machine architectures, taking instead the lambda calculus as the basic programming and program execution model to design various abstract machines for its correct implementation. The emphasis is on fully normalizing machines based on full-fledged beta-reductions as essential prerequisites for symbolic computations that treat functions and variables truly as first-class objects. Their weakly normalizing counterparts are shown to be functional abstract machines that sacrifice the flavors of full beta-reductions for decidedly simpler runtime structures and improved runtime efficiency. Further downgrading of the lambda calculus leads to classical imperative machines that permit side-effecting operations on the runtime environment.
Abord Clinique des Urgences au Domicile du Patient = Emergency Clinic at the Patient's Home
The general practitioner finds himself alone in the face of difficult and urgent situations. Her internship years taught her to work with the nursing team. At the patient's home, he must act alone with "the means at hand". To have known these difficulties, we conceived this work: it is intended to be a simple, effective and complete help. It sums up what we have learned from the “field”. It complies with scientific recommendations.
A Trading Desk View of Market Quality
"Market quality" is a complex, ambiguous term that means different things to different people. How should it be defined, measured, monitored, and improved? What is the evidence about the current state of our markets? How effective have recent innovations been? How can we better meet investor needs? These are some of the questions that we address in this book, along with a broad range of issues concerning equity market structure, regulation, and the quest for best execution. Throughout, particular attention is given to the perspective of front line participants on the buy-side and sell-side trading desks.
A Successful Transformation? : Restructuring of the Czech Automobile Industry
This book investigates the complex processes of the post-1990 transformation in the Czech automotive industry and its selective integration in the West European automobile manufacturing system. The post-1990 restructuring of the Czech automotive industry is analyzed in the context of its pre-1990 development and in the context of the Central and East European automobile industry as a whole. Specifically, the book examines the development and post-1990 restructuring of the Czech passenger car industry, the components industry and truck manufacturing. Major topics covered include the development of the Czech automotive industry before 1990, the detailed case study of Škoda Auto, the effects of the post-1990 privatization in the Czech automotive industry, the role and effects of foreign direct investment during the post-1990 restructuring, the restructuring of the Czech truck industry, and the rapid development of the automotive components manufacturing.
A Study about Prevalence of Thalassemia Complications in Syrian Patients
Inherited haemoglobin disorders, including thalassemia and sickle-cell disease, are the most common monogenic diseases worldwide. Several clinical forms of α-thalassemia and β-thalassemia, including the co-inheritance of β-thalassemia with haemoglobin E resulting in haemoglobin E/β-thalassemia, have been described. The disease hallmarks include imbalance in the α/β-globin chain ratio, ineffective erythropoiesis, chronic hemolytic anemia, compensatory hemopoietin expansion, hypercoagulability, and increased intestinal iron absorption. The complications of iron overload, arising from transfusions that represent the basis of disease management in most patients with severe thalassemia. The mature Hb molecule is a tetramer composed of 2 a-globin and 2 b-globin polypeptides, which assemble, along with a heme prosthetic group, to form the complete molecule.
A Stakeholder Rationale for Risk Management : Implications for Corporate Finance Decisions
Ordinarily, only the interests of shareholders, debtholders, and corporate management are taken into account when analyzing corporate financial decisions while the interests of non-financial stakeholders are often neglected. Gregor Gossy develops a so-called stakeholder rationale for risk management arguing that firms which are more dependent on implicit claims from their non-financial stakeholders, such as customers, suppliers, and employees, prefer conservative financial policies. In order to perform panel data analyses of the determinants of corporate financial decisions, the author uses data from Austrian and German industrial companies. He shows that variables for a firm’s most important non-financial stakeholders explain the firm’s capital structure and cash holding decisions. His findings suggest that a firm’s choice of accounting standards have a moderating effect on the determinants of corporate finance decisions.
A Software-Defined GPS and Galileo Receiver : A Single-Frequency Approach
Satellite navigation receivers are used to receive, process, and decode space-based navigation signals, such as those provided by the GPS constellation of satellites. There is an increasing need for a unified open platform that will enable enhanced receiver development and design, as well as cost-effective testing procedures for various applications. This book provide hands-on exploration of new technologies in this rapidly growing field. One of the unique features of the work is the interactive approach used, giving readers the ability to construct their own Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers. To construct such a reconfigurable receiver with a wide range of applications, the authors discuss receiver architecture based on software-defined radio (SDR) techniques. The presentation unfolds in a systematic, user-friendly style and goes from the basics to cutting-edge research.
A Risk-Benefit Perspective on Early Customer Integration
Customer integration in the early innovation phase has been considered the method of choice in theory and practice. Growing experience with the concept has shown unexpected side effects that may even outweigh its recognized advantages. Therefore, management needs to be able to assess in advance whether the involvement of customers will add overall value to each particular innovation project. To support but not to replace the final managerial decision, a mathematical formula is developed. It can be applied to all kinds of process structures, takes into account the risks and benefits contingent on a company's situation as well as risk-reducing and benefit-increasing measures and translates them into numerical values. The resulting figure indicates the prospective value of customer integration in a specific project.
A practical guide on behaviour change support for self-managing chronic disease
Developed under the auspices of the Train4Health project, funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union, the book contains six chapters written by international contributors from different disciplines. Chapter one introduces the competencies necessary for delivering effective behavior change support, based on an established program of work, and related learning outcomes. The four following chapters describe how these competencies can be acquired, focusing on concepts and theories, assessing self-management behaviors, implementing change strategies and person-centered communication, using a practical approach.
A Platform-Centric Approach to System-on-Chip (SOC) Design
The book proposes a new methodology for realizing platform-centric design of complex systems, and presents a detailed plan for its implementation. The proposed plan allows component vendors, system integrators and product developers to collaborate effectively and efficiently to create complex products within budget and schedule constraints.
