Agent-oriented information systems IV ; 8th International bi-conference workshop, AOIS 2006, Hakodate, Japan, May 9, 2006 and Luxembourg, Luxembourg, June 6, 2006, Revised Selected Papers
In AOIS, we focus on the application of agent technology in information systems development and explore the potential for facilitating the increased usage of agent technology in the creation of information systems in the widest sense.
Agent-based computational modelling : Applications in demography, social, economic and environmental sciences
The present book describes the methodology to set up agent-based models and to study emerging patterns in complex adaptive systems resulting from multi-agent interaction. It offers the application of agent-based models in demography, social and economic sciences and environmental sciences. It presents and combines different approaches how to implement agent-based computational models and tools in an integrative manner that can be extended to other cases.
Agent and multi-agent systems : Technologies and applications ; 1st KES International Symposium, KES-AMSTA 2007, Wroclaw, Poland, May 31-June 1, 2007, Proceedings
The aim of the symposium was to provide an international forum for scientific - search in the technologies and applications of agent and multi-agent systems. Agents and multi-agent systems are related to the modern software which has long been r- ognized as a promising technology for constructing autonomous, complex and intel- gent systems. A key development in the field of agent and multi-agent systems has been the specification of agent communication languages and formalization of - tologies. Agent communication languages are intended to provide standard decla- tive mechanisms for agents to communicate knowledge and make requests of each other, whereas ontologies are intended for conceptualization of the knowledge - main.
African Land Reform Under Economic Liberalisation: States, Chiefs, and Rural Communities
This book offers unique in-depth, comprehensive, and comparative analyses of the motivations, context, and outcomes of recent land reforms in Africa. Whereas a considerable number of land reforms have been carried out by African governments since the 1990s, no systematic analysis on their meaning has so far been conducted. In the age of land reform, Africa has seen drastic rural changes. Analysing the relationship between those reforms and change, the chapters in this book reveal not only their socio-economic outcomes, such as accelerated marketisation of land, but also their political outcomes, which have often been contrasting.
African Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation
discusses current thinking and presents the main issues and challenges associated with climate change in Africa. It introduces evidences from studies and projects which show how climate change adaptation is being - and may continue to be successfully implemented in African countries. Thanks to its scope and wide range of themes surrounding climate change, the ambition is that will be a lead publication on the topic, which may be regularly updated and hence capture further works.
Africa-Europe Research and Innovation Cooperation : Global Challenges, Bi-regional Responses
Concerned with the evolution and achievements of cooperation in research and innovation between Africa and Europe, and points to the need for more diversified funding and finance mechanisms, and for novel models of collaboration to attract new actors and innovative ideas. It reflects on the political, economic, diplomatic and scientific rationale for cooperation, while also examining practical developments, illustrated with examples, in the fields of food security, health, and climate change. The need to mobilise scientific knowledge and to ensure equality and fairness in the cooperation are recurrent themes. Africa-Europe Cooperation in Research and Innovation is essential reading for policy makers and researchers in international relations and science diplomacy.
Africa-EU Renewable Energy Research and Innovation Symposium 2018 (RERIS 2018) ; 23–26 January 2018, National University of Lesotho On occasion of NULISTICE 2018
This open access book presents the proceedings of the 2nd Africa-EU Renewable Energy Research and Innovation Symposium (RERIS 18), held in Maseru, Lesotho in January 2018. The symposium aimed to foster research cooperation on renewable energy between Africa and Europe – in academia, as well as the private and public sectors. Addressing thematic areas such as • Grid-connected renewable energy; • Decentralised renewable and household energy solutions; • Energy ocioeconomics; and • Promotion of energy research, innovation, education and entrepreneurship.
Affordable housing for smart villages
Initiates a fresh discussion of affordability in rural housing set in the context of the rapidly shifting balance between rural and urban populations. It conceptualises affordability in rural housing along a spectrum that is interlaced with cultural and social values integral to rural livelihoods at both personal and community level. Developed around four intersecting themes: explaining houses and housing in rural settings; exploring affordability in the context of aspirations and vulnerability; rural development agendas involving housing and communities; and construction for resilience in rural communities, the book provides an overview of some of the little understood and sometimes counter-intuitive best practices on rural affordability and affordable housing that have emerged in developing economies over the last thirty years.
Advancing Social Simulation: The First World Congress
Agent-based modeling and social simulation have emerged as both developments of and challenges to the social sciences. The developments include agent-based computational economics and investigations of theoretical sociological concepts using formal simulation techniques. Among the challenges are the development of qualitative modeling techniques, implementation of agent-based models to investigate phenomena for which conventional economic, social, and organizational models have no face validity, and the application of physical modeling techniques to social processes. Bringing together diverse approaches to social simulation and research agendas.
Advancing Human Assessment : The Methodological, Psychological and Policy Contributions of ETS
Describes the extensive contributions made toward the advancement of human assessment by scientists from one of the world’s leading research institutions, Educational Testing Service. The book’s four major sections detail research and development in measurement and statistics, education policy analysis and evaluation, scientific psychology, and validity. Many of the developments presented have become de-facto standards in educational and psychological measurement, including in item response theory (IRT), linking and equating, differential item functioning (DIF), and educational surveys like the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Programme of international Student Assessment (PISA), the Progress of International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). In addition to its comprehensive coverage of contributions to the theory and methodology of educational and psychological measurement and statistics,
Advancing Culture of Living with Landslides ; Vol. 1 : ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015-2025
Contains peer-reviewed papers from the Fourth World Landslide Forum organized by the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL), the Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL), University of Ljubljana (UL) and Geological Survey of Slovenia in Ljubljana, Slovenia from May 29 to June 2, 2017. The complete collection of papers from the Forum is published in five full-color volumes
Advances of novel formulations in drug delivery
This is an endeavor to bring all the nanotechnology-based drug carriers under the umbrella of a single text. The drug carriers made up using natural as well as synthetic polymers are described in detail. The drug carriers include (though not limited to) particulates, vesicular, dendrimers, quantum dots, carbon nano tubes, nanocrystals, nanoemulsions, nanofibers
Advances of Computational Intelligence in Industrial Systems
Advances of Computational Intelligence in Industrial Systems reports the exploration of CI frontiers with an emphasis on a broad spectrum of real-world applications. Section I – Theory and Foundation presents some of the latest developments in CI.
Advances in web-based learning - ICWL 2005 ; 4th international conference, Hong Kong, China, July 31 - August 3, 2005, proceedings
With the rapid development of Web-based learning, a new set of learning - vironments including virtual classrooms, virtual laboratories and virtual universities are being developed. These new learning environments, however, also introduce new problems that need to be addressed. On the technical side, there is a need for the deployment of effective technologies on Web-based education. On the learning side, the cyber mode of learning is very different from tra- tional classroom-based learning. On the management side, the establishment of a cyber university imposes very different requirements for the set up. ICWL 2005, the 4th International Conference on Web-Based Learning, was held in Hong Kong, China from July 31 to August 3, 2005, as a continued - tempt to address many of the above-mentioned issues. Following the great success of ICWL
Advances in Web Intelligence and Data Mining
The new Web-related research directions include intelligent methods usually associated with the fields of computational intelligence, soft computing, and data mining. This book presents state-of-the-art developments in the area of computationally intelligent methods applied to various aspects and ways of Web exploration and Web mining. Some novel data mining algorithms that can lead to more effective and intelligent Web-based systems are also described. Scientists, engineers, and research students are expected to find many inspiring ideas in this volume.
Advances in verification of time Petri Nets and timed automata : A temporal logic approach
This monograph presents a comprehensive introduction to timed automata (TA) and time Petri nets (TPNs) which belong to the most widely used models of real-time systems. Some of the existing methods of translating time Petri nets to timed automata are presented, with a focus on the translations that correspond to the semantics of time Petri nets, associating clocks with various components of the nets. "Advances in Verification of Time Petri Nets and Timed Automata – A Temporal Logic Approach" introduces timed and untimed temporal specification languages and gives model abstraction methods based on state class approaches for TPNs and on partition refinement for TA. Moreover, the monograph presents a recent progress in the development of two model checking methods, based on either exploiting abstract state spaces or on application of SAT-based symbolic techniques.
Advances in Urban Ecology : Integrating Humans and Ecological Processes in Urban Ecosystems
The future of Earth’s ecosystems is increasingly influenced by the pace and patterns of urbanization. One of the greatest challenges for natural and social scientists is to understand how urbanizing regions evolve through the complex interactions between humans and ecological processes. Questions and methods of inquiry specific to our traditional disciplinary domains yield partial views that reflect different epistemologies and understandings of the world. In order to achieve the level of synthesis required to see the urban ecosystem as a whole we must change the way we pose questions and search for answers. Cities are the result of human and ecological processes occurring simultaneously in time and in space and the legacy of the simultaneous processes of the past. Urban ecology is the study of the co-evolution of human-ecological systems. Scholars of both urban systems and ecology must challenge the assumptions and world views within their disciplines and work towards a hybrid theory that builds on multiple world views.
Advances in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles : State of the Art and the Road to Autonomy
There has been tremendous emphasis in unmanned aerial vehicles, both of fixed (airplanes) and rotary wing (vertical take off and landing, helicopters) types over the past ten years. Applications span both civilian and military domains, the latter being the most important at this stage. This edited book provides a solid and diversified reference source related to basic, applied research and development on small and miniature unmanned aerial vehicles, both fixed and rotary wing. As such, the book offers background information on the evolution of such vehicles over the years, followed by modeling and control fundamentals that are of paramount importance due to unmanned aerial vehicle model complexity, nonlinearity, coupling, inhirent instability and parameter values uncertainty. Aspects of navigation, including visual-based navigation and target tracking are discussed, followed by applications to attitude estimation on micro unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous solar unmanned aerial vehicle, biomimetic sensing for autonomous flights in near-earth environments, localization of air-ground wireless sensor networks, decentralized formation tracking, design of an unmanned aerial vehicle for volcanic gas sampling and design of an on-board processing controller for miniature helicopters.
Advances in Telerobotics
The main purpose of this book is to provide readers with recent advances in the field of Telerobotics. It describes methods, experimental results, applications, and developments, highly relevant for scientists, researchers, and students in Teleoperation. This book is structured in three parts: I. Human System Interfaces, II. Control, and III. Applications. Chapters in part I concentrate on human interface technology which allows a human operator to close the control loop of a remote robot. Topics related to control algorithms - in particular for the case with time delay in the communication network - are the focus in part II, concentrating on bilateral control methods. Part III presents a variety of advanced applications in surgery, space, and other fields relevant to everyday life.
Advances in Targeted Cancer Therapy
This volume is the first book to cover the general topic of targeted cancer therapy. It presents a range of targets such as tumor angiogenesis, cell cycle control and cell signalling, COX-2, apoptosis/cell survival, invasion and metastasis and approaches like kinase inhibitors, antisense, and antibody-based therapeutics. The emphasis is on preclinical development, including target validation, development of biomarkers, strategies for combination approaches, and development of resistance. The particular challenges involved in translating these data to clinical application are discussed.



















