Group Coordination and Cooperative Control
Group coordination and cooperative control are topics currently receiving a lot of interest. Coordinating the motion of a group of relatively simple and inexpensive agents can cover a larger operational area and achieve complex tasks exceeding the abilities of a single agent. This enables applications such as teams of robots for de-mining operations, aerospace formation flying for survey, fleets of AUVs for oceanographic mapping, and ships doing coordinated towing operations. This volume contains the contributions of the workshop. The book covers a wide range of subjects within the area of group coordination and cooperative control, and forms a valuable and up-to-date text on the newer trends in group coordination and cooperative control.
Federated AI for Real-World Business Scenarios
Real-world AI applications frequently have training data distributed in many different locations, with data at different sites having different properties and different formats. In many cases, data movement is not permitted due to security concerns, bandwidth, cost or regulatory restriction. Under these conditions, techniques of federated learning can enable creation of practical applications. Creating practical applications requires implementation of the cycle of learning from data, inferring from data, and acting based on the inference.
Exploring Resilience : A Scientific Journey from Practice to Theory
Resilience has become an important topic on the safety research agenda and in organizational practice. Most empirical work on resilience has been descriptive, identifying characteristics of work and organizing activity which allow organizations to cope with unexpected situations. Fewer studies have developed testable models and theories that can be used to support interventions aiming to increase resilience and improve safety. In addition, the absent integration of different system levels from individuals, teams, organizations, regulatory bodies, and policy level in theory and practice imply that mechanisms through which resilience is linked across complex systems are not yet well understood. Scientific efforts have been made to develop constructs and models that present relationships; however, these cannot be characterized as sufficient for theory building. There is a need for taking a broader look at resilience practices as a foundation for developing a theoretical framework that can help improve safety in complex systems.
Evidence-based school development in changing demographic contexts
This book features a school development model (Arizona Initiative for Leadership Development and Research – AZiLDR) that offers a roadmap for schools to navigate the complexities of continuous school development. Filled with processes that balance evidence-based values with democratic, culturally responsive values, this book offers strategies to mediate the tensions and to address school culture, context and values, leadership capacity, using data as a source of reflection, curricular and pedagogical activity, and strengths-based approaches to meeting the needs of culturally diverse students.
European Robotics Symposium 2006
This unique reference represents a cross-section of forefront robotics research, ranging from robotics and systems to learning, autonomy and failure detection, from vision and navigation to localization and mapping, which are based on the papers presented at the 1st European Robotics Symposium (EUROS-06) held in Palermo, Italy from 16-18 March, 2006. The European Robotics Symposium (EUROS) is a brand-new International scientific event promoted by EURON, the European Robotics Network. Since its inception in 2000, EURON links most of the European robotics research teams and today (2006) involves more than 165 universities and companies across all of its member states. The EUROS meeting will be held in Europe every other year, but international participation at all levels is strongly encouraged making it a meeting place for high-quality presentation of interesting international research on robotics.
Enhancing Smallholder Farmers' Access to Seed of Improved Legume Varieties Through Multi-stakeholder Platforms : Learning from the TLIII project Experiences in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
This book shares the experiences of Tropical Legumes III (TLIII) project in facilitating access to seed of improved legume varieties to smallholder farmers through innovation platforms. It highlights practices and guiding principles implemented in eight developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This book details key processes that respective teams employed to create an innovation space that delivers seed, other inputs, knowledge and financial services to agricultural communities and most importantly, the underserved farmers in remote areas of the drylands
Emergency Radiology : Imaging and Intervention
There is an increasing trend towards the use of tries, hospital emergency departments have become a MDCT to evaluate traumatic injuries and non-traumatic major part of the healthcare safety net. In the last decade emergencies. The use of workstations for reporting and for economically-driven structural changes in health care further image reconstruction becomes standard practice. delivery have caused a dramatic increase in emergency On the occasion of the European Congress of Radiology department visits. In response to capacity and staffing (ECR) 2003 and 2004 a Categorical Course on “Emergency pressures, hospitals are developing and implementing a Radiology”has been organized to assess current devel- variety of strategies designed to improve patient flow and ments and concepts in this rapidly growing field. reduce overcrowding in the emergency department. Numerous radiologists,all outstanding and international- Several factors are considered critical for success, such as ly renowned experts in their field,have made superb c- having the right multidisciplinary teams in place and opti- tributions in an ECR syllabus.
Effective Multicultural Teams : Theory and Practice
Offers something that few other textbooks do: an accessible and understandable approach to discern the implications of complicated research. It will be a useful resource in courses on team building, multicultural and international issues at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. I was most impressed with the use of research from so many different cultures. Too often we take a Western, or even a U.S., perspective and assume that our way is the best way without understanding the cultural contexts. This material certainly avoids that trap.
Échographie de contraste : Méthodologie et applications cliniques = Contrast ultrasound : Methodology and clinical applications
The availability of ultrasound contrast agents has introduced a new dimension in ultrasound examination with the possibility of real-time exploration of the kinetics of contrast enhancement of various lesions. The potential indications for these microbubbles affect almost all deep and superficial organs, but also the possibilities of pharmacological studies for neoangiogenesis or therapeutic guidance by physical methods. Finally, new applications are emerging in the field of targeted products and the transport of active ingredients. It seemed opportune to us to attempt to take stock of this changing world through intense collaboration between the various teams involved and recognized in this field, of which unfortunately, only some are represented here. We want this book to be a current reference point for contrast ultrasound, a point that will certainly require development in the coming years. He strongly demonstrates that ultrasound can play a very important role in modern diagnostic and therapeutic imaging because of their diagnostic performance but also because of their non-invasive nature. We hope you enjoy looking for useful information as much as we did discovering real-time functional ultrasound imaging and writing these various chapters.
Driving digital transformation through data and AI : A practical guide to delivering data science and machine learning products
Explains how to build the organizational capability to deliver Data and AI products and drive immediate business results as new digital technologies significantly disrupt business Provides best practices, tools and templates for managing the organizational and technological change process to become an AI-driven enterprise Includes a variety of international case studies across several industries such as insurance, fashion, consumer goods, finance, technology and automotive Outlines how to develop a product strategy, build teams and design the platform and architecture Provides key principles for sharing knowledge, educating staff on data and AI, and effectively engaging top executives
Deployment and operation of complex software in heterogeneous execution environments : The SODALITE approach
This book provides an overview of the work developed within the SODALITE project, which aims at facilitating the deployment and operation of distributed software on top of heterogeneous infrastructures, including cloud, HPC and edge resources. The experts participating in the project describe how SODALITE works and how it can be exploited by end users. While multiple languages and tools are available in the literature to support DevOps teams in the automation of deployment and operation steps, still these activities require specific know-how and skills that cannot be found in average teams. The SODALITE framework tackles this problem by offering modelling and smart editing features to allow those we call Application Ops Experts to work without knowing low level details about the adopted, potentially heterogeneous, infrastructures. The framework offers also mechanisms to verify the quality of the defined models, generate the corresponding executable infrastructural code, automatically wrap application components within proper execution containers, orchestrate all activities concerned with deployment and operation of all system components, and support on-the-fly self-adaptation and refactoring.
Database performance at scale: a practical guide
Optimizing database performance at the scale required for today’s data-intensive applications often requires more than performance tuning and scaling out. This book shares commonly overlooked considerations, pitfalls, and opportunities that have helped many teams break through database performance plateaus. It’s neither a definitive guide to distributed databases nor a beginner’s resource. Rather, it’s a look at the many different factors that impact performance, and our top field-tested recommendations for navigating them. Chapter 1 provides two (fun and fanciful) tales that surface some of the many roadblocks you might face and highlight the range of strategies for navigating around them.
DARPA Grand Challenge : The Great Robot Race
The goal of the new series of Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is to bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics on the basis of their significance and quality. It is our hope that the wider dissemination of research developments will stimulate more exchanges and collaborations among the research community and contribute to further advancement of this rapidly growing field. The volume edited by Martin Buehler, Karl Iagnemma and Sanjiv Singh presents a unique and extensive collection of the scientific results by the teams which took part into the DARPA Grand Challenge in October 2005 in the Nevada desert. This event reached an incredible peak of popularity in the media, the race of the century like someone called it! The Grand Challenge demonstrated the fast growing progress - ward the development of robotics technology, as it showed the feasibility of using mobile robots operating autonomously in real world scenarios.
Construction Project Organising
Investigates the relationship between structure and action, and how patterns of action are created, recreated and maintained by scrutinising the myriad of organisational arrangements between clients, financiers, design teams, contractors, stakeholders and supply chains. It also discusses different concepts in the development and management of construction project organisations, including formation and maintenance issues.
Constraint Theory : Multidimensional Mathematical Model Management
The enormous potential of digital computation to manage new complex systems is impeded by exponential increases in complexity. As the model's dimensionality increases from hundreds to thousands of variables, and as submodels constructed by diverse technical teams are integrated into the total model, the model is likely to become inconsistent and even more likely, the computational requests on the model become unallowable. This text analyzes the way constraint theory employs bipartite graphs and constraint matrices to detect and correct these well-posed problems. It also presents the process of locating the "kernel of constraint", literally trillions of times faster than a random search, determining consistency and compatibility within seconds.
Computer-Aided Design of User Interfaces IV
Computer-Aided Design of User Interfaces IV gathers the latest research of experts, research teams and leading organisations involved in computer-aided design of user interactive applications supported by software, with specific attention for platform-independent user interfaces and context-sensitive or aware applications. This includes: innovative model-based and agent-based approaches, code-generators, model editors, task animators, translators, checkers, advice-giving systems and systems for graphical and multimodal user interfaces. It also addresses User Interface Description Languages. This books attempts to emphasize the software tool support for designing user interfaces and their underlying languages and methods, beyond traditional development environments offered by the market. It will be of interest to software development practitioners and researchers whose work involves human-computer interaction, design of user interfaces, frameworks for computer-aided design, formal and semi-formal methods, web services and multimedia systems, interactive applications, and graphical user and multi-user interfaces.
Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design III ; 10th International Conference, CSCWD 2006, Nanjing, China, May 3-5, 2006, Revised Selected Papers
The design of complex artifacts and systems requires the cooperation of multidiscip- nary design teams using multiple commercial and proprietary engineering software tools (e.g., CAD, modeling, simulation, visualization, and optimization), engineering databases, and knowledge-based systems. Individuals or individual groups of mult- isciplinary design teams usually work in parallel and separately with various en- neering software tools which are located at different sites. In addition, individual members may be working on different versions of a design or viewing the design from different perspectives, at different levels of detail. In order to accomplish the work, it is necessary to have effective and efficient c- laborative design environments. Such environments should not only automate in- vidual tasks, in the manner of traditional computer-aided engineering tools, but also enable individual members to share information, collaborate, and coordinate their activities within the context of a design project. CSCW (computer-supported coope- tive work) in design is concerned with the development of such environments.
Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design I
The design of complex artifacts and systems requires the cooperation of multidisciplinary design teams using multiple commercial and non-commercial engineering tools such as CAD tools, modeling, simulation and optimization software, engineering databases, and knowledge-based systems. Individuals or individual groups of multidisciplinary design teams usually work in parallel and separately with various engineering tools, which are located on different sites, often for quite a long time. At any moment, individual members may be working on different versions of a design or viewing the design from various perspectives, at different levels of detail. In order to meet these requirements, it is necessary to have effective and efficient collaborative design environments. These environments should not only automate individual tasks, in the manner of traditional computer-aided engineering tools, but also enable individual members to share information, collaborate and coordinate their activities within the context of a design project. CSCW (computer-supported cooperative work) in design is concerned with the development of such environments.
Collaborative curriculum design for sustainable innovation and teacher learning
This book provides insight into what it takes to actively involve teachers in the curriculum design process. It examines different aspects of teacher involvement in collaborative curriculum design, with specific attention to its implications for sustainable curriculum innovation and teacher learning. Divided into six sections, the book starts out by introducing the notion of collaborative curriculum design and discusses its historical and theoretical foundations. It describes various approaches commonly adopted to actively involve teachers in the (co-)design of curriculum materials. Sections two and three provide examples of what key phases in the curriculum design process - such as needs analysis, design and development, and implementation - look like across various collaborative curriculum design projects. Section four reports on the impact of collaborative curriculum design on student learning, teacher practices, teacher professional growth, and institutional change. Building on the research evidence about the outcomes of collaborative curriculum design, section five focuses on sustainability, scaling-up and curriculum leadership issues, which are key to the continuation and further evolution of curriculum innovations. Future perspectives are addressed in section six with emphasis on the infrastructure of a sustainable curriculum innovation.
Massively Multi-Agent Systems I ; 1st International Workshop, MMAS 2004, Kyoto, Japan, December 10-11, 2004, Revised Selected and Invited Papers
Originates from the First International Workshop on Massively Multi-Agent Systems, MMAS 2004, held in Kyoto, Japan in December 2004. The 25 revised full selected and invited papers give an excellent introduction and overview on massively multi-agent systems. The papers are organized in parts on massively multi-agent technology, teams and organization, ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence, and massively multi-agent systems in the public space.



















