The papers in this volume reflect the most recent research findings in cybernetics and systems research. They were selected from 298 draft final papers which were submitted to the conference by authors from more than 30 different countries from five continents.
Agility has become very important for the industries today as the lifetimes of the products are continuously shrinking. This book provides an excellent opportunity for updating understanding of agile methods from the design, manufacturing and business process perspectives, whether one is an industrial practitioner, academic researcher engineer or business graduate student. This volume is a compilation of various important aspects of agility consisting of systemic considerations in manufacturing, agile software systems, agile business systems, agile operations research, flexible manufacturing systems, advanced manufacturing systems with improved materials and mechanical behavior of products, agile aspects of design, clean and green manufacturing systems, environment, agile defence systems.
Praxiology deals with doing and working from the point of view of effectiveness. It has three components: analysis of concepts involving purposive actions; critique of models of action from the viewpoint of efficiency; and normative advisory aspects in recommendations for increasing human efficiency. This fourth volume of the Praxiology series is devoted to the very special topic of social agency. It focuses on two important praxiological concepts: rationality and preparation as preconditions for human action to be effective and efficient. The question of efficiency was raised by Anatol Rapoport over three decades ago in his lecture to the audience at the Praxiological Seminar in Warsaw in 1961. Social Agency begins with an article written by this same famous scholar on the topic of decision theory, "Social Dilemmas: A Historical Overview." Social dilemmas is the subject of the first part of this volume, a question related to studies on human action guided by two types of rationality: individual and collective rationality. The intersection of the two, in which individuals meet collectives, creates the situation in which social agency emerges, generating dilemmatic circumstances for the actors involved. The articles collected in the second part explore praxiological dimensions of education aimed toward the knowledge society, because of knowledge possessed and produced by educated persons. Chapters and contributors to volume 4 include: "Five Questions on the Research on Social Dilemmas" by Marek K. Mlicki; "Psychological Processes Underlying Cooperation in Social Dilemmas" by Paul A. M. Van Lange and David M. Messick; "Designing a System for Design Learning: Designers and/or Learners?" by Arne Collen; "Creating an Evolutionary Image of New Systems of Learning and Human Development" by Janet A. Khan; and "A Study Program Design in Retrospect" by Stig C. Holmberg. Social Agency continues the trend of original research done in a little-known, but important area. Social scientists, policymakers, and educators will benefit from this work.
The Handbook of Neural Computation is a practical, hands-on guide to the design and implementation of neural networks used by scientists and engineers to tackle difficult and/or time-consuming problems. The handbook bridges an information pathway between scientists and engineers in different disciplines who apply neural networks to similar probl
Soft computing is a consortium of computing methodologies that provide a foundation for the conception, design, and deployment of intelligent systems and aims to formalize the human ability to make rational decisions in an environment of uncertainty and imprecision. This book is based on a NATO Advanced Study Institute held in 1996 on soft computing and its applications. The distinguished contributors consider the principal constituents of soft computing, namely fuzzy logic, neurocomputing, genetic computing, and probabilistic reasoning, the relations between them, and their fusion in industrial applications. Two areas emphasized in the book are how to achieve a synergistic combination of the main constituents of soft computing and how the combination can be used to achieve a high Machine Intelligence Quotient.
This book examines fuzzy relational calculus theory with applications in various engineering subjects. The scope of the text covers unified and exact methods with algorithms for direct and inverse problem resolution in fuzzy relational calculus. Extensive engineering applications of fuzzy relation compositions and fuzzy linear systems (linear, relational and intuitionistic) are discussed. Some examples of such applications include solutions of equivalence, reduction and minimization problems in fuzzy machines, pattern recognition in fuzzy languages, optimization and inference engines in textile and chemical engineering, etc. A comprehensive overview of the authors' original work in fuzzy relational calculus is also provided in each chapter.The attached CD-Rom contains a toolbox with many functions for fuzzy calculations, together with an original algorithm for inverse problem resolution in MATLAB. This book is also suitable for use as a textbook in related courses at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.
