First studied in social insects like ants, indirect self-organizing interactions - known as "stigmergy" - occur when one individual modifies the environment and another subsequently responds to the new environment. The implications of self-organizing behavior extend to robotics and beyond. This book explores the application of stigmergy for a variety of optimization problems. The volume comprises 12 chapters including an introductory chapter conveying the fundamental definitions, inspirations and research challenges.
This book is an update of a successful first edition that has been extremely well received by the experts in the chemical process industries. The authors explain both the theory and the practice of optimization, with the focus on the techniques and software that offer the most potential for success and give reliable results. Applications case studies in optimization are presented with new examples taken from the areas of microelectronics processing and molecular modeling. Ample references are cited for those who wish to explore the theoretical concepts in more detail.
The purpose of this book is to convey to undergraduate students an understanding of those areas of process control that all chemical engineers need to know. The presentation is concise, readable and restricted to only essential elements. The methods presented have been successfully applied in industry to solve real problems. Analysis of closedloop dynamics in the time, Laplace, frequency and sample-data domains are covered. Designing simple regulatory control systems for multivariable processes is discussed. The practical aspects of process control are presented sizing control valves, tuning controllers, developing control structures and considering interaction between plant design and control. Practical simple identification methods are covered.
Many advances have recently been made in metaheuristic methods, from theory to applications. The editors, both leading experts in this field, have assembled a team of researchers to contribute 21 chapters organized into parts on simulated annealing, tabu search, ant colony algorithms, general purpose studies of evolutionary algorithms, applications of evolutionary algorithms, and metaheuristics.
Combining their extensive knowledge of process control, the team of William Luyben and Michael Luyben has developed a book that thoroughly covers the area of process control. With concise coverage that is easily readable and condensed to only essential elements, Essentials of Process Control presents the areas of process control that all chemical engineers need to know. The book's practical engineering orientation offers many real industrial control examples and problems. The authors present the practical aspects of process control such as sizing control valves, tuning controllers, and developing control structures. Readers will find helpful features of the book to include practical identification methods, which allow them to obtain information to tune controllers more quickly. In addition, the book discusses plantwide control and the interactions between steady-state design and dynamic controllability.
At the First International Symposium on Aquatic Oligochaete Biology in Sidney, B. C. , the suggestion was made to hold the second in Pallanza, on Lake Maggiore, at the C. N. R. -Istituto Italiano di Idrobiologia. At the same time it was decided that there should be a symposium every third year. The organization of the symposium was made considerably easier by the Senior Editor's having been in personal contact with several Russian colleagues (courtesy of a kind invitation from the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences), the 'Hamburg Group' and the Junior Editor. Correspondence with various students of Oligochaeta also furnished many useful suggestions. The Second International Symposium on Aquatic Oligochaete Biology was therefore held in Pallanza in late September 1982 and was attended by 53 scientists from 16 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. No review papers were formally invited as this had already been done at the first symposium: all the papers were accordingly allotted the same time for oral presentation. These proceedings contain all papers Hrabe and Slepukhina, which were given in absentia, as it presented at the symposium, including those by was impossible for the authors to join the group. The main topics were taxonomy and evolution of Oligo chaeta, life-cyle and population studies, the role of Oligo chaeta in assessing water pollution, physiolog ical studies, community and distribution studies. Special taxonomic workshops took place in the evenings.
