Model-Based Control of Logistics Processes in Volatile Environments

This monograph presents results originating from a research project investigating autonomous adaptation of vehicle schedules and systematically develops and evaluates innovative ideas for the manageme

Against the background of often esoteric literature in semiotics, this book offers a fresh and rigorous new interpretation of how to approach the study of communication, signs and meaning. Grounded in a deductive theory of interacting systems, Piotr Sadowski's book provides an accessible account of the hierarchy of communication.Divided into two parts, this book argues in the first section that a deductive semiotic theory generates communication situations of increasing complexity, from contiguous communication to indirect, referential forms based on indexical, iconic, and symbolic signs. Within this system, Sadowski explains how key concepts of the semiotic model such as information, parainformation and metainformation can account for degrees of cognitive complexity of communication processes, including the perception and interpretation of signs on literal and figurative levels. After this clear, step-by-step exposition of the theory of interacting systems, Systemic Semiotics then

Wildland fires are among the most complicated environmental phenomena to model. Fire behavior models are commonly used to predict the direction and rate of spread of wildland fires based on fire history, fuel, and environmental conditions; however, more sophisticated computational fluid dynamic models are now being developed. This quantitative analysis of fire as a fluid dynamic phenomenon embedded in a highly turbulent flow is beginning to reveal the combined interactions of the vegetative structure, combustion-driven convective effects, and atmospheric boundary layer processes. This book provides an overview of the developments in modeling wildland fire dynamics and the key dynamical processes involved. Mathematical and dynamical principles are presented, and the complex phenomena that arise in wildland fire are discussed. Providing a state-of-the-art survey, it is a useful reference for scientists, researchers, and graduate students interested in wildland fire behavior from a broad

Most systems involved in a chemical process plant are interactive multivariable systems, to control which, the transfer function matrix model is required. This lucid book considers the identification and control of such systems. It discusses open loop and closed loop identification methods, as well as the design of multivariable controllers based on steady state gain matrix. Simple methods for designing controllers based on transfer function matrix model have been reviewed. The design of controllers for non-square systems, and closed loop identification of multivariable unstable systems by the optimization method are also covered. Several simulation examples and exercise problems at the end of each chapter further help the reader consolidate the knowledge gained. This book will be useful to any engineering student, researcher or practitioner who works with interactive, multivariable control systems.

Sentence comprehension - the way we process and understand spoken and written language - is a central and important area of research within psycholinguistics. This book explores the contribution of computational linguistics to the field, showing how computational models of sentence processing can help scientists in their investigation of human cognitive processes. It presents the leading computational model of retrieval processes in sentence processing, the Lewis and Vasishth cue-based retrieval mode, and develops a principled methodology for parameter estimation and model comparison/evaluation using benchmark data, to enable researchers to test their own models of retrieval against the present model. It also provides readers with an overview of the last 20 years of research on the topic of retrieval processes in sentence comprehension, along with source code that allows researchers to extend the model and carry out new research. Comprehensive in its scope, this book is essential readi

Pressure on large fluvial lowlands has increased tremendously during the past twenty years because of flood control, urbanization, and increased dependence upon floodplains and deltas for food production. This book examines human impacts on lowland rivers, and discusses how these changes affect different types of riverine environments and flood processes. Surveying a global range of large rivers, it provides a primary focus on the lower Rhine River in the Netherlands and the Lower Mississippi River in Louisiana. A particular focus of the book is on geo-engineering, which is described in a straight-forward writing style that is accessible to a broad audience of advanced students, researchers, and practitioners in global environmental change, fluvial geomorphology and sedimentology, and flood and water management.

This state-of-the-art account unifies material developed in journal articles over the last 35 years, with two central thrusts: It describes a broad class of system models that the authors call 'stochastic processing networks' (SPNs), which include queueing networks and bandwidth sharing networks as prominent special cases; and in that context it explains and illustrates a method for stability analysis based on fluid models. The central mathematical result is a theorem that can be paraphrased as follows: If the fluid model derived from an SPN is stable, then the SPN itself is stable. Two topics discussed in detail are (a) the derivation of fluid models by means of fluid limit analysis, and (b) stability analysis for fluid models using Lyapunov functions. With regard to applications, there are chapters devoted to max-weight and back-pressure control, proportionally fair resource allocation, data center operations, and flow management in packet networks. Geared toward researchers and grad

In Digital Data Collection and Information Privacy Law, Mark Burdon argues for the reformulation of information privacy law to regulate new power consequences of ubiquitous data collection. Examining developing business models, based on collections of sensor data - with a focus on the 'smart home' - Burdon demonstrates the challenges that are arising for information privacy's control-model and its application of principled protections of personal information exchange. By reformulating information privacy's primary role of individual control as an interrupter of modulated power, Burdon provides a foundation for future law reform and calls for stronger information privacy law protections. This book should be read by anyone interested in the role of privacy in a world of ubiquitous and pervasive data collection.

Cognitive linguists and psychologists have often argued that language is best understood as an association network; however while the network view of language has had a significant impact on the study of morphology and lexical semantics, it is only recently that researchers have taken an explicit network approach to the study of syntax. This innovative study presents a dynamic network model of grammar in which all aspects of linguistic structure, including core concepts of syntax (e.g. phrase structure, word classes, grammatical relations), are analyzed in terms of associative connections between different types of linguistic elements. These associations are shaped by domain-general learning processes that are operative in language use and sensitive to frequency of occurrence. Drawing on research from usage-based linguistics and cognitive psychology, the book provides an overview of frequency effects in grammar and analyzes these effects within the framework of a dynamic network model.

A bridge between the application of subspace-based methods for parameter estimation in signal processing and subspace-based system identification in control systems Model-Based Processing: An Ap

The first book to show benefits of intelligent control applications to drying processes, it gives an overview of control principles and systems, from classical model-based to adaptive and optimal cont

As Europe deals with a so-called 'refugee crisis', Australia's harsh border control policies have been suggested as a possible model for Europe to copy. Key measures of this system such as long-term mandatory detention, intercepting and turning boats around at sea, and the extraterritorial processing of asylum claims were actually used in the United States long before they were adopted in Australia. The book examines the process through which these policies spread between the United States and Australia and the way the courts in each jurisdiction have dealt with the measures. Daniel Ghezelbash's innovative interdisciplinary analysis shows how policies and practices that 'work' in one country might not work in another. This timely book is a must-read for those interested in preserving the institution of asylum in a volatile international and domestic political climate.

Shows the newest developments in the field of multi-parametric model predictive control and optimization and their application for drug delivery systems This book is based on the Modelling, Cont

The variable activity of stars such as the Sun is mediated through stellar magnetic fields, radiative and energetic particle fluxes, stellar winds and magnetic storms manifested as stellar flares and coronal mass ejections. This activity influences planetary atmospheres, climate and habitability: on the one hand it drives life-sustaining processes on planets, but on the other hand can adversely impact planetary environments rendering them uninhabitable. Studies of this intimate relationship between the parent star, its astrosphere and the planets that it hosts have reached a certain level of maturity in our own Solar System. Based on this understanding, the first attempts are being made to characterize the interactions between distant stars and their planets and understand their coupled evolution, which is relevant for the search for habitable exoplanets. IAU Symposium 328 brings together diverse, interdisciplinary reviews and research papers which address the themes of star–planet int

Do you need to design efficient wireless communications systems? This unique text provides detailed coverage of radio resource allocation problems in wireless networks and the techniques that can be used to solve them. Covering basic principles and mathematical algorithms, and with a particular focus on power control and channel allocation, you will learn how to model, analyze, and optimize the allocation of resources in both physical and data link layers, and for a range of different network types. Both established and emerging networks are considered, including CDMA and OFDMA wireless networks, relay-based wireless networks, and cognitive radio networks. Numerous exercises help you put knowledge into practice, and provide the tools needed to address some of the current research problems in the field. This is an essential reference whether you are a graduate student, researcher or industry professional working in the field of wireless communication networks.

All governments, in various ways, regulate and control nonprofit organizations. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), while hopeful of supportive regulatory environments, are simultaneously seeking greater autonomy both to provide services and to advocate for policy change. In part to counter increasing statutory regulation, there is a global nonprofit sector movement towards greater grassroots regulation - what the authors call self-regulation - through codes of conduct and self-accreditation processes. This book drills down to the country level to study both sides of this equation, examining how state regulation and nonprofit self-regulation affect each other and investigating the causal nature of this interaction. Exploring these issues from historical, cultural, political, and environmental perspectives, and in sixteen jurisdictions (Australia, China, Brazil, Ecuador, England and Wales, Ethiopia, Ireland, Israel, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Tanzania, Uganda, Scotland, United States, and

America's War on Same-Sex Couples and Their Families is a legal, political, and social history of constitutional amendments in twenty American states (with 43 percent of the nation's population) that prohibited government recognition of all forms of relationship rights (marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships) for same-sex couples. Based on 175 interviews with gay and lesbian pairs in Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin, the volume has great human-interest value and chronicles how same-sex couples and their children coped within harsh legal environments. The work ends with a lively explanation of how the federal judiciary rescued these families from their own governments. In addition, the book provides a model of the grassroots circumstances under which harassed minority groups migrate out of oppressive state regimes, together with an estimate of the economic and other costs (to the refugees and their governments) of the flight from persecution.

This wide-ranging comparative account of the legal regimes for controlling administrative power in England, the USA and Australia argues that differences and similarities between control regimes may be partly explained by the constitutional structures of the systems of government in which they are embedded. It applies social-scientific and historical methods to the comparative study of law and legal systems in a novel and innovative way, and combines accounts of long-term and large-scale patterns of power distribution with detailed analysis of features of administrative law and the administrative justice systems of three jurisdictions. It also proposes a new method of analysing systems of government based on two different models of the distribution of public power (diffusion and concentration), a model which proves more illuminating than traditional separation-of-powers analysis.

In today's highly competitive market, organizations increasingly need to innovate in order to survive. Drawing on a wealth of psychological research in the field of creativity, David H. Cropley and Arthur J. Cropley illustrate practical methods for conceptualizing and managing organizational innovation. They present a dynamic model of the interactions between four key components of creativity - product, person, process, and press - which function as building blocks of innovation. This volume sheds new light on the nature of innovative products and the processes that generate them, the psychological characteristics of innovative people, and the environments that facilitate innovation. It also fills a significant gap in the current literature by addressing the paradoxical quality of organizational innovation, which may be both helped and hindered by the same factors. The authors demonstrate that with proper measurement and management, organizations can effectively encourage individuals t

This book focuses on guidelines for reducing the energy consumption in warehousing processes. It presents a model of formal assessment for energy consumption in the context of storage-system logistics

Private companies exert considerable control over the flow of information on the internet. Whether users are finding information with a search engine, communicating on a social networking site or accessing the internet through an ISP, access to participation can be blocked, channelled, edited or personalised. Such gatekeepers are powerful forces in facilitating or hindering freedom of expression online. This is problematic for a human rights system which has historically treated human rights as a government responsibility, and this is compounded by the largely light-touch regulatory approach to the internet in the West. Regulating Speech in Cyberspace explores how these gatekeepers operate at the intersection of three fields of study: regulation (more broadly, law), corporate social responsibility and human rights. It proposes an alternative corporate governance model for speech regulation, one that acts as a template for the increasingly common use of non-state-based models of governa

In this volume, concepts, technologies and developments in the field of building-component manufacturing - based on concrete, brick, wood and steel as building materials and on large-scale prefabrication, delivering complex, customized components and products - are introduced and discussed. Robotic industrialization refers to the transformation of parts and low-level components into higher-level components, modules and finally building systems by highly mechanized, automated, or robot-supported industrial settings in structured off-site environments. Components and modules are open building systems (in modular building product structures) that are delivered by suppliers to original equipment manufacturers such as, for example, large-scale prefabrication companies or automated/robotic on-site factories. In particular, innovative large-scale prefabrication companies have altered the building structures, manufacturing processes, and organizational structures significantly to be able to as

Ensuring America's Health explains why the US health care system offers world-class medical services to some patients but is also exceedingly costly, with fragmented care, poor distribution, and increasingly bureaucratized processes. Based on exhaustive historical research, this work traces how public and private power merged to favor a distinctive economic model that places insurance companies at the center of the system, where they both finance and oversee medical care. Although the insurance company model was created during the 1930s, it continues to drive health care cost and quality problems today. This wide-ranging work not only evaluates the overarching political and economic framework of the medical system but also provides rich narrative detail, examining the political dramas, corporate maneuverings, and forceful personalities that created American health care as we know it. This book breaks new ground in the fields of health care history, organizational studies, and American

Macromolecules in solutions can be distinctly characterised by their transport behaviour in solution phase. The study of the transport processes includes diffusion coefficient, sedimentation coefficient, intrinsic viscosity and friction constant. The question arises as to how to explicitly characterise the macromolecules from the data of coefficients. This book answers this question in a systematic manner. It provides physical interpretation of the data obtained in macromolecular transport phenomena in a given system and also addresses some important issues and concepts related to biopolymers such as proteins and nucleic acids. The application of concepts like conformational properties and salient physicochemical features of protein and nucleic acids is also elucidated in the book. Based on the molecular structure, it provides the essential concepts which can be used to model and analyse the static and transport behaviour of polymers and biopolymers.

This book provides background knowledge on the development of model based real-world solutions in the field of control and decision making for water systems. It presents system engineering methods for

In the years since it was established on 1 July 1997, Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal has developed a distinctive body of new law and doctrine with the help of eminent foreign common law judges. Under the leadership of Chief Justice Andrew Li, it has also remained independent under Chinese sovereignty and become a model for other Asian final courts working to maintain the rule of law, judicial independence and professionalism in challenging political environments. In this book, leading practitioners, jurists and academics examine the Court's history, operation and jurisprudence, and provide a comparative analysis with European courts and China's other autonomous final court in Macau. It also makes use of extensive empirical data compiled from the jurisprudence to illuminate the Court's decision-making processes and identify the relative impacts of the foreign and local judges.

This textbook aims to provide a clear understanding of the various tools of analysis and design for robust stability and performance of uncertain dynamic systems. In model-based control design and ana

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a framework for decision making in unknown environments based on a large amount of data. Several practical RL applications for business intelligence, plant control, and

Despite significant advances in the understanding of earthquake generation processes and derivation of underlying physical laws, controversy remains regarding the constitutive law for earthquake ruptures and how it should be formulated. Laboratory experiments are necessary to obtain high-resolution measurements that allow the physical nature of shear rupture processes to be deduced, and to resolve the controversy. This important book provides a deeper understanding of earthquake processes from nucleation to their dynamic propagation. Its key focus is a deductive approach based on laboratory-derived physical laws and formulae, such as a unifying constitutive law, a constitutive scaling law, and a physical model of shear rupture nucleation. Topics covered include: the fundamentals of rock failure physics, earthquake generation processes, physical scale dependence, and large-earthquake generation cycles. Designed for researchers and professionals in earthquake seismology, rock failure phy

Based on four decades of research by Professor Andrew Goudie, this volume provides a state-of-the-art synthesis of our understanding of desert geomorphology. It presents a truly international perspective, with examples from all over the world. Extensively referenced and illustrated, it covers such topics as the importance of past climatic changes, the variability of different desert environments, rock breakdown, wind erosion and dust storm generation, sand dunes, fluvial and slope forms and processes, the role of the applied geomorphologist in desert development and conservation, and the Earth as an analogue for other planetary bodies. This book is destined to become the classic volume on arid and semi-arid geomorphology for advanced students and researchers in physical geography, geomorphology, Earth science, sedimentology, environmental science and archaeology.

Jiao, Jing Liu, and Weicai Zhong (all Xidian U, China) describe a branch of the computational model based on evolutionary algorithms, which were inspired by the processes in biological evolution, and

Describing the relevant detection and estimation theory, this detailed guide provides the background knowledge needed to tackle the design of practical WLAN positioning systems. It sets out key system-level challenges and design considerations in increasing positioning accuracy and reducing computational complexity, and it also examines design trade-offs and experimental results. Radio characteristics in real environments are discussed, as are the theoretical aspects of non-parametric statistical tools appropriate for modeling radio signals, statistical estimation techniques and the model-based stochastic estimators often used for positioning. A historical account of positioning systems in also included, giving graduate students, researchers and practitioners alike the perspective needed to understand the benefits and potential applications of WLAN positioning.

The standard (Markovian) transport model based on the Boltzmann equation cannot describe some non-equilibrium processes called anomalous that take place in many disordered solids. Causes of anomality

IAU Symposium 272 presents an overview of the latest research into active OB stars. These massive, volatile objects serve as test beds for extreme conditions, and research into them has entered a new era with the advent of new space and round-based instrumentation. In this volume, renowned experts discuss the cutting-edge observations, state-of-the-art modeling and recently developed techniques such as asteroseismology, interferometry and spectropolarimetry that have improved our understanding of these extreme objects. Asteroseismology allows us to infer the internal structure of massive stars and their rotation; high-resolution spectropolarimetry provides clues about magnetic fields and the confinement of their circumstellar environments; and interferometry probes the shape of these environments and investigates differential rotation. Written for researchers and graduate students, this volume will appeal to all those interested in extreme physical processes as tools to study structure

The book focuses on the physical and mathematical foundations of model-based turbulence control: reduced-order modelling and control design in simulations and experiments. Leading experts provide elem

Many new technologies – like RFID, GPS, and sensor networks – that dominate innovative developments in logistics are based on the idea of autonomous cooperation and control. This self-organisational c

What would make anti-bullying initiatives more successful? This book offers a new approach to the problem of school bullying. The question of what constitutes a useful theory of bullying is considered and suggestions are made as to how priorities for future research might be identified. The integrated, systemic model of school bullying introduced in this book is based on four qualitative studies and incorporates theory from systemic thinking; cognitive, social, developmental and psychoanalytic psychology; sociology, socio-biology and ethology. The possible functions served by bullying behaviour are explored. Consideration is also given to the potential role of unconscious as well as conscious processes in bullying. The model suggests a number of causal processes within one-to-one relationships and peer groups, and highlights factors within individuals and schools that shape the form, intensity and duration of bullying behaviour in practice. The issue of 'difference' is also addressed,

In one of the first ever environmental histories of the Ottoman Empire, Alan Mikhail examines relations between the empire and its most lucrative province of Egypt. Based on both the local records of various towns and villages in rural Egypt and the imperial orders of the Ottoman state, this book charts how changes in the control of natural resources fundamentally altered the nature of Ottoman imperial sovereignty in Egypt and throughout the empire. In revealing how Egyptian peasants were able to use their knowledge and experience of local environments to force the hand of the imperial state, Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt tells a story of the connections of empire stretching from canals in the Egyptian countryside to the palace in Istanbul, from the forests of Anatolia to the shores of the Red Sea, and from a plague flea's bite to the fortunes of one of the most powerful states of the early modern world.

Tensor Product Model Transformation in Polytopic Model-Based Control offers a new perspective of control system design. Instead of relying solely on the formulation of more effective LMIs, which is th

In this book, the state-of-the-art fuzzy-model-based (FMB) based control approaches are covered. A comprehensive review about the stability analysis of type-1 and type-2 FMB control systems using the