The purpose of this book is to provide up-to-date progress both in Multiple Criteria Programming (MCP) and Support Vector Machines (SVMs) that have become powerful tools in the field of data mining. Most of the content in this book are directly from the research and application activities that our research group has conducted over the...

The ultimate goal of computers is to help humans to solve problems. The solutions for such problems are typically programmed by experts, and the computers need only to follow the specified steps to solve the problem. However, the solution of some problems may be too difficult to be explicitly programmed. In such difficult cases,...

What is the theory of computation all about? The theory of computation embodies the principle by which computers have become the basis of modern digital technology, which makes a computer perform as desired, and which, consequently, has led to the prosperity of our advanced information society (just as physical sciences constitute the...

In contemporary globally competitive markets, the development of new products is considered a critical success factor for organizations. Significant efforts have been invested in the development of methods and tools for improving the management of design processes, being a key element in development processes, especially those related...

Valid epidemiological studies are now available on the prevalence and incidence of these illnesses. There have been improvements in diagnostic criteria and important new...

Grid Computing was a vision of using and sharing computers and data in the early 1990s. The integration, coordination, and sharing of computer resources which are geographically disperse among different physical domains and organizations became an every day reality. This emerging infrastructure aims to provide a mechanism for sharing...

One of the most debated consequences regarding the increased availability and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially since the early 1990s, have been their impact on economic growth. Generally speaking, ICT can serve to reduce transaction costs at all levels of a commercial transaction. With the emergence...

Humans receive the great majority of information about their environment through sight, and at least 50% of the human brain is dedicated to vision. Vision is also a key component for building artificial systems that can perceive and understand their environment. Computer vision is likely to change society in many ways; for example, it...

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More than 50 years ago when I was studying to become an electrical engineer, I came across complex numbers, which were used to represent out-of-phase voltages and currents using the j operator. I believe that the letter j was used, rather than i, because the latter stood for electrical current. So from the very start of my studies I...