This book presents an approach to the construction of a visual system, which is behaviorally, computationally and neurally motivated. The goal is to characterize the process of visual categorization and to find a suitable representation format that can successfully deal with the structural variability existent within visual categories. The book reviews past and existent theories of visual object and shape recognition in the fields of computer vision, neuroscience and psychology. The entire range of computations is discussed, as are region-based approaches and are modeled with wave-propagating networks. A completely novel shape recognition architecture is proposed that can recognize simple shapes under various degraded conditions. It is discussed how such networks can be used for constructing basic-level object representations. It is envisioned how those networks can be implemented using the method of neuromorphic engineering.

Intrusion Detection and Correlation: Challenges and Solutions presents intrusion detection systems (IDSs) and addresses the problem of managing and correlating the alerts produced. This volume discusses the role of intrusion detection in the realm of network security with comparisons to traditional methods such as firewalls and cryptography.
The Internet is omnipresent and companies have increasingly put critical resources online.;This has given rise to the activities of cyber criminals. Virtually all organizations face increasing threats to their networks and the services they provide.;Intrusion detection systems (IDSs) take increased pounding for failing to meet the expectations researchers and IDS vendors continually raise.;Promises that IDSs are capable of reliably identifying malicious activity in large networks were premature and never tuned into reality.
While virus scanners and firewalls have visible benefits and remain virtually unnoticed during normal operations, the situation is different with intrusion detection sensors.;State-of-the-art IDSs produce hundreds or even thousands of alerts every day.;Unfortunately, almost all of these alerts are false positives, that is, they are not related to security-relevant incidents.
Intrusion Detection and Correlation: Challenges and Solutions analyzes the challenges in interpreting and combining (i.e., correlating) alerts produced by these systems.;In addition, existing academic and commercial systems are classified; their advantage and shortcomings are presented, especially in the case of deployment in large, real-world sites.

Applied probability is a broad research area that is of interest to scientists in diverse disciplines in science and technology, including: anthropology, biology, communication theory, economics, epidemiology, finance, geography, linguistics, medicine, meteorology, operations research, psychology, quality control, sociology, and statistics.
Recent Advances in Applied Probability is a collection of survey articles that bring together the work of leading researchers in applied probability to present current research advances in this important area.
This volume will be of interest to graduate students and researchers whose research is closely connected to probability modelling and their applications. It is suitable for one semester graduate level research seminar in applied probability.

Understanding the needs and desires of the customer are central to the strategy of mass customization. However, introducing customer needs into the realm of product development dramatically increases the level of complexity of creating and delivering the product both internally and externally. This book introduces an innovative model that assesses and distinguishes subjective and objective customer needs. This model along with other software tools and AI agents address the complexity issues that are both external and internal in a mass customization strategy. Fundamentally, the book
??” with its technical analysis, models, conceptual frameworks, and managerial tools
??” closes the gap between the complexity and the difficulty of mass customization with its potential payoffs and implementation.

Quality of Telephone-Based Spoken Dialogue Systems is a systematic overview of assessment, evaluation, and prediction methods for the quality of services such as travel and touristic information, phone-directory and messaging, or telephone-banking services. A new taxonomy of quality-of-service is presented which serves as a tool for classifying assessment and evaluation methods, for planning and interpreting evaluation experiments, and for estimating quality. A broad overview of parameters and evaluation methods is given, both on a system-component level and for a fully integrated system. Three experimental investigations illustrate the relationships between system characteristics and perceived quality. The resulting information is needed in all phases of system specification, design, implementation, and operation.
Although Quality of Telephone-Based Spoken Dialogue Systems is written from the perspective of an engineer in telecommunications, it is an invaluable source of information for professionals in signal processing, communication acoustics, computational linguistics, speech and language sciences, human factor design and ergonomics

Around the world, liberalization and privatization in the electricity industry have lead to increased competition among utilities. At the same time, utilities are now exposed more than ever to risk and uncertainties, which they cannot pass on to their customers through price increases as in a regulated environment. Especially electricity-generating companies have to face volatile wholesale prices, fuel price uncertainty, limited long-term hedging possibilities and huge, to a large extent, sunk investments.
In this context, Uncertainty in the Electric Power Industry: Methods and Models for Decision Support aims at an integrative view on the decision problems that power companies have to tackle. It systematically examines the uncertainties power companies are facing and develops models to describe them - including an innovative approach combining fundamental and finance models for price modeling. The optimization of generation and trading portfolios under uncertainty is discussed with particular focus on CHP and is linked to risk management. Here the concept of integral earnings at risk is developed to provide a theoretically sound combination of value at risk and profit at risk approaches, adapted to real market structures and market liquidity. Also methods for supporting long-term investment decisions are presented: technology assessment based on experience curves and operation simulation for fuel cells and a real options approach with endogenous electricity prices.

"Catastrophe Modeling: A New Approach to Managing Risk" is the first book that systematically analyzes how catastrophe models can be used for assessing and managing risks of extreme events. It focuses on natural disaster risk, but also discusses the management of terrorism risk. A unique feature of this book is the involvement of three leading catastrophe modeling firms, AIR Worldwide, EQECAT, and Risk Management Solutions, who examine the role of catastrophe modeling in rate setting, portfolio management and risk financing. Using data from three model cities (Oakland, CA, Long Beach, CA and Miami/Dade County, FLA), experts from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania examine the role of catastrophe modeling to develop risk management strategies for reducing and spreading the losses from future disasters. Given the uncertainties associated with terrorism the book points out the opportunities for utilizing catastrophe models to set insurance rates and to examine public-private partnerships for providing financial assistance in the event of a terrorist attack.

The unprecedented growth in the range of multimedia services offered today by modern telecommunication systems, is possible because of the advancements in signal processing technologies and algorithms.
Signal Processing for Telecommunications and Multimedia presents a group of invited contributions, some of which have been based on the papers presented at the 7th International Symposium on DSP for Communication Systems held in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast, Australia, in December 2003. Part I of the book deals with applications of signal processing to transform what we hear or see to the form that is most suitable for transmission or storage for a future retrieval. The first three chapters in this section are devoted to processing of speech and other audio signals. The next two chapters consider image coding and compression, while the last chapter of this part describes classification of video sequences in the MPEG domain.

Wireless Optical Communication Systems addresses the problem of designing efficient signalling and provides a link between the areas of communication theory and modem design for amplitude constrained linear optical intensity channel. Topics include historical perspective, channel impairments, amplitude constraints and the characteristics of popular optoelectronic components. A variety of wireless optical channel topologies are presented along with a survey and analysis of present day signalling techniques employed for these channels. The author provides a unifying framework for signalling design which allows the channel constraints to be represented geometrically and permits the use of modem design principles from electrical channels. Modulation schemes are designed using the formalism of lattice codes and a design process for signalling sets is specified.
The use of multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) wireless optical channels to improve the spectral efficiency of links is explored. The basic spatio-temporal modem design problem is specified and a spatial multiplexing gain is quantified. New spatial discrete multitone modulation is proposed and the unique features are discussed. Based on measurements on an experimental prototype, a channel model is formulated and a realizable spatio-temporal coding scheme is simulated to quantify performance gains.
This volume is organized for professional and academic readers engaged in modem design for wireless optical intensity channels. Significant background material is presented on both the properties as well as on fundamental communications principles.
Wireless Optical Communication Systems can be used by physicists and experimentalists as an introduction to signalling design as well as communication systems designers.