Masters Theses in the Pure and Applied Sciences was first conceived, published, and dis seminated by the Center for Information and Numerical Data Analysis and Synthesis (CINDAS) * at Purdue University in 1957, starting its coverage of theses with the academic year 1955. Beginning with Volume 13, the printing and dissemination phases of the ac tivity were transferred to University Microfilms/Xerox of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with the thought that such an arrangement would be more beneficial to the academic and general scientific and technical community. After five years of this joint undertaking we had concluded that it was in the interest of all concerned if the printing and distribution of the volume were handled by an international publishing house to assure improved service and broader dissemination. Hence, starting with Volume 18, Masters Theses in the Pure and Applied Sciences has been disseminated on a worldwide basis by Plenum Publishing Corporation of New York, and in the same year the coverage was broadened to include Canadian universities. All back issues can also be ordered from Plenum. We have reported in Volume 23 (thesis year 1978) a total of 10,148 theses titles from 27 Canadian and 220 United States universities. We are sure that this broader base for theses titles reported will greatly enhance the value of this important annual reference work. While Volume 23 reports these submitted in 1978, on occasion, certain universities do report theses submitted in previous years but not reported at the time.

1.0 2 The attention then turned to the problem of "Body separation", i.e. separation of occluding bodies in a scene (See [Guzman), [Falk), and [Waltz)). Grape ([Grape)) combined the separation of bodies with recognition, by removing parts of the scene recognized as belonging to a known body. All of these techniques were designed to work with polyhedral objects only, and extensively use the properties of edges and vertices. Though some impressive results have been reported ([Waltz], [Grape)), and perhaps some useful abstractions can be made, the specific techniques used fail to generalize to a wider class of objects. Among previous work on curved objects, B.K.P. Horn ([Horn)) presented techniques for extracting three dimensional depth data from a TV image, using reflection characteristics of the surface. Krakauer ([Krakauer]) represented objects by connections of brightness contours. Ambler et al ([Ambler)) describe experiments with simple shapes, including curved objects, using relations within a two-dimensional image. However, none of these efforts really addresses the problem of "shape" representation and description. Work on outdoor scene analysis is also concerned with non-polyhedral objects ([Bajcsy], [Yakimovsky]), but again no attention has been paid to shape analysis.

The areas of intelligent machines or robotic systems is of enormous technological and economic interest as competition in productivity intensifies. This volume gives the proceedings of the 1990 Advanced Study Institute on Expert Systems and Robotics. It presents research work already accomplished in the analytical theory of intelligent machines, work in progress and of current interest and some specific examples for further research. The papers in the volume range from the most theoretical to some descriptions of very practical working robots. The papers are organized into sections on vision and image analysis, robotic sensory systems, software/hardware and system simulation, robot control, applications, and reports of group meetings.

SGN. The book APS-Army Public School PGT Computer Science Exam covers all sections of the exam.

The book is dedicated to a compilation of diverse and creative landscapes which occur in games. Being part of a game setting, these landscapes trigger social construction processes in specific ways. A selection of twenty-four research articles addresses the social constructions of landscapes represented in analogue, digital and hybrid game formats as well as their theoretical framing and future perspectives.