To say that Fuzzy Logic in Medicine, or FLM for short, is an important addi tion to the literature of fuzzy logic and its applications, is an understatement. Edited by two prominent informaticians, Professors S. Barro and R. Marin, it is one of the first books in its field. Between its covers, FLM presents authoritative expositions of a wide spectrum of medical and biological ap plications of fuzzy logic, ranging from image classification and diagnostics to anaesthesia control and risk assessment of heart diseases. As the editors note in the preface, recognition of the relevance of fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic to biological and medical systems has a long history. In this context, particularly worthy of note is the pioneering work of Profes sor Klaus Peter Adlassnig of the University of Vienna School of Medicine. However, it is only within the past decade that we began to see an accelerat ing growth in the visibility and importance of publications falling under the rubric of fuzzy logic in medicine and biology -a leading example of which is the Journal of the Biomedical Fuzzy Systems Association in Japan. Why did it take so long for this to happen? First, a bit of history.

Fuzzy Logic in Action: Applications in Epidemiology and Beyond, co-authored by Eduardo Massad, Neli Ortega, Laécio Barros, and Cláudio Struchiner is a remarkable achievement. The book brings a major paradigm shift to medical sciences exploring the use of fuzzy sets in epidemiology and medical diagnosis arena. The volume addresses the most significant topics in the broad areas of epidemiology, mathematical modeling and uncertainty, embodying them within the framework of fuzzy set and dynamic systems theory. Written by leading contributors to the area of epidemiology, medical informatics and mathematics, the book combines a very lucid and authoritative exposition of the fundamentals of fuzzy sets with an insightful use of the fundamentals in the area of epidemiology and diagnosis. The content is clearly illustrated by numerous illustrative examples and several real world applications. Based on their profound knowledge of epidemiology and mathematical modeling, and on their keen understanding of the role played by uncertainty and fuzzy sets, the authors provide insights into the connections between biological phenomena and dynamic systems as a mean to predict, diagnose, and prescribe actions. An example is the use of Bellman-Zadeh fuzzy decision making approach to develop a vaccination strategy to manage measles epidemics in São Paulo. The book offers a comprehensive, systematic, fully updated and self- contained treatise of fuzzy sets in epidemiology and diagnosis. Its content covers material of vital interest to students, researchers and practitioners and is suitable both as a textbook and as a reference. The authors present new results of their own in most of the chapters. In doing so, they reflect the trend to view fuzzy sets, probability theory and statistics as an association of complementary and synergetic modeling methodologies.

Present Your Research to the World! The World Congress 2009 on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering – the triennial scientific meeting of the IUPESM - is the world’s leading forum for presenting the results of current scientific work in health-related physics and technologies to an international audience. With more than 2,800 presentations it will be the biggest conference in the fields of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering in 2009! Medical physics, biomedical engineering and bioengineering have been driving forces of innovation and progress in medicine and healthcare over the past two decades. As new key technologies arise with significant potential to open new options in diagnostics and therapeutics, it is a multidisciplinary task to evaluate their benefit for medicine and healthcare with respect to the quality of performance and therapeutic output. Covering key aspects such as information and communication technologies, micro- and nanosystems, optics and biotechnology, the congress will serve as an inter- and multidisciplinary platform that brings together people from basic research, R&D, industry and medical application to discuss these issues. As a major event for science, medicine and technology the congress provides a comprehensive overview and in–depth, first-hand information on new developments, advanced technologies and current and future applications. With this Final Program we would like to give you an overview of the dimension of the congress and invite you to join us in Munich! Olaf Dössel Congress President Wolfgang C.

Problems in decision making and in other areas such as pattern recogni tion, control, structural engineering etc. involve numerous aspects of uncertainty. Additional vagueness is introduced as models become more complex but not necessarily more meaningful by the added details. During the last two decades one has become more and more aware of the fact that not all this uncertainty is of stochastic (random) cha racter and that, therefore, it can not be modelled appropriately by probability theory. This becomes the more obvious the more we want to represent formally human knowledge. As far as uncertain data are concerned, we have neither instru ments nor reasoning at our disposal as well defined and unquestionable as those used in the probability theory. This almost infallible do main is the result of a tremendous work by the whole scientific world. But when measures are dubious, bad or no longer possible and when we really have to make use of the richness of human reasoning in its variety, then the theories dealing with the treatment of uncertainty, some quite new and other ones older, provide the required complement, and fill in the gap left in the field of knowledge representation. Nowadays, various theories are widely used: fuzzy sets, belief function, the convenient associations between probability and fuzzines~ etc ••• We are more and more in need of a wide range of instruments and theories to build models that are more and more adapted to the most complex systems.

Until recently, fuzzy logic was the intellectual plaything of a handful of researchers. Now it is being used to enhance the power of intelligent systems, as well as improve the performance and reduce the cost of intelligent and "smart" products appearing in the commercial market. Fuzzy Expert Systems focuses primarily on the theory of fuzzy expert systems and their applications in science and engineering. In doing so, it provides the first comprehensive study of "soft" expert systems and applications for those systems. Topics covered include general purpose fuzzy expert systems, processing imperfect information using structured frameworks, the fuzzy linguistic inference network generator, fuzzy associative memories, the role of approximate reasoning in medical expert systems, MILORD (a fuzzy expert systems shell), and COMAX (an autonomous fuzzy expert system for tactical communications networks. Fuzzy Expert Systems provides an invaluable reference resource for researchers and students in artificial intelligence (AI) and approximate reasoning (AR), as well as for other researchers looking for methods to apply similar tools in their own designs of intelligent systems.

Digital systems that bring together the computing capacity for processing large bodies of information with the human cognitive capability are called intelligent systems. Building these systems has become one of the great goals of modem technology. This goal has both intellectual and economic incentives. The need for such intelligent systems has become more intense in the face of the global connectivity of the internet. There has become an almost insatiable requirement for instantaneous information and decision brought about by this confluence of computing and communication. This requirement can only be satisfied by the construction of innovative intelligent systems. A second and perhaps an even more significant development is the great advances being made in genetics and related areas of biotechnology. Future developments in biotechnology may open the possibility for the development of a true human-silicon interaction at the micro level, neural and cellular, bringing about a need for "intelligent" systems. What is needed to further the development of intelligent systems are tools to enable the representation of human cognition in a manner that allows formal manipulation. The idea of developing such an algebra goes back to Leibniz in the 17th century with his dream of a calculus ratiocinator. It wasn't until two hundred years later beginning with the work of Boole, Cantor and Frege that a formal mathematical logic for modeling human reasoning was developed. The introduction of the modem digital computer during the Second World War by von Neumann and others was a culmination of this intellectual trend.

"This book examines the use of fuzzy expert systems in the agricultural field"--