The field of control provides the principles and methods used to design physical and information systems that maintain desirable performance by sensing and automatically adapting to changes in the environment. This report spells out some of the prospects for control in the current and future technological environment, describes the role the field will play in military, commercial, and scientific applications over the next decade, and recommends actions required to enable new breakthroughs in engineering and technology through the application of control research. This brief yet thorough report provides renewed vision, a detailed list of new application areas, and specific recommendations for future research directions in control, dynamics, and systems, compiled by experts in the field.

Real-time systems are used in a wide range of applications, including control, sensing, multimedia, etc. Scheduling is a central problem for these computing/communication systems since it is responsible for software execution in a timely manner. This book, the second of two volumes on the subject, brings together knowledge on specific topics and discusses the recent advances for some of them. It addresses foundations as well as the latest advances and findings in real-time scheduling, giving comprehensive references to important papers, but the chapters are short and not overloaded with confusing details. Coverage includes scheduling approaches for networks and for energy autonomous systems. Other sophisticated issues, such as feedback control scheduling and probabilistic scheduling, are also addressed. This book can serve as a textbook for courses on the topic in bachelor's degrees and in more advanced master's degree programs. It also provides a reference for computer scientists and engineers involved in the design or the development of Cyber-Physical Systems which require up-to-date real-time scheduling solutions.

Unmanned systems and robotics technologies have become very popular recently owing to their ability to replace human beings in dangerous, tedious, or repetitious jobs. This book fill the gap in the field between research and real-world applications, providing scientists and engineers with essential information on how to design and employ networked unmanned vehicles for remote sensing and distributed control purposes. Target scenarios include environmental or agricultural applications such as river/reservoir surveillance, wind profiling measurement, and monitoring/control of chemical leaks.

The Intelligent Systems Series comprises titles that present state-of-the-art knowledge and the latest advances in intelligent systems. Its scope includes theoretical studies, design methods, and real-world implementations and applications. The most prevalent topics in Intelligence and Security Informatics (ISI) include data management, data and text mining for ISI applications, terrorism informatics, deception and intent detection, terrorist and criminal social network analysis, public health and bio-security, crime analysis, cyber-infrastructure protection, transportation infrastructure security, policy studies and evaluation, and information assurance, among others. This book covers the most active research work in recent years. Pulls together key information on ensuring national security around the world The latest research on this subject is concisely presented within the book, with several figures to support the text. Will be of interest to attendees of The Intelligence and Security Informatics conference series, which include IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics (IEEE ISI)

A major challenge for modern software systems is to become more cost-effective, while being versatile, flexible, resilient, energy-efficient, customizable, and configurable when reacting to run-time changes that may occur within the system itself, its environment or requirements. One of the most promising approaches to achieving such properties is to equip the software system with self-adaptation capabilities. Despite recent advances in this area, one key aspect that remains to be tackled in depth is the provision of assurances. Originating from a Dagstuhl seminar held in December 2013, this book constitutes the third volume in the series “Software Engineering for Self-Adaptive Systems”, and looks specifically into the provision of assurances. Opening with an overview chapter on Research Challenges, the book presents 13 further chapters written and carefully reviewed by internationally leading researchers in the field. The book is divided into topical sections on research challenges, evaluation, integration and coordination, and reference architectures and platforms.

The 2010 International Conference on Life System Modeling and Simulation (LSMS 2010) and the 2010 International Conference on Intelligent Computing for Sustainable Energy and Environment (ICSEE 2010) were formed to bring together researchers and practitioners in the fields of life system modeling/simulation and intelligent computing applied to worldwide sustainable energy and environmental applications. A life system is a broad concept, covering both micro and macro components ra- ing from cells, tissues and organs across to organisms and ecological niches. To c- prehend and predict the complex behavior of even a simple life system can be - tremely difficult using conventional approaches. To meet this challenge, a variety of new theories and methodologies have emerged in recent years on life system modeling and simulation. Along with improved understanding of the behavior of biological systems, novel intelligent computing paradigms and techniques have emerged to h- dle complicated real-world problems and applications. In particular, intelligent c- puting approaches have been valuable in the design and development of systems and facilities for achieving sustainable energy and a sustainable environment, the two most challenging issues currently facing humanity. The two LSMS 2010 and ICSEE 2010 conferences served as an important platform for synergizing these two research streams.