This book offers insight into the current issues of the merger between reliability engineering and computational intelligence. The intense development of information technology allows for designing more complex systems as well as creating more detailed models of real-world systems which forces traditional reliability engineering approaches based on Boolean algebra, probability theory, and statistics to embrace the world of data science. The works deal with methodological developments as well as applications in the development of safe and reliable systems in various kinds of distribution networks, in the development of highly reliable healthcare systems, in finding weaknesses in systems with the human factor, or in reliability analysis of large information systems and other software solutions. In this book, experts from various fields of reliability engineering and computational intelligence present their view on the risks, the opportunities and the synergy between reliability engineering and computational intelligence that have been developed separately but in recent years have found a way to each other. The topics addressed include the latest advances in computing technology to improve the real lives of millions of people by increasing safety and reliability of various types of real-life systems by increasing the availability of software services, reducing the accident rate of means of transport, developing high reliable patient-specific health care, or generally, save cost and increase efficiency in the work and living environment. Though this book, the reader has access to professionals and researchers in the fields of reliability engineering and computational intelligence that share their experience in merging the two as well as an insight into the latest methods, concerns and application domains.

Computational intelligence is rapidly becoming an essential part of reliability engineering. This book offers a wide spectrum of viewpoints on the merger of technologies. Leading scientists share their insights and progress on reliability engineering techniques, suitable mathematical methods, and practical applications. Thought-provoking ideas are embedded in a solid scientific basis that contribute to the development the emerging field. This book is for anyone working on the most fundamental paradigm-shift in resilience engineering in decades. Scientists benefit from this book by gaining insight in the latest in the merger of reliability engineering and computational intelligence. Businesses and (IT) suppliers can find inspiration for the future, and reliability engineers can use the book to move closer to the cutting edge of technology.

This utterly comprehensive work is thought to be the first to integrate the literature on the physics of the failure of complex systems such as hospitals, banks and transport networks. It has chapters on particular aspects of maintenance written by internationally-renowned researchers and practitioners. This book will interest maintenance engineers and managers in industry as well as researchers and graduate students in maintenance, industrial engineering and applied mathematics.

This book covers the recent applications of computational intelligence techniques in reliability engineering. This volume contains a survey of the contributions made to the optimal reliability design literature in recent years. It also contains chapters devoted to different applications of a genetic algorithm in reliability engineering and to combinations of this algorithm with other computational intelligence techniques.

Engineering practice often has to deal with complex systems of multiple variable and multiple parameter models almost always with strong non-linear coupling. The conventional analytical techniques-based approaches for describing and predicting the behaviour of such systems in many cases are doomed to failure from the outset, even in the phase of the construction of a more or less appropriate mathematical model. These approaches normally are too categorical in the sense that in the name of “modelling accuracy” they try to describe all the structural details of the real physical system to be modelled. This can significantly increase the intricacy of the model and may result in a enormous computational burden without achieving considerable improvement of the solution. The best paradigm exemplifying this situation may be the classic perturbation theory: the less significant the achievable correction, the more work has to be invested to obtain it. A further important component of machine intelligence is a kind of “structural uniformity” giving room and possibility to model arbitrary particular details a priori not specified and unknown. This idea is similar to the ready-to-wear industry, which introduced products, which can be slightly modified later on in contrast to tailor-made creations aiming at maximum accuracy from the beginning. These subsequent corrections can be carried out by machines automatically. This “learning ability” is a key element of machine intelligence. The past decade confirmed that the view of typical components of the present soft computing as fuzzy logic, neural computing, evolutionary computation and probabilistic reasoning are of complementary nature and that the best results can be applied by their combined application. Today, the two complementary branches of Machine Intelligence, that is, Artificial Intelligence and Computational Intelligence serve as the basis of Intelligent Engineering Systems. The huge number of scientific results published in Journal and conference proceedings worldwide substantiates this statement. The present book contains several articles taking different viewpoints in the field of intelligent systems.

Do you need to know what technique to use to evaluate the reliability of an engineered system? This self-contained guide provides comprehensive coverage of all the analytical and modeling techniques currently in use, from classical non-state and state space approaches, to newer and more advanced methods such as binary decision diagrams, dynamic fault trees, Bayesian belief networks, stochastic Petri nets, non-homogeneous Markov chains, semi-Markov processes, and phase type expansions. Readers will quickly understand the relative pros and cons of each technique, as well as how to combine different models together to address complex, real-world modeling scenarios. Numerous examples, case studies and problems provided throughout help readers put knowledge into practice, and a solutions manual and Powerpoint slides for instructors accompany the book online. This is the ideal self-study guide for students, researchers and practitioners in engineering and computer science.

The monographic volume addresses, in a systematic and comprehensive way, the state-of-the-art dependability (reliability, availability, risk and safety, security) of systems, using the Artificial Intelligence framework of Probabilistic Graphical Models (PGM). After a survey about the main concepts and methodologies adopted in dependability analysis, the book discusses the main features of PGM formalisms (like Bayesian and Decision Networks) and the advantages, both in terms of modeling and analysis, with respect to classical formalisms and model languages.Methodologies for deriving PGMs from standard dependability formalisms will be introduced, by pointing out tools able to support such a process. Several case studies will be presented and analyzed to support the suitability of the use of PGMs in the study of dependable systems.