A Proceedings volume from the IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Components and Instruments for Control Applications, Portugal, 2003. Provides an overview of the theory and applications and presents an exchange of experiences on recent advances in this field.

The combined results from an international research project involving 40 interdisciplinary groups, providing the latest knowledge from the past few years. Adopting an application-oriented approach, this handy reference is a must-have for every silicon chemist, whether working in inorganic, organic, physical or polymer chemistry, materials science or physics.

Provides a Comprehensive Introduction to Aircraft Design with an Industrial Approach This book introduces readers to aircraft design, placing great emphasis on industrial practice. It includes worked out design examples for several different classes of aircraft, including Learjet 45, Tucano Turboprop Trainer, BAe Hawk and Airbus A320. It considers performance substantiation and compliance to certification requirements and market specifications of take-off/landing field lengths, initial climb/high speed cruise, turning capability and payload/range. Military requirements are discussed, covering some aspects of combat, as is operating cost estimation methodology, safety considerations, environmental issues, flight deck layout, avionics and more general aircraft systems. The book also includes a chapter on electric aircraft design along with a full range of industry standard aircraft sizing analyses. Split into two parts, Conceptual Aircraft Design: An Industrial Approach spends the first part dealing with the pre-requisite information for configuring aircraft so that readers can make informed decisions when designing vessels. The second part devotes itself to new aircraft concept definition. It also offers additional analyses and design information (e.g., on cost, manufacture, systems, role of CFD, etc.) integral to conceptual design study. The book finishes with an introduction to electric aircraft and futuristic design concepts currently under study. Presents an informative, industrial approach to aircraft design Features design examples for aircraft such as the Learjet 45, Tucano Turboprop Trainer, BAe Hawk, Airbus A320 Includes a full range of industry standard aircraft sizing analyses Looks at several performance substantiation and compliance to certification requirements Discusses the military requirements covering some combat aspects Accompanied by a website hosting supporting material Conceptual Aircraft Design: An Industrial Approach is an excellent resource for those designing and building modern aircraft for commercial, military, and private use.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, MICAI 2005, held in Monterrey, Mexico, in November 2005. The 120 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 423 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on knowledge representation and management, logic and constraint programming, uncertainty reasoning, multiagent systems and distributed AI, computer vision and pattern recognition, machine learning and data mining, evolutionary computation and genetic algorithms, neural networks, natural language processing, intelligent interfaces and speech processing, bioinformatics and medical applications, robotics, modeling and intelligent control, and intelligent tutoring systems.

This volume focuses on a variety of production and processing aspects of the latest biomaterials. It discusses how scaffolds are used in tissue engineering and describes common implant materials, such as hard tissue, blood contacting, and soft tissue. The book also examines the important role nanotechnology plays in the preparation of drugs, protein delivery, tissue engineering, cardiovascular biomaterials, hard tissue replacements, biosensors, and bio-MEMS. With contributions from renowned international experts and extensive reference lists in each chapter, this book provides detailed, practical information to produce biomaterials and employ them in biomedicine.

This book explores the impact of soil water deficiency on various aspects of physiological processes in plants. The book explains the effects under soil water deficit condition such as lowering of plant water content, disturbance in carbon metabolism such in photosynthesis, photorespiration and respiration as well as effects of soil water deficit on nitrogen metabolism. The book also educates the readers about, mineral nutrition under soil water deficit condition and roles of different nutrient to overcome water deficit. Changes in growth and development pattern of plant under soil water deficit condition and effects on growth and development are elaborated. This book is of interest to teachers, researchers, scientists in botany and agriculture. Also the book serves as additional reading material for undergraduate and graduate students of agriculture, forestry, ecology, soil science, and environmental sciences. National and international agricultural scientists, policy makers will also find this to be a useful read. The in depth description of the major physiological issues in plants under soil water deficit that are presented in this book will help breeders tailoring crops for desirable physiological survival traits in the face of increasing soil water deficit. This book is an impactful addition to the library of any faculty members, researchers, agricultural policy planner, post graduate or student studying in plant physiology, biochemistry, microbiology and other subjects related to crop husbandry.