The Crossover

A middle-grade novel in verse follows the experiences of twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan, who struggle with challenges on and off the court while their father ignores his declining health. 20,000 first printing.

"Highly recommended" by Choice While crossover books such as Rowling's Harry Potter series have enjoyed enormous sales and media attention, critical analysis of crossover fiction has not kept pace with the growing popularity of this new category of writing and reading. Falconer remedies this lack with close readings of six major British works of crossover fiction, and a wide-ranging analysis of the social and cultural implications of the global crossover phenomenon. A uniquely in-depth study of the crossover novel, Falconer engages with a ground-breaking range of sources, from primary texts, to child and adult reader responses, to cultural and critical theory.

The International Conference on Intelligent Computing (ICIC) was formed to p- vide an annual forum dedicated to the emerging and challenging topics in artificial intelligence, machine learning, bioinformatics, and computational biology, etc. It aims to bring together researchers and practitioners from both academia and ind- try to share ideas, problems and solutions related to the multifaceted aspects of intelligent computing. ICIC 2008, held in Shanghai, China, September 15–18, 2008, constituted the 4th International Conference on Intelligent Computing. It built upon the success of ICIC 2007, ICIC 2006 and ICIC 2005 held in Qingdao, Kunming and Hefei, China, 2007, 2006 and 2005, respectively. This year, the conference concentrated mainly on the theories and methodologies as well as the emerging applications of intelligent computing. Its aim was to unify the picture of contemporary intelligent computing techniques as an integral concept that highlights the trends in advanced computational intelligence and bridges theoretical research with applications. Therefore, the theme for this conference was “Emerging Intelligent Computing Technology and Applications”. Papers focusing on this theme were solicited, addressing theories, methodologies, and applications in science and technology.

This book describes the application of evolutionary computation in the automatic generation of a neural network architecture. The architecture has a significant influence on the performance of the neural network. It is the usual practice to use trial and error to find a suitable neural network architecture for a given problem. The process of trial and error is not only time-consuming but may not generate an optimal network. The use of evolutionary computation is a step towards automation in neural network architecture generation.An overview of the field of evolutionary computation is presented, together with the biological background from which the field was inspired. The most commonly used approaches to a mathematical foundation of the field of genetic algorithms are given, as well as an overview of the hybridization between evolutionary computation and neural networks. Experiments on the implementation of automatic neural network generation using genetic programming and one using genetic algorithms are described, and the efficacy of genetic algorithms as a learning algorithm for a feedforward neural network is also investigated.

This book offers a basic introduction to genetic algorithms. It provides a detailed explanation of genetic algorithm concepts and examines numerous genetic algorithm optimization problems. In addition, the book presents implementation of optimization problems using C and C++ as well as simulated solutions for genetic algorithm problems using MATLAB 7.0. It also includes application case studies on genetic algorithms in emerging fields.

Easy access to digital information in every form is something which has become indispensable given our ever-increasing reliance on digital technology. But such access would not be possible without the reliable and effective infrastructure which has led to the large-scale development of web technologies. This book presents the 27 papers delivered at the 6th International Conference on Applications of Digital Information and Web Technologies (ICADIWT), held in February 2015, at the University of Macau, Macau. The book is divided into seven sections: Internet communication, human-computer interaction, adaptive web applications, data communication, cloud computing, systems engineering, and data mining. Since each paper is a survey contributed by different experts from very many countries, this book can be seen as a collection of the current research trends in the field and hence it will be of interest to all those whose work involves digital information and web technology.

Economics, dealing with mental processes of decision makers is part of cognitive science; conversely, cognitive science, faced with constraints on information processing, is part of economics. In July 1990, the Cecoia 2 conference was organised in Paris to further explore the connections between the two. The papers presented in this volume illustrate this truly interdisciplinary research intertwining social and cognitive sciences. Three main topics are represented: agent's mental representation when facing complex uncertainty; agent's computational constraints leading to bounded rationality; agent's learning and evolution in an imperfectly known environment.

The revised and updated new edition of the popular optimization book for engineers The thoroughly revised and updated fifth edition of Engineering Optimization: Theory and Practice offers engineers a guide to the important optimization methods that are commonly used in a wide range of industries. The author—a noted expert on the topic—presents both the classical and most recent optimizations approaches. The book introduces the basic methods and includes information on more advanced principles and applications. The fifth edition presents four new chapters: Solution of Optimization Problems Using MATLAB; Metaheuristic Optimization Methods; Multi-Objective Optimization Methods; and Practical Implementation of Optimization. All of the book's topics are designed to be self-contained units with the concepts described in detail with derivations presented. The author puts the emphasis on computational aspects of optimization and includes design examples and problems representing different areas of engineering. Comprehensive in scope, the book contains solved examples, review questions and problems. This important book: Offers an updated edition of the classic work on optimization Includes approaches that are appropriate for all branches of engineering Contains numerous practical design and engineering examples Offers more than 140 illustrative examples, 500 plus references in the literature of engineering optimization, and more than 500 review questions and answers Demonstrates the use of MATLAB for solving different types of optimization problems using different techniques Written for students across all engineering disciplines, the revised edition of Engineering Optimization: Theory and Practice is the comprehensive book that covers the new and recent methods of optimization and reviews the principles and applications.