This book is one of very few in the maritime literature that solely focus on the latest developments in information technology (IT) methodologies in this field. It provides the reader with a concise overview of how IT can truly improve the efficacy of operations in the maritime industry. It consists of seven chapters that address a range of topics related to the synergy between Computer Science and Maritime Science. Specifically, Chapters 1 and 2 explore two important problems in maritime logistics pertaining to quayside operational planning, while Chapters 3 and 4 focus on maritime routing methodologies. Chapters 5 and 6 present decision-making support systems for safe shipping and port security. Last, Chapter 7 presents simulation methodologies for modeling maritime traffic. The intended readership of the book spans both an academic audience and professionals in the areas of Operational Research, Transportation Science, and Maritime Science interested in applying IT methodologies in their areas of expertise.

Swarm Intelligence (SI) has grown significantly, both from the perspective of algorithmic development and applications covering almost all disciplines science and technology. This book emphasizes the studies of existing SI techniques, their variants and applications. The book also contains reviews of new developments in SI techniques and hybridizations. Algorithm specific studies covering basic introduction and analysis of key components of these algorithms, such as convergence, balance of solution accuracy, computational costs, tuning and control of parameters. Application specific studies incorporating the ways of designing objective functions, solution representation and constraint handling. The book also includes studies on application domain specific adaptations in the SI techniques. The book will be beneficial for academicians and researchers from various disciplines of engineering and science working in applications of SI and other optimization problems.

Today’s real-world problems and applications in sensory systems and target detection require efficient, comprehensive and fault-tolerant multi-sensor allocation. This book presents the theory and applications of novel methods developed for such sophisticated systems. It discusses the advances in multi-agent systems and AI along with collaborative control theory and tools. Further, it examines the formulation and development of an allocation framework for heterogeneous multi-sensor systems for various real-world problems that require sensors with different performances to allocate multiple tasks, with unknown a priori priorities that arrive at unknown locations at unknown time. It demonstrates how to decide which sensor to allocate to which tasks when and where. Lastly, it explains the reliability and availability issues of task allocation systems, and includes methods for their optimization. The presented methods are explained, measured, and evaluated by extensive simulations, and the results of these simulations are presented in this book. This book is an ideal resource for academics, researchers and graduate students as well as engineers and professionals and is relevant for various applications such as sensor network design, multi-agent systems, task allocation, target detection, and team formation.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Variable Neighborhood Search, ICVNS 2021, held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in March 2021. The 14 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 27 submissions. The papers describe recent advances in methods and applications of variable neighborhood search. Chapter “Reduced Variable Neighbourhood Search for the Generation of Controlled Circular Data” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Ballast water management is a complex subject with many issues and still limited knowledge, however, it is building up on new scientific researches and practical experience. The Ballast Water Management Convention is the global legal framework which still needs to be implemented. This book brings together a long-term and newest experience from practical work, scientific research, administration and policy involvements, offering unique insights to readers who would like to learn more about this subject. It also provides recommendations and practical solutions especially important for professionals, administrations and organizations in the process of the implementation of this Ballast Water Management Convention.

Maritime Technology and Engineering 3 is a collection of papers presented at the 3rd International Conference on Maritime Technology and Engineering (MARTECH 2016, Lisbon, Portugal, 4-6 July 2016). The MARTECH Conferences series evolved from biannual national conferences in Portugal, thus reflecting the internationalization of the maritime sector. The keynote lectures and the papers, making up nearly 150 contributions, came from an international group of authors focused on different subjects in a variety of fields: Maritime Transportation, Energy Efficiency, Ships in Ports, Ship Hydrodynamics, Ship Structures, Ship Design, Ship Machinery, Shipyard Technology, afety & Reliability, Fisheries, Oil & Gas, Marine Environment, Renewable Energy and Coastal Structures. This book will appeal to academics, engineers and professionals interested or involved in these fields.