Decision-making tools are needed to support environmental management in an increasingly global economy. Addressing threats and identifying actions to mitigate those threats necessitates an understanding of the basic risk assessment paradigm and the tools of risk analysis to assess, interpret, and communicate risks. It also requires modification of the risk paradigm itself to incorporate a complex array of quantitative and qualitative information that shapes the unique political and ecological challenges of different countries and regions around the world. This book builds a foundation to characterize and assess a broad range of human and ecological stressors, and risk management approaches to address those stressors, using chemical risk assessment methods and multi-criteria decision analysis tools. Chapters discuss the current state-of-knowledge with regard to emerging stressors and risk management, focusing on the adequacy of available systematic, quantitative tools to guide vulnerability and threat assessments, evaluate the consequences of different events and responses, and support decision-making. This book opens a dialogue on aspects of risk assessment and decision analysis that apply to real-time (immediate) and deliberative (long-term) risk management processes.

Based on a popular course for the FEMA Higher Education project, Preparedness and Response for Catastrophic Disasters provides important insight into plans to mitigate and respond to the devastation caused by large-scale catastrophic events. Hurricane Katrina provided clear evidence that these occurrences are both qualitatively and quantitatively d

The second edition of a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of mobile robotics, from algorithms to mechanisms. Mobile robots range from the Mars Pathfinder mission's teleoperated Sojourner to the cleaning robots in the Paris Metro. This text offers students and other interested readers an introduction to the fundamentals of mobile robotics, spanning the mechanical, motor, sensory, perceptual, and cognitive layers the field comprises. The text focuses on mobility itself, offering an overview of the mechanisms that allow a mobile robot to move through a real world environment to perform its tasks, including locomotion, sensing, localization, and motion planning. It synthesizes material from such fields as kinematics, control theory, signal analysis, computer vision, information theory, artificial intelligence, and probability theory. The book presents the techniques and technology that enable mobility in a series of interacting modules. Each chapter treats a different aspect of mobility, as the book moves from low-level to high-level details. It covers all aspects of mobile robotics, including software and hardware design considerations, related technologies, and algorithmic techniques. This second edition has been revised and updated throughout, with 130 pages of new material on such topics as locomotion, perception, localization, and planning and navigation. Problem sets have been added at the end of each chapter. Bringing together all aspects of mobile robotics into one volume, Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots can serve as a textbook or a working tool for beginning practitioners. Curriculum developed by Dr. Robert King, Colorado School of Mines, and Dr. James Conrad, University of North Carolina-Charlotte, to accompany the National Instruments LabVIEW Robotics Starter Kit, are available. Included are 13 (6 by Dr. King and 7 by Dr. Conrad) laboratory exercises for using the LabVIEW Robotics Starter Kit to teach mobile robotics concepts.

With contributions from some of the top academics and scientists in the field, Advanced Studies in Multi-Criteria Decision Making presents an updated view of the landscape of Decision Sciences, current research topics, the interaction with other sciences and fields, as well as the prospects and challenges at an international level. Given that Decision Sciences are recognized today as indispensable for confronting the major societal challenges in science and technology, this book would be of interest to decision-makers, managers, and researchers from academia, and industrial/services companies that would like a fresh insight into MCDM. Features Integrates a wide range of scientific fields with a general reader approach, including applied researchers from the social, business, enterprise sciences Suitable for academics and professionals Presents a broad coverage of MCDM tools either in industry or in services companies and systems Provides a fresh overview on MCDM studies promoted by prestigious R&D institutions

New Methods, Reflections and Application Domains in Transport Appraisal, Volume 7 in the Advances in Transport Policy and Planning series, assesses both successful and unsuccessful practices and policies from around the world. Chapters in this new release include Evaluating transport equity, Participatory Value Evaluation, Sustainability assessment of transport policies, plans and projects, Deliberative appraisal methods, Appraisal methods of public transport projects, Appraisal of cycling and pedestrian projects, Appraisal of Freight Project, Project appraisal methods: tools for optimizing or for informed political debate?, and Research agenda for appraisal methods. - Provides the authority and expertise of leading contributors from an international board of authors - Presents the latest release in the Advances in Transport Policy and Planning series

This book offers a model to bridge the differences between political theorists and social scientists, focusing on deliberative practices.

This book presents a subselection of papers presented at the ECAI 2000 Workshop on Balancing Reactivity and Social Deliberation in Multi-Agent Systems together with additional papers from well-known researchers in the field. The 13 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the present book. Besides two introductory survey papers, the book offers topical sections on architectures and frameworks, enhanced reactivity, and controlled social deliberation.

The robotics is an important part of modern engineering and is related to a group of branches such as electric

Industrial Agents explains how multi-agent systems improve collaborative networks to offer dynamic service changes, customization, improved quality and reliability, and flexible infrastructure. Learn how these platforms can offer distributed intelligent management and control functions with communication, cooperation and synchronization capabilities, and also provide for the behavior specifications of the smart components of the system. The book offers not only an introduction to industrial agents, but also clarifies and positions the vision, on-going efforts, example applications, assessment and roadmap applicable to multiple industries. This edited work is guided and co-authored by leaders of the IEEE Technical Committee on Industrial Agents who represent both academic and industry perspectives and share the latest research along with their hands-on experiences prototyping and deploying industrial agents in industrial scenarios. - Learn how new scientific approaches and technologies aggregate resources such next generation intelligent systems, manual workplaces and information and material flow system - Gain insight from experts presenting the latest academic and industry research on multi-agent systems - Explore multiple case studies and example applications showing industrial agents in a variety of scenarios - Understand implementations across the enterprise, from low-level control systems to autonomous and collaborative management units

This book originates from the First International Workshop on Computational Autonomy -Potential, Risks, Solutions, AUTONOMY 2003, held in Melbourne, Australia in July 2003 as part of AAMAS 2003. In addition to 7 revised selected workshop papers, the volume editors solicited 14 invited papers by leading researchers in the area. The workshop papers and the invited papers present a comprehensive and coherent survey of the state of the art of research on autonomy, capturing various theories of autonomy, perspectives on autonomy in different kinds of agent-based systems, and practical approaches to dealing with agent autonomy.