As the complexity of modern embedded systems increases, it becomes less practical to design monolithic processing platforms. As a result, reconfigurable computing is being adopted widely for more flexible design. Reconfigurable Computers offer the spatial parallelism and fine-grained customizability of application-specific circuits with the postfabrication programmability of software. To make the most of this unique combination of performance and flexibility, designers need to be aware of both hardware and software issues. FPGA users must think not only about the gates needed to perform a computation but also about the software flow that supports the design process. The goal of this book is to help designers become comfortable with these issues, and thus be able to exploit the vast opportunities possible with reconfigurable logic.

Sir Francis Crick would undoubtedly be at the front of the line ordering this fascinating book. Being one of the discoverers of DNA, he would be amazed at how his work has been applied to mankind's most important invention, the computer. DNA contains the genetic instructions for the biological development of cellular life forms or viruses. DNA computing uses DNA as a substrate for storing information, while molecular biological operations are used to manipulate this information.

Proceedings of the second conference on Applied Mathematics and Scientific Computing, held June 4-9, 2001 in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
The main idea of the conference was to bring together applied mathematicians both from outside academia, as well as experts from other areas (engineering, applied sciences) whose work involves advanced mathematical techniques.

The articles in this book present advanced soft methods related to genetic and evolutionary algorithms, immune systems, formulation of deterministic neural networks and Bayesian NN. Many attention is paid to hybrid systems for inverse analysis fusing soft methods and the finite element method. Numerical efficiency of these soft methods is illustrated on the analysis and design of complex engineering structures.

Innovations and Advanced Techniques in Systems, Computing Sciences and Software Engineering includes a set of rigorously reviewed world-class manuscripts addressing and detailing state-of-the-art research projects in the areas of Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Systems Engineering and Sciences.

Soft Computing in Green and Renewable Energy Systems provides a practical introduction to the application of soft computing techniques and hybrid intelligent systems for designing, modeling, characterizing, optimizing, forecasting, and performance prediction of green and renewable energy systems. Research is proceeding at jet speed on renewable energy (energy derived from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, tides, rain, geothermal heat, biomass, hydrogen, etc.) as policy makers, researchers, economists, and world agencies have joined forces in finding alternative sustainable energy solutions to current critical environmental, economic, and social issues. The innovative models, environmentally benign processes, data analytics, etc. employed in renewable energy systems are computationally-intensive, non-linear and complex as well as involve a high degree of uncertainty. Soft computing technologies, such as fuzzy sets and systems, neural science and systems, evolutionary algorithms and genetic programming, and machine learning, are ideal in handling the noise, imprecision, and uncertainty in the data, and yet achieve robust, low-cost solutions. As a result, intelligent and soft computing paradigms are finding increasing applications in the study of renewable energy systems. Researchers, practitioners, undergraduate and graduate students engaged in the study of renewable energy systems will find this book very useful.

Robust Nano-Computing focuses on various issues of robust nano-computing, defect-tolerance design for nano-technology at different design abstraction levels. It addresses both redundancy- and configuration-based methods as well as fault detecting techniques through the development of accurate computation models and tools. The contents present an insightful view of the ongoing researches on nano-electronic devices, circuits, architectures, and design methods, as well as provide promising directions for future research.

We describe in this book, new methods for intelligent manufacturing using soft computing techniques and fractal theory. Soft Computing (SC) consists of several computing paradigms, including fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms, which can be used to produce powerful hybrid intelligent systems. Fractal theory provides us with the mathematical tools to understand the geometrical complexity of natural objects and can be used for identification and modeling purposes.

This book has been written twice. After having written and published it in German in 1990, I started allover again and rewrote the whole story for an English speaking audience. During the first round I received encouraging words and critical remarks from students and colleagues alike which have helped to sustain me the second time around. In the preface the author usually states that his or her book resulted from a course that he or she gave at some university. I cannot claim that the present book is any exception to the rule. But I expanded and remodelled the original material which circulated as a manuscript so that the printed version would follow a more stringent and coherent architectural plan. In doing so I have concentrated on the conceptual problems inherent in the path integral formalism rather than on certain highly specialized techniques used in applications. Nevertheless, I have also included those methods that are of fundamental interest and have treated specific problems mainly to illustrate them.