Les M. Sztandera - Böcker

This book brings together original work from a number of authors who have made significant contributions to the evolution and use of nonstandard computing methods in chemistry and pharmaceutical industry. The contributions to this book cover a wide range of applications of Soft Computing to the chemical domain. Soft Computing applications are able to approximate many different kinds of real-world systems; to tolerate imprecision, partial truth, and uncertainty; and to learn from their environment and generate solutions of low cost, high robustness, and tractability. Presented applications are the optimization of the structure of atom clusters, the design of safe textile materials, real-time monitoring of pollutants in the workplace, quantitative structure-activity relationships, the analysis of Mossbauer spectra, the synthesis of methanol or the use of bioinformatics in the clustering of data within large biochemical databases.With this diverse range of applications, the book appeals to professionals, researchers and developers of software tools for the design of Soft Computing-based systems in chemistry and pharmaceutical industry, and to many others within the computational intelligence community.

The contributions to this book cover a wide range of applications of Soft Computing to the chemical domain. The early roots of Soft Computing can be traced back to Lotfi Zadeh's work on soft data analysis [1] published in 1981. 'Soft Computing' itself became fully established about 10 years later, when the Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing (SISC), an industrial liaison program, was put in place at the University of California - Berkeley. Soft Computing applications are characterized by their ability to: • approximate many different kinds of real-world systems; • tolerate imprecision, partial truth, and uncertainty; and • learn from their environment. Such characteristics commonly lead to a better ability to match reality than other approaches can provide, generating solutions of low cost, high robustness, and tractability. Zadeh has argued that soft computing provides a solid foundation for the conception, design, and application of intelligent systems employing its methodologies symbiotically rather than in isolation. There exists an implicit commitment to take advantage of the fusion of the various methodologies, since such a fusion can lead to combinations that may provide performance well beyond that offered by any single technique.

Geometric properties and relations play central roles in the description and processing of spatial data. The properties and relations studied by mathematicians usually have precise definitions, but verbal descriptions often involve imprecisely defined concepts such as elongatedness or proximity.

It is expected that the use of soft computing will increase greatly in industrial applications, because the conceptual structure of hard computing is much too precise in relation to the great imprecision of the world around us. This book aims at attracting researchers and engineers both in the fields of industrial electronics (IE) and computational intelligence (CI). By approaching the different viewpoints of IE and CI people, it is hoped to provide practicing engineers with new solutions to the demanding real-world problems. The applications are divided into two categories, Electric Power Applications and Emerging Applications.

Geometric properties and relations play central roles in the description and processing of spatial data. The properties and relations studied by mathematicians usually have precise definitions, but verbal descriptions often involve imprecisely defined concepts such as elongatedness or proximity. The methods used in soft computing provide a framework for formulating and manipulating such concepts. This volume contains eight papers on the soft definition and manipulation of spatial relations and gives a comprehensive summary on the subject.

Textiles and computing have long been associated. High volume and low profit margins of textile products have driven the industry to invest in high technology, particularly in the area of data interpretation and analysis. Thus, it is virtually inevitable that soft computing has found a home in the textile industry. Contained in this volume are six chapters discussing various aspects of soft computing in the field of textiles and apparel.

This volume provides practicing engineers with new solutions to demanding real-world problems. It presents applications of soft computing to the field of industrial electronicsin two categories, electric power applications and emerging applications.