Richard J. Duro - Böcker

The last decade of the 20th century has witnessed a surge of interest in num- ical, computation-intensive approaches to information processing. The lines that draw the boundaries among statistics, optimization, arti cial intelligence and information processing are disappearing, and it is not uncommon to nd well-founded and sophisticated mathematical approaches in application - mains traditionally associated with ad-hoc programming. Heuristics has - come a branch of optimization and statistics. Clustering is applied to analyze soft data and to provide fast indexing in the World Wide Web. Non-trivial matrix algebra is at the heart of the last advances in computer vision. The breakthrough impulse was, apparently, due to the rise of the interest in arti cial neural networks, after its rediscovery in the late 1980s. Disguised as ANN, numerical and statistical methods made an appearance in the - formation processing scene, and others followed. A key component in many intelligent computational processing is the search for an optimal value of some function. Sometimes, this function is not evident and it must be made explicit in order to formulate the problem as an optimization problem. The search - ten takes place in high-dimensional spaces that can be either discrete, or c- tinuous or mixed. The shape of the high-dimensional surface that corresponds to the optimized function is usually very complex. Evolutionary algorithms are increasingly being applied to information processing applications that require any kind of optimization.

The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a surge of interest in numerical, computational intensive approaches to information processing. The lines that draw the boundaries between statistics, optimization, artificial intelligence and information processing are disappearing and it is not uncommon to find well founded and sophisticated mathematical approaches in applications traditionally associated with ad-hoc programming. Evolutionary Algorithms are increasingly being applied to information processing applications that require any kind of optimization and they have reached the status of problem-solving tools in the backpack of the engineer. However, there are still exciting new developments taking place in the academic community. The driving idea in the organization of this edited volume is the emphasis in the contrast between already accepted engineering practice and on-going explorations in the academic community.As From industrial applications to academic speculations suggests, the organization of Information Processing with Evolutionary Algorithms follows an axis of nearness to practical applications, travelling from industrial day-to-day problems and practice to the more speculative works.

This book is a composition of diverse points of view regarding the application of Computational Intelligence techniques and methods into Remote Sensing data and problems. It is the general consensus that classi?cation, and related data processing, and global optimization methods are the main topics of Compu- tional Intelligence. Global random optimization algorithms appear in this book, such as the Simulated Annealing in chapter 6 and the Genetic Algorithms p- posedinchapters3and9. Muchofthecontentsofthe bookaredevotedto image segmentationandrecognition,using diversetoolsfromregionsofComputational Intelligence, ranging from Arti?cial Neural Networks to Markov Random Field modelling. However, there are some fringe topics, such the parallel implem- tation of some algorithms or the image watermarking that make evident that thefrontiersbetweenComputationalIntelligenceandneighboringcomputational disciplines are blurred and the fences run low and full of holes in many places. The book starts with a review of the current designs of hyperspectral sensors, more appropriately named Imaging Spectrometers.Knowing the shortcomings and advantages of the diverse designs may condition the results on some app- cations of Computational Intelligence algorithms to the processing and und- standing of them Remote Sensing images produced by these sensors. Then the book contentsmovesinto basic signalprocessing techniquessuch ascompression and watermarking applied to remote sensing images. With the huge amount of remotesensinginformationandtheincreasingrateatwhichitisbeingproduced, itseems only naturalthatcompressiontechniques willleapintoa prominentrole in the near future, overcoming the resistances of the users against uncontrolled manipulation of "their" data. Watermarkingis the way to address issues of o- ership authentication in digital contents.

This book is a composition of diverse points of view regarding the application of Computational Intelligence techniques and methods into Remote Sensing data and problems. It is the general consensus that classi?cation, and related data processing, and global optimization methods are the main topics of Compu- tional Intelligence. Global random optimization algorithms appear in this book, such as the Simulated Annealing in chapter 6 and the Genetic Algorithms p- posedinchapters3and9. Muchofthecontentsofthe bookaredevotedto image segmentationandrecognition,using diversetoolsfromregionsofComputational Intelligence, ranging from Arti?cial Neural Networks to Markov Random Field modelling. However, there are some fringe topics, such the parallel implem- tation of some algorithms or the image watermarking that make evident that thefrontiersbetweenComputationalIntelligenceandneighboringcomputational disciplines are blurred and the fences run low and full of holes in many places. The book starts with a review of the current designs of hyperspectral sensors, more appropriately named Imaging Spectrometers.Knowing the shortcomings and advantages of the diverse designs may condition the results on some app- cations of Computational Intelligence algorithms to the processing and und- standing of them Remote Sensing images produced by these sensors. Then the book contentsmovesinto basic signalprocessing techniquessuch ascompression and watermarking applied to remote sensing images. With the huge amount of remotesensinginformationandtheincreasingrateatwhichitisbeingproduced, itseems only naturalthatcompressiontechniques willleapintoa prominentrole in the near future, overcoming the resistances of the users against uncontrolled manipulation of "their" data. Watermarkingis the way to address issues of o- ership authentication in digital contents.

The book presents an overview of current research on biologically inspired autonomous robotics from the perspective of some of the most relevant researchers in this area. The book crosses several boundaries in the field of robotics and the closely related field of artificial life. The key aim throughout the book is to obtain autonomy at different levels. From the basic motor behavior in some exotic robot architectures right through to the planning of complex behaviors or the evolution of robot control structures, the book explores different degrees and definitions of autonomous behavior. These behaviors are supported by a wide variety of modeling techniques: structural grammars, neural networks, and fuzzy logic and evolution underlies many of the development processes. Thus this text can be used by scientists and students interested in these areas and provides a general view of the field for a more general audience.