Fuzzy Logic for Business and Industry, by Earl D. Cox, Charles River Media, 601 pages, price TBA, ISBN 1-886801-01-0
Designed as a tool for teaching the application of fuzzy logic systems, this book explores a wide range of problems in finance, scheduling and management information systems. The book covers these topics with a minimum of math and offers enough real software code to apply fuzzy techniques to real problems.
Applications detailed range from risk and financial analysis to digital ID matching. Also demonstrated is how some systems help manage a structured database, while others help draw the fuzzy line between whether to buy or sell.
Topics covered in the book include: the capabilities and limitations of fuzzy models; fuzzy logic and machine reasoning; FuzzySQL and database systems; knowledge mining and rule discovery; fuzzy multi-criteria and multi-expert decision making; adaptive and feed-back fuzzy models; and planning and building fuzzy models.
Cox is founder and president of Metus Systems Group (Chappaqua, N.Y.).
On the Origin of Objects, by Brian Cantwell Smith, A Bradford Book, The MIT Press, 424 pages, $35, ISBN 0-262-19363-9
This book is the culmination of a decade-long investigation into the philosophical and metaphysical foundations of computation, artificial intelligence and cognitive science. Smith's ambitious project begins as a search for a comprehensive theory of computation, able to do empirical justice to practice and conceptual justice to the computational theory of mind. A rigorous commitment to these two criteria ultimately leads the author to recommend a radical overhaul of our traditional conception of metaphysics.
The book offers many of Smith's observations: the distinction between particularity and individuality; the methodological notion of an "inscription error"; an argument that there are no individuals within physics; various deconstructions of the type-instance distinction; an analysis of formality as overly disconnected ("discreteness run amok"); and a conception of the boundaries of objects as properties of unruly interactions between objects and subjects.
Smith is principal scientist with Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Palo Alto, Calif.).
Machine Learning and Knowledge Acquisition: Integrated Approaches, edited by Gheorghe Tecuci and Yves Kodratoff, Academic Press, 324 pages, $69.95, ISBN 0-12-685120-4
This book presents some of the most representative approaches to the integration of machine learning and knowledge acquisition, such as case-based reasoning, apprenticeship learning, knowledge-base refinement through multi-strategy learning, example-guided knowledge-based revision, and interactive inductive logic programming. It also presents their application to such areas as planning, scheduling, diagnosis, control, information retrieval and robotics.
The book looks at methods for automating the knowledge acquisition process through the use of machine learning techniques. It outlines ways to enhance the power of learning methods through the employment of knowledge acquisition techniques. It describes successful practical applications of integrated knowledge acquisition and machine learning approaches. Tecuci is with George Mason University and Kodratoff is with the University of Paris-South.
Neural Networks in Bioprocessing and Chemical Engineering, by D. Richard Baughman and Y.A. Liu, Academic Press, 520 pages, $69.95, ISBN 0-12-083030-2
Introducing the fundamental principles of neural computing, and focusing on their practical applications in bioprocessing and chemical engineering, this book presents models and applications using commercially available, inexpensive PC-based software tools.
Examples, problems and 10 detailed case studies of neural network applications demonstrate how to develop, train and apply neural computing in bioprocessing and chemical engineering. An included disk containing input data files for all illustrative examples, case studies and practice problems provides the opportunity for hands-on experience.
Baughman and Liu are with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.