Algorithms Books

Convex Analysis and Minimisation Algorithms by Urruty and Lemarechal is a gentle but comprehensive introduction to finite dimensional convex analysis. This book is part of Springer's series on Comprehensive studies in Mathematics.

Volume I deals with convex analysis (convex sets, convex functions, sublinearity and support functions, subdifferentials of convex functions and minimization algorithms for smooth convex functions) and the companion volume II deals more with nonsmooth optimization and bundle algorithms to solve such problems. The theory is developed rigorously with many intriguing examples and figures to illustrate important concepts. As the authors mention in their introduction the minimisation algorithm suggested by Einstein "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler". The two volumes are fairly comprehensive (and as a disclaimer the contents are by no means elementary, and will require a sustained effort on the part of the reader).

One can then take on the likes of Rockafellar and Wets' "Variational Analysis" and Borwein and Lewis' "Convex Analysis and Nonlinear optimization, two other recent works in convex analysis and optimization.

Este libro de Hiriart-Urruty y Claude Lemarechal, es el paso obligado de quién desee aprender este tema. Los autores han realizado un gran esfuerzo para lograr un libro claro, del cual se puede aprender. Hay mucha información, muchos ejemplos, muchas gráficas. Este libro, junto con el Convex Analysis de Rockafellar no deben faltar en el escritorio de toda persona que se dedique al análisis convexo o a la optimización. Es un texto largo, se necesita al menos un año para estudiarlo, pero vale la pena.

There are many great examples of basic image processing techniques in this book. Topics like Image Filtering, Edge Detection and also some Wavelets. There is both theory and detailed examples which really helps when trying to get the DSP in a symbiotic relationship with Matlab, CodeComposer Studio and MS Visual Studio.

There is a logical flow in how information is presented. First a basic description of the algorithm. Second some Matlab or pseudo-code. Then third he describes exactly how to implement it on the c6x dsp. Not only are there implementation details but also interfacing explanation for both Matlab and Visual Studio.

Overall this is an excellent book for getting a project up and running in a timely fashion.

This is an extremely well laid out and understandable text. The coding examples are easy to understand and can be easily demonstrated on the TI DSK's. As a current TI employee with little experience with the C6x line of DSP's, Qureshi's book allowed me to learn a large amount of image processing background in a short time while becoming familiar with the workings of Code Composer Studio and the DSP. The book starts very simply and has clear instructions on how to obtain the tools to run all of the code samples on real DSPs.

Starting with an overview of the tools involved and the C6x architecture, Qureshi moves into simple image processing concepts, such as contrast stretching and window/level processing. After clearly explaining the concept and the implementation, the reader is led through the process of optimizing the code for the DSP environment. Later topics, such as edge detection and wavelets leave the reader with a clear understanding of the fundamentals of image processing, as well as code examples that make implementation a breeze.

Overall, an excellently written book and a must for anyone interested in image processing, whether on TI DSPs or not.

Most of us have taken ACLS by the time we get to 3rd/4th year rotations and end up in the ER. Most of us aren't comfortable participating in a code at the beginning of the ER rotation. This book takes ACLS and runs with it, but slowly! It provides you with a great EKG review while addressing medications needed to treat each condition in a clear and concise manner. It provides essential information on how to recognize and manage non-cardiac codes such as airway emergencies, seizures, etc. You will be much more comfortable in a code setting after reading this book! Check out the other books in the Emergency Management series - they are pretty good as well.

This book revolutionized the way I think about ACLS. I was stunned by how easy things are to understand when laid out in a straightforward, evidence-based manner. I used to walk very slowly to codes in fear that I would be the first one there. I was ashamed that I didn't know how to manage coding patients. Since reading this book, I have been able to sprint full-force knowing that I am well-equpped to handle any situation.

I took the class the Dr. Moon and I spent some time proof-reading it. I have read other texts on this material and some of them are quite hard to understand. Usually it is because there are too few examples.

In this book there are many examples to follow. There are problems that will test your theoretical and your practical knowledge of the subject. If you need an in-depth get-you-there book on this subject complete with programming examples, this is the book for you!

Error Correction Coding is very well written and easy to follow. Explanations are concise, and the book is filled with examples as well as coding assignments that really drive the principles home.

B.R. Frieden and R.A. Gatenby (Eds), Exploratory Data Analysis using Fisher Information (Springer, London 2007)
For some years now, Roy Frieden has been exploring the consequences of studying physical phenomena on the basis of Fisher information and extreme physical information (EPI). From the very beginning, the results were spectacular. From the slenderest beginnings, many of the fundamental equations of physics emerged from these EPI principles: the Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations of quantum mechanics as well as the Schrödinger equation; Newton's second law; Maxwell's equations; many of the equations of general relativity; and this does not exhaust the list. These ideas, gradually developed in a series of publications in very respectable and severely refereed scientific journals, were brought together in Physics from Fisher Information (1998) and its successor, Science from Fisher Information (2004).
It was clear from that work that the approach should not be limited to physics but the extent to which it has shown itself fruitful, charted in Frieden's latest book, is a revelation. This is not a monograph but a collection of essays, edited by Frieden and R.A. Gatenby, a life scientist, on a very wide range of topics, all of which are shown to benefit from the use of EPI. The book begins with an introduction by Frieden, in which the reader is told what Fisher information is and how to use it, employing the EPI approach. Eight chapters follow, contributed by the editors and 11 other authors, on financial economics (Frieden, R.J. Hawkins and and J.L. d'Anna); tissue growth and cancer (by the editors); statistical mechanics and `thermal physics' - not very different from what I was taught to call thermodynamics (A. and A.R. Plastino); astrobiology (by Frieden and B.H. Soffer), which is described as a unification of biology and astrophysics; encryption (R.C. Venkatesan); the management of sustainable environmental systems (A.L. Mayer, C.W. Pawlowski, B.D. Fath and H. Cabezas); ecology (by the editors); and to conclude, `Sociohistory: an information theory of social change' (M.I. Yolles and Frieden).
This makes for a very adventurous book, all of which makes fascinating reading though some chapters are more readable than others and occasionally, the authors seem unnecessarily on the defensive, as though they expect readers to have a red pencil at the ready. The list of chapters already gives a good idea of the diversity of the contents and even within individual chapters, the coverage is often surprising; thus Chapter 7 (Environmental systems) ends with a section on `Sociopolitical data', in which "state failure", the risk of a "catatastrophic collapse of a nation's governing body" is examined and illustrated with a histogram showing the stability of five countries, Sweden, France, Argentina, Sierra Leone and Haiti. The Fisher index based on eight criteria is very high (indicating great stability) for Sweden, low for Argentina, Sierra Leone and Haiti and only marginally better for France (in the years between 1961 and 1995)! The concluding chapter (Sociohistory) is the most difficult for readers from the exact sciences, unaccustomed to Kant's notion of the noumenon, the Hegelian doctrine of the dialectic and the autonomous holon, though the authors have tried hard to render the vocabulary of the sociologist palatable.
The very different nature of the topics examined makes it less easy to appreciate the remarkable role of EPI than in the earlier books, addressed to physicists in language with which they were familiar, however revolutionary the theory presented. I imagine that readers of this latest offering will peruse only the chapter that deals with their own particular interest. I therefore wish to emphasize that the truly original feature of this book - apart from EPI itself - is precisely its broad coverage; its demonstration that such a simple principle, easily grasped, is capable of yielding valuable results in such a wide range of fields of enquiry. I found Frieden's earlier books immensely original and intellectually thrilling and this one adds yet more weight to that opinion.
P.W. Hawkes
(M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D., Cambridge; emeritus Director of Research, CNRS)

In a simple-minded way Fisher information can be expressed in one dimension
as an integral of (P') squared over P where P is a suitable probability density.
For example P could be the square modulus of a quantum wave function.
Many action principles for physical systems in quantum mechanics or
relativity involve extremizing a Lagrangian which contains such Fisher information
(FI) terms. The book applies such ideas to a huge variety of physical, biological,
economic, ecological, social, game theoretical, and informational systems.
One uses FI in a unified approach to statistically based science called
EPI (extreme physical information). This leads to a program (EPA) of
exploratory data analysis whose inputs are real or Gedanken data and whose
outputs are the natural laws governing a system. The results often appear in the form of
differential equations. Here one thinks of the
universe as information-dominated and "participatory", of Harrison type,
allowing maximum
information gain at each observation and "favoring" the intelligent
observation of information.

One speaks of three levels of solution for EPI,
depending on the three levels of prior knowledge categorized by the
19th century philosopher C. Pierce. These are
(A) The highest level
or "abduction", giving exact (quantum) solutions; (B) The next highest level
or "deduction", giving accurate but inexact (non-quantum) solutions of
classical physics; and
(C) The lowest level or "induction" using merely empirical data giving approximate
but smooth solutions.
The exact type (A) solutions of EPI require a measurement space connected
via unitary transformations with some other space having a physical reality.
In this event one arrives via EPI at the correct dynamical equations for the
measurement space. There are two earlier books in these directions:
(1) Physics from Fisher information, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998 and
(2) Science from Fisher information, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004, both
by B.R. Frieden.

The present book is is a collaboration by H. Cabezas, J.L. D'Anna, B.D. Fath,
B.R. Frieden, R.A. Gatenby, R.J. Hawkins, A.L. Mayer, C. Pawlowski, A. Plastino,
A.R. Plastino, B.H. Soffer, R.C. Venkatesan, and M. Yolles. The topics include (1)
A tutorial on FI and background mathematics plus chapters on
(2) Financial economics from FI, (3) Growth characteristics of organisms,
(4) Information theory and thermal physics, (5) Parallel information phenomena
in biology and astrophysics, (6) Encryption of covert information through a
Fisher game, (7) Applications of FI to the management of sustainable
environmental systems, (8) FI in ecological systems, and (9) Sociohistory:
An information theory of social change.

There is much to reflect on here and strong evidence that this is indeed the
way to go. I personally have used and exploited the Fisher information theme
in numerous papers related to quantum mechanics and relativity, in particular
via relations of FI to the quantum potential. I would even say that this theme
seems to have "cosmic significance" and in the present arena of information
technology, processing, retrieval, and distortion the book should be considered as
must reading.

Robert Carroll, Emeritus Professor, University of Illinois

It is a very nice book for a beginner. It is a well-organized and excellent text covering fully up-to-date treatment of genetic algorithms in industrial engineering and operationas research. Especially, its unique, creative and intuitive approach makes the complex subject transparent and understandable. I fond the book very much and used the materials in my classes.

This is a very nice book for beginners. It is a well-organized and excellent text covering fully up-to-date treatment of genetic algorithms in industrial engineering and operationas research. Especially, its unique, creative and intuitive approach makes the complex subject transparent and understandable. I fond the book very much and used the materials in my classes.

The volume brings an outstanding presentation of the major issues, ideas, concepts and algorithms to design and develop fuzzy systems using gentic algorithms. A field of major relevance for researchers and practioners, genetic fuzzy systems provides a major methodological substract of significant impact in practice. The book is unique in its contents and presentation. Chapters begin with the key concepts and smoothly grows to advanced concepts in a clear and very understandable and motivating way. The material mirrors the state of the art in the area of genetic fuzzy systems and contains the most recent results available until its publication. Written by renowned, internationally recognized researchers, the book is mandatory to all who are interested in the field of computational intelligence, its foundations and applications.

In recent years, a great number of publications have explored the use of genetic algorithms as a tool for designing fuzzy
systems. Genetic Fuzzy Systems explores and discusses this symbiosis of evolutionary computation and fuzzy logic. The book summarizes and analyzes the novel field of genetic fuzzy systems, paying special attention to genetic algorithms that adapt and learn
the knowledge base of a fuzzy-rule-based system. It introduces the general concepts, foundations and design principles of genetic fuzzy
systems and covers the topic of genetic tuning of fuzzy systems. It also introduces the three fundamental approaches to genetic learning
processes in fuzzy systems: the Michigan, Pittsburgh and Iterative-learning methods. Finally, it explores hybrid genetic fuzzy systems such as
genetic fuzzy clustering or genetic neuro-fuzzy systems and describes a number of applications from different areas. Genetic Fuzzy System represents a comprehensive treatise on the design of the fuzzy-rule-based systems using genetic algorithms, both from
a theoretical and a practical perspective. It is a valuable compendium for scientists and engineers concerned with research and applications in
the domain of fuzzy systems and genetic algorithms.

Langdon's book is an important addition to the literature on Genetic Programming. After a thorough survey of the state of the art in the field, he describes how Genetic Programming can be used to generate the standard data structures that humans rely on so heavily. He then describes how these data structures can be used to extend the power of Genetic Programming, and gives a number of useful examples. In all, an important part of any GP library.

The book "Genetic Programming + Data Structures = Automatic Programming!" by William B. Langdon is a very nice introduction to the field of genetic programming. The book is well structured. It contains most, if not all, references to important previous work on GP, and further extends the range of applicability of GP by investigating the use abstract data structures in evolving genetic programs. Routines to manage abstract data structures (stacks, queues, and list) are evolved by GP. The book also shows some problems where enriching the GP-language with primitives to manage a data structure enables it to solve more complex problems.

Cees H.M. van Kemenade.

It's a collection of fifty years of research in the area of inductive computer-aided algorithms, machine learning and advanced neural networks. The practical examples given in the book are superb. We have used the same concept in our data mining and pattern recognition works. The scripts given in the book with slight modification are very useful in building the networks. I suggest anybody in the specialization of neural networks, machine intelligence and data mining to use this abundent knowledge in their practical works.

The book "Inductive Learning Algorithms for Complex System Modeling" by Hema Madala and Alexei Ivakhnenko decsribes the learning algorithms in the first few chapters. First chapter gives historical perspective of complex nature of the subject. The next few chapters explain the importance of selection criteria and various computing algorithms.

These algorithms are similar to the artificial neural network algorithms which are being used widely in analysis, identification and predicting the fuzzy complex systems; only difference is that they are inductive in nature. They have different strategy in their forecasting approach.

The authors have dealt with the data from some real life complex systems and presented their results. They have given some comparitive results with the functioning of neural networks. Finally the actual source code has been supplied. This is still a valid code and one can convert it to utilize for modern data mining applications which come under the arena of internet CRM applications.

Though this has been first published in 1994, these algorithms are still valid for the modern usage. It would be worthy to consider for publishing a second edition by adding some latest contribution on the topic from the authors.

There is no other book available with such a valuable elaborative information on the topic.

This is one of the truly great and original contributions to the field of creativity. Altshuller's approach shows the inadequacy of many of the existing systems of creative problem solving. I loved everything about this book, from his analysis of problem spaces, thinking backwards from the solution to it's systematic emphasis on dealing with contradictions was first rate and that's just some of the topics. My only problem with the book was that it was geared towards engineering problems and the examples while intriguing were a bit mysterious to this non-engineer. However, with a bit of thinking and some collateral resources, I think this approach can be used to solve any problem.

I have read all available books on TRIZ and found no better than this. As comprehensive and deep as "Creativity as an exact science", it is more clear, systematic, and legible.