This open access book provides a synthesis of the knowledge generated on relevant and adaptive technologies for the betterment of farmer’s livelihood. The book is based on contribution made primarily by researchers from Africa and especially from Malawi. However, other experts and especially in the fields of human nutrition and biofortified foods from other parts of the world have also contributed to this book.The population of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) was 179 M in 1950 and 1.09 B ...

This collection features five peer-reviewed literature reviews on poultry housing systems.The first chapter reviews current poultry housing systems and the recent emergence of enriched cages and cage-free systems. It explores the impact of conventional cages on bird health and welfare, looking primarily at bone health.The second chapter examines the impact of different housing systems on the safety and quality of eggs. It reviews how hen housing and flock m...

Data analysis, machine learning and knowledge discovery are research areas at the intersection of computer science, artificial intelligence, mathematics and statistics. They cover general methods and techniques that can be applied to a vast set of applications such as web and text mining, marketing, medicine, bioinformatics and business intelligence. This volume contains the revised versions of selected papers in the field of data analysis, machine learning and knowledge discovery presente...

An introduction to statistical data mining, Data Analysis and Data Mining is both textbook and professional resource. Assuming only a basic knowledge of statistical reasoning, it presents core concepts in data mining and exploratory statistical models to students and professional statisticians-both those working in communications and those working in a technological or scientific capacity-who have a limited knowledge of data mining. This book presents key statistical concepts by w...

The positive reciprocal pairwise comparison matrix (PCM) is one of the key components which is used to quantify the qualitative and/or intangible attributes into measurable quantities. This book examines six understudied issues of PCM, i.e. consistency test, inconsistent data identification and adjustment, data collection, missing or uncertain data estimation, and sensitivity analysis of rank reversal. The maximum eigenvalue threshold method is proposed as the new consistency index for the...

This new book provides a theoretical and practical guide to analysis of variance (ANOVA) for those who have not had a formal course in this technique, but need to use this analysis as part of their research.From their experience in teaching this material and applying it to research problems, the authors have created a summary of the statistical theory underlying ANOVA, together with important issues, guidance, practical methods, references, and hints about using statistical softwar...

To enhance marketing analytics, approximate and inductive reasoning can be applied to handle uncertainty in individual marketing models. This book demonstrates the use of fuzzy logic for classification and segmentation in marketing campaigns. Based on practical experience as a data analyst and on theoretical studies as a researcher, the author explains fuzzy classification, inductive logic and the concept of likelihood and introduces a blend of Bayesian and Fuzzy Set approaches, allowing r...

Markov decision process (MDP) models are widely used for modeling sequential decision-making problems that arise in engineering, economics, computer science, and the social sciences. Many real-world problems modeled by MDPs have huge state and/or action spaces, giving an opening to the curse of dimensionality and so making practical solution of the resulting models intractable. In other cases, the system of interest is too complex to allow explicit specification of some of the MDP model pa...

Provides an in-depth and even treatment of the three pillars of computational intelligence and how they relate to one anotherThis book covers the three fundamental topics that form the basis of computational intelligence: neural networks, fuzzy systems, and evolutionary computation. The text focuses on inspiration, design, theory, and practical aspects of implementing procedures to solve real-world problems. While other books in the three fields that comprise compu...

This edited volume is devoted to Big Data Analysis from a Machine Learning standpoint as presented by some of the most eminent researchers in this area.It demonstrates that Big Data Analysis opens up new research problems which were either never considered before, or were only considered within a limited range. In addition to providing methodological discussions on the principles of mining Big Data and the difference between traditional statistical data analysis and newer computing...

This volume provides approaches and solutions to challenges occurring at the interface of research fields such as data analysis, computer science, operations research, and statistics. It includes theoretically oriented contributions as well as papers from various application areas, where knowledge from different research directions is needed to find the best possible interpretation of data for the underlying problem situations. Beside traditional classification research, the book focuses o...

This book contains revised and extended versions of selected papers from the 8th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence, ICAART 2016, held in Rome, Italy, in February 2016.The 17 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 149 initial submissions. The papers are organized in two sections: agents and artificial intelligence. They address open research trends and highlight in an innovative manner the trends in intelligent multi-agent systems,...