According to W. Edwards Deming, American companies require nothing less than a transformation of management style and of governmental relations with industry. In Out of the Crisis, originally published in 1982, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future, he claims, brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved product and service. In simple, direct language, he explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them.

Out of the Crisis

This ebook is the first authorized digital version of Kernighan and Ritchie's 1988 classic, The C Programming Language (2nd Ed.). One of the best-selling programming books published in the last fifty years, "K&R" has been called everything from the "bible" to "a landmark in computer science" and it has influenced generations of programmers. Available now for all leading ebook platforms, this concise and beautifully written text is a "must-have" reference for every serious programmers digital library.

As modestly described by the authors in the Preface to the First Edition, this "is not an introductory programming manual; it assumes some familiarity with basic programming concepts like variables, assignment statements, loops, and functions. Nonetheless, a novice programmer should be able to read along and pick up the language, although access to a more knowledgeable colleague will help."

The C programming language

A prevalent and pervasive view of designing is that it can be modeled using variables and decisions made about what values should be taken by these variables. The activity of designing is carried out with the expectation that the designed artifact will operate in the natural world and the social world. These worlds impose constraints on the variables and their values; so, design could be described as a goal-oriented, constrained, decision- making activity. However, design distinguish- es itself from other similarly described activities not only by its domain but also by additional necessary features. Designing involves exploration, exploring what variables might be appropriate. The process of explo- ration involves both goal variables and deci- sion variables. In addition, designing involves learning: Part of the exploration activity is learning about emerging features as a design proceeds. Finally, design activity occurs within two contexts: the context within which the designer operates and the context produced by the developing design itself. The designer’s perception of what the context is affects the implication of the context on the design. The context shifts as the designer’s perceptions change. Design activity can be now characterized as a goal-oriented, con- strained, decision-making, exploration, and learning activity that operates within a con- text that depends on the designer’s percep- tion of the context.

Design Prototypes: A Knowledge Representation Schema for Design

The research community has begun looking for IP traffic classification techniques that do not rely on `well known? TCP or UDP port numbers, or interpreting the contents of packet payloads. New work is emerging on the use of statistical traffic characteristics to assist in the identification and classification process. This survey paper looks at emerging research into the application of Machine Learning (ML) techniques to IP traffic classification - an inter-disciplinary blend of IP networking and data mining techniques. We provide context and motivation for the application of ML techniques to IP traffic classification, and review 18 significant works that cover the dominant period from 2004 to early 2007. These works are categorized and reviewed according to their choice of ML strategies and primary contributions to the literature. We also discuss a number of key requirements for the employment of ML-based traffic classifiers in operational IP networks, and qualitatively critique the extent to which the reviewed works meet these requirements. Open issues and challenges in the field are also discussed.

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A survey of techniques for internet traffic classification using machine learning

Use of traditional k-mean type algorithm is limited to numeric data. This paper presents a clustering algorithm based on k-mean paradigm that works well for data with mixed numeric and categorical features. We propose new cost function and distance measure based on co-occurrence of values. The measures also take into account the significance of an attribute towards the clustering process. We present a modified description of cluster center to overcome the numeric data only limitation of k-mean algorithm and provide a better characterization of clusters. The performance of this algorithm has been studied on real world data sets. Comparisons with other clustering algorithms illustrate the effectiveness of this approach.

A k-mean clustering algorithm for mixed numeric and categorical data

A prototype system, the Integrated Building Design Environment (IBDE), has been implemented to act as a testbed for a number of issues that arise from the need to integrate computer aids for the design and construction of buildings. The seven programs that comprise IBDE are briefly described. Issues such as knowledge representation, data organization, intercommunication, implementation and control are discussed.

Integrated of software environment for building design and construction

A shape annealing approach to truss topology design is presented that considers the tradeoff between the mass of the structure and the grouping of members, where all members of a group are given the same size. The problem of optimal grouping involves finding a structural design with an optimal number of groups and the optimal sizes for each group. In this paper cross-sectional area is considered as the measure of group size. Designs incorporating multiple members with the same cross-sectional area are advantageous when considering the cost of purchasing and fabricating materials. The shape annealing method is used as an approach to solve this problem by incorporating a method for dynamic grouping of members based on cross-sectional area that creates a tradeoff between mass and the number of groups through a weighted objective function that includes a group penalty function. This method is demonstrated on transmission tower and general truss problems.

A Shape Annealing Approach to Optimal Truss Design With Dynamic Grouping of Members

Publisher Summary This chapter explains the formation and use of abstract concepts in design. The principal focus of this chapter is on acquiring expert design knowledge. One promising solution uses inductive methods for supervised and unsupervised concept learning. The chapter discusses the relationships between these learning strategies and design. Design is a complex task. The chapter focuses on the synthesis aspect of design, namely, the assembly of candidate designs from an infinite set of alternatives. The synthesis is an ill-structured process with respect to all three characteristics of such problems. The only process that can reduce the complexity of synthesis is the acquisition and reorganization of knowledge. The chapter presents BRIDGER, which is a concept formation system that partially automates the acquisition of design knowledge for a class of design domains in which the structure of the artifact is fixed. Ideally, learning should render synthesis more efficient by allowing a design system to construct designs appropriate to the specification predicates.

The formation and use of abstract concepts in design

This paper presents a design strategy in which structural components are designed automatically by applying three types of knowledge: knowledge in a design standard; “textbook” knowledge of structural, material, and geometrical relationships; and knowledge representing designer-dependent design expertise. The design strategy selects from the designer-dependent knowledge source the behavior limitations—limit states of an object in a given stress state—to consider, translates the behavior limitations into a subset of corresponding standard requirements, generates a set of constraints from the requirements and the relations in the knowledge-base of “textbook” relationships, satisfies the constraints, and then checks the satisfaction of all remaining applicable requirements. By using this design strategy, it is possible to construct a knowledge-based design strategy that is standard independent, so that the same design process can be performed regardless of which design standard is explicitly represented. The design strategy described has been implemented in a prototype knowledge-based system, SPEX, which has a blackboard architecture similar to, but much simpler than, that of HEARSAY. The blackboard represents the level of abstraction through which a component design progresses. The knowledge-base in SPEX consists of several knowledge sources that perform portions of the component design task. Control of the design process knowledge sources in SPEX is rule-based.

A knowledge-based standards processor for structural component design

The building representation for storing design solutions adopted in SEED-Config consists of two levels of abstraction models defined on top of the object-oriented data model The first level is an information model, called the building entity and technology model, which stores design data as they are generated during conceptual design, supports case-based reasoning, and shares data among all design participants This model represents each building entity as a generic container that encompasses its properties, taxonomy, geometry, composition, relationships, and design knowledge applied in generating it The second level is a conceptual model that defines the types of objects, relationships, and data needed to fully represent the information in a given design domain The conceptual model specifies the semantics of the design information for the domain using the syntax defined in the information model The proposed representation also includes a faceted classification scheme to define the controlled vocabula

Steven J. Fenves

Papers

Integrated of software environment for building design and construction

A Shape Annealing Approach to Optimal Truss Design With Dynamic Grouping of Members

The formation and use of abstract concepts in design

A knowledge-based standards processor for structural component design

A Representation for Conceptual Design of Buildings