Applied Sequential Methodologies: Real-World Examples With Data Analysis

research technique applied to a case study in a specific field of engineering and technology. In each, a theory/algorithm on a topic is presented, and an application follows. Ayyub, appropriately, in the first chapter lays out the philosophical foundation of uncertainty. Chapter 2 introduces the concept of selforganizing neural network of a special kind, that is, organizing incomplete information. Chapters 3 and 4 introduce the technique of simulating fuzzy systems. Chapters 5–8 deal with biomedical and chemical applications of hidden Markov models, Markov random field and mean field theory, recurrent neural networks, and multi-criteria optimization under uncertainty. Chapters 9–11 focus on the application of neural networks to civil infrastructure systems, and Chapters 12 and 13 focus on the management of risk and uncertainty and document classification, two topics of recent interest. The authors have handled these topics in a rather cursory manner. The authors deserve credit for the presentation of the topic of handling uncertainty in transportation engineering in Chapters 11–18. This part and the next (Chaps. 19–23), showing applications in structural engineering, are the only places in which particular application areas are treated in some depth as well as breadth. In summary, this book presents a collection of interesting articles in the general framework of uncertainty modeling and analysis. The tools used come from various disciplines including statistics and operations research. Some of these tools are classical, and some were introduced the early 1990s. One major omission is the failure to include the entire area of Bayesian methodology. The current literature is replete with examples of this methodology applied in science and engineering; however, perhaps this topic merits a separate volume in itself. Finally, an operations research instructor may consider Applied Research in Uncertainty Modeling and Analysis favorably as a good source book in a graduate seminar but not necessarily as an introductory textbook.