This paper considers a technique for calculating the unconditional failure intensity of any given non-coherent fault tree. Conventional Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) techniques involve the evaluation of lengthy series expansions and approximations are unavoidable even for moderate sized fault trees. The Binary Decision Diagram (BDD) technique overcomes some of the shortfalls of conventional FTA tec...

There is a growing sense of crisis associated with the cost of health care services as reflected in rapidly increasing insurance premiums, larger out of pocket expenditures for consumers, and expanding shortfalls in the State's budget. The impact of this crisis has included a reduction in the number of insurance companies providing health insurance in Maine, an increase in the number of busines...

The subject of payment technology is central to e-business applications. Payment technologies' main role is to facilitate transactions by saving time and providing cost effectiveness, value for money, and flexibility for consumers. Payment Technologies for E-Commerce provides brings to light electronic payment systems that serve as the backbone for payments made electronically. The book also em...

A large — but unknown — number of alien species have become established in ecosystems across the United States, where some are causing serious damage. Forests of the Northeast have been particularly impacted by exotic species ranging from insects to starlings, and from herbaceous plants to pathogens. Government trade policies exacerbate the threat of new introductions. Funding shortfalls hamper...

To meet the shortfalls caused by the economic crisis, the Romanian medical system needed an objective analysis of the quality of medical care as a whole, of the entire package of health services as well as accountable joint efforts to identify system problems and, especially, firm action without compromising resolution, regardless of any limitations or emotional picture. In addition, last but n...

This paper reviews the use of artificial evolution as a means for automatic generation of locomotion controllers for physical robots and autonomous agents from the perspectives of evolutionary objectives and control architecture. An overview beginning with the pioneering works in evolutionary robotics is given, leading up to the latest state-of-the-art research in these fields. Some key shortfa...

Aiming further to reduce its switching losses, an appropriate discontinuous modulation scheme is proposed and studied here in detail to doubly ensure that maxi-mal reduction of commutations is achieved. With an appropriately designed control scheme had incorporated with nine-switch converter is shown to favorably raise the overall power quality and voltage mitigation hence justifying its role a...

Drastic improvements in transmission rate and system capacity are required towards 5th generation mobile communications (5G). One promising approach, utilizing the millimeter wave band for its rich spectrum resources, suffers area coverage shortfalls due to its large propagation loss. Fortunately, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) can offset this shortfall as well as offer high orde...

A novel ultra-high compliance, low power, very accurate and high output impedance current output stage (COS) with extremely high output current drive capability is proposed in this paper. The principle of operation of this unique structure is discussed, its most important formulas are derived and its outstanding performance is verified by HSPICE simulation in TSMC 0.18µm CMOS, BSIM3, and Level4...