Reprise, the super-powered "collective" hit man, tries to take Hardware apart. And even Hardware can't exhaust the myriad armed thugs that Reprise can generate. Written by Dwayne McDuffie, with art and cover by Denys Cowan and Jimmy Palmiotti

This title serves as an introduction ans reference for the field, with the papers that have shaped the hardware/software co-design since its inception in the early 90s.

Compiled by an experienced practitioner in the field, this book contains definitions of the major terms used in reliability engineering and software assessment. Approximately 2,000 definitions have been carefully selected from standards and literature published by such leading institutions as the IEEE and IEC. Alternative definitions of the same term are given where relevant, enabling readers to compare and contrast, thereby giving useful insights into different aspects of the same term. Extensive cross-referencing makes the book both easy to use and practical.

The original version of this guide has sold over 30,000 copies. This new edition has been expanded by 25% and promises to become an invaluable resource. For collectors, dealers and players, this completely updated "field guide" provides specifications, serial numbers, and more for determining the originality of vintage American acoustic and electric fretted instruments. Detailing thousands of models by every major manufacturer, the book now includes expanded coverage of Martin, Guild, Mosrite, Dobro, Gibson banjos, Fender amps, Gibson amps, plus updates on the latest models from Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker, and others since 1990.

system is a complex object containing a significant percentage of elec A tronics that interacts with the Real World (physical environments, humans, etc. ) through sensing and actuating devices. A system is heterogeneous, i. e. , is characterized by the co-existence of a large number of components of disparate type and function (for example, programmable components such as micro processors and Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), analog components such as AID and D/A converters, sensors, transmitters and receivers). Any approach to system design today must include software concerns to be viable. In fact, it is now common knowledge that more than 70% of the development cost for complex systems such as automotive electronics and communication systems are due to software development. In addition, this percentage is increasing constantly. It has been my take for years that the so-called hardware-software co-design problem is formulated at a too low level to yield significant results in shorten ing design time to the point needed for next generation electronic devices and systems. The level of abstraction has to be raised to the Architecture-Function co-design problem, where Function refers to the operations that the system is supposed to carry out and Architecture is the set of supporting components for that functionality. The supporting components as we said above are heteroge neous and contain almost always programmable components.

This two-volume set constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Industrial and Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems, IEA/AIE-98, held in Benicassim, Castellon, Spain, in June 1998.The two volumes present a total of 187 revised full papers selected from 291 submissions. In accordance with the conference, the books are devoted to new methodologies, knowledge modeling and hybrid techniques. The papers explore applications from virtually all subareas of AI including knowledge-based systems, fuzzyness and uncertainty, formal reasoning, neural information processing, multiagent systems, perception, robotics, natural language processing, machine learning, supervision and control systems, etc..