The books focus on computer language, recent developments in computational intelligence and management of knowledge in a business environment.

The authors are: 

• Judith Bishop whose book is titled C# 3.0 Design Patterns. (Published by O’Reilly.) 
• Andries P. Engelbrecht whose book is titled Computational Intelligence: An introduction. (Published by Wiley). 
•  Three academics (Antonie Botha, Derrick Kourie and Retha Snyman) co-authored a book titled Coping with Continuous Change in the Business Environment. Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Technology. (Published by Chandos.)

Bishop's book, C# 3.0 Design Patterns, draws on new C# 3.0 language and .NET 3.5 framework features to implement the 23 foundational patterns known to software developers. Its goal is to enable programmers to accelerate the development of .NET applications. Each pattern is introduced by an example showing the pattern at work in modern scenarios such as blogs, chat rooms, FaceBook and Flickr. Insightful tables and comparisons are there to help the reader develop skills in choosing one pattern over another.

The book is intended for programmers, system developers and students. It has a website (http:/patterns.cs.up.ac.za) containing all the code and diagrams from the book. The price of the book is R307.92. It is going to be reprinted because the first print has already sold out.

The features of Engelbrecht’s book include:

• Coverage of radial basis function networks and reinforcement learning.
• Different evolutionary computation paradigms.
• Particle swarm optimization.
• Artificial immune systems.
• Artificial neural networks, evolutionary computations, swarm intelligence. artificial immune systems, and funny systems.

According to Engelbrecht, he decided to write this book as a result of a need that arose from a graduate course where students did not have deep background of artificial intelligence and mathematics. The book also provides insight into many new developments on the Computing Intelligence research front.

About three universities have already made enquiries to the publishers with the aim of prescribing it. A website (http:/ci.cs.up.ac.za) has been established to assist readers to implement the Computing Intelligence models discussed in the book. The price of the book is R847.

The third book by Botha, Kourie and Snyman focus on knowldege management. A PhD thesis of Antonie Botha was turned into a book. Prof Kourie was Botha’s supervisor. Once Antonie’s thesis was complete, Retha Snyman became instrumental in changing it into a form suitable for publication as a text book. This included re-writing some parts, and adding some additional material.
Rapid change is a defining characteristic of the modern world. It has a huge impact on society, governments and businesses. Businesses are forced to transform themselves fundamentally to survive in a challenging economy.

According to the authors, “Transformation implies change in the way business is conducted, in the way people perform their contribution to the organisation, and in the way the organisation perceives and manages its vital assets, which increasingly are built around the key assets of intellectual capital and knowledge:”

The book covers knowledge management through a comprehensive set of representative insights and frameworks. It investigates the concepts and elements, the drivers, and challenges involved in knowledge management, and charateristics of knowledge management.

The book is targeted at knowledge management professionals and students in the field of knowledge management, information science, information systems and software engineering.

Several universities are currently considering prescribing the book. The price of the book is R307. 61 for a paperback, and R438.90 for a hardback.

Prof Robin Crewe, Vice-Principal, said the three books written by the University of Pretoria's academics are important to scholarly development of the three fields within Computer Sciences.

Professor Roelf Sandenbergh, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology, said the authors rose to the challenge of making the University of Pretoria a special place.

 

Professors Judth Bishop and Roelf Sandebergh

 

Prof. Andries Engebrecht