Imprecise and Approximate Computation

Real-time systems are now used in a wide variety of applications. Conventionally, they were configured at design to perform a given set of tasks and could not readily adapt to dynamic situations. The concept of imprecise and approximate computation has emerged as a promising approach to providing scheduling flexibility and enhanced dependability in dynamic real-time systems.
The concept can be utilized in a wide variety of applications, including signal processing, machine vision, databases, networking, etc. For those who wish to build dynamic real-time systems which must deal safely with resource unavailability while continuing to operate, leading to situations where computations may not be carried through to completion, the techniques of imprecise and approximate computation facilitate the generation of partial results that may enable the system to operate safely and avert catastrophe.
Audience: Of special interest to researchers. May be used as a supplementary text in courses on real-time systems.

Inhalt
Overload Management by Imprecise Computation.- Representing and Scheduling Satisficing Tasks.- A Survey of Scheduling Results for Imprecise Computation Tasks.- Approximate Reasoning Using Anytime Algorithms.- Integrating Unbounded Software Components into Hard Real-Time Systems.- Replicated Imprecise Computations for Fault-Tolerant Real-Time Systems.- Producing Monotonically Improving Approximate Answers to Database Queries.- Approximate Update of Logical Databases.- A Decision-Theoretic Treatment of Imprecise Computation.