Matematica e cultura in Europa
Non è vero che la matematica susciti sempre poco interesse. Questa almeno è l'impressione che si ricava quando lo spunto per parlarne viene non solo dalla scienza e dalla tecnologia, ma anche dall'arte, dalla letteratura, dal cinema e dal teatro. Ce lo ha insegnato Michele Emmer con i suoi convegni Matematica e Cultura e lo abbiamo sperimentato a Bologna con le iniziative del 2000 per l'Anno Mondiale della Matematica e per Bologna Città Europea della Cultura. D’altra parte, negli ultimi anni abbiamo finalmente visto sullo schermo come protagonisti di film di successo dei matematici, non rappresentati come individui strani, ma come professionisti che svolgono il proprio lavoro, non necessariamente di insegnanti. Anche alcune opere teatrali di risonanza internazionale hanno parlato di matematici e questo ci ha spinto a organizzare per la prima volta in Italia, a Bologna, la rassegna Matematica e Teatro, che ha dato occasione non solo di assistere a spettacoli molto piacevoli, ma anche di parlare dei rapporti tra scienza, matematica e potere al tempo di Napoleone, di numeri primi, di teoria di Galois.
Louisiana's response to extreme weather : A coastal state's adaptation challenges and successes
Takes an in-depth look at Louisiana as a state which is ahead of the curve in terms of extreme weather events, both in frequency and magnitude, and in its responses to these challenges including recovery and enhancement of resiliency.
Loss and Damage from Climate Change : Concepts, Methods and Policy Options
Provides an authoritative insight on the Loss and Damage discourse by highlighting state-of-the-art research and policy linked to this discourse and articulating its multiple concepts, principles and methods. Written by leading researchers and practitioners, it identifies practical and evidence-based policy options to inform the discourse and climate negotiations. With climate-related risks on the rise and impacts being felt around the globe has come the recognition that climate mitigation and adaptation may not be enough to manage the effects from anthropogenic climate change.
Linear Selection Indices in Modern Plant Breeding
This open access book focuses on the linear selection index (LSI) theory and its statistical properties. It addresses the single-stage LSI theory by assuming that economic weights are fixed and known - or fixed, but unknown - to predict the net genetic merit in the phenotypic, marker and genomic context. Further, it shows how to combine the LSI theory with the independent culling method to develop the multistage selection index theory. The final two chapters present simulation results and SAS and R codes, respectively, to estimate the parameters and make selections using some of the LSIs described. It is essential reading for plant quantitative geneticists, but is also a valuable resource for animal breeders.
Landslides : Risk Analysis and Sustainable Disaster Management
Based on contributions to the first General Assembly of the International Consortium on Landslides, this reference and status report emphasizes the mechanisms of different types of landslides, landslide risk analysis, and sustainable disaster management. It comprises the achievements of the ICL over the past three years, since the Kyoto assembly. It consists of three parts: research results of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL); contributions on landslide risk analysis; and articles on sustainable disaster management. The contributions reflect a wide range of topics and concerns, randing from field studies, identification of objects of cultural heritage at landslide risk, as well as landslide countermeasures.
Climate and Land Degradation
In many parts of the world, climatic variations are recognized as one of the major factors contributing to land degradation impacting on agricultural systems performance and management. To accurately assess sustainable land management practices, the climate resources and the risk of climate-related or induced natural disasters in a region must be known. Only when climate resources are paired with management or development practices can the land degradation potential be assessed and appropriate mitigation technologies be developed. This book is based on an International Workshop held in Arusha, Tanzania and should be of interest to all organizations and agencies interested in sustainable land management to arrest land degradation.
Classical Methods of Statistics : With Applications in Fusion-Oriented Plasma Physics
Classical Methods of Statistics is a blend of theory and practical statistical methods written for graduate students and researchers interested in applications to plasma physics and its experimental aspects. It can also fruitfully be used by students majoring in probability theory and statistics. In the first part, the mathematical framework and some of the history of the subject are described. Many exercises help readers to understand the underlying concepts. In the second part, two case studies are presented exemplifying discriminant analysis and multivariate profile analysis. The introductions of these case studies outline contextual magnetic plasma fusion research. In the third part, an overview of statistical software is given and, in particular, SAS and S-PLUS are discussed. In the last chapter, several datasets with guided exercises, predominantly from the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak, are included and their physical background is concisely described. The book concludes with a list of essential keyword translations.
Chernobyl: Catastrophe and Consequences
The long-term effects of the Chernobyl incident on the environment are still becoming apparent, twenty years after the event. This book, written by two researchers with frontline experience in this field, provides a detailed review of these over a wide range of ecosystems. It also discusses the responses and countermeasures utilised to combat the effects of the accident, as well as considering the health, social, psychological and economic impacts on the human population. Chernobyl - Catastrophe and Consequences provides a comprehensive assessment of the Chernobyl accident and its long-term consequences draws on the most recent measurements of contamination in the terrestrial and aquatic food chains discusses the sociological consequences of such disasters in detail This book adds valuable weight to the debate about the environmental cost of nuclear power and the issue of nuclear safety.
Catalogue of risks : Natural, technical, social and health risks
The book clearly shows the interdependence of risk measures. Safety and risks cannot be discussed only by looking at specific problems, since increasing safety in individual fields might lead to a decrease of safety over the entire society.
Biogeochemical cycles in globalization and sustainable development
This valuable study of environmental subsystems functioning under various climatic and anthropogenic conditions provides a unique insight into the social context of global changes in biogeochemical cycles and demonstrates current understanding of globalization and sustainable development.
Biochemical Mechanisms of Detoxification in Higher Plants : Basis of Phytoremediation
Plants play a key role in purifying the biosphere of the toxic effects of industrial activity. This book shows how systematic application of the results of investigations into the metabolism of xenobiotics (foreign, often toxic substances) in plants could make a vastly increased contribution to planetary well-being. Deep physiological knowledge gained from an accumulation of experimental data enables the great differences between the detoxifying abilities of different plants for compounds of different chemical nature to be optimally exploited. Hence planting could be far more systematically adapted to actual environmental needs than is actually the case at present.
Axiom of Choice
AC, the axiom of choice, because of its non-constructive character, is the most controversial mathematical axiom, shunned by some, used indiscriminately by others. This treatise shows paradigmatically that:Disasters happen without AC: Many fundamental mathematical results fail (being equivalent in ZF to AC or to some weak form of AC).Disasters happen with AC: Many undesirable mathematical monsters are being created (e.g., non measurable sets and undeterminate games).Illuminating examples are drawn from diverse areas of mathematics, particularly from general topology, but also from algebra, order theory, elementary analysis, measure theory, game theory, and graph theory.
Assessing and Managing Earthquake Risk : Geo-scientific and Engineering Knowledge for Earthquake Risk Mitigation: developments, tools, techniques
This book points out the need of a multidisciplinary approach in the field of risk assessment and management. It provides an overview of the problems, approaches and common practices directly related to earthquake risk mitigation and, in particular, to the preparation of earthquake emergency plans. Written by a team of specialists from different disciplines, the authors worked together extensively in order to create unity and continuity in the text as a whole. Each topic is illustrated with examples of actual applications taken from the bibliography – including websites with available relevant information. Case studies and information on some relevant international projects are given.
Analysis of variance for random models, Vol. 2 : Unbalanced data : Theory, methods, applications, and data analysis
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) models have become widely used tools and play a fundamental role in much of the application of statistics today. In particular, ANOVA models involving random effects have found widespread application to experimental design in a variety of fields requiring measurements of variance, including agriculture, biology, animal breeding, applied genetics, econometrics, quality control, medicine, engineering, and social sciences. This two-volume work is a comprehensive presentation of different methods and techniques for point estimation, interval estimation, and tests of hypotheses for linear models involving random effects. Both Bayesian and repeated sampling procedures are considered. Volume I examines models with balanced data (orthogonal models); Volume II studies models with unbalanced data (nonorthogonal models).
Advancing Culture of Living with Landslides ; Vol. 1 : ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015-2025
Contains peer-reviewed papers from the Fourth World Landslide Forum organized by the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL), the Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL), University of Ljubljana (UL) and Geological Survey of Slovenia in Ljubljana, Slovenia from May 29 to June 2, 2017. The complete collection of papers from the Forum is published in five full-color volumes
Advances in Variable Structure and Sliding Mode Control
Sliding Mode Control is recognized as an efficient tool to design controllers which are robust with respect to uncertainty. The resulting controllers have low sensitivity to plant parameters and perturbations and allow the possibility of decoupling the original plant system into two components of lower dimension. In addition many controllers ensure finite time convergence to the switching surface and can be straightforwardly implemented. However, in addition to this traditional area of exploitation, sliding mode concepts are being increasingly deployed for the design of observers for estimation and identification.
Advanced Intelligent Paradigms in Computer Games
This book presents a sample of the most recent research concerning the application of computational intelligence techniques and internet technology in computer games. The contents include: - COMMONS GAME in intelligent environment - Adaptive generation of dilemma-based interactive narratives - Computational intelligence in racing games - Evolutionary algorithms for board game players with domain knowledge - The ChessBrain project - Electronic market games - EVE’s entropy - Capturing player enjoyment in computer games This book is directed to researchers, practicing engineers/scientists and students.
















