الصفحة 7
الصفحة 7
Information and self-organization : A macroscopic approach to complex systems
This book presents the concepts needed to deal with self-organizing complex systems from a unifying point of view that uses macroscopic data. The various meanings of the concept "information" are discussed and a general formulation of the maximum information (entropy) principle is used. With the aid of results from synergetics, adequate objective constraints for a large class of self-organizing systems are formulated and examples are given from physics, life and computer science. The relationship to chaos theory is examined and it is further shown that, based on possibly scarce and noisy data, unbiased guesses about processes of complex systems can be made and the underlying deterministic and random forces determined. This allows for probabilistic predictions of processes, with applications to numerous fields in science, technology, medicine and economics. The extensions of the third edition are essentially devoted to an introduction to the meaning of information in the quantum context. Indeed, quantum information science and technology is presently one of the most active fields of research at the interface of physics, technology and information sciences and has already established itself as one of the major future technologies for processing and communicating information on any scale.
Information and its role in nature
Infromation and Its Role in Nature presents an in-depth interdisciplinary discussion of the concept of information and its role in the control of natural processes. After a brief review of classical and quantum information theory, the author addresses numerous central questions, including: Is information reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry? Does the Universe, in its evolution, constantly generate new information? Or are information and information-processing exclusive attributes of living systems, related to the very definition of life? If so, what is the role of information in classical and quantum physics? In what ways does information-processing in the human brain bring about self-consciousness? Accessible to graduate students and professionals from all scientific disciplines, this stimulating book will help to shed light on many controversial issues at the heart of modern science.
Informatics in the Future ; Proceedings of the 11th European Computer Science Summit (ECSS 2015), Vienna, October 2015
This volume discusses the prospects and evolution of informatics (or computer science), which has become the operating system of our world, and is today seen as the science of the information society. Its artifacts change the world and its methods have an impact on how we think about and perceive the world. Classical computer science is built on the notion of an “abstract” machine, which can be instantiated by software to any concrete problem-solving machine, changing its behavior in response to external and internal states, allowing for self-reflective and “intelligent” behavior. However, current phenomena such as the Web, cyber physical systems or the Internet of Things show us that we might already have gone beyond this idea, exemplifying a metamorphosis from a stand-alone calculator to the global operating system of our society.
Inference for change point and post change means after a CUSUM test
This monograph is the first to systematically study the bias of estimators and construction of corrected confidence intervals for change-point and post-change parameters after a change is detected by using a CUSUM procedure. Researchers in change-point problems and sequential analysis, time series and dynamic systems, and statistical quality control will find that the methods and techniques are mostly new and can be extended to more general dynamic models where the structural and distributional parameters are monitored. Practitioners, who are interested in applications to quality control, dynamic systems, financial markets, clinical trials and other areas, will benefit from case studies based on data sets from river flow, accident interval, stock prices, and global warming. Readers with an elementary probability and statistics background and some knowledge of CUSUM procedures will be able to understand most results as the material is relatively self-contained.The exponential family distribution is used as the basic model that includes changes in mean, variance, and hazard rate as special cases. There are fundamental differences between the sequential sampling plan and fixed sample size. Although the results are given under the CUSUM procedure, the methods and techniques discussed provide new approaches to deal with inference problems after sequential change-point detection, and they also contribute to the theoretical aspects of sequential analysis. Many results are of independent interests and can be used to study random walk related stochastic models.
Inelastic Light Scattering of Semiconductor Nanostructures : Fundamentals and Recent Advances
Semiconductor nanostructures are a field of enormous and still-growing research interest. On one hand, they are already realized in mass products, e.g., in high-electron-mobility field-effect transistors and quantum-well lasers. On the other hand, they allow, in specially tailored systems, the investigation of fundamental properties, such as many-particle interactions of electrons in reduced dimensions. This book attempts to fill the gap between general semiconductor textbooks and research articles. It provides (i) an introduction into the basic concepts of inelastic light scattering on semiconductor nanostructures and into their fabrication and basic properties, and, (ii) a description of the most striking recent advances in this field. Each chapter is as self-contained as possible.
Index and Stability in Bimatrix Games : A Geometric-Combinatorial Approach
The contribution of this thesis can be divided into two parts. The first part concerns methods and techniques. By introducing a new geometriccombinatorial construction for bimatrix games, this thesis gives a new, intuitive re-interpretation of the index. This re-interpretation is to a large extent self-contained and does not require a background in algebraic topology. The second part of this thesis concerns the relationship between the index and strategic properties. In this context, the thesis provides two new results, both of which are obtained by means of the new construction and are explained in further detail below. The first result shows that, in non-degenerate bimatrix games, the index can fully be described by a simple strategic property.
Inclusion and Psychological Intervention in Schools : A Critical Autoethnography
This book consists of a number of case studies about interventions in schools to promote the inclusion of pupils referred to a local authority Educational Psychology Service (EPS) in the north of England. The aim is to provide accounts which do not shirk from describing ‘failures’ as well as ‘successes’ and which reflect the general ‘messiness’ of this kind of work. They are written as ‘stories’ from the point of view of an educational psychologist who regards himself as a critical reflective practitioner whose professional practice is grounded in a democratic, inclusive philosophy.
Improving Psychiatric Care for Older People : Barbara Robb’s Campaign 1965-1975
This book tells the story of Barbara Robb and her pressure group, Aid for the Elderly in Government Institutions (AEGIS). In 1965, Barbara visited 73-year-old Amy Gibbs in a dilapidated and overcrowded National Health Service psychiatric hospital back-ward. She was so appalled by the low standards that she set out to make improvements. Barbara’s book Sans Everything: A case to answer was publicly discredited by a complacent and self-righteous Ministry of Health. However, inspired by her work, staff in other hospitals ‘whistle-blew’ about events they witnessed, which corroborated her allegations. Barbara influenced government policy, to improve psychiatric care and health service complaints procedures, and to establish a hospitals' inspectorate and ombudsman.
Improving Inclusive Education through Universal Design for Learning
Provides an analysis of how the educational strategy of Universal Design for Learning can stimulate the process of inclusive education in different educational-cultural contexts and different areas of the educational system. The findings of the research deepen the conception of inclusive education and present an analysis of factors that are significant for developing the educational system as well as providing evidence-based recommendations for educational practice. The research for this work was done in four European countries with various historical-cultural contexts: Lithuania and Poland underwent a transformation of the educational systems at the turning point in their political system, shifting from a strictly centralized Soviet policy to a liberal and democratic education system; Austria has experienced changes in social stratification and a need for cultural harmonisation arising from active national migration processes, whereas Finland has been gradually developing a socio-democratic model of national welfare.
Improve Your Communication Skills : How to Build Trust, Be Heard and Communicate with Confidence
This fully updated 5th edition now features a handy self-assessment tool to help you profile your own preferred communication style, even more practical exercises, useful checklists and top tips, as well as content on influencing others and managing difficult conversations. This book provides vital guidance on improving your conversations, building rapport, giving effective presentations, writing excellent reports and networking successfully.
Implementing Models in Quantitative Finance : Methods and Cases
This book puts numerical methods into action for the purpose of solving concrete problems arising in quantitative finance. Part one develops a comprehensive toolkit including Monte Carlo simulation, numerical schemes for partial differential equations, stochastic optimization in discrete time, copula functions, transform-based methods and quadrature techniques. The content originates from class notes written for courses on numerical methods for finance and exotic derivative pricing held by the authors at Bocconi University since the year 2000. Part two proposes eighteen self-contained cases covering model simulation, derivative valuation, dynamic hedging, portfolio selection, risk management, statistical estimation and model calibration. It encompasses a wide variety of problems arising in markets for equity, interest rates, credit risk, energy and exotic derivatives.
Immunogenetics of Autoimmune Disease
Utoimmunity is the downstream outcome of a rather extensive and coordinated series of events that include loss of self-tolerance, peripheral lymphocyte Aactivation, disruption of the blood-systems barriers, cellular infiltration into the target organs and local inflammation. Cytokines, adhesion molecules, growth factors, antibodies, and other molecules induce and regulate critical cell functions that perpetuate inflammation, leading to tissue injury and clinical phenotype. The nature and intensity of this response as well as the physiological ability to restore homeostasis are to a large extent conditioned by the unique amino acid sequences that define allelic variants on each of the numerous participating mol ecules. Therefore, the coding genes in their germline configuration play a primary role in determining who is at risk for developing such disorders, how the disease progresses, and how someone responds to therapy. Although genetic components in these diseases are clearly present, the lack of obvious and homogeneous modes of transmission has slowed progress by prevent ing the full exploitation of classical genetic epidemiologic techniques. Furthermore, autoimmune diseases are characterized by modest disease risk heritability and m- tifaceted interactions with environmental influences. Yet, several recent discoveries have dramatically changed our ability to examine genetic variation as it relates to human disease. In addition to the development of large-scale laboratory methods and tools to efficiently recognize and catalog DNA diversity, over the past few years there has been real progress in the application of new analytical and data-manage ment approaches
Immune receptors : Methods and protocols
Explores immune cell receptors that are used in the detection of microbes, either by binding directly to non-self molecules or through indirectly sensing microbe-associated cellular disturbances. The covers methods for studying receptor-ligand interactions at both molecular and cellular levels; methods to create and characterize novel antibody reagents; and methods to characterize the molecular processes that lead to adaptive receptor maturation. This book also contains chapters that look at high-throughput strategies that describe the diversity of immune receptors and cells. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.
Immobilisation of DNA on Chips II
DNA chips are gaining increasing importance in different fields ranging from medicine to analytical chemistry with applications in the latter in food safety and food quality issues as well as in environmental protection. In the medical field, DNA chips are frequently used in arrays for gene expression studies to identify diseased cells due to over- or under-expression of certain genes, to follow the response of drug treatments, or to grade cancers), for genotyping of individuals, for the detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms, point mutations, and short tandem reports, or moreover for genome and transcriptome analyses in the quasi post-genomic sequencing era. Furthermore, due to some unique properties of DNA molecules, self-assembled layers of DNA are promising candidates in the field of molecular electronics.the main focus of these two volumes is on the immobilization chemistry, considering the various aspects of the immobilization process itself, since different types of nucleic acids, support materials, surface activation chemistries and patterning tools are of key concern.
Immobilisation of DNA on Chips I
the main focus of these two volumes is on the immobilization chemistry, considering the various aspects of the immobilization process itself, since different types of nucleic acids, support materials, surface activation chemistries and patterning tools are of key concern.the focus of the major part of the chapters lies on the coupling chemistry used for DNA immobilization. Successful immobilization techniques for DNA appear to either involve a multi-site attachment of DNA (preferentially by electrochemical and/or physical adsorption) or a single-point attachment of DNA (mainly by surface activation and covalent immobilization or (strept)avidin-biotin linkage).
Image Analysis ; 14th Scandinavian Conference, SCIA 2005, Joensuu, Finland, June 19-22, 2005, Proceedings
This proceedings volume collects the scienti?c presentations of the Scandinavian Conference on Image Analysis, SCIA 2005, which was held at the University of Joensuu, Finland, June 19–22, 2005. The conference was the fourteenth in the series of biennial conferences started in 1980. The name of the series re?ects the fact that the conferences are organized in the Nordic (Scandinavian) countries, following the cycle Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway. The event itself has always been international in its participants and presentations. Today there are many conferences in the ?elds related to SCIA. In this s- uation our goal is to keep up the reputation for the high quality and friendly environment of SCIA. We hope that participants feel that it’s worth attending the conference. Therefore, both the scienti?c and social program were designed to support the best features of a scienti?c meeting: to get new ideas for research and to have the possibility to exchange thoughts with fellow scientists.
Hypoelliptic estimates and spectral theory for Fokker-Planck operators and witten Laplacians
There has recently been a renewal of interest in Fokker-Planck operators, motivated by problems in statistical physics, in kinetic equations and differential geometry. Compared to more standard problems in the spectral theory of partial differential operators, those operators are not self-adjoint and only hypoelliptic. The aim of the analysis is to give, as generally as possible, an accurate qualitative and quantitative description of the exponential return to the thermodynamical equilibrium. While exploring and improving recent results in this direction this volume proposes a review of known techniques on: the hypoellipticity of polynomial of vector fields and its global counterpart; the global Weyl-Hörmander pseudo-differential calculus, the spectral theory of non-self-adjoint operators, the semi-classical analysis of Schrödinger-type operators.
Hydrogen bonded polymers
Control of polymeric structure is among the most important endeavours of modern macromolecular science. In particular, tailoring the positioning and strength of intermolecular forces within macromolecules by synthetic me- odsandthusgaining structuralcontrolover the'nalpolymeric materials has become feasible, resulting in the ?eld of supramolecular polymer science. - sides other intermolecular forces, hydrogen bonds are unique intermolecular forces enabling the tuning of material properties via self-assembly processes, The important contribution of hydrogen bondstotheareaofsupramole- lar polymer chemistry is de'nitely outstanding, most of all since the potency of hydrogen-bonding systems has been found to be unique in relation to other supramolecular interactions.
Hybrid Methods of Molecular Modeling
Hybrid Methods of Molecular Modeling is a self-contained advanced review volume. It provides a step by step derivation of the consistent theoretical picture of hybrid modeling methods and a thorough analysis of the concepts and current practical methods of hybrid modeling based on this theory. The book presents its material sequentially, paying attention both to the physical soundness of the approximations used and to the mathematical rigor necessary for the practical development of the robust modeling code.
Human origins and environmental backgrounds
Human Origins and Environmental Backgrounds is a benchmark compendium of research that presents itself at a major paradigm shift in paleoanthropology. The editors offer a variety of theoretical approaches to puzzles on the place of the Hominidae, particularly Homo sapiens, among the Primates, including our unique bipedal positional behavior and social structure and the selective factors that might have been involved in our evolution in the broad context of Miocene and later environments. The contributors represent several generations of pioneering laboratory and field researchers from Japan, France and the United States, who have worked together over the past 40 years and who have trained future leaders in evolutionary anthropology and experimental primatology. This volume, compiled by the leading experts in the field, explores the interface between hominid origins and palaeoenvironments.
