Differential Equations, Chaos and Variational Problems
Differential equations are a fast evolving branch of mathematics and one of the mathematical tools most used by scientists and engineers. This book gathers a collection of original articles and state-of-the-art contributions, written by highly distinguished researchers working in differential equations, delay-differential equations, differential inclusions, variational problems, Young measures, control theory, dynamical systems, chaotic systems and their relations with physical systems. The forefront of research in these areas is represented in this volume.
Designing Democracy : Ideas for Better Rules
While liberal democracies are the best systems of self-governance for societies, they rarely invoke great enthusiasm. On the one hand, democracies have been known to fail in achieving efficient or fair allocations. On the other hand, many citizens take the democratic system for granted as they have yet to experience an alternative. In this book the vision we propose is that the potential of democ racies has not yet been exhausted, and that optimal democracies are both the Utopia for societies and the aim that scientists should be committed to. We present a number of ideas for drawing up new rules to im prove the functioning of democracies. The book falls into two parts. The first part examines ways of combining incentive contracts with democratic elections. We suggest that a judicious combina tion of these two elements as a dual mechanism can alleviate a wide range of political failures, while at the same time adhering to the founding principles of democracies. The second part presents new rules for decision-making and agenda setting. Together with modern communication devices, these rules can sometimes transcend the limitations of liberal VI Preface democracies in achieving desirable outcomes. Examples of such rules include the flexible majority rule where the size of the ma jority required depends on the proposal, or the rule that only those belonging to the winning majority can be taxed.
Data Science for Civil Engineering : A Beginner's Guide
Explains use of data science-based techniques for modeling and providing optimal solutions to complex problems in civil engineering. It discusses civil engineering problems like air, water and land pollution, climate crisis, transportation infrastructures, traffic and travel modes, mobility services, and so forth. Divided into two sections, the first one deals with the basics of data science and essential mathematics while the second section covers pertinent applications in structural and environmental engineering, construction management, and transportation.
Data assimilation fundamentals : A unified formulation of the state and parameter estimation problem
This textbook's significant contribution is the unified derivation of data-assimilation techniques from a common fundamental and optimal starting point, namely Bayes' theorem. Unique for this book is the "top-down" derivation of the assimilation methods. It starts from Bayes theorem and gradually introduces the assumptions and approximations needed to arrive at today's popular data-assimilation methods. This strategy is the opposite of most textbooks and reviews on data assimilation that typically take a bottom-up approach to derive a particular assimilation method.
Coronaviruses : Methods and Protocols
Aims to describe a variety of techniques that reflects the wide range of research currently performed in the field of coronavirology, and begins with an overview of current understandings of coronavirus replication and pathogenesis to introduce specialists and non-specialists to the field. The rest of the book is divided into several sections of chapters beginning with those that describe identification, diagnosis, and study of the evolution of coronaviruses. The next few chapters discuss the preparation of cells and organ cultures useful in propagating coronaviruses and titration techniques, as well as techniques for analyzing virus functions that require purification of the viruses. The next chapters describe two commonly used reverse genetics techniques for coronaviruses, and techniques detailing identification of cellular receptors, binding profiles of viral attachment proteins, and virus-cell fusion. The final chapters cover a broad spectrum of techniques to identify virus-host protein-protein interactions, confirm the functional role of these proteins in virus replication, study host cell responses through genome-wide or pathway-specific approaches, and visualize virus replication complexes. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, the chapters include the kind of detailed description and implementation advice that is crucial for getting optimal results in the laboratory.
Cooperative systems : Control and optimization
This book provides an insight in the basic understanding of cooperative systems as well as in theory, modeling, and applications of cooperative control, optimization and related problems.
Controlled Markov Processes and Viscosity Solutions
This book is intended as an introduction to optimal stochastic control for continuous time Markov processes and to the theory of viscosity solutions. Stochastic control problems are treated using the dynamic programming approach. It approachs stochastic control problems by the method of dynamic programming. The fundamental equation of dynamic programming is a nonlinear evolution equation for the value function. For controlled Markov diffusion processes, this becomes a nonlinear partial differential equation of second order, called a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation. Typically, the value function is not smooth enough to satisfy the HJB equation in a classical sense. Viscosity solutions provide framework in which to study HJB equations, and to prove continuous dependence of solutions on problem data. The theory is illustrated by applications from engineering, management science, and financial economics.
Control Theory Tutorial : Basic Concepts Illustrated by Software Examples
Introduces the basic principles of control theory in a concise self-study guide. It complements the classic texts by emphasizing the simple conceptual unity of the subject. A novice can quickly see how and why the different parts fit together. The concepts build slowly and naturally one after another, until the reader soon has a view of the whole. Each concept is illustrated by detailed examples and graphics. The full software code for each example is available, providing the basis for experimenting with various assumptions, learning how to write programs for control analysis, and setting the stage for future research projects. The topics focus on robustness, design trade-offs, and optimality. Most of the book develops classical linear theory. The last part of the book considers robustness with respect to nonlinearity and explicitly nonlinear extensions, as well as advanced topics such as adaptive control and model predictive control.
Control Theory in Physics and other Fields of Science : Concepts, Tools, and Applications
This book covers systematically and in a simple language the mathematical and physical foundations of controlling deterministic and stochastic evolutionary processes in systems with a high degree of complexity. Strong emphasis is placed on concepts, methods and techniques for modelling, assessment and the solution or estimation of control problems in an attempt to understand the large variability of these problems in several branches of physics, chemistry and biology as well as in technology and economics. The main focus of the book is on a clear physical and mathematical understanding of the dynamics and kinetics behind several kinds of control problems and their relation to self-organizing principles in complex systems. The book is a modern introduction and a helpful tool for researchers, engineers as well as post-docs and graduate students interested in an application oriented control theory and related topics.
Control Systems Theory and Applications for Linear Repetitive Processes
After motivating examples, this monograph gives substantial new results on the analysis and control of linear repetitive processes. These include further applications of the abstract model based stability theory which, in particular, shows the critical importance to the dynamics developed of the structure of the initial conditions at the start of each new pass, the development of stability tests and performance bounds in terms of so-called 1D and 2D Lyapunov equations. It presents the development of a major bank of results on the structure and design of control laws, including the case when there is uncertainty in the process model description, together with numerically reliable computational algorithms. Finally, the application of some of these results in the area of iterative learning control is treated --- including experimental results from a chain conveyor system and a gantry robot system.
Control of Traffic Systems in Buildings
Control of Traffic Systems in Buildings presents the state of the art in the analysis and control of transportation systems in buildings focusing primarily on elevator groups. The theory and design of passenger traffic and cargo transport systems are covered, together with actual operational examples and topics of special current interest such as: • noisy, on-line and algorithmic optimization; • simulation-based modeling of passengers and goods; • control of cooperative agent-oriented systems; • proposal for a benchmark to compare new control methods; • deployment and testing of transportation systems.
Control of Spatially Structured Random Processes and Random Fields with Applications
This book is devoted to the study and optimization of spatiotemporal stochastic processes, that is, processes which develop simultaneously in space and time under random influences. These processes are seen to occur almost everywhere when studying the global behavior of complex systems.Classical stochastic dynamic optimization forms the framework of the book. Taken as a whole, the project undertaken in the book is to establish optimality or near-optimality for Markovian policies in the control of spatiotemporal Markovian processes. The authors apply this general principle to different frameworks of Markovian systems and processes. Depending on the structure of the systems and the surroundings of the model classes the authors arrive at different levels of simplicity for the policy classes which encompass optimal or nearly optimal policies. A set of examples accompanies the theoretical findings, and these examples should demonstrate some important application areas for the theorems discussed.
Control of Singular Systems with Abrupt Changes
In this book many problems like stochastic stability, stochastic stabilization using state feedback control and static output control, Hinfinity control, filtering, guaranteed cost control and mixed H2/Hinfinity control and their robustness are tackled.
Control of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems : Methods and Applications
This book is devoted to new methods of control for complex dynamical systems and deals with nonlinear control systems having several degrees of freedom, subjected to unknown disturbances, and containing uncertain parameters. Various constraints are imposed on control inputs and state variables or their combinations. The book contains an introduction to the theory of optimal control and the theory of stability of motion, and also a description of some known methods based on these theories.
Control of Coupled Partial Differential Equations
Contains selected contributions originating from the ‘Conference on Optimal Control of Coupled Systems of Partial Differential Equations’, held at the ‘Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach’ in April 2005.
Control and Observer Design for Nonlinear Finite and Infinite Dimensional Systems
This volume presents a well balanced combination of state-of-the-art theoretical results in the field of nonlinear controller and observer design, combined with industrial applications stemming from mechatronics, electrical, (bio–) chemical engineering, and fluid dynamics. The unique combination of results of finite as well as infinite–dimensional systems makes this book a remarkable contribution addressing postgraduates, researchers, and engineers both at universities and in industry. The contributions to this book were presented at the Symposium on Nonlinear Control and Observer Design: From Theory to Applications (SYNCOD), held September 15–16, 2005, at the University of Stuttgart, Germany.
Control and Estimation of Systems with Input/Output Delays
Time delays exist in many engineering systems such as transportation, communication, process engineering and networked control systems. This monograph presents simple analytical solutions to control and estimation problems for systems with multiple i/o delays via elementary tools such as projection.
Continuous Optimization : Current Trends and Modern Applications
The search for the best possible performance is inherent in human nature. Individuals, enterprises and governments all seek optimal—that is, the best—possible solutions of problems that they meet. Evidently, continuous optimization plays an increasingly significant role in everyday management and technical decisions in science, engineering and commerce. The collection of 16 refereed papers in this book covers a diverse number of topics and provides a good picture of recent research in continuous optimization. The first part of the book presents substantive survey articles in a number of important topic areas of continuous optimization. Most of the papers in the second part present results on the theoretical aspects as well as numerical methods of continuous optimization. The papers in the third part are mainly concerned with applications of continuous optimization.
Continental Scientific Drilling : A Decade of Progress, and Challenges for the Future
Scientific drilling is an indispensable tool of modern Earth science - search, as it provides the only means of obtaining direct information on processes operating at depth. Drilling allows for the determination of - situ properties of solid materials and fluids and permits testing of hypot- ses and models derived from surface observations. In addition, drill holes may be used as a natural laboratory for experiments and as observatories for long-term monitoring of on-going active processes. Earth drilling, therefore, plays a critical role in scientific research directed towards - proved understanding of the workings of our planet and has a key role in solving urgent socio-economic problems. As a rule, drilling projects are an integral component of major geosci- tific research programs, comprising comprehensive pre-site investigations, accompanying laboratory studies, the drilling phase itself, and consecutive measurements and tests in the drill hole. Such drilling programs are costly and thus only realizable to a limited extent. International cost sharing, the optimal utilization of all available resources, the incorporation of inter- tional leading experts, and the application of the existing know-how, as well as the selection of an optimal drilling location (“World Geological Site”), are thus essential elements of an international scientific drilling p- gram.
Constrained optimization and image space analysis ; Vol.1 : Separation of sets and optimality conditions
Constrained Optimization and Image Space Analysis unites his results and presents optimization theory and variational inequalities in their light.It presents a new approach to the theory of constrained extremum problems, including Mathematical Programming, Calculus of Variations and Optimal Control Problems. Such an approach unifies the several branches: Optimality Conditions, Duality, Penalizations, Vector Problems, Variational Inequalities and Complementarity Problems. The applications benefit from a unified theory.



















