This monograph studies optimization problems for rigid punches in elastic media and for high-speed penetration of rigid strikers into deformed elastoplastic, concrete, and composite media using variational calculations, tools from functional analysis, and stochastic and min-max (guaranteed) optimization approaches with incomplete data. The book presents analytical and numerical results developed by the authors during the last ten years.

In the 1960s divorce was increasing around the world and marriage conciliation services were a necessary development to deal with those who wanted to seek help for their problems. Originally published in 1968, the purpose of this title was to give some account of the widely differing types of marital conciliation services operating in Britain and also some other parts of the world at the time. The author, who was based at the National Marriage Guidance Council of Great Britain, first outlines the British services, then presents comparative studies of the services overseas in Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia and Finland and the United States and Canada. Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context.

Few Americans escape the experience of divorce, either first-hand or through the dissolutions of marriages of friends or relatives. According to the author, mediation offers a good alternative to the strictly adversarial divorce process that was so prevalent before such programs began to emerge. Originally published in 1991, this book was unique at the time in that it not only explores the role of communication in divorce mediation, but it also presents original research to support its claims. A series of empirical studies, it points readers to a more focused set of recommendations about communication than the typical practitioner's "How-to" books. A simulation exercise is also included, so that readers can apply the concepts described and see the results. The main goal of this text is to provide mediators with a language for understanding their own and their disputants' communication patterns, strategies, and tactics - a shortcoming of most other books on this topic when first published.

The purpose in writing this expository monograph has been three-fold. First, the author set out to present the solution of a problem posed by Wolfgang Krull in 1932. He asked whether what is now called the "Krull-Schmidt Theorem" holds for artinian modules. A negative answer was published only in 1995 by Facchini, Herbera, Levy and Vamos. Second, the author presents the answer to a question posed by Warfield in 1975, namely, whether the Krull-Schmidt-Theorem holds for serial modules. Facchini published a negative answer in 1996. The solution to the Warfield problem shows an interesting behavior; in fact, it is a phenomena so rare in the history of Krull-Schmidt type theorems that its presentation to a wider mathematical audience provides the third incentive for this monograph. Briefly, the Krull-Schmidt-Theorem holds for some, not all, classes of modules. When it does hold, any two indecomposable decompositions are uniquely determined up to one permutation. For serial modules the theorem does not hold, but any two indecomposable decompositions are uniquely determined up to two permutations. Apart from these issues, the book addresses various topics in module theory and ring theory, some now considered classical (such as Goldie dimension, semiperfect rings, Krull dimension, rings of quotients, and their applications) and others more specialized (such as dual Goldie dimension, semilocal endomorphism rings, serial rings and modules, exchange property, -pure-injective modules). Open problems conclude the work.

This edited collection covers the role of the process observer - a position that enhances the effectiveness of group functioning by observing the process, summarizing the behavior of the group so that the group can learn and, if needed, improve its functioning. There is little guidance on best practices for this role, and in most settings, process observers are forced to rely on whatever previous training they have received in group work to fulfil their role. The first of its kind, this book offers a wealth of resources for the role of group process observer organized in a systematic way. Each contributor focuses on a specific aspect of group process observation, identifying what is currently known on the topic, suggesting best practices, and providing the reader with tools, structures, and guidelines for effective process observation. Students and educators of group work courses will find this book integral as it covers the existing gap in literature on group process observation.

This edited collection covers the role of the process observer - a position that enhances the effectiveness of group functioning by observing the process, summarizing the behavior of the group so that the group can learn and, if needed, improve its functioning. There is little guidance on best practices for this role, and in most settings, process observers are forced to rely on whatever previous training they have received in group work to fulfil their role. The first of its kind, this book offers a wealth of resources for the role of group process observer organized in a systematic way. Each contributor focuses on a specific aspect of group process observation, identifying what is currently known on the topic, suggesting best practices, and providing the reader with tools, structures, and guidelines for effective process observation. Students and educators of group work courses will find this book integral as it covers the existing gap in literature on group process observation.

Queueing Theory deals with systems where there is contention for resources, but the demands are only known probabilistically.

This book can be considered to be a monograph or a textbook, and thus is aimed at two audiences: those who already know Queueing Theory but would like to know more of the Linear Algebraic Approach; and as a rst course for students who don't already have a strong background in probability, and feel more comfortable with algebraic arguments. Also, the equations are well suited to easy computation. In fact, there is much discussion on how various properties can be easily computed in any language that has automatic matrix operations (e.g., MATLAB). To help with physical insight, there are over 80 gures, numerous examples and exercises distributed throughout the book. There are, perhaps 50 books on QT that are available today, and most practitioners have several of them on their shelves. This book would be a good addition, as well as a good supplement to another text.

This second edition has been updated throughout including a new chapter on Semi Markov Processes and new material on matrix representations of distributions and Power-tailed distribution.

Lester Lipsky is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Connecticut.

Starting with the Schur-Zassenhaus theorem, this monograph documents a wide variety of results concerning complementation of normal subgroups in finite groups. The contents cover a wide range of material from reduction theorems and subgroups in the derived and lower nilpotent series to abelian normal subgroups and formations. Contents Prerequisites The Schur-Zassenhaus theorem: A bit of history and motivation Abelian and minimal normal subgroups Reduction theorems Subgroups in the chief series, derived series, and lower nilpotent series Normal subgroups with abelian sylow subgroups The formation generation Groups with specific classes of subgroups complemented

Contemporary politics is mass-communication politics. Politicians are not only seen and heard, they are seen and heard in close-up through television appearances, speeches, interviews, and on social media. In this book, the authors analyse the ways in which politicians communicate with each other, the media, and the electorate; they also discuss the implications of contemporary political discourse on the democratic process as a whole. Politicians in interviews are typically castigated for their evasiveness. However, microanalytic research shows that there is more to political discourse than this apparent ambiguity. This book reveals how equivocation, interruptions, and personal antagonism can offer valuable insights into a politician's communicative style. The authors review their empirical research not only on political interviews, but also on speeches, parliamentary debates, and political journalism. Further insights include how political speakers interact with their audiences, how party leaders engage in adversarial discourse at PMQs, and how the spoken messages of politicians can be affected by modern journalistic editing techniques. Thereby, this research generates greater awareness of communicative practices in a diverse range of political contexts. While the interviews and parliamentary debates analysed pertain to UK politics, the speeches also draw on the USA, and European and Far Eastern nations. This engaging book is a fascinating resource for students and academics in psychology, politics, communication, and other related disciplines such as sociology and linguistics. The research is also extremely relevant to policy makers and practitioners in politics and political journalism.

Contemporary politics is mass-communication politics. Politicians are not only seen and heard, they are seen and heard in close-up through television appearances, speeches, interviews, and on social media. In this book, the authors analyse the ways in which politicians communicate with each other, the media, and the electorate; they also discuss the implications of contemporary political discourse on the democratic process as a whole. Politicians in interviews are typically castigated for their evasiveness. However, microanalytic research shows that there is more to political discourse than this apparent ambiguity. This book reveals how equivocation, interruptions, and personal antagonism can offer valuable insights into a politician's communicative style. The authors review their empirical research not only on political interviews, but also on speeches, parliamentary debates, and political journalism. Further insights include how political speakers interact with their audiences, how party leaders engage in adversarial discourse at PMQs, and how the spoken messages of politicians can be affected by modern journalistic editing techniques. Thereby, this research generates greater awareness of communicative practices in a diverse range of political contexts. While the interviews and parliamentary debates analysed pertain to UK politics, the speeches also draw on the USA, and European and Far Eastern nations. This engaging book is a fascinating resource for students and academics in psychology, politics, communication, and other related disciplines such as sociology and linguistics. The research is also extremely relevant to policy makers and practitioners in politics and political journalism.

Optimal feedback control arises in different areas such as aerospace engineering, chemical processing, resource economics, etc. In this context, the application of dynamic programming techniques leads to the solution of fully nonlinear Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations. This book presents the state of the art in the numerical approximation of Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations, including post-processing of Galerkin methods, high-order methods, boundary treatment in semi-Lagrangian schemes, reduced basis methods, comparison principles for viscosity solutions, max-plus methods, and the numerical approximation of Monge-Ampere equations. This book also features applications in the simulation of adaptive controllers and the control of nonlinear delay differential equations. Contents From a monotone probabilistic scheme to a probabilistic max-plus algorithm for solving Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations Improving policies for Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations by postprocessing Viability approach to simulation of an adaptive controller Galerkin approximations for the optimal control of nonlinear delay differential equations Efficient higher order time discretization schemes for Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations based on diagonally implicit symplectic Runge-Kutta methods Numerical solution of the simple Monge-Ampere equation with nonconvex Dirichlet data on nonconvex domains On the notion of boundary conditions in comparison principles for viscosity solutions Boundary mesh refinement for semi-Lagrangian schemes A reduced basis method for the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation within the European Union Emission Trading Scheme

This book gathers together selected contributions presented at the 3rd Moroccan Andalusian Meeting on Algebras and their Applications, held in Chefchaouen, Morocco, April 12-14, 2018, and which reflects the mathematical collaboration between south European and north African countries, mainly France, Spain, Morocco, Tunisia and Senegal. The book is divided in three parts and features contributions from the following fields: algebraic and analytic methods in associative and non-associative structures; homological and categorical methods in algebra; and history of mathematics. Covering topics such as rings and algebras, representation theory, number theory, operator algebras, category theory, group theory and information theory, it opens up new avenues of study for graduate students and young researchers. The findings presented also appeal to anyone interested in the fields of algebra and mathematical analysis.

Evolution and the Human-Animal Drive to Conflict examines how fundamental, universal animal drives, such as dominance/prevalence, survival, kinship, and "profit" (greed, advantage, whether of material or social nature), provide the basis for 'the evolutionary trap' that promotes the unstable, conflictive, dominant-prone individual and group human behaviours. Examining this behavioural tension, the book argues that while these innate features set up behaviours that lean towards aggression influenced by social inequalities, the means implemented to defuse them resort to emotional and intellectual strategies that sponsor fanaticism and often reproduce the very same behaviours they intend to defuse. In addressing these concerns, the book argues that we should enhance our resources to promote solidarity, accept cultural differences, deter expansionist and uncontrolled profit drives, and achieve collective access towards knowledge and progress in living conditions. This entails promoting the redistribution of resources and creative labour access and avoiding policies that generate a fragmented world with collective and individual development disparities that invite and encourage dominance behaviours.This resource redistribution asserts that it is necessary to reformulate the global set of human priorities towards increased access to better living conditions, cognitive enhancement, a more amiable interaction with the ecosystem and non-aggressive cultural differences, promote universal access to knowledge and enhance creativity and cultural convivence. These behavioural changes entail partial derangement of our ancestral animal drives camouflaged under different cultural profiles until the species succeeds in replacing the dominance of basic animal drives with prosocial, collective ones. Though it entails a formidable task of confronting financial, military, and religious powers and cultural inertias - human history is also a challenging, continuous experience in these domains - for the sake of our own self-identity and self-evaluation we should reject any suggestion of not continuing embracing slowly constructing collective utopias channelled towards improving individual and collective freedom and creativeness. This book will interest academics and students in social, cognitive, and evolutionary psychology, the neurosciences, paleoanthropology, philosophy, and anthropology.

This book explores the role of listening in community engagement and peace building efforts, bridging academic research in communication and practical applications for individual and social change. For all their differences, community engagement and peacebuilding efforts share much in common: the need to establish and agree on achievable and measurable goals, the importance of trust, and the need for conflict management, to name but a few. This book presents listening-considered as a multi-disciplinary concept related to but distinct from civility, civic participation, and other social processes-as a primary mechanism for accomplishing these tasks. Individual chapters explore these themes in an array of international contexts, examining topics such as conflict resolution, restorative justice, environmental justice, migrants and refugees, and trauma-informed peacebuilding. The book includes contemporary literature reviews and theoretical insights covering the role of listening as related to individual, social, and governmental efforts to better engage communities and build, maintain, or establish peace in an increasingly divided world. This collection provides invaluable insight to researchers, students, educators, and practitioners in intercultural and international communication, conflict management, peacebuilding, community engagement, and international studies.

Suitable for graduate students and professional researchers in operator theory and/or analysis Numerous applications in related scientific fields and areas.

Insecurity is an inevitable part of being human. Although life is insecure for every organism, humans alone are burdened by knowing that this is so. This ground-breaking volume features contributions by leading international researchers exploring the social psychology of insecurity, and how existential, metaphysical and social uncertainty influence human social behaviour. Chapters in the book investigate the psychological origins of insecurity, evolutionary theorizing about the functions of insecurity, the motivational strategies people adopt to manage insecurity, self-regulation strategies, the role of insecurity in the formation and maintenance of social relationships, and the influence of insecurity and uncertainty on the organization of larger social systems and public affairs. The chapters also discuss how insecurity influences many areas of contemporary social life, highlighting the applied implications of this line of research. Topics covered include the role of insecurity in social communication, social judgments, decision making, group identification, morality, interpersonal behaviour, relationships, attitudes and many applied aspects of social life and politics where understanding the psychology of insecurity is of critical importance. This accessible and engaging book will be of interest to students, researchers and practitioners as a textbook or reference book in behavioral and social science fields, as well as to a broad spectrum of intelligent lay audience seeking to understand one of the most intriguing issues that shapes human social life.

Insecurity is an inevitable part of being human. Although life is insecure for every organism, humans alone are burdened by knowing that this is so. This ground-breaking volume features contributions by leading international researchers exploring the social psychology of insecurity, and how existential, metaphysical and social uncertainty influence human social behaviour. Chapters in the book investigate the psychological origins of insecurity, evolutionary theorizing about the functions of insecurity, the motivational strategies people adopt to manage insecurity, self-regulation strategies, the role of insecurity in the formation and maintenance of social relationships, and the influence of insecurity and uncertainty on the organization of larger social systems and public affairs. The chapters also discuss how insecurity influences many areas of contemporary social life, highlighting the applied implications of this line of research. Topics covered include the role of insecurity in social communication, social judgments, decision making, group identification, morality, interpersonal behaviour, relationships, attitudes and many applied aspects of social life and politics where understanding the psychology of insecurity is of critical importance. This accessible and engaging book will be of interest to students, researchers and practitioners as a textbook or reference book in behavioral and social science fields, as well as to a broad spectrum of intelligent lay audience seeking to understand one of the most intriguing issues that shapes human social life.

In this edition, a set of Supplementary Notes and Remarks has been added at the end, grouped according to chapter. Some of these call attention to subsequent developments, others add further explanation or additional remarks. Most of the remarks are accompanied by a briefly indicated proof, which is sometimes different from the one given in the reference cited. The list of references has been expanded to include many recent contributions, but it is still not intended to be exhaustive. John C. Oxtoby Bryn Mawr, April 1980 Preface to the First Edition This book has two main themes: the Baire category theorem as a method for proving existence, and the "duality" between measure and category. The category method is illustrated by a variety of typical applications, and the analogy between measure and category is explored in all of its ramifications. To this end, the elements of metric topology are reviewed and the principal properties of Lebesgue measure are derived. It turns out that Lebesgue integration is not essential for present purposes-the Riemann integral is sufficient. Concepts of general measure theory and topology are introduced, but not just for the sake of generality. Needless to say, the term "category" refers always to Baire category; it has nothing to do with the term as it is used in homological algebra.

Lattices and Ordered Algebraic Structures provides a lucid and concise introduction to the basic results concerning the notion of an order. Although as a whole it is mainly intended for beginning postgraduates, the prerequisities are minimal and selected parts can profitably be used to broaden the horizon of the advanced undergraduate.

The treatment is modern, with a slant towards recent developments in the theory of residuated lattices and ordered regular semigroups. Topics covered include: residuated mappings; Galois connections; modular, distributive, and complemented lattices; Boolean algebras; pseudocomplemented lattices; Stone algebras; Heyting algebras; ordered groups; lattice-ordered groups; representable groups; Archimedean ordered structures; ordered semigroups; naturally ordered regular and inverse Dubreil-Jacotin semigroups.

Featuring material that has been hitherto available only in research articles, and an account of the range of applications of the theory, there are also many illustrative examples and numerous exercises throughout, making it ideal for use as a course text, or as a basic introduction to the field for researchers in mathematics, logic and computer science.

This book studies the foundations of quantum theory through its relationship to classical physics. This idea goes back to the Copenhagen Interpretation (in the original version due to Bohr and Heisenberg), which the author relates to the mathematical formalism of operator algebras originally created by von Neumann. The book therefore includes comprehensive appendices on functional analysis and C*-algebras, as well as a briefer one on logic, category theory, and topos theory. Matters of foundational as well as mathematical interest that are covered in detail include symmetry (and its "spontaneous" breaking), the measurement problem, the Kochen-Specker, Free Will, and Bell Theorems, the Kadison-Singer conjecture, quantization, indistinguishable particles, the quantum theory of large systems, and quantum logic, the latter in connection with the topos approach to quantum theory. This book is Open Access under a CC BY licence.

A fusion system over a p-group S is a category whose objects form the set of all subgroups of S, whose morphisms are certain injective group homomorphisms, and which satisfies axioms first formulated by Puig that are modelled on conjugacy relations in finite groups. The definition was originally motivated by representation theory, but fusion systems also have applications to local group theory and to homotopy theory. The connection with homotopy theory arises through classifying spaces which can be associated to fusion systems and which have many of the nice properties of p-completed classifying spaces of finite groups. Beginning with a detailed exposition of the foundational material, the authors then proceed to discuss the role of fusion systems in local finite group theory, homotopy theory and modular representation theory. The book serves as a basic reference and as an introduction to the field, particularly for students and other young mathematicians.

Lie theory is a mathematical framework for encoding the concept of symmetries of a problem, and was the central theme of an INdAM intensive research period at the Centro de Giorgi in Pisa, Italy, in the academic year 2014-2015. This book gathers the key outcomes of this period, addressing topics such as: structure and representation theory of vertex algebras, Lie algebras and superalgebras, as well as hyperplane arrangements with different approaches, ranging from geometry and topology to combinatorics.

This text seeks to generate interest in abstract algebra by introducing each new structure and topic via a real-world application. The down-to-earth presentation is accessible to a readership with no prior knowledge of abstract algebra. Students are led to algebraic concepts and questions in a natural way through their everyday experiences.

Applications include:

Identification numbers and modular arithmetic(linear) error-correcting codes, including cyclic codesruler and compass constructionscryptographysymmetry of patterns in the real plane

"Abstract Algebra: Structure and Application" is suitable as a text for a first course on abstract algebra whose main purpose is to generate interest in the subject or as a supplementary text for more advanced courses. The material paves the way to subsequent courses that further develop the theory of abstract algebra and will appeal to students of mathematics, mathematics education, computer science, and engineering interested in applications of algebraic concepts.

This edited volume presents a fascinating collection of lecture notes focusing on differential equations from two viewpoints: formal calculus (through the theory of Groebner bases) and geometry (via quiver theory). Groebner bases serve as effective models for computation in algebras of various types. Although the theory of Groebner bases was developed in the second half of the 20th century, many works on computational methods in algebra were published well before the introduction of the modern algebraic language. Since then, new algorithms have been developed and the theory itself has greatly expanded. In comparison, diagrammatic methods in representation theory are relatively new, with the quiver varieties only being introduced - with big impact - in the 1990s. Divided into two parts, the book first discusses the theory of Groebner bases in their commutative and noncommutative contexts, with a focus on algorithmic aspects and applications of Groebner bases to analysis on systems of partial differential equations, effective analysis on rings of differential operators, and homological algebra. It then introduces representations of quivers, quiver varieties and their applications to the moduli spaces of meromorphic connections on the complex projective line. While no particular reader background is assumed, the book is intended for graduate students in mathematics, engineering and related fields, as well as researchers and scholars.

Fusion systems are a recent development in finite group theory and sit at the intersection of algebra and topology. This book is the first to deal comprehensively with this new and expanding field, taking the reader from the basics of the theory right to the state of the art. Three motivational chapters, indicating the interaction of fusion and fusion systems in group theory, representation theory and topology are followed by six chapters that explore the theory of fusion systems themselves. Starting with the basic definitions, the topics covered include: weakly normal and normal subsystems; morphisms and quotients; saturation theorems; results about control of fusion; and the local theory of fusion systems. At the end there is also a discussion of exotic fusion systems. Designed for use as a text and reference work, this book is suitable for graduate students and experts alike.