Prediction of a random field based on observations of the random field at some set of locations arises in mining, hydrology, atmospheric sciences, and geography. Kriging, a prediction scheme defined as any prediction scheme that minimizes mean squared prediction error among some class of predictors under a particular model for the field, is commonly used in all these areas of prediction. This book summarizes past work and describes new approaches to thinking about kriging.

Operations research and mathematical programming would not be as advanced today without the many advances in interior point methods during the last decade. These methods can now solve very efficiently and robustly large scale linear, nonlinear and combinatorial optimization problems that arise in various practical applications. The main ideas underlying interior point methods have influenced virtually all areas of mathematical programming including: analyzing and solving linear and nonlinear programming problems, sensitivity analysis, complexity analysis, the analysis of Newton's method, decomposition methods, polynomial approximation for combinatorial problems etc. This book covers the implications of interior techniques for the entire field of mathematical programming, bringing together many results in a uniform and coherent way. For the topics mentioned above the book provides theoretical as well as computational results, explains the intuition behind the main ideas, gives examples as well as proofs, and contains an extensive up-to-date bibliography. Audience: The book is intended for students, researchers and practitioners with a background in operations research, mathematics, mathematical programming, or statistics.

This book is written for quantitative finance professionals, students, educators, and mathematically inclined individual investors. It is about some of the latest developments in pricing, hedging, and investing in incomplete markets. With regard to pricing, two frameworks are fully elaborated: neutral and indifference pricing. With regard to hedging, the most conservative and relaxed hedging formulas are derived. With regard to investing, the neutral pricing methodology is also considered as a tool for connecting market asset prices with optimal positions in such assets.

SrdjanD.Stojanovic isProfessor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at University of Cincinnati (USA) and Professor in the Center for Financial Engineering at Suzhou University (China)."

Handbook of Grid Generation addresses the use of grids (meshes) in the numerical solutions of partial differential equations by finite elements, finite volume, finite differences, and boundary elements. Four parts divide the chapters: structured grids, unstructured girds, surface definition, and adaption/quality. An introduction to each section provides a roadmap through the material. This handbook covers: -Fundamental concepts and approaches -Grid generation process -Essential mathematical elements from tensor analysis and differential geometry, particularly relevant to curves and surfaces -Cells of any shape - Cartesian, structured curvilinear coordinates, unstructured tetrahedra, unstructured hexahedra, or various combinations -Separate grids overlaid on one another, communicating data through interpolation -Moving boundaries and internal interfaces in the field -Resolving gradients and controlling solution error -Grid generation codes, both commercial and freeware, as well as representative and illustrative grid configurations Handbook of Grid Generation contains 37 chapters as well as contributions from more than 100 experts from around the world, comprehensively evaluating this expanding field and providing a fundamental orientation for practitioners.

This monograph offers a concise overview of the theoretical description of various collective phenomena in condensed matter physics. These effects include the basic electronic structure in solid state physics, lattice vibrations, superconductivity, light-matter interaction and more advanced topics such as martensitic transistions.

Presents hyperspace fundamentals, offering a basic overview and a foundation for further study. Topics include the topology for hyperspaces, examples of geometric models for hyperspaces, 2x and C(X) for Peano continua X, arcs in hyperspaces, the shape and contractability of hyperspaces, hyperspaces and the fixed point property, and Whitney maps. The text contains examples and exercises throughout, and provides proofs for most results.

This is the sixth volume in a series of books on the general topics of supersymmetry, supergravity, black holes and the attractor mechanism. The present volume is based upon lectures held in May 2011 at the INFN-Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati School on Black Objects in Supergravity (BOSS2011), directed by Stefano Bellucci, with the participation of prestigious lecturers, including G. Lopes Cardoso, W. Chemissany, T. Ortin, J. Perz, O. Vaughan, D. Turton, L. Lusanna and S. Ferrara. All lectures were at a pedagogical, introductory level, a feature which is reflected in the specific "flavor" of this volume, which also benefited greatly from extensive discussions and related reworking of the various contributions.

This book gives a complete exposition of the present status of the theory of the Boltzmann equation and its applications. The Boltzmann equation, an integrodifferential equation established by Boltzmann in 1872 to describe the state of a dilute gas, still forms the basis for the kinetic theory of gases. It has proved fruitful not only for the study of the classical gases Boltzmann had in mind, but also, properly generalized, for electron transport in nuclear reactors, photon transport in superfluids, and radiative transport in planetary and stellar atmospheres. The text presents a unified approach to the problems arising in these different fields, by exploiting similarities whenever they exist and underlining the differences when necessary. But the main exposition is tied to the classical equation established by Boltzmann. Hence the detailed description of applications refers almost exclusively to monatomic neutral gases. Appropiate references are given to papers dealing with similar problems arising in other fields, with particular concern for neutron transport. A unique feature is the detailed consideration of the boundary conditions to be used in connection with the Boltzmann equation. Other topics covered in detail are the derivation of the Boltzmann equation from first principles, the theory of the linearized Boltzmann equation, the use of model equations, and the various regimes of rarefied gas dynamics. In addition to updating the material to 1987, the main improvement over the previous book of the author, "Theory and Application of the Boltzmann equation" is the detailed survey of the use of the techniques of functional analysis in connection with the nonlinear Boltzmannequation, a subject which has greatly progressed in the last ten years.

As occupational health and safety professionals require increased awareness of the whole field-and not just its specialized areas-they've started to need an all-encompassing reference work of necessary mathematical relationships.
Concise Guide to Environmental Definitions, Conversions, and Formulae is the quick and proficient source for that information. Professionals will find it's ideal for immediate reference; students and interns can benefit from it as a comprehensive study guide for certification exam preparation purposes.
Based on information presented in another essential reference (Definitions, Conversions, and Calculations for Occupational Safety and Health Professionals, Second Edition), the Concise Guide brings its most-cited details to an easily carried, portable size (41/2 x 6 3/4). Essential conversions, formulae, and definitions all await within those pages.
Virtually all of the mathematical relationships, formulas, definitions, and conversion factors any health and safety expert or trainee will ever need are all contained in the Concise Guide to Environmental Definitions, Conversions, and Formulae.

Despite successes of modern physics, the existence of dark energy and matter is indicative that conventional mechanical accounting is lacking. The most basic of all mechanical principles is Newton's second law, and conventionally, energy is just energy whether particle or wave energy. In this monograph, Louis de Broglie's idea of simultaneous existence of both particle and associated wave is developed, with a novel proposal to account for mass and energy through a combined particle-wave theory. Newton's second law of motion is replaced by a fully Lorentz invariant reformulation inclusive of both particles and waves. The model springs from continuum mechanics and forms a natural extension of special relativistic mechanics. It involves the notion of "force in the direction of time" and every particle has both particle and wave energies, arising as characteristics of space and time respectively. Dark matter and energy then emerge as special or privileged states occurring for alignments of spatial forces with the force in the direction of time. Dark matter is essentially a backward wave and dark energy a forward wave, both propagating at the speed of light. The model includes special relativistic mechanics and Schroedinger's quantum mechanics, and the major achievements of mechanics and quantum physics. Our ideas of particles and waves are not yet properly formulated, and are bound up with the speed of light as an extreme limit and particle-wave demarcation. Sub-luminal particles have an associated superluminal wave, so if sub-luminal waves have an associated superluminal particle, then there emerges the prospect for faster than light travel with all the implications for future humanity. Carefully structured over special relativity and quantum mechanics, Mathematics of Particle-Wave Mechanical Systems is not a completed story, but perhaps the first mechanical model within which such exalted notions might be realistically and soberly examined. If ultimately the distant universe become accessible, this will necessitate thinking differently about particles, waves and the role imposed by the speed of light. The text constitutes a single proposal in that direction and a depository for mathematically related results. It will appeal to researchers and students of mathematical physics, applied mathematics and engineering mechanics.

This volume presents the refereed proceedings of the Guangzhou International Symposium on Computational Mathematics, held at the Zhongshan University, People's Republic of China. Nearly 90 international mathematicians examine numerical optimization methods, wavelet analysis, computational approximation, numerical solutions of differential and integral equations, numerical linear algebra, inverse and ill-posed problems, geometric modelling, and signal and image processing and their applications.

In 1994 Peter Shor [65] published a factoring algorithm for a quantum computer that finds the prime factors of a composite integer N more efficiently than is possible with the known algorithms for a classical com puter. Since the difficulty of the factoring problem is crucial for the se curity of a public key encryption system, interest (and funding) in quan tum computing and quantum computation suddenly blossomed. Quan tum computing had arrived. The study of the role of quantum mechanics in the theory of computa tion seems to have begun in the early 1980s with the publications of Paul Benioff [6]' [7] who considered a quantum mechanical model of computers and the computation process. A related question was discussed shortly thereafter by Richard Feynman [35] who began from a different perspec tive by asking what kind of computer should be used to simulate physics. His analysis led him to the belief that with a suitable class of "quantum machines" one could imitate any quantum system.

Hardbound. This research annual presents state-of-the-art studies in the integration of mathematical planning and management. As the literature and techniques in financial planning and management become increasingly complex, our monographs aid in the dissemination of research efforts in quantitative financial analysis. Topics include cash management, capital budgeting, financial decisions, portfolio management and performance analysis, and financial planning models.

This book is the first to report on theoretical breakthroughs on control of complex dynamical systems developed by collaborative researchers in the two fields of dynamical systems theory and control theory. As well, its basic point of view is of three kinds of complexity: bifurcation phenomena subject to model uncertainty, complex behavior including periodic/quasi-periodic orbits as well as chaotic orbits, and network complexity emerging from dynamical interactions between subsystems. Analysis and Control of Complex Dynamical Systems offers a valuable resource for mathematicians, physicists, and biophysicists, as well as for researchers in nonlinear science and control engineering, allowing them to develop a better fundamental understanding of the analysis and control synthesis of such complex systems.

This volume contains the articles presented at the 18th International Meshing Roundtable (IMR) organized, in part, by Sandia National Laboratories and held October 25-28, 2009 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. The volume presents recent results of mesh generation and adaptation which has applications to finite element simulation. It introduces theoretical and novel ideas with practical potential.

This book is designed to provide valuable insight into how to improve the return on your investment when playing the lottery. While it does not promise that you will win more often, it does show you how to improve the odds of winning larger amounts when your numbers do come up. So, when you do win that million-dollar jackpot, you will be less likely to have to share it with anyone else.

Among the intriguing topics covered are the most popular (and the most foolish) combinations of numbers, why it is impossible to improve the odds of any legitimate lottery, how popular (and thus unprofitable) an attractive-looking ticket might be, why not to follow the suggested numbers from so-called "expert advisors" and why it is important to avoid winning combinations of past drawings. With this book and a little luck, the dream of winning millions might just come true.

Discusses the concepts of mechanical, thermal, and thermodynamic equilibrium and their applications. Covers the molecular basis for internal energy, entropy, thermodynamic equilibrium, and reversibility. Enables the reader to model irreversibility and determine the net loss in performance of a thermal system compared to an idealized system and approach an ideal one. Demonstrates entropy as a path independent property by use of reversible heat engines and reversible heat pumps interacting with a process between two states, the environment and the reservoir. Covers the role of reversibility from a thermodynamics standpoint and relates it to other areas, such as gas dynamics, combustion, propulsion, power plant engineering, and engines.

This book covers recent developments in the understanding, quantification, and exploitation of entanglement in spin chain models from both condensed matter and quantum information perspectives. Spin chain models are at the foundation of condensed matter physics and quantum information technologies and elucidate many fundamental phenomena such as information scrambling, quantum phase transitions, and many-body localization. Moreover, many quantum materials and emerging quantum devices are well described by spin chains. Comprising accessible, self-contained chapters written by leading researchers, this book is essential reading for graduate students and researchers in quantum materials and quantum information. The coverage is comprehensive, from the fundamental entanglement aspects of quantum criticality, non-equilibrium dynamics, classical and quantum simulation of spin chains through to their experimental realizations, and beyond into machine learning applications.

After about a century of success, physicists feel the need to probe the limits of validity of special-relativity base theories. This book is the outcome of a special seminar held on this topic. The authors gather in a single volume an extensive collection of introductions and reviews of the various facets involved, and also includes detailed discussion of philosophical and historical aspects.

This monograph provides the first up-to-date and self-contained presentation of a recently discovered mathematical structure-the Schrodinger-Virasoro algebra. Just as Poincare invariance or conformal (Virasoro) invariance play a key role in understanding, respectively, elementary particles and two-dimensional equilibrium statistical physics, this algebra of non-relativistic conformal symmetries may be expected to apply itself naturally to the study of some models of non-equilibrium statistical physics, or more specifically in the context of recent developments related to the non-relativistic AdS/CFT correspondence.

The study of the structure of this infinite-dimensional Lie algebra touches upon topics as various as statistical physics, vertex algebras, Poisson geometry, integrable systems and supergeometry as well as representation theory, the cohomology of infinite-dimensional Lie algebras, and the spectral theory of Schrodinger operators."

The Second Edition of this book includes an abundance of examples to illustrate advanced concepts and brings out in a text book setting the algorithms for bivariate polynomial matrix factorization results that form the basis of two-dimensional systems theory. Algorithms and their implementation using symbolic algebra are emphasized.

The complexity of issues requiring rational decision making grows and thus such decisions are becoming more and more difficult, despite advances in methodology and tools for decision support and in other areas of research. Globalization, interlinks between environmental, industrial, social and political issues, and rapid speed of change all contribute to the increase of this complexity. Specialized knowledge about decision-making processes and their support is increasing, but a large spectrum of approaches presented in the literature is typically illustrated only by simple examples. Moreover, the integration of model-based decision support methodologies and tools with specialized model-based knowledge developed for handling real problems in environmental, engineering, industrial, economical, social and political activities is often not satisfactory. Therefore, there is a need to present the state of art of methodology and tools for development of model-based decision support systems, and illustrate this state by applications to various complex real-world decision problems. The monograph reports many years of experience of many researchers, who have not only contributed to the developments in operations research but also succeeded to integrate knowledge and craft of various disciplines into several modern decision support systems which have been applied to actual complex decision-making processes in various fields of policy making. The experience presented in this book will be of value to researchers and practitioners in various fields. The issues discussed in this book gain in importance with the development of the new era of the information society, where information, knowledge, and ways of processing them become a decisive part of human activities. The examples presented in this book illustrate how how various methods and tools of model-based decision support can actually be used for helping modern decision makers that face complex problems. Overview of the contents: The first part of this three-part book presents the methodological background and characteristics of modern decision-making environment, and the value of model-based decision support thus addressing current challenges of decision support. It also provides the methodology of building and analyzing mathematical models that represent underlying physical and economic processes, and that are useful for modern decision makers at various stages of decision making. These methods support not only the analysis of Pareto-efficient solutions that correspond best to decision maker preferences but also allow the use of other modeling concepts like soft constraints, soft simulation, or inverse simulation. The second part describes various types of tools that are used for the development of decision support systems. These include tools for modeling, simulation, optimization, tools supporting choice and user interfaces. The described tools are both standard, commercially available, and nonstandard, public domain or shareware software, which are robust enough to be used also for complex applications. All four environmental applications (regional water quality management, land use planning, cost-effective policies aimed at improving the European air quality, energy planning with environmental implications) presented in the third part of the book rely on many years of cooperation between the authors of the book with several IIASA's projects, and with many researchers from the wide IIASA network of collaborating institutions. All these applications are characterized by an intensive use of model-based decision support. Finally, the appendix contains a short description of some of the tools described in the book that are available from IIASA, free of charge, for research and educational purposes. The experiences reported in this book indicate that the development of DSSs for strategic environmental decision making should be a joint effort involving experts in the subject area, modelers, and decision support experts. For the other experiences discussed in this book, the authors stress the importance of good data bases, and good libraries of tools. One of the most important requirements is a modular structure of a DSS that enhances the reusability of system modules. In such modular structures, user interfaces play an important role. The book shows how modern achievements in mathematical programming and computer sciences may be exploited for supporting decision making, especially about strategic environmental problems. It presents the methodological background of various methods for model-based decision support and reviews methods and tools for model development and analysis. The methods and tools are amply illustrated with extensive applications. Audience: This book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the fields of model development and analysis, model-based decision analysis and support, (particularly in the environment, economics, agriculture, engineering, and negotiations areas) and mathematical programming. For understanding of some parts of the text a background in mathematics and operational research is required but several chapters of the book will be of value also for readers without such a background. The monograph is also suitable for use as a text book for courses on advanced (Master and Ph.D.) levels for programs on Operations Research, decision analysis, decision support and various environmental studies (depending on the program different parts of the book may be emphasized).

The last two decades have seen enormous developments in statistical methods for incomplete data. The EM algorithm and its extensions, multiple imputation, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo provide a set of flexible and reliable tools from inference in large classes of missing-data problems. Yet, in practical terms, those developments have had surprisingly little impact on the way most data analysts handle missing values on a routine basis.

Analysis of Incomplete Multivariate Data helps bridge the gap between theory and practice, making these missing-data tools accessible to a broad audience. It presents a unified, Bayesian approach to the analysis of incomplete multivariate data, covering datasets in which the variables are continuous, categorical, or both. The focus is applied, where necessary, to help readers thoroughly understand the statistical properties of those methods, and the behavior of the accompanying algorithms.

All techniques are illustrated with real data examples, with extended discussion and practical advice. All of the algorithms described in this book have been implemented by the author for general use in the statistical languages S and S Plus. The software is available free of charge on the Internet.

The book is devoted to rigorous derivation of macroscopic mathematical models as a homogenization of exact mathematical models at the microscopic level. The idea is quite natural: one first must describe the joint motion of the elastic skeleton and the fluid in pores at the microscopic level by means of classical continuum mechanics, and then use homogenization to find appropriate approximation models (homogenized equations). The Navier-Stokes equations still hold at this scale of the pore size in the order of 5 - 15 microns. Thus, as we have mentioned above, the macroscopic mathematical models obtained are still within the limits of physical applicability. These mathematical models describe different physical processes of liquid filtration and acoustics in poroelastic media, such as isothermal or non-isothermal filtration, hydraulic shock, isothermal or non-isothermal acoustics, diffusion-convection, filtration and acoustics in composite media or in porous fractured reservoirs. Our research is based upon the Nguetseng two-scale convergent method.

The subject of General Cost Structure Analysis is the quantitative analysis of cost structures with a minimum of a priori assumptions on firm technology and on firm behaviour. The study develops an innovative line of attack building on the primal characterisation of the firm's generalised shadow cost minimisation program. The resulting Flexible Cost Model (FCM) is highly conducive to modern panel data techniques and allows for a flexible specification not only of firm technology but also of firm behaviour, as shadow prices can be made input-, time- and firm-specific. FCM is applied to a panel dataset on several hundred of the largest banking institutions in the G-5 (France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, United States) in the 1989-1996 period. The main empirical results are summarised. In particular, FCM provides new insights into the existence of scale economies in banking and an assessment of the extent of excess labour in the G-5 banking industries, particularly as a consequence of labour market rigidities in a context of rapidly declining technology prices. FCM also provides an evaluation of the sources of the cost advantage of American and British banks in comparison to Continental European banks.