The book examines the future deployment of renewable power from a normative point of view. It identifies properties characterizing the cost-optimal transition towards a renewable power system and analyzes the key drivers behind this transition. Among those drivers, particular attention is paid to technological cost reductions and the implications of uncertainty. From a methodological perspective, the main contributions of this book relate to the field of endogenous learning and uncertainty in optimizing energy system models. The primary objective here is closing the gap between the strand of literature covering renewable potential analyses on the one side and energy system modeling with endogenous technological change on the other side. The models applied in this book demonstrate that fundamental changes must occur to transform today's power sector into a more sustainable one over the course of this century. Apart from its methodological contributions, this work is also intended to provide practically relevant insights regarding the long-term competitiveness of renewable power generation.

This book systematically interprets and documents new, unifying principles and basic laws describing the most relevant aspects of hierarchy. To do so, it discusses recent experiments and models that are simple and realistic enough to reproduce the observations, and develops concepts for a better understanding of the complexity of systems consisting of many organisms. The book covers systems ranging from flocks of birds to groups of people. Although it focuses on hierarchical collective behavior in general, two aspects pop up in the majority of cases: collective motion and dynamically changing, partially directed networks (and the natural relation between the two). In addition, it offers a brief description of the most relevant definitions and concepts involved in the context of hierarchies, presenting both a review of the current literature and a number of new experimental and computational results in more detail. It is a valuable resource for students and scholars pursuing research on the structure of interactions within the collectives of animals and humans.

The beginning of the 21st century can be characterized as the" time-delay boom" leading to numerous important results. The purpose of this book is two-fold, to familiarize the non-expert reader with time-delay systems and to provide a systematic treatment of modern ideas and techniques for experts. This book is based on the course "Introduction to time-delay systems" for graduate students in Engineering and Applied Mathematics that the author taught in Tel Aviv University in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 academic years. The sufficient background to follow most of the material are the undergraduate courses in mathematics and an introduction to control. The book leads the reader from some basic classical results on time-delay systems to recent developments on Lyapunov-based analysis and design with applications to the hot topics of sampled-data and network-based control. The objective is to provide useful tools that will allow the reader not only to apply the existing methods, but also to develop new ones. It should be of interest for researchers working in the field, for graduate students in engineering and applied mathematics, and for practicing engineers. It may also be used as a textbook for a graduate course on time-delay systems.

The advantages of periodic control have been known since humanity learned to cultivate crops in rotation to increase production. In more recent times, it has been recognized that some industrial and technological systems also work or function better in a periodic fashion. Moreover, with periodic control laws it has been possible to solve problems for which no time-invariant solution exists. Periodic models are also able to describe the intrinsic periodicity in many natural phenomena and time series.

Periodic Systems gives a comprehensive treatment of the theory of time-varying dynamical systems with periodic coefficients, including the problems of filtering and control.

Topics covered include:

a [ basic issues, including Floquet theory, controllability and observability, canonical decomposition, system norms and Lyapunov and robust stability;

a [ the problem of state estimation in its various forms, filtering, prediction and smoothing;

a [ control design methods, particularly optimal and robust control.

The text focuses on discrete-time signals and systems; however, an overview of the entire field, including the continuous-time case, is provided in the first chapter. The authorsa (TM) presentation of the theory and results is mathematically rigorous while maintaining a readable style, avoiding excessive formalism. This makes the book accessible to graduate students and researchers from the fields of engineering, physics, economics and mathematics.

The book deals with dynamical systems, generated by linear mappings of finite dimensional spaces and their applications. These systems have a relatively simple structure from the point of view of the modern dynamical systems theory. However, for the dynamical systems of this sort, it is possible to obtain explicit answers to specific questions being useful in applications. The considered problems are natural and look rather simple, but in reality in the course of investigation, they confront users with plenty of subtle questions and their detailed analysis needs a substantial effort. The problems arising are related to linear algebra and dynamical systems theory, and therefore, the book can be considered as a natural amplification, refinement and supplement to linear algebra and dynamical systems theory textbooks.

This book, based on a selection of talks given at a dedicated meeting in Cortona, Italy, in June 2013, shows the high degree of interaction between a number of fields related to applied sciences. Applied sciences consider situations in which the evolution of a given system over time is observed, and the related models can be formulated in terms of evolution equations (EEs). These equations have been studied intensively in theoretical research and are the source of an enormous number of applications. In this volume, particular attention is given to direct, inverse and control problems for EEs. The book provides an updated overview of the field, revealing its richness and vitality.

This book highlights cutting-edge research in the field of network science, offering scientists, researchers, students, and practitioners a unique update on the latest advances in theory and a multitude of applications. It presents the peer-reviewed proceedings of the X International Conference on Complex Networks and their Applications (COMPLEX NETWORKS 2021). The carefully selected papers cover a wide range of theoretical topics such as network models and measures; community structure, network dynamics; diffusion, epidemics and spreading processes; resilience and control as well as all the main network applications, including social and political networks; networks in finance and economics; biological and neuroscience networks, and technological networks.

This book highlights cutting-edge research in the field of network science, offering scientists, researchers, students, and practitioners a unique update on the latest advances in theory and a multitude of applications. It presents the peer-reviewed proceedings of the X International Conference on Complex Networks and their Applications (COMPLEX NETWORKS 2021). The carefully selected papers cover a wide range of theoretical topics such as network models and measures; community structure, network dynamics; diffusion, epidemics and spreading processes; resilience and control as well as all the main network applications, including social and political networks; networks in finance and economics; biological and neuroscience networks, and technological networks.

This work represents a milestone for the "ULOOP User-centric Wireless Local Loop" project funded by the EU IST Seventh Framework Programme. ULOOP is focused on the robust, secure, and autonomic deployment of user-centric wireless networks. Contributions by ULOOP partners as well as invited tutorials by international experts in the field. The expected impact is to increase awareness to user-centric networking in terms, e.g., of business opportunities and quality of experience, and to present adequate technology to sustain the growth of user-friendly wireless architectures. Throughout the last 3 years, ULOOP has developed enabling technologies for user-centricity in wireless networks, with particular emphasis on social trust management, cooperation incentives, community building, mobility estimation, and resource management. This work will be of interest to researchers, policymakers, operators, vendors, and end-users interested in the current and future directions of user-centric access networks.

The use of contextually aware, pervasive, distributed computing, and sensor networks to bridge the gap between the physical and online worlds is the basis of mobile social networking. This book shows how applications can be built to provide mobile social networking, the research issues that need to be solved to enable this vision, and how mobile social networking can be used to provide computational intelligence that will improve daily life. With contributions from the fields of sociology, computer science, human-computer interaction and design, this book demonstrates how mobile social networks can be inferred from users' physical interactions both with the environment and with others, as well as how users behave around them and how their behavior differs on mobile vs. traditional online social networks.

This book presents the fundamental theory for non-standard diffusion problems in movement ecology. Levy processes and anomalous diffusion have shown to be both powerful and useful tools for qualitatively and quantitatively describing a wide variety of spatial population ecological phenomena and dynamics, such as invasion fronts and search strategies. Adopting a self-contained, textbook-style approach, the authors provide the elements of statistical physics and stochastic processes on which the modeling of movement ecology is based and systematically introduce the physical characterization of ecological processes at the microscopic, mesoscopic and macroscopic levels. The explicit definition of these levels and their interrelations is particularly suitable to coping with the broad spectrum of space and time scales involved in bio-ecological problems. Including numerous exercises (with solutions), this text is aimed at graduate students and newcomers in this field at the interface of theoretical ecology, mathematical biology and physics.

Hermann Haken (born 1927) is one of the "fathers" of the quantum-mechanical laser theory, formulated between 1962 and 1966, in strong competition with American researchers. Later on, he created Synergetics, the science of cooperation in multicomponent systems. The book concentrates on the development of his scientific work during the first thirty-five years of his career. In 1970 he and his doctoral student Robert Graham were able to show that the laser is an example of a nonlinear system far from thermal equilibrium that shows a phase-transition like behavior. Subsequently, this insight opened the way for the formulation of Synergetics. Synergetics is able to explain, how very large systems show the phenomenon of self-organization that can be mathematically described by only very few order parameters. The results of Haken's research were published in two seminal books Synergetics (1977) and Advanced Synergetics (1983). After the year 1985 Haken concentrated his research on the macroscopic foundation of Synergetics. This led him towards the application of synergetic principles in medicine, cognitive research and, finally, in psychology. A comprehensive bibliography of Hermann Haken's publications (nearly 600 numbers) is included in the book.

Sampled-data Models for Linear and Nonlinear Systems provides a fresh new look at a subject with which many researchers may think themselves familiar. Rather than emphasising the differences between sampled-data and continuous-time systems, the authors proceed from the premise that, with modern sampling rates being as high as they are, it is becoming more appropriate to emphasise connections and similarities. The text is driven by three motives: * the ubiquity of computers in modern control and signal-processing equipment means that sampling of systems that really evolve continuously is unavoidable; * although superficially straightforward, sampling can easily produce erroneous results when not treated properly; and * the need for a thorough understanding of many aspects of sampling among researchers and engineers dealing with applications to which they are central. The authors tackle many misconceptions which, although appearing reasonable at first sight, are in fact either partially or completely erroneous. They also deal with linear and nonlinear, deterministic and stochastic cases. The impact of the ideas presented on several standard problems in signals and systems is illustrated using a number of applications. Academic researchers and graduate students in systems, control and signal processing will find the ideas presented in Sampled-data Models for Linear and Nonlinear Systems to be a useful manual for dealing with sampled-data systems, clearing away mistaken ideas and bringing the subject thoroughly up to date. Researchers in statistics and economics will also derive benefit from the reworking of ideas relating a model derived from data sampling to an original continuous system.

This book showcases a subclass of hereditary systems, that is, systems with behaviour depending not only on their current state but also on their past history; it is an introduction to the mathematical theory of optimal control for stochastic difference Volterra equations of neutral type. As such, it will be of much interest to researchers interested in modelling processes in physics, mechanics, automatic regulation, economics and finance, biology, sociology and medicine for all of which such equations are very popular tools. The text deals with problems of optimal control such as meeting given performance criteria, and stabilization, extending them to neutral stochastic difference Volterra equations. In particular, it contrasts the difference analogues of solutions to optimal control and optimal estimation problems for stochastic integral Volterra equations with optimal solutions for corresponding problems in stochastic difference Volterra equations. Optimal Control of Stochastic Difference Volterra Equations commences with an historical introduction to the emergence of this type of equation with some additional mathematical preliminaries. It then deals with the necessary conditions for optimality in the control of the equations and constructs a feedback control scheme. The approximation of stochastic quasilinear Volterra equations with quadratic performance functionals is then considered. Optimal stabilization is discussed and the filtering problem formulated. Finally, two methods of solving the optimal control problem for partly observable linear stochastic processes, also with quadratic performance functionals, are developed. Integrating the author's own research within the context of the current state-of-the-art of research in difference equations, hereditary systems theory and optimal control, this book is addressed to specialists in mathematical optimal control theory and to graduate students in pure and applied mathematics and control engineering.

Regulation of the Power Sector is a unified, consistent and comprehensive treatment of the theories and practicalities of regulation in modern power-supply systems. The need for generation to occur at the time of use occasioned by the impracticality of large-scale electricity storage coupled with constant and often unpredictable changes in demand make electricity-supply systems large, dynamic and complex and their regulation a daunting task. Arranged in four parts, this book addresses both traditional regulatory frameworks and also liberalized and re-regulated environments. First, an introduction gives a full characterization of power supply including engineering, economic and regulatory viewpoints. The second part presents the fundamentals of regulation and the third looks at the regulation of particular components of the power sector in detail. Advanced topics and subjects still open or subject to dispute form the content of Part IV. In a sector where regulatory design is the key driver of both the industry efficiency and the returns on investment, Regulation of the Power Sector is directed at regulators, policy decision makers, business managers and researchers. It is a pragmatic text, well-tested by the authors' quarter-century of experience of power systems from around the world. Power system professionals and students at all levels will derive much benefit from the authors' wealth of blended theory and real-world-derived know-how.

This book provides an accessible introduction to the variational formulation of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, with a novel emphasis on global descriptions of the dynamics, which is a significant conceptual departure from more traditional approaches based on the use of local coordinates on the configuration manifold. In particular, we introduce a general methodology for obtaining globally valid equations of motion on configuration manifolds that are Lie groups, homogeneous spaces, and embedded manifolds, thereby avoiding the difficulties associated with coordinate singularities. The material is presented in an approachable fashion by considering concrete configuration manifolds of increasing complexity, which then motivates and naturally leads to the more general formulation that follows. Understanding of the material is enhanced by numerous in-depth examples throughout the book, culminating in non-trivial applications involving multi-body systems. This book is written for a general audience of mathematicians, engineers, and physicists with a basic knowledge of mechanics. Some basic background in differential geometry is helpful, but not essential, as the relevant concepts are introduced in the book, thereby making the material accessible to a broad audience, and suitable for either self-study or as the basis for a graduate course in applied mathematics, engineering, or physics.

The book is a collection of high-quality peer-reviewed research papers presented at International Conference on Frontiers of Intelligent Computing: Theory and applications (FICTA 2016) held at School of Computer Engineering, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, India during 16 - 17 September 2016. The book aims to present theories, methodologies, new ideas, experiences, applications in all areas of intelligent computing and its applications to various engineering disciplines like computer science, electronics, electrical, mechanical engineering, etc.

Understanding Complex Urban Systems takes as its point of departure the insight that the challenges of global urbanization and the complexity of urban systems cannot be understood - let alone 'managed' - by sectoral and disciplinary approaches alone. But while there has recently been significant progress in broadening and refining the methodologies for the quantitative modeling of complex urban systems, in deepening the theoretical understanding of cities as complex systems, or in illuminating the implications for urban planning, there is still a lack of well-founded conceptual thinking on the methodological foundations and the strategies of modeling urban complexity across the disciplines. Bringing together experts from the fields of urban and spatial planning, ecology, urban geography, real estate analysis, organizational cybernetics, stochastic optimization, and literary studies, as well as specialists in various systems approaches and in transdisciplinary methodologies of urban analysis, the volume seeks to advance the discussion on multidisciplinary approaches to urban modeling. While engaging with the 'state of the art' in their respective fields, the contributions are specifically written for both experts from a broad range of disciplines as well as for urban practitioners who feel the need for new approaches given the uncertainty of current developments.

The study of nonlinear localized excitations is a long-standing challenge for research in basic and applied science, as well as engineering, due to their importance in understanding and predicting phenomena arising in nonlinear and complex systems, but also due to their potential for the development and design of novel applications. This volume is a compilation of chapters representing the current state-of-the-art on the field of localized excitations and their role in the dynamics of complex physical systems.

This compact monograph is focused on disturbance attenuation in nonsmooth dynamic systems, developing an H approach in the nonsmooth setting. Similar to the standard nonlinear H approach, the proposed nonsmooth design guarantees both the internal asymptotic stability of a nominal closed-loop system and the dissipativity inequality, which states that the size of an error signal is uniformly bounded with respect to the worst-case size of an external disturbance signal. This guarantee is achieved by constructing an energy or storage function that satisfies the dissipativity inequality and is then utilized as a Lyapunov function to ensure the internal stability requirements. Advanced H Control is unique in the literature for its treatment of disturbance attenuation in nonsmooth systems. It synthesizes various tools, including Hamilton-Jacobi-Isaacs partial differential inequalities as well as Linear Matrix Inequalities. Along with the finite-dimensional treatment, the synthesis is extended to infinite-dimensional setting, involving time-delay and distributed parameter systems. To help illustrate this synthesis, the book focuses on electromechanical applications with nonsmooth phenomena caused by dry friction, backlash, and sampled-data measurements. Special attention is devoted to implementation issues. Requiring familiarity with nonlinear systems theory, this book will be accessible to g raduate students interested in systems analysis and design, and is a welcome addition to the literature for researchers and practitioners in these areas.

Marginal Models for Dependent, Clustered, and Longitudinal Categorical Data provides a comprehensive overview of the basic principles of marginal modeling and offers a wide range of possible applications. Marginal models are often the best choice for answering important research questions when dependent observations are involved, as the many real world examples in this book show. In the social, behavioral, educational, economic, and biomedical sciences, data are often collected in ways that introduce dependencies in the observations to be compared. For example, the same respondents are interviewed at several occasions, several members of networks or groups are interviewed within the same survey, or, within families, both children and parents are investigated. Statistical methods that take the dependencies in the data into account must then be used, e.g., when observations at time one and time two are compared in longitudinal studies. At present, researchers almost automatically turn to multi-level models or to GEE estimation to deal with these dependencies. Despite the enormous potential and applicability of these recent developments, they require restrictive assumptions on the nature of the dependencies in the data. The marginal models of this book provide another way of dealing with these dependencies, without the need for such assumptions, and can be used to answer research questions directly at the intended marginal level. The maximum likelihood method, with its attractive statistical properties, is used for fitting the models. This book has mainly been written with applied researchers in mind. It includes many real world examples, explains the types of research questions for which marginal modeling is useful, and provides a detailed description of how to apply marginal models for a great diversity of research questions. All these examples are presented on the book's website (www.cmm.st), along with user friendly programs.

This treatment of modern topics related to the control of nonlinear systems is a collection of contributions celebrating the work of Professor Henk Nijmeijer and honoring his 60th birthday. It addresses several topics that have been the core of Professor Nijmeijer's work, namely: the control of nonlinear systems, geometric control theory, synchronization, coordinated control, convergent systems and the control of underactuated systems. The book presents recent advances in these areas, contributed by leading international researchers in systems and control. In addition to the theoretical questions treated in the text, particular attention is paid to a number of applications including (mobile) robotics, marine vehicles, neural dynamics and mechanical systems generally. This volume provides a broad picture of the analysis and control of nonlinear systems for scientists and engineers with an interest in the interdisciplinary field of systems and control theory. The reader will benefit from the expert participants' ideas on important open problems with contributions that represent the state of the art in nonlinear control.

The book is a collection of high-quality peer-reviewed research papers presented at International Conference on Frontiers of Intelligent Computing: Theory and applications (FICTA 2016) held at School of Computer Engineering, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, India during 16 - 17 September 2016. The book presents theories, methodologies, new ideas, experiences and applications in all areas of intelligent computing and its applications to various engineering disciplines like computer science, electronics, electrical and mechanical engineering.

A unified methodology for categorizing various complex objects is presented in this book. Through probability theory, novel asymptotically minimax criteria suitable for practical applications in imaging and data analysis are examined including the special cases such as the Jensen-Shannon divergence and the probabilistic neural network. An optimal approximate nearest neighbor search algorithm, which allows faster classification of databases is featured. Rough set theory, sequential analysis and granular computing are used to improve performance of the hierarchical classifiers. Practical examples in face identification (including deep neural networks), isolated commands recognition in voice control system and classification of visemes captured by the Kinect depth camera are included. This approach creates fast and accurate search procedures by using exact probability densities of applied dissimilarity measures. This book can be used as a guide for independent study and as supplementary material for a technically oriented graduate course in intelligent systems and data mining. Students and researchers interested in the theoretical and practical aspects of intelligent classification systems will find answers to: - Why conventional implementation of the naive Bayesian approach does not work well in image classification? - How to deal with insufficient performance of hierarchical classification systems? - Is it possible to prevent an exhaustive search of the nearest neighbor in a database?

This book discusses online engineering and virtual instrumentation, typical working areas for today's engineers and inseparably connected with areas such as Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems, collaborative networks and grids, cyber cloud technologies, and service architectures, to name just a few. It presents the outcomes of the 14th International Conference on Remote Engineering and Virtual Instrumentation (REV2017), held at Columbia University in New York from 15 to 17 March 2017. The conference addressed fundamentals, applications and experiences in the field of online engineering and virtual instrumentation in the light of growing interest in and need for teleworking, remote services and collaborative working environments as a result of the globalization of education. The book also discusses guidelines for education in university-level courses for these topics.