Most networks and databases that humans have to deal with contain large, albeit finite number of units. Their structure, for maintaining functional consistency of the components, is essentially not random and calls for a precise quantitative description of relations between nodes (or data units) and all network components. This book is an introduction, for both graduate students and newcomers to the field, to the theory of graphs and random walks on such graphs. The methods based on random walks and diffusions for exploring the structure of finite connected graphs and databases are reviewed (Markov chain analysis). This provides the necessary basis for consistently discussing a number of applications such diverse as electric resistance networks, estimation of land prices, urban planning, linguistic databases, music, and gene expression regulatory networks.

This book addresses the application of methods used in statistical physics to complex systems-from simple phenomenological analogies to more complex aspects, such as correlations, fluctuation-dissipation theorem, the concept of free energy, renormalization group approach and scaling. Statistical physics contains a well-developed formalism that describes phase transitions. It is useful to apply this formalism for damage phenomena as well. Fractals, the Ising model, percolation, damage mechanics, fluctuations, free energy formalism, renormalization group, and scaling, are some of the topics covered in Statistical Physics of Phase Transitions.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction of Fog Radio Access Networks (F-RANs), from both academic and industry perspectives. The authors first introduce the network architecture and the frameworks of network management and resource allocation for F-RANs. They then discuss the recent academic research achievements of F-RANs, such as the analytical results of theoretical performance limits and optimization theory-based resource allocation techniques. Meanwhile, they discuss the application and implementations of F-RANs, including the latest standardization procedure, and the prototype and test bed design. The book is concluded by summarizing the existing open issues and future trends of F-RANs. Includes the latest theoretical and technological research achievements of F-RANs, also discussing existing open issues and future trends of F-RANs toward 6G from an interdisciplinary perspective; Provides commonly-used tools for research and development of F-RANs such as open resource projects for implementing prototypes and test beds; Includes examples of prototype and test bed design and gives tools to evaluate the performance of F-RANs in simulations and experimental circumstances.

This book reveals the underlying mechanisms of complexity and stochastic evolutions of traffic flows. Using Eulerian and Lagrangian measurements, the authors propose lognormal headway/spacing/velocity distributions and subsequently develop a Markov car-following model to describe drivers' random choices concerning headways/spacings, putting forward a stochastic fundamental diagram model for wide scattering flow-density points. In the context of highway onramp bottlenecks, the authors present a traffic flow breakdown probability model and spatial-temporal queuing model to improve the stability and reliability of road traffic flows. This book is intended for researchers and graduate students in the fields of transportation engineering and civil engineering.

This book presents up-to-date results on abstract evolution equations and differential inclusions in infinite dimensional spaces. It covers equations with time delay and with impulses, and complements the existing literature in functional differential equations and inclusions. The exposition is devoted to both local and global mild solutions for some classes of functional differential evolution equations and inclusions, and other densely and non-densely defined functional differential equations and inclusions in separable Banach spaces or in Frechet spaces. The tools used include classical fixed points theorems and the measure-of non-compactness, and each chapter concludes with a section devoted to notes and bibliographical remarks. This monograph is particularly useful for researchers and graduate students studying pure and applied mathematics, engineering, biology and all other applied sciences.

For many years, scientists have attempted to unite the four fundamental forces-the strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity, and electromagnetism. Many have tried uniting known theories, such as general relativity, with quantum mechanics, string theory, and even the standard model. These theories differ, and it seems difficult to find a link to connect them.

In The Theory of Everything, Solved author and researcher Lawrence J. Wippler explains a new theory and provides an alternate understanding of the workings of the atom. He found that the four fundamental forces of nature can be united by just three particles-the north and south magnetic monopoles and a particle of matter that represents an element. He describes how these particles interact with each other and how they are able to create all forms of energy, including magnetism and gravity.

Setting aside the presently known theories and laws of physics and attacking the problem from a different perspective, Wippler kept his assumptions simple when developing the three-particle theory. In The Theory of Everything, Solved Wippler shows that the north and south monopoles and a particle of matter are the building blocks of the universe.

This book brings together 12 chapters on a new stream of research examining complex phenomena in nonlinear systems-including engineering, physics, and social science. Complex Motions and Chaos in Nonlinear Systems provides readers a particular vantage of the nature and nonlinear phenomena in nonlinear dynamics that can develop the corresponding mathematical theory and apply nonlinear design to practical engineering as well as the study of other complex phenomena including those investigated within social science.

This book discusses the latest progresses and developments on complex systems research and intends to give an exposure to prospective readers about the theoretical and practical aspects of mathematical modelling, numerical simulation and agent-based modelling frameworks. The main purpose of this book is to emphasize a unified approach to complex systems analysis, which goes beyond to examine complicated phenomena of numerous real-life systems; this is done by investigating a huge number of components that interact with each other at different (microscopic and macroscopic) scales; new insights and emergent collective behaviours can evolve from the interactions between individual components and also with their environments. These tools and concepts permit us to better understand the patterns of various real-life systems and help us to comprehend the mechanisms behind which distinct factors shaping some complex systems phenomena being influenced. This book is published in conjunction with the International Workshop on Complex Systems Modelling & Simulation 2019 (CoSMoS 2019): IoT & Big Data Integration. This international event was held at the Universiti Sains Malaysia Main Campus, Penang, Malaysia, from 8 to 11 April 2019. This book appeals to readers interested in complex systems research and other related areas such as mathematical modelling, numerical simulation and agent-based modelling frameworks.

Cooperative and relay communications have recently become the most widely explored topics in communications, whereby users cooperate in transmitting their messages to the destination, instead of conventional networks which operate independently and compete among each other for channel resources. As the field has progressed, cooperative communications have become a design concept rather than a specific transmission technology. This concept has revolutionized the design of wireless networks, allowing increased coverage, throughput, and transmission reliability even as conventional transmission techniques gradually reach their limits. Cooperative and relay technologies have also made their way toward next generation wireless standards, such as IEEE802.16 (WiMAX) or LTE, and have been incorporated into many modern wireless applications, such as cognitive radio and secret communications.

"Cooperative Communications and Networking: Technologies and System Design" provides a systematic introduction to the fundamental concepts of cooperative communications and relays technology to enable engineers, researchers or graduate students to conduct advanced research and development in this area.

"Cooperative Communications and Networking: Technologies and System Design" provides researchers, graduate students, and practical engineers with sufficient knowledge of both the background of cooperative communications and networking, and potential research directions.

This authored monograph presents a study on fundamental limits and robustness of stability and stabilization of time-delay systems, with an emphasis on time-varying delay, robust stabilization, and newly emerged areas such as networked control and multi-agent systems. The authors systematically develop an operator-theoretic approach that departs from both the traditional algebraic approach and the currently pervasive LMI solution methods. This approach is built on the classical small-gain theorem, which enables the author to draw upon powerful tools and techniques from robust control theory. The book contains motivating examples and presents mathematical key facts that are required in the subsequent sections. The target audience primarily comprises researchers and professionals in the field of control theory, but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students alike.

In the years following her role as the lead author of the international bestseller, Limits to Growth--the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet-- Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001.

Meadows' newly released manuscript, Thinking in Systems, is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute's Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life.

Some of the biggest problems facing the world--war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation--are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking.

While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner.

In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions.

This book is an introduction to the mathematical theory of design for articulated mechanical systems known as linkages. The focus is on sizing mechanical constraints that guide the movement of a work piece, or end-effector, of the system. The function of the device is prescribed as a set of positions to be reachable by the end-effector; and the mechanical constraints are formed by joints that limit relative movement. The goal is to find all the devices that can achieve a specific task. Formulated in this way the design problem is purely geometric in character. Robot manipulators, walking machines, and mechanical hands are examples of articulated mechanical systems that rely on simple mechanical constraints to provide a complex workspace for the end- effector. The principles presented in this book form the foundation for a design theory for these devices. The emphasis, however, is on articulated systems with fewer degrees of freedom than that of the typical robotic system, and therefore, less complexity. This book will be useful to mathematics, engineering and computer science departments teaching courses on mathematical modeling of robotics and other articulated mechanical systems.

This new edition includes research results of the past decade on the synthesis of multi loop planar and spherical linkages, and the use of homotopy methods and Clifford algebras in the synthesis of spatial serial chains. One new chapter on the synthesis of spatial serial chains introduces numerical homotopy and the linear product decomposition of polynomial systems. The second new chapter introduces the Clifford algebra formulation of the kinematics equations of serial chain robots. Examples are use throughout to demonstrate the theory."

This book focuses on the control of fractal behaviors in nonlinear dynamics systems, addressing both the principles and purposes of control. For fractals in different systems, it presents revealing studies on the theory and applications of control, reflecting a spectrum of different control methods used with engineering technology. As such, it will benefit researchers, engineers, and graduate students in fields of fractals, chaos, engineering, etc.

Analysis of information transfer has found rapid adoption in neuroscience, where a highly dynamic transfer of information continuously runs on top of the brain's slowly-changing anatomical connectivity. Measuring such transfer is crucial to understanding how flexible information routing and processing give rise to higher cognitive function. "Directed Information Measures in Neuroscience" reviews recent developments of concepts and tools for measuring information transfer, their application to neurophysiological recordings and analysis of interactions. Written by the most active researchers in the field the book discusses the state of the art, future prospects and challenges on the way to an efficient assessment of neuronal information transfer. Highlights include the theoretical quantification and practical estimation of information transfer, description of transfer locally in space and time, multivariate directed measures, information decomposition among a set of stimulus/responses variables and the relation between interventional and observational causality. Applications to neural data sets and pointers to open source software highlight the usefulness of these measures in experimental neuroscience. With state-of-the-art mathematical developments, computational techniques and applications to real data sets, this book will be of benefit to all graduate students and researchers interested in detecting and understanding the information transfer between components of complex systems.

This monograph presents the state of the art in aeroservoelastic (ASE) modeling and analysis and develops a systematic theoretical and computational framework for use by researchers and practicing engineers. It is the first book to focus on the mathematical modeling of structural dynamics, unsteady aerodynamics, and control systems to evolve a generic procedure to be applied for ASE synthesis. Existing robust, nonlinear, and adaptive control methodology is applied and extended to some interesting ASE problems, such as transonic flutter and buffet, post-stall buffet and maneuvers, and flapping flexible wing. The author derives a general aeroservoelastic plant via the finite-element structural dynamic model, unsteady aerodynamic models for various regimes in the frequency domain, and the associated state-space model by rational function approximations. For more advanced models, the full-potential, Euler, and Navier-Stokes methods for treating transonic and separated flows are also briefly addressed. Essential ASE controller design and analysis techniques are introduced to the reader, and an introduction to robust control-law design methods of LQG/LTR and H2/H synthesis is followed by a brief coverage of nonlinear control techniques of describing functions and Lyapunov functions. Practical and realistic aeroservoelastic application examples derived from actual experiments are included throughout. Aeroservoelasiticity fills an important gap in the aerospace engineering literature and will be a valuable guide for graduate students and advanced researchers in aerospace engineering, as well as professional engineers, technicians, and test pilots in the aircraft industry and laboratories.

This thesis proposes a novel Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategy, which modifies the usual MPC cost function in order to achieve a desirable sparse actuation. It features an 1-regularised least squares loss function, in which the control error variance competes with the sum of input channels magnitude (or slew rate) over the whole horizon length. While standard control techniques lead to continuous movements of all actuators, this approach enables a selected subset of actuators to be used, the others being brought into play in exceptional circumstances. The same approach can also be used to obtain asynchronous actuator interventions, so that control actions are only taken in response to large disturbances. This thesis presents a straightforward and systematic approach to achieving these practical properties, which are ignored by mainstream control theory.

This book presents state-of-the-art solution methods and applications of stochastic optimal control. It is a collection of extended papers discussed at the traditional Liverpool workshop on controlled stochastic processes with participants from both the east and the west. New problems are formulated, and progresses of ongoing research are reported. Topics covered in this book include theoretical results and numerical methods for Markov and semi-Markov decision processes, optimal stopping of Markov processes, stochastic games, problems with partial information, optimal filtering, robust control, Q-learning, and self-organizing algorithms. Real-life case studies and applications, e.g., queueing systems, forest management, control of water resources, marketing science, and healthcare, are presented. Scientific researchers and postgraduate students interested in stochastic optimal control,- as well as practitioners will find this book appealing and a valuable reference.

This book, along with its companion volume, Nonlinear Dynamics New Directions: Models and Applications, covers topics ranging from fractal analysis to very specific applications of the theory of dynamical systems to biology. This first volume is devoted to fundamental aspects and includes a number of important new contributions as well as some review articles that emphasize new development prospects. The second volume contains mostly new applications of the theory of dynamical systems to both engineering and biology. The topics addressed in the two volumes include a rigorous treatment of fluctuations in dynamical systems, topics in fractal analysis, studies of the transient dynamics in biological networks, synchronization in lasers, and control of chaotic systems, among others. This book also: * Presents a rigorous treatment of fluctuations in dynamical systems and explores a range of topics in fractal analysis, among other fundamental topics * Features recent developments on large deviations for higher-dimensional maps, a study of measures resisting multifractal analysis and a overview of complex Kleninan groups * Includes thorough review of recent findings that emphasize new development prospects

This book is the first to present the application of the hybrid system theory to systems with EPCA (equations with piecewise continuous arguments). The hybrid system paradigm is a valuable modeling tool for describing a wide range of real-world applications. Moreover, although new technology has produced, and continues to produce highly hierarchical sophisticated machinery that cannot be analyzed as a whole system, hybrid system representation can be used to reduce the structural complexity of these systems. That is to say, hybrid systems have become a modeling priority, which in turn has led to the creation of a promising research field with several application areas. As such, the book explores recent developments in the area of deterministic and stochastic hybrid systems using the Lyapunov and Razumikhin-Lyapunov methods to investigate the systems' properties. It also describes properties such as stability, stabilization, reliable control, H-infinity optimal control, input-to-state stability (ISS)/stabilization, state estimation, and large-scale singularly perturbed systems.

Simulation based on mathematical models plays a major role in computer aided design of integrated circuits (ICs). Decreasing structure sizes, increasing packing densities and driving frequencies require the use of refined mathematical models, and to take into account secondary, parasitic effects. This leads to very high dimensional problems which nowadays require simulation times too large for the short time-to-market demands in industry. Modern Model Order Reduction (MOR) techniques present a way out of this dilemma in providing surrogate models which keep the main characteristics of the device while requiring a significantly lower simulation time than the full model. With Model Reduction for Circuit Simulation we survey the state of the art in the challenging research field of MOR for ICs, and also address its future research directions. Special emphasis is taken on aspects stemming from miniturisations to the nano scale. Contributions cover complexity reduction using e.g., balanced truncation, Krylov-techniques or POD approaches. For semiconductor applications a focus is on generalising current techniques to differential-algebraic equations, on including design parameters, on preserving stability, and on including nonlinearity by means of piecewise linearisations along solution trajectories (TPWL) and interpolation techniques for nonlinear parts. Furthermore the influence of interconnects and power grids on the physical properties of the device is considered, and also top-down system design approaches in which detailed block descriptions are combined with behavioral models. Further topics consider MOR and the combination of approaches from optimisation and statistics, and the inclusion of PDE models with emphasis on MOR for the resulting partial differential algebraic systems. The methods which currently are being developed have also relevance in other application areas such as mechanical multibody systems, and systems arising in chemistry and to biology. The current number of books in the area of MOR for ICs is very limited, so that this volume helps to fill a gap in providing the state of the art material, and to stimulate further research in this area of MOR. Model Reduction for Circuit Simulation also reflects and documents the vivid interaction between three active research projects in this area, namely the EU-Marie Curie Action ToK project O-MOORE-NICE (members in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany), the EU-Marie Curie Action RTN-project COMSON (members in The Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and Romania), and the German federal project System reduction in nano-electronics (SyreNe).

This monograph presents key method to successfully manage the growing complexity of systems where conventional engineering and scientific methodologies and technologies based on learning and adaptability come to their limits and new ways are nowadays required. The transition from adaptable to evolvable and finally to self-evolvable systems is highlighted, self-properties such as self-organization, self-configuration, and self-repairing are introduced and challenges and limitations of the self-evolvable engineering systems are evaluated."

"Noise-Driven Phenomena in Hysteretic Systems" provides a general approach to nonlinear systems with hysteresis driven by noisy inputs, which leads to a unitary framework for the analysis of various stochastic aspects of hysteresis. This book includes integral, differential and algebraic models that are used to describe scalar and vector hysteretic nonlinearities originating from various areas of science and engineering. The universality of the authors approach is also reflected by the diversity of the models used to portray the input noise, from the classical Gaussian white noise to its impulsive forms, often encountered in economics and biological systems, and pink noise, ubiquitous in multi-stable electronic systems. The book is accompanied by HysterSoft(c) - a robust simulation environment designed to perform complex hysteresis modeling that can be used by the reader to reproduce many of the results presented in the book as well as to research both disruptive and constructive effects of noise in hysteretic systems."

Various general techniques have been developed for control and systems problems, many of which involve indirect methods. Because these indirect methods are not always effective, alternative approaches using direct methods are of particular interest and relevance given the advances of computing in recent years.The focus of this book, unique in the literature, is on direct methods, which are concerned with finding actual solutions to problems in control and systems, often algorithmic in nature. Throughout the work, deterministic and stochastic problems are examined from a unified perspective and with considerable rigor. Emphasis is placed on the theoretical basis of the methods and their potential utility in a broad range of control and systems problems.The book is an excellent reference for graduate students, researchers, applied mathematicians, and control engineers and may be used as a textbook for a graduate course or seminar on direct methods in control.

This book covers the topics on cyber security in IoT systems used in different verticals such as agriculture, health, homes, transportation within the context of smart cities. The authors provide an analysis of the importance of developing smart cities by incorporating technologies such as IoT to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) within the agenda 2030. Furthermore, it includes an analysis of the cyber security challenges generated by IoT systems due to factors such as heterogeneity, lack of security in design and few hardware resources in these systems, and how they should be addressed from a risk analysis approach, evaluating the risk analysis methodologies widely used in traditional IT systems.