This book presents practical optimization techniques used in image processing and computer vision problems. Ill-posed problems are introduced and used as examples to show how each type of problem is related to typical image processing and computer vision problems. Unconstrained optimization gives the best solution based on numerical minimization of a single, scalar-valued objective function or cost function. Unconstrained optimization problems have been intensively studied, and many algorithms and tools have been developed to solve them. Most practical optimization problems, however, arise with a set of constraints. Typical examples of constraints include: (i) pre-specified pixel intensity range, (ii) smoothness or correlation with neighboring information, (iii) existence on a certain contour of lines or curves, and (iv) given statistical or spectral characteristics of the solution. Regularized optimization is a special method used to solve a class of constrained optimization problems. The term regularization refers to the transformation of an objective function with constraints into a different objective function, automatically reflecting constraints in the unconstrained minimization process. Because of its simplicity and efficiency, regularized optimization has many application areas, such as image restoration, image reconstruction, optical flow estimation, etc. Optimization plays a major role in a wide variety of theories for image processing and computer vision. Various optimization techniques are used at different levels for these problems, and this volume summarizes and explains these techniques as applied to image processing and computer vision.

This book focuses on the ellipsoidal function, which serves as an evolution and extension of the circular function (trigonometric function) and elliptic function. It presents an in-depth discussion of the ellipsoidal function (algebra) theory and the conformal mapping (geometry) theory of the ellipsoid function, demonstrating the outstanding performance of the ellipsoid function response filter. Applications of the ellipsoidal function include the capacitance of ellipsoidal conductors and the surface area of ellipsoids, which in turn correspond to ellipsoidal integrals of the first kind and the second kind, respectively. The book offers a valuable reference guide for undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in the related fields.

This book is offers a comprehensive overview of information theory and error control coding, using a different approach then in existed literature. The chapters are organized according to the Shannon system model, where one block affects the others. A relatively brief theoretical introduction is provided at the beginning of every chapter, including a few additional examples and explanations, but without any proofs. And a short overview of some aspects of abstract algebra is given at the end of the corresponding chapters. The characteristic complex examples with a lot of illustrations and tables are chosen to provide detailed insights into the nature of the problem. Some limiting cases are presented to illustrate the connections with the theoretical bounds. The numerical values are carefully selected to provide in-depth explanations of the described algorithms. Although the examples in the different chapters can be considered separately, they are mutually connected and the conclusions for one considered problem relate to the others in the book.

This volume presents original papers ranging from an experimental study on cavitation jets to an up-to-date mathematical analysis of the Navier-Stokes equations for free boundary problems, reflecting topics featured at the International Conference on Mathematical Fluid Dynamics, Present and Future, held 11-14 November 2014 at Waseda University in Tokyo. The contributions address subjects in one- and two-phase fluid flows, including cavitation, liquid crystal flows, plasma flows, and blood flows. Written by internationally respected experts, these papers highlight the connections between mathematical, experimental, and computational fluid dynamics. The book is aimed at a wide readership in mathematics and engineering, including researchers and graduate students interested in mathematical fluid dynamics.

This Festschrift resulted from a workshop on "Advanced Modelling in Mathematical Finance" held in honour of Ernst Eberlein's 70th birthday, from 20 to 22 May 2015 in Kiel, Germany. It includes contributions by several invited speakers at the workshop, including several of Ernst Eberlein's long-standing collaborators and former students. Advanced mathematical techniques play an ever-increasing role in modern quantitative finance. Written by leading experts from academia and financial practice, this book offers state-of-the-art papers on the application of jump processes in mathematical finance, on term-structure modelling, and on statistical aspects of financial modelling. It is aimed at graduate students and researchers interested in mathematical finance, as well as practitioners wishing to learn about the latest developments.

This book offers an essential introduction to the mathematical theory of compressible viscous fluids. The main goal is to present analytical methods from the perspective of their numerical applications. Accordingly, we introduce the principal theoretical tools needed to handle well-posedness of the underlying Navier-Stokes system, study the problems of sequential stability, and, lastly, construct solutions by means of an implicit numerical scheme. Offering a unique contribution - by exploring in detail the "synergy" of analytical and numerical methods - the book offers a valuable resource for graduate students in mathematics and researchers working in mathematical fluid mechanics. Mathematical fluid mechanics concerns problems that are closely connected to real-world applications and is also an important part of the theory of partial differential equations and numerical analysis in general. This book highlights the fact that numerical and mathematical analysis are not two separate fields of mathematics. It will help graduate students and researchers to not only better understand problems in mathematical compressible fluid mechanics but also to learn something from the field of mathematical and numerical analysis and to see the connections between the two worlds. Potential readers should possess a good command of the basic tools of functional analysis and partial differential equations including the function spaces of Sobolev type.

The book presents pedagogical reviews of important topics on high energy physics to the students and researchers in particle physics. The book also discusses topics on the Quark-Gluon plasma, thermal field theory, perturbative quantum chromodynamics, anomalies and cosmology. Students of particle physics need to be well-equipped with basic understanding of many concepts underlying the standard models of particle physics and cosmology. This is particularly true today when experimental results from colliders, such as large hadron collider (LHC) and relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC), as well as inferences from cosmological observations, are expected to further expand our understanding of particle physics at high energies. This volume is the second in the Surveys in Theoretical High Energy Physics Series (SThEP). Topics covered in this book are based on lectures delivered at the SERC Schools in Theoretical High Energy Physics at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, and the University of Hyderabad.

This is a short and self-contained introduction to the field of mathematical modeling of gene-networks in bacteria. As an entry point to the field, we focus on the analysis of simple gene-network dynamics. The notes commence with an introduction to the deterministic modeling of gene-networks, with extensive reference to applicable results coming from dynamical systems theory. The second part of the notes treats extensively several approaches to the study of gene-network dynamics in the presence of noise-either arising from low numbers of molecules involved, or due to noise external to the regulatory process. The third and final part of the notes gives a detailed treatment of three well studied and concrete examples of gene-network dynamics by considering the lactose operon, the tryptophan operon, and the lysis-lysogeny switch. The notes contain an index for easy location of particular topics as well as an extensive bibliography of the current literature. The target audience of these notes are mainly graduates students and young researchers with a solid mathematical background (calculus, ordinary differential equations, and probability theory at a minimum), as well as with basic notions of biochemistry, cell biology, and molecular biology. They are meant to serve as a readable and brief entry point into a field that is currently highly active, and will allow the reader to grasp the current state of research and so prepare them for defining and tackling new research problems.

This book is placed at the interface between string theory and elementary particle physics and shows novel results in the search for a heterotic string vacuum that reproduces those matter particles and interactions observed in our universe. The author provides a systematic classification of potentially realistic heterotic covariant lattice vacua, which possess a lower number of moduli fields when compared to conventional compactification methods, by means of number theoretical methods. These methods, while well known to the mathematics community, have not yet found many applications to physics. They are introduced to the degree necessary to understand the computations carried out throughout this work. Furthermore, explicit covariant lattice models with particularly interesting properties are analyzed in detail. Finally, new light is shed on the relation between covariant lattice models and asymmetric orbifold compactifications, the result being a concrete correspondence between certain types of asymmetric orbifolds and those classified covariant lattices.

This book offers a new approach to interpreting the geodetic boundary value problem, successfully obtaining the solutions of the Molodensky and Stokes boundary value problems (BVPs) with the help of downward continuation (DC) based methods. Although DC is known to be an improperly posed operation, classical methods seem to provide numerically sensible results, and therefore it can be concluded that such classical methods must in fact be manifestations of different, mathematically sound approaches. Here, the authors first prove the equivalence of Molodensky's and Stoke's approaches with Helmert's reduction in terms of both BVP formulation and BVP solutions by means of the DC method. They then go on to show that this is not merely a downward continuation operation, and provide more rigorous interpretations of the DC approach as a change of boundary approach and as a pseudo BVP solution approach.

Introduction to Atmospheric Modelling explores the power of mathematics to help us understand complex atmospheric phenomena through mathematical modelling. The author has thoughtfully chosen a path into and through the subject that gives the reader a glimpse of the dynamics underlying phenomena ranging from a sea breeze through mid-latitude cyclonic disturbances to Rossby waves, mainly through the lens of scaling analysis. Written for students with backgrounds in mathematics, physics and engineering, this book will be a valuable resource as they begin studying atmospheric science.

Current research results in stochastic and deterministic global optimization including single and multiple objectives are explored and presented in this book by leading specialists from various fields. Contributions include applications to multidimensional data visualization, regression, survey calibration, inventory management, timetabling, chemical engineering, energy systems, and competitive facility location. Graduate students, researchers, and scientists in computer science, numerical analysis, optimization, and applied mathematics will be fascinated by the theoretical, computational, and application-oriented aspects of stochastic and deterministic global optimization explored in this book. This volume is dedicated to the 70th birthday of Antanas Zilinskas who is a leading world expert in global optimization. Professor Zilinskas's research has concentrated on studying models for the objective function, the development and implementation of efficient algorithms for global optimization with single and multiple objectives, and application of algorithms for solving real-world practical problems.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the modeling of complex fluids, including many common substances, such as toothpaste, hair gel, mayonnaise, liquid foam, cement and blood, which cannot be described by Navier-Stokes equations. It also offers an up-to-date mathematical and numerical analysis of the corresponding equations, as well as several practical numerical algorithms and software solutions for the approximation of the solutions. It discusses industrial (molten plastics, forming process), geophysical (mud flows, volcanic lava, glaciers and snow avalanches), and biological (blood flows, tissues) modeling applications. This book is a valuable resource for undergraduate students and researchers in applied mathematics, mechanical engineering and physics.

The object of this book is to explain how to create a synthesis of complex biostratigraphic data, and how to extract from such a synthesis a relative time scale based exclusively on the fossil content of sedimentary rocks. Such a time scale can be used to attribute relative ages to isolated fossil-bearing samples. The book is composed of 10 chapters together with several appendices. It is a totally revised version of “Biochronological Correlations” published in 1991 and includes various new chapters. The book offers a solution for the theoretical problem of how fossils can be used to make reliable quantitative stratigraphic correlations in sedimentary geology. It also describes the use of highly efficient software along with several examples. The authors compare their theoretical model with 2 other relevant studies: probabilistic stratigraphy and constrained optimization (CONOP).

In this book, practicing physicians and experts in anticipation present arguments for a new understanding of medicine. Their contributions make it clear that medicine is the decisive test for anticipation. The reader is presented with a provocative hypothesis: If medicine will align itself with the anticipatory condition of life, it can prompt the most important revolution in our time. To this end, all stakeholders-medical practitioners, patients, scientists, and technology developers-will have to engage in the conversation. The book makes the case for the transition from expensive, and only marginally effective, reactive treatment through "spare parts" (joint replacements, organ transplants) and reliance on pharmaceuticals (antibiotics, opiates) to anticipation-informed healthcare. Readers will understand why the current premise of treating various behavioral conditions (attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, schizophrenia) through drugs has to be re-evaluated from the perspective of anticipation. In the manner practiced today, medicine generates dependence and long-lasting damage to those it is paid to help. As we better understand the nature of the living, the proactive view of healthcare, within which the science and art of healing fuse, becomes a social and political mandate.

Discrete Mathematics and theoretical computer science are closely linked research areas with strong impacts on applications and various other scientific disciplines. Both fields deeply cross fertilize each other. One of the persons who particularly contributed to building bridges between these and many other areas is László Lovász, whose outstanding scientific work has defined and shaped many research directions in the past 40 years. A number of friends and colleagues, all top authorities in their fields of expertise gathered at the two conferences in August 2008 in Hungary, celebrating Lovász' 60th birthday. It was a real fete of combinatorics and computer science. Some of these plenary speakers submitted their research or survey papers prior to the conferences. These are included in the volume "Building Bridges". The other speakers were able to finish their contribution only later, these are collected in the present volume.

This book is a unique reference work in the area of atomic-scale simulation of glasses. For the first time, a highly selected panel of about 20 researchers provides, in a single book, their views, methodologies and applications on the use of molecular dynamics as a tool to describe glassy materials. The book covers a wide range of systems covering "traditional" network glasses, such as chalcogenides and oxides, as well as glasses for applications in the area of phase change materials. The novelty of this work is the interplay between molecular dynamics methods (both at the classical and first-principles level) and the structure of materials for which, quite often, direct experimental structural information is rather scarce or absent. The book features specific examples of how quite subtle features of the structure of glasses can be unraveled by relying on the predictive power of molecular dynamics, used in connection with a realistic description of forces.

This book is a guide to the use of Monte Carlo techniques in radiation transport. This topic is of great interest for medical physicists. Praised as a "gold standard" for accurate radiotherapy dose calculations, Monte Carlo has stimulated a high level of research activity that has produced thousands of papers within the past few years. The book is designed primarily to address the needs of an academically inclined medical physicist who wishes to learn the technique, as well as experienced users of standard Monte Carlo codes who wish to gain insight into the underlying mathematics of Monte Carlo algorithms. The book focuses on the fundamentals-giving full attention to and explaining the very basic concepts. It also includes advanced topics and covers recent advances such as transport of charged particles in magnetic fields and the grid-based solvers of the Boltzmann equation.

This monograph investigates violations of statistical stability of physical events, variables, and processes and develops a new physical-mathematical theory taking into consideration such violations - the theory of hyper-random phenomena. There are five parts. The first describes the phenomenon of statistical stability and its features, and develops methods for detecting violations of statistical stability, in particular when data is limited. The second part presents several examples of real processes of different physical nature and demonstrates the violation of statistical stability over broad observation intervals. The third part outlines the mathematical foundations of the theory of hyper-random phenomena, while the fourth develops the foundations of the mathematical analysis of divergent and many-valued functions. The fifth part contains theoretical and experimental studies of statistical laws where there is violation of statistical stability. The monograph should be of particular interest to engineers and scientists in general who study the phenomenon of statistical stability and use statistical methods for high-precision measurements, prediction, and signal processing over long observation intervals.

This book focuses on theoretical aspects of the affine projection algorithm (APA) for adaptive filtering. The APA is a natural generalization of the classical, normalized least-mean-squares (NLMS) algorithm. The book first explains how the APA evolved from the NLMS algorithm, where an affine projection view is emphasized. By looking at those adaptation algorithms from such a geometrical point of view, we can find many of the important properties of the APA, e.g., the improvement of the convergence rate over the NLMS algorithm especially for correlated input signals. After the birth of the APA in the mid-1980s, similar algorithms were put forward by other researchers independently from different perspectives. This book shows that they are variants of the APA, forming a family of APAs. Then it surveys research on the convergence behavior of the APA, where statistical analyses play important roles. It also reviews developments of techniques to reduce the computational complexity of the APA, which are important for real-time processing. It covers a recent study on the kernel APA, which extends the APA so that it is applicable to identification of not only linear systems but also nonlinear systems. The last chapter gives an overview of current topics on variable parameter APAs. The book is self-contained, and is suitable for graduate students and researchers who are interested in advanced theory of adaptive filtering.

This book is dedicated to the recent developments in RET with the aim to explore polyatomic gas, dense gas and mixture of gases in non-equilibrium. In particular we present the theory of dense gases with 14 fields, which reduces to the Navier-Stokes Fourier classical theory in the parabolic limit. Molecular RET with an arbitrary number of field-variables for polyatomic gases is also discussed and the theory is proved to be perfectly compatible with the kinetic theory in which the distribution function depends on an extra variable that takes into account a molecule's internal degrees of freedom. Recent results on mixtures of gases with multi-temperature are presented together with a natural definition of the average temperature. The qualitative analysis and in particular, the existence of the global smooth solution and the convergence to equilibrium are also studied by taking into account the fact that the differential systems are symmetric hyperbolic. Applications to shock and sound waves are analyzed together with light scattering and heat conduction and the results are compared with experimental data. Rational extended thermodynamics (RET) is a thermodynamic theory that is applicable to non-equilibrium phenomena. It is described by differential hyperbolic systems of balance laws with local constitutive equations. As RET has been strictly related to the kinetic theory through the closure method of moment hierarchy associated to the Boltzmann equation, the applicability range of the theory has been restricted within rarefied monatomic gases. The book represents a valuable resource for applied mathematicians, physicists and engineers, offering powerful models for potential applications like satellites reentering the atmosphere, semiconductors and nano-scale phenomena.

This accessible text presents a detailed introduction to the use of a wide range of software tools and modeling environments for use in the biosciences, as well as the fundamental mathematical background. The practical constraints presented by each modeling technique are described in detail, enabling the researcher to determine which software package would be most useful for a particular problem. Features: introduces a basic array of techniques to formulate models of biological systems, and to solve them; discusses agent-based models, stochastic modeling techniques, differential equations, spatial simulations, and Gillespie's stochastic simulation algorithm; provides exercises; describes such useful tools as the Maxima algebra system, the PRISM model checker, and the modeling environments Repast Simphony and Smoldyn; contains appendices on rules of differentiation and integration, Maxima and PRISM notation, and some additional mathematical concepts; offers supplementary material at an associated website.

The book shows how eastern and western perspectives and conceptions can be used to addresses recent topics laying at the crossroad between philosophy and cognitive science. It reports on new points of view and conceptions discussed during the International Conference on Philosophy and Cognitive Science (PCS2013), held at the Sun Yat-sen University, in Guangzhou, China, and the 2013 Workshop on Abductive Visual Cognition, which took place at KAIST, in Deajeon, South Korea. The book emphasizes an ever-growing cultural exchange between academics and intellectuals coming from different fields. It juxtaposes research works investigating new facets on key issues between philosophy and cognitive science, such as the role of models and causal representations in science; the status of theoretical concepts and quantum principles; abductive cognition, vision, and visualization in science from an eco-cognitive perspective. Further topics are: ignorance immunization in reasoning; moral cognition, violence, and epistemology; and models and biomorphism. The book, which presents a unique and timely account of the current state-of-the art on various aspects in philosophy and cognitive science, is expected to inspire philosophers, cognitive scientists and social scientists, and to generate fruitful exchanges and collaboration among them.

This book investigates the latest modeling and control technologies in the context of air-conditioning systems. Firstly, it introduces the state-space method for developing dynamic models of all components in a central air-conditioning system. The models are primarily nonlinear and based on the fundamental principle of energy and mass conservation, and are transformed into state-space form through linearization. The book goes on to describe and discuss the state-space models with the help of graph theory and the structure-matrix theory. Subsequently, virtual sensor calibration and virtual sensing methods (which are very useful for real system control) are illustrated together with a case study. Model-based predictive control and state-space feedback control are applied to air-conditioning systems to yield better local control, while the air-side synergic control scheme and a global optimization strategy based on the decomposition-coordination method are developed so as to achieve energy conservation in the central air-conditioning system. Lastly, control strategies for VAV systems including total air volume control and trim & response static pressure control are investigated in practice.