The Minority Game is a physicist's attempt to explain market behaviour by the interaction between traders. With a minimal set of ingredients and drastic assumptions, this model reproduces market ecology among different types of traders. Its emphasis is on speculative trading and information flow. The book first describes the philosophy lying behind the conception of the Minority Game in 1997, and includes in particular a discussion about the El Farol bar problem. It then reviews the main steps in later developments, including both the theory and its applications to market phenomena. 'Minority Games' gives a colourful and stylized, but also realistic picture of how financial markets operate.

This book focuses on the characteristics of optical radiation, or a spectrum, emitted by various plasmas. In plasma, the same atomic species can produce quite different spectra, or colors depending on the nature of the plasma. This book gives a theoretical framework, by which a particular spectrum can be interpreted correctly and coherently. The uniqueness of the book lies in its comprehensive treatment of the intensity distribution of spectral lines and the population density distribution among the atomic levels, in plasma. It is intended to provide beginners with a good perspective of the field, laying out the physics in an extremely clear manner, starting from an elementary level. A very useful feature of the book is the asterisked sections and chapters which can be skipped by readers, who only wish to gain a quick and basic introduction to plasma spectroscopy. It will also be very useful to researchers working actively in the field, acting as a guide for carrying out experiments and interpreting experimental observations.

This book is unique in occupying a gap between standard undergraduate texts and more advanced texts on quantum field theory. It covers a range of renormalization methods with a clear physical interpretation (and motivation), including meanfield theories and high-temperature and low-density
expansions. It then proceeds by easy steps to the famous epsilon-expansion, ending up with the first-order corrections to critical exponents beyond mean-field theory. Nowadays, there is widespread interest in applications of renormalization methods to various topics ranging over soft condensed
matter, engineering dynamics, traffic queueing and fluctuations in the stock market. Hence macroscopic systems are also included, with particular emphasis on the archetypal problem of fluid turbulence. The book is also unique in making this material accessible to readers other than theoretical
physicists, as it requires only the basic physics and mathematics which should be known to most scientists, engineers and mathematicians.

Though the reductionist approachto biology and medicine has led to several imp- tant advances, further progresses with respect to the remaining challenges require integration of representation, characterization and modeling of the studied systems along a wide range of spatial and time scales. Such an approach, intrinsically - lated to systems biology, is poised to ultimately turning biology into a more precise and synthetic discipline, paving the way to extensive preventive and regenerative medicine [1], drug discovery [20] and treatment optimization [24]. A particularly appealing and effective approach to addressing the complexity of interactions inherent to the biological systems is provided by the new area of c- plex networks [34, 30, 8, 13, 12]. Basically, it is an extension of graph theory [10], focusing on the modeling, representation, characterization, analysis and simulation ofcomplexsystemsbyconsideringmanyelementsandtheirinterconnections.C- plex networks concepts and methods have been used to study disease [17], tr- scription networks [5, 6, 4], protein-protein networks [22, 36, 16, 39], metabolic networks [23] and anatomy [40].

This is the first biography of Julian Schwinger, one of the great theoretical physicists of the twentieth century. A long-time colleague and collaborator of Richard Feynman, he was the joint winner with Feynman of the 1965 Nobel Prize for Physics for their work on quantum electrodynamics. However his contribution extended far beyond this, and his life and achievements are chronicled in this book.

Oligopoly theory is one of the most intensively studied areas of mathematical economics. On the basis of the pioneering works of Cournot (1838), many res- rchers have developed and extensively examined the different variants of oligopoly models. Initially, the existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium of the different types of oligopolies was the main concern, and later the dynamic extensions of these models became the focus. The classical result of Theocharis (1960) asserts that under discrete time scales and static expectations, the equilibrium of a sing- product oligopoly without product differentiation and with linear price and cost functions is asymptotically stable if and only if it is a duopoly. In the continuous time case, asymptotic stability is guaranteed for any number of ?rms. In these cases the resulting dynamical systems are also linear, where local and global asymptotic stability are equivalent to each other. The classical book of Okuguchi (1976) gives a comprehensive summary of the earlier results and developments. The multipr- uct extensionshave been discussed in Okuguchiand Szidarovszky(1999);however, nonlinear features were barely touched upon in these contributions. WiththedevelopmentofthecriticalcurvemethodbyGumowskiandMira(1980) (see also Mira et al. (1996))fordiscrete time systemsand the introductionof cont- uously distributed information lags by Invernizzi and Medio (1991) in continuous time systems, increasing attention has been given to the global dynamics of n- linear oligopolies. The authors of this book have devoted a great deal of research effort to this area.

This book investigates phase transitions and critical phenomena in disordered systems driven out of equilibrium. First, the author derives a dimensional reduction property that relates the long-distance physics of driven disordered systems to that of lower dimensional pure systems. By combining this property with a modern renormalization group technique, the critical behavior of random field spin models driven at a uniform velocity is subsequently investigated. The highlight of this book is that the driven random field XY model is shown to exhibit the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in three dimensions. This is the first example of topological phase transitions in which the competition between quenched disorder and nonequilibrium driving plays a crucial role. The book also includes a pedagogical review of a renormalizaion group technique for disordered systems.

Data analysis lies at the heart of every experimental science. Providing a modern introduction to statistics, this book is ideal for undergraduates in physics. It introduces the necessary tools required to analyse data from experiments across a range of areas, making it a valuable resource for students. In addition to covering the basic topics, the book also takes in advanced and modern subjects, such as neural networks, decision trees, fitting techniques and issues concerning limit or interval setting. Worked examples and case studies illustrate the techniques presented, and end-of-chapter exercises help test the reader's understanding of the material.

This book contains a modern selection of about 200 solved problems and examples arranged in a didactic way for hands-on experience with course work in a standard advanced undergraduate/first-year graduate class in thermodynamics and statistical physics. The principles of thermodynamics and equilibrium statistical physics are few and simple, but their application often proves more involved than it may seem at first sight. This book is a comprehensive complement to any textbook in the field, emphasizing the analogies between the different systems, and paves the way for an in-depth study of solid state physics, soft matter physics, and field theory.

How is free will possible in the light of the physical and chemical underpinnings of brain activity and recent neurobiological experiments? How can the emergence of complexity in hierarchical systems such as the brain, based at the lower levels in physical interactions, lead to something like genuine free will? The nature of our understanding of free will in the light of present-day neuroscience is becoming increasingly important because of remarkable discoveries on the topic being made by neuroscientists at the present time, on the one hand, and its crucial importance for the way we view ourselves as human beings, on the other. A key tool in understanding how free will may arise in this context is the idea of downward causation in complex systems, happening coterminously with bottom up causation, to form an integral whole. Top-down causation is usually neglected, and is therefore emphasized in the other part of the book 's title. The concept is explored in depth, as are the ethical and legal implications of our understanding of free will.

This book arises out of a workshop held in California in April of 2007, which was chaired by Dr. Christof Koch. It was unusual in terms of the breadth of people involved: they included physicists, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, philosophers, and theologians. This enabled the meeting, and hence the resulting book, to attain a rather broader perspective on the issue than is often attained at academic symposia. The book includes contributions by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, George F. R. Ellis, Christopher D. Frith, Mark Hallett, David Hodgson, Owen D. Jones, Alicia Juarrero, J. A. Scott Kelso, Christof Koch, Hans K ng, Hakwan C. Lau, Dean Mobbs, Nancey Murphy, William Newsome, Timothy O Connor, Sean A.. Spence, and Evan Thompson.

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Propagation of Correlations in Constrained Systems, Cargese, Corsica, France, July 2-14, 1990"

This contributed volume explores innovative research in the modeling, simulation, and control of crowd dynamics. Chapter authors approach the topic from the perspectives of mathematics, physics, engineering, and psychology, providing a comprehensive overview of the work carried out in this challenging interdisciplinary research field. After providing a critical analysis of the current state of the field and an overview of the current research perspectives, chapters focus on three main research areas: pedestrian interactions, crowd control, and multiscale modeling. Specific topics covered in this volume include: crowd dynamics through conservation laws recent developments in controlled crowd dynamics mixed traffic modeling insights and applications from crowd psychology Crowd Dynamics, Volume 2 is ideal for mathematicians, engineers, physicists, and other researchers working in the rapidly growing field of modeling and simulation of human crowds.

In this study Arun Bala examines the implications that Niels Bohr's principle of complementarity holds for fields beyond physics. Bohr, one of the founding figures of modern quantum physics, argued that the principle of complementarity he proposed for understanding atomic processes has parallels in psychology, biology, and social science, as well as in Buddhist and Taoist thought. But Bohr failed to offer any explanation for why complementarity might extend beyond physics, and his claims have been widely rejected by scientists as empty speculation. Scientific scepticism has only been reinforced by the naive enthusiasm of postmodern relativists and New Age intuitionists, who seize upon Bohr's ideas to justify anti-realist and mystical positions. Arun Bala offers a detailed defence of Bohr's claim that complementarity has far-reaching implications for the biological and social sciences, as well as for comparative philosophies of science, by explaining Bohr's parallels as responses to the omnipresence of grown properties in nature.

Computer and communication networks are among society's most important infrastructures. The internet, in particular, is a giant global network of networks with central control or administration. It is a paradigm of a complex system, where complexity may arise from different sources: topological structure, network evolution, connection and node diversity, and /or dynamical evolution. This is the first book entirely devoted to the new and emerging field of nonlinear dynamics of TCP/IP networks. It addresses both scientists and engineers working in the general field of communication networks.

This book is part of a two volume set which presents the analysis of nonlinear phenomena as a long-standing challenge for research in basic and applied science as well as engineering. It discusses nonlinear differential and differential equations, bifurcation theory for periodic orbits and global connections. The integrability and reversibility of planar vector fields and theoretical analysis of classic physical models are sketched. This first volume concentrates on the mathematical theory and computational techniques that are essential for the study of nonlinear science, a second volume deals with real-world nonlinear phenomena in condensed matter, biology and optics.

This book presents the derivation of the fluctuation theorems with divergent entropy production and their application to fundamental problems in statistical physics. It explores the two basic aspects of the fluctuation theorems: i) Applicability in extreme situations with divergent entropy production, concluding that the fluctuation theorems remain valid under the notion of absolute irreversibility, and ii) utility in the investigation of classical enigmas in the framework of statistical physics, i.e., Gibbs and Loschmidt paradoxes. The book offers readers an overview of the research in fundamental statistical physics. Firstly it briefly but skillfully reviews the modern development of fluctuation theorems to found the key theme of the book. Secondly it concisely discusses historical issues of statistical physics in chronological order, along with the key literature in the field. They help readers easily follow the key developments in the fundamental research of statistical physics.

Describing non-equilibrium "cold" plasmas through a chemical physics approach, this book uses the state-to-state plasma kinetics, which considers each internal state as a new species with its own cross sections. Extended atomic and molecular master equations are coupled with Boltzmann and Monte Carlo methods to solve the electron energy distribution function. Selected examples in different applied fields, such as microelectronics, fusion, and aerospace, are presented and discussed including the self-consistent kinetics in RF parallel plate reactors, the optimization of negative ion sources and the expansion of high enthalpy flows through nozzles of different geometries.

The book will cover the main aspects of the state-to-state kinetic approach for the description of nonequilibrium cold plasmas, illustrating the more recent achievements in the development of kinetic models including the self-consistent coupling of master equations and Boltzmann equation for electron dynamics. To give a complete portrayal, the book will assess fundamental concepts and theoretical formulations, based on a unified methodological approach, and explore the insight in related scientific problems still opened for the research community.

Key features Major concepts in thermal physics are introduced cohesively through computational and mathematical treatments. Computational examples in Python programming language guide students on how to simulate and visualize thermodynamic principles and processes for themselves.

This twelfth volume in the Poincare Seminar Series presents a complete and interdisciplinary perspective on the concept of Chaos, both in classical mechanics in its deterministic version, and in quantum mechanics. This book expounds some of the most wide ranging questions in science, from uncovering the fingerprints of classical chaotic dynamics in quantum systems, to predicting the fate of our own planetary system. Its seven articles are also highly pedagogical, as befits their origin in lectures to a broad scientific audience. Highlights include a complete description by the mathematician E. Ghys of the paradigmatic Lorenz attractor, and of the famed Lorenz butterfly effect as it is understood today, illuminating the fundamental mathematical issues at play with deterministic chaos; a detailed account by the experimentalist S. Fauve of the masterpiece experiment, the von Karman Sodium or VKS experiment, which established in 2007 the spontaneous generation of a magnetic field in a strongly turbulent flow, including its reversal, a model of Earth's magnetic field; a simple toy model by the theorist U. Smilansky - the discrete Laplacian on finite d-regular expander graphs - which allows one to grasp the essential ingredients of quantum chaos, including its fundamental link to random matrix theory; a review by the mathematical physicists P. Bourgade and J.P. Keating, which illuminates the fascinating connection between the distribution of zeros of the Riemann -function and the statistics of eigenvalues of random unitary matrices, which could ultimately provide a spectral interpretation for the zeros of the -function, thus a proof of the celebrated Riemann Hypothesis itself; an article by a pioneer of experimental quantum chaos, H-J. Stoeckmann, who shows in detail how experiments on the propagation of microwaves in 2D or 3D chaotic cavities beautifully verify theoretical predictions; a thorough presentation by the mathematical physicist S. Nonnenmacher of the "anatomy" of the eigenmodes of quantized chaotic systems, namely of their macroscopic localization properties, as ruled by the Quantum Ergodic theorem, and of the deep mathematical challenge posed by their fluctuations at the microscopic scale; a review, both historical and scientific, by the astronomer J. Laskar on the stability, hence the fate, of the chaotic Solar planetary system we live in, a subject where he made groundbreaking contributions, including the probabilistic estimate of possible planetary collisions. This book should be of broad general interest to both physicists and mathematicians.

Based on the recent NATO Advanced Study Institute "Chaotic Worlds: From Order to Disorder in Gravitational N-Body Dynamical Systems", this state of the art textbook, written by internationally renowned experts, provides an invaluable reference volume for all students and researchers in gravitational n-body systems. The contributions are especially designed to give a systematic development from the fundamental mathematics which underpin modern studies of ordered and chaotic behaviour in n-body dynamics to their application to real motion in planetary systems. This volume presents an up-to-date synoptic view of the subject.

This book describes fundamental physical principles, together with their mathematical formulations, for modelling the propagation of signals in nerve fibres. Above all, it focuses on the complex electro-mechano-thermal process that produces an ensemble of waves composed of several components, besides the action potential. These components include mechanical waves in the biomembrane and axoplasm, together with the temperature change. Pursuing a step-by-step approach, the content moves from physics and mathematics, to describing the physiological effects, and finally to modelling the coupling effects. The assumptions and hypotheses used for modelling, as well as selected helpful concepts from continuum mechanics, are systematically explained, and the modelling is illustrated using the outcomes of numerical simulation. The book is chiefly intended for researchers and graduate students, providing them with a detailed description of how to model the complex physiological processes in nerve fibres.

The interplay between synchronization and spatio-temporal pattern formation is central for a broad variety of phenomena in nature, such as the coordinated contraction of heart tissue, associative memory and learning in neural networks, and pathological synchronization during Parkinson disease or epilepsy. In this thesis, three open puzzles of fundametal research in Nonlinear Dynamics are tackled: How does spatial confinement affect the dynamics of three-dimensional vortex rings? What role do permutation symmetries play in the spreading of excitation waves on networks? Does the spiral wave chimera state really exist? All investigations combine a theoretical approach and experimental verification, which exploit an oscillatory chemical reaction. A novel experimental setup is developed that allows for studying networks with N > 1000 neuromorphic relaxation oscillators. It facilitates the free choice of network topology, coupling function as well as its strength, range and time delay, which can even be chosen as time-dependent. These experimental capabilities open the door to a broad range of future experimental inquiries into pattern formation and synchronization on large networks, which were previously out of reach.

This textbook offers an advanced undergraduate or initial graduate level introduction to topics such as kinetic theory, equilibrium statistical mechanics and the theory of fluctuations from a modern perspective. The aim is to provide the reader with the necessary tools of probability theory and thermodynamics (especially the thermodynamic potentials) to enable subsequent study at advanced graduate level. At the same time, the book offers a bird's eye view on arguments that are often disregarded in the main curriculum courses. Further features include a focus on the interdisciplinary nature of the subject and in-depth discussion of alternative interpretations of the concept of entropy. While some familiarity with basic concepts of thermodynamics and probability theory is assumed, this does not extend beyond what is commonly obtained in basic undergraduate curriculum courses.

Unifying Themes in Complex Systems is a well-established series of carefully edited conference proceedings that serve to document and archive the progress made regarding cross-fertilization in this field. The International Conference on Complex Systems (ICCS) creates a unique atmosphere for scientists from all fields, engineers, physicians, executives, and a host of other professionals, allowing them to explore common themes and applications of complex systems science. With this new volume, Unifying Themes in Complex Systems continues to establish common ground between the wide-ranging domains of complex systems science.