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.

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.

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.

Presents simplified but useful and practical equations that can be applied in estimating performance and design of energy-efficient systems in low-temperature systems or cryogenics Contains practical approaches and advanced design materials for insulation, shields/anchors, cryogen vessels/pipes, calorimeters, cryogenic heat switches, cryostats, current leads, and RF couplers Provides a comprehensive introduction to the necessary theory and models needed for solutions to common difficulties and illustrates the engineering examples with about 300 figures

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.

This new edition of College Physics Essentials provides a streamlined update of a major textbook for algebra-based physics. The first volume covers topics such as mechanics, heat, and thermodynamics. The second volume covers electricity, atomic, nuclear, and quantum physics. The authors provide emphasis on worked examples together with expanded problem sets that build from conceptual understanding to numerical solutions and real-world applications to increase reader engagement. Including over 900 images throughout the two volumes, this textbook is highly recommended for students seeking a basic understanding of key physics concepts and how to apply them to real problems.

- New advancements of fractal analysis with applications to many scientific, engineering, and societal issues - Recent changes and challenges of fractal geometry with the rapid advancement of technology - Attracted chapters on novel theory and recent applications of fractals. - Offers recent findings, modelling and simulations of fractal analysis from eminent institutions across the world - Analytical innovations of fractal analysis - Edited collection with a variety of viewpoints

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.

- Focuses on a very physical and specific understanding of how humans measure and interpret the measurements of the quantity of time, unlike existing books which explore qualitative, speculative theories currently entertained in physics and philosophy.

- Focuses on a very physical and specific understanding of how humans measure and interpret the measurements of the quantity of time, unlike existing books which explore qualitative, speculative theories currently entertained in physics and philosophy.

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.

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.

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.

The focus of this thesis is the interplay of synchrony and adaptivity in complex networks. Synchronization is a ubiquitous phenomenon observed in different contexts in physics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience, medicine, socioeconomic systems, and engineering. Most prominently, synchronization takes place in the brain, where it is associated with cognitive capacities like learning and memory, but is also a characteristic of neurological diseases like Parkinson and epilepsy. Adaptivity is common in many networks in nature and technology, where the connectivity changes in time, i.e., the strength of the coupling is continuously adjusted depending upon the dynamic state of the system, for instance synaptic neuronal plasticity in the brain. This research contributes to a fundamental understanding of various synchronization patterns, including hierarchical multifrequency clusters, chimeras and other partial synchronization states. After a concise survey of the fundamentals of adaptive and complex dynamical networks and synaptic plasticity, in the first part of the thesis the existence and stability of cluster synchronization in globally coupled adaptive networks is discussed for simple paradigmatic phase oscillators as well as for a more realistic neuronal oscillator model with spike-timing dependent plasticity. In the second part of the thesis the interplay of adaptivity and connectivity is investigated for more complex network structures like nonlocally coupled rings, random networks, and multilayer systems. Besides presenting a plethora of novel, sometimes intriguing patterns of synchrony, the thesis makes a number of pioneering methodological advances, where rigorous mathematical proofs are given in the Appendices. These results are of interest not only from a fundamental point of view, but also with respect to challenging applications in neuroscience and technological systems.

Modern computers are now capable of calculating many complex gas flows from the motion of individual molecules. This book outlines the molecular theory of gas dynamics and describes in detail the direct simulation Monte Carlo (or DSMC) method.

This new edition was reprinted without the need to include a disk, this is due to the fact that upgraded versions can be downloaded from the authors web site

test & check test entity &eacute; This new edition includes calculations that computers were not powerful enough to achieve when the first edition came out in 1976. This is the definitive work for researchers in rarefied gas dynamics. For more information visit the authors website on <a href=" http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/gabird/">test link</a>

This book presents select, recent developments in nonlinear and complex systems reported at the 1st Online Conference on Nonlinear Dynamics and Complexity, held on November 23-25, 2020. It provides an exchange recent developments, discoveries, and progresses in Nonlinear Dynamics and Complexity. The collection presents fundamental and frontier theories and techniques for modern science and technology, stimulates more research interest for exploration of nonlinear science and complexity; and passes along new knowledge and insight to the next generation of engineers and technologists in a range of fields.

Model integration - the process by which different modelling efforts can be brought together to simulate the target system - is a core technology in the field of Systems Biology. In the work presented here model integration was addressed directly taking cancer systems as an example. An in-depth literature review was carried out to survey the model forms and types currently being utilised. This was used to formalise the main challenges that model integration poses, namely that of paradigm (the formalism on which a model is based), focus (the real-world system the model represents) and scale.

A two-tier model integration strategy, including a knowledge-driven approach to address model semantics, was developed to tackle these challenges. In the first step a novel description of models at the level of behaviour, rather than the precise mathematical or computational basis of the model, is developed by distilling a set of abstract classes and properties. These can accurately describe model behaviour and hence describe focus in a way that can be integrated with behavioural descriptions of other models. In the second step this behaviour is decomposed into an agent-based system by translating the models into local interaction rules.

The book provides a detailed and highly integrated presentation of the method, encompassing both its novel theoretical and practical aspects, which will enable the reader to practically apply it to their model integration needs in academic research and professional settings. The text is self-supporting. It also includes an in-depth current bibliography to relevant research papers and literature. The review of the current state of the art in tumour modelling provides added value.

Deeply rooted in fundamental research in Mathematics and Computer Science, Cellular Automata (CA) are recognized as an intuitive modeling paradigm for Complex Systems. Already very basic CA, with extremely simple micro dynamics such as the Game of Life, show an almost endless display of complex emergent behavior. Conversely, CA can also be designed to produce a desired emergent behavior, using either theoretical methodologies or evolutionary techniques. Meanwhile, beyond the original realm of applications - Physics, Computer Science, and Mathematics - CA have also become work horses in very different disciplines such as epidemiology, immunology, sociology, and finance. In this context of fast and impressive progress, spurred further by the enormous attraction these topics have on students, this book emerges as a welcome overview of the field for its practitioners, as well as a good starting point for detailed study on the graduate and post-graduate level. The book contains three parts, two major parts on theory and applications, and a smaller part on software. The theory part contains fundamental chapters on how to design and/or apply CA for many different areas. In the applications part a number of representative examples of really using CA in a broad range of disciplines is provided - this part will give the reader a good idea of the real strength of this kind of modeling as well as the incentive to apply CA in their own field of study. Finally, we included a smaller section on software, to highlight the important work that has been done to create high quality problem solving environments that allow to quickly and relatively easily implement a CA model and run simulations, both on the desktop and if needed, on High Performance Computing infrastructures.

A certain curious feature of random objects, introduced by the author as "super concentration," and two related topics, "chaos" and "multiple valleys," are highlighted in this book. Although super concentration has established itself as a recognized feature in a number of areas of probability theory in the last twenty years (under a variety of names), the author was the first to discover and explore its connections with chaos and multiple valleys. He achieves a substantial degree of simplification and clarity in the presentation of these findings by using the spectral approach.

Understanding the fluctuations of random objects is one of the major goals of probability theory and a whole subfield of probability and analysis, called concentration of measure, is devoted to understanding these fluctuations. This subfield offers a range of tools for computing upper bounds on the orders of fluctuations of very complicated random variables. Usually, concentration of measure is useful when more direct problem-specific approaches fail; as a result, it has massively gained acceptance over the last forty years. And yet, there is a large class of problems in which classical concentration of measure produces suboptimal bounds on the order of fluctuations. Here lies the substantial contribution of this book, which developed from a set of six lectures the author first held at the Cornell Probability Summer School in July 2012.

The book is interspersed with a sizable number of open problems for professional mathematicians as well as exercises for graduate students working in the fields of probability theory and mathematical physics. The material is accessible to anyone who has attended a graduate course in probability.

The thesis deals with averaging dynamics in a multiagent networked system, which is a main mechanism for diffusing the information over such networks. It arises in a wide range of applications in engineered physical networks (such as mobile communication and sensor networks), as well as social and economic networks. The thesis provides in depth study of stability and other phenomena characterizing the limiting behavior of both deterministic and random averaging dynamics. By developing new concepts, and using the tools from dynamic system theory and non-negative matrix theory, several novel fundamental results are rigorously developed. These contribute significantly to our understanding of averaging dynamics as well as to non-negative random matrix theory. The exposition, although highly rigorous and technical, is elegant and insightful, and accompanied with numerous illustrative examples, which makes this thesis work easily accessible to those just entering this field and will also be much appreciated by experts in the field.

Gets right to the point with step-by-step guidance on solving physics problems. Covers all topics in standard general physics courses in the same sequence. Keeps learning about physics fun and engaging through the story of dinosaurs being tested on their knowledge for a final challenge (deflecting an asteroid headed to Earth!). Enables the reader to quickly flip through and locate steps needed for a particular problem. Includes tons of easy to follow diagrams and worked solutions.