This book is set against the assumption that humans' unique feature is their infinite creativity, their ability to reflect on their deeds and to control their actions. These skills give rise to genuine uncertainty in society and hence in the economy. Here, the author sets out that uncertainty must take centre stage in all analyses of human decision making and therefore in economics. Uncertainty and Economics carefully defines a taxonomy of uncertainty and argues that it is only uncertainty in its most radical form which matters to economics. It shows that uncertainty is a powerful concept that not only helps to resolve long-standing economic puzzles but also unveils serious contradictions within current, popular economic approaches. It argues that neoclassical, real business cycle, or new-Keynesian economics must be understood as only one way to circumvent the analytical challenges posed by uncertainty. Instead, embracing uncertainty offers a new analytical paradigm which, in this book, is applied to standard economic topics such as institutions, money, the Lucas critique, fiscal policy and asset pricing. Through applying a concise uncertainty paradigm, the book sheds new light on human decision making at large. Offering policy conclusions and recommendations for further theoretical and applied research, it will be of great interest to postgraduate students, academics and policy makers.

This book is a comprehensive introduction into Organic Computing (OC), presenting systematically the current state-of-the-art in OC. It starts with motivating examples of self-organising, self-adaptive and emergent systems, derives their common characteristics and explains the fundamental ideas for a formal characterisation of such systems. Special emphasis is given to a quantitative treatment of concepts like self-organisation, emergence, autonomy, robustness, and adaptivity. The book shows practical examples of architectures for OC systems and their applications in traffic control, grid computing, sensor networks, robotics, and smart camera systems. The extension of single OC systems into collective systems consisting of social agents based on concepts like trust and reputation is explained. OC makes heavy use of learning and optimisation technologies; a compact overview of these technologies and related approaches to self-organising systems is provided. So far, OC literature has been published with the researcher in mind. Although the existing books have tried to follow a didactical concept, they remain basically collections of scientific papers. A comprehensive and systematic account of the OC ideas, methods, and achievements in the form of a textbook which lends itself to the newcomer in this field has been missing so far. The targeted reader of this book is the master student in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or Electrical Engineering - or any other newcomer to the field of Organic Computing with some technical or Computer Science background. Readers can seek access to OC ideas from different perspectives: OC can be viewed (1) as a "philosophy" of adaptive and self-organising - life-like - technical systems, (2) as an approach to a more quantitative and formal understanding of such systems, and finally (3) a construction method for the practitioner who wants to build such systems. In this book, we first try to convey to the reader a feeling of the special character of natural and technical self-organising and adaptive systems through a large number of illustrative examples. Then we discuss quantitative aspects of such forms of organisation, and finally we turn to methods of how to build such systems for practical applications.

This book treats the computational use of social concepts as the focal point for the realisation of a novel class of socio-technical systems, comprising smart grids, public display environments, and grid computing. These systems are composed of technical and human constituents that interact with each other in an open environment. Heterogeneity, large scale, and uncertainty in the behaviour of the constituents and the environment are the rule rather than the exception. Ensuring the trustworthiness of such systems allows their technical constituents to interact with each other in a reliable, secure, and predictable way while their human users are able to understand and control them. "Trustworthy Open Self-Organising Systems" contains a wealth of knowledge, from trustworthy self-organisation mechanisms, to trust models, methods to measure a user's trust in a system, a discussion of social concepts beyond trust, and insights into the impact open self-organising systems will have on society.

"The Early Evolution of the Atmospheres of Terrestrial Planets" presents the main processes participating in the atmospheric evolution of terrestrial planets. A group of experts in the different fields provide an update of our current knowledge on this topic. Several papers in this book discuss the key role of nitrogen in the atmospheric evolution of terrestrial planets. The earliest setting and evolution of planetary atmospheres of terrestrial planets is directly associated with accretion, chemical differentiation, outgassing, stochastic impacts, and extremely high energy fluxes from their host stars. This book provides an overview of the present knowledge of the initial atmospheric composition of the terrestrial planets. Additionally it includes some papers about the current exoplanet discoveries and provides additional clues to our understanding of Earth's transition from a hot accretionary phase into a habitable world. All papers included were reviewed by experts in their respective fields. We are living in an epoch of important exoplanet discoveries, but current properties of these exoplanets do not match our scientific predictions using standard terrestrial planet models. This book deals with the main physio-chemical signatures and processes that could be useful to better understand the formation of rocky planets.

"The Early Evolution of the Atmospheres of Terrestrial Planets" presents the main processes participating in the atmospheric evolution of terrestrial planets. A group of experts in the different fields provide an update of our current knowledge on this topic. Several papers in this book discuss the key role of nitrogen in the atmospheric evolution of terrestrial planets. The earliest setting and evolution of planetary atmospheres of terrestrial planets is directly associated with accretion, chemical differentiation, outgassing, stochastic impacts, and extremely high energy fluxes from their host stars. This book provides an overview of the present knowledge of the initial atmospheric composition of the terrestrial planets. Additionally it includes some papers about the current exoplanet discoveries and provides additional clues to our understanding of Earth's transition from a hot accretionary phase into a habitable world. All papers included were reviewed by experts in their respective fields. We are living in an epoch of important exoplanet discoveries, but current properties of these exoplanets do not match our scientific predictions using standard terrestrial planet models. This book deals with the main physio-chemical signatures and processes that could be useful to better understand the formation of rocky planets.

This book is the first attempt to bring together current research findings in the domain of interactive horizontal displays. The novel compilation will integrate and summarise findings from the most important international tabletop research teams. It will provide a state-of-the art overview of this research domain and therefore allow for discussion of emerging and future directions in research and technology of interactive horizontal displays. Latest advances in interaction and software technologies and their increasing availability beyond research labs, refuels the interest in interactive horizontal displays. In the early 1990s Mark Weiser's vision of Ubiquitous Computing redefined the notion of Human Computer Interaction. Interaction was no longer considered to happen only with standard desktop computers but also with elements of their environment. This book is structured in three major areas: 'under', 'on/above' and 'around' tabletops. These areas are associated with different research disciplines such as Hardware/Software and Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW). However, the comprehensive and compelling presentation of the topic of the book results from its interdisciplinary character. The book addresses fellow researchers who are interested in this domain and practitioners considering interactive tabletops in real-world projects. It will also be a useful introduction into tabletop research that can be used for the academic curriculum.

Microelectronics are certainly one of the key-technologies of our time. They are a key factor of technological and economic progress. They effect the fields of automation, information and communication, leading to the development of new applications and markets. Attention should be focused on three areas of development: * process and production technology, * test technology, * design technology. Clearly, because of the development of new application fields, the skill ~f design ing integrated circuits should not be limited to a few, highly specialized experts Rather, this ability should be made available to all system aDd design engineers as a new application technology - just like nrogramrning technology for software. For this reason, design procedures havt: to be developed which, supported by appropriate CAD systems, provide the desIgn englIl~I' with tools for representaltop effective instruments for design and reliable *tools for verificatibn, ensuring simpre, proper and easily controllable interfaces for the manufacturing and test processes. Such CAD systems are called standard design systems. They open the way to fast and safe design of integrated circuits. First, this book demonstrates basic principles with an example of the Siemens design system VENUS, gives a general introduction to the method of designing integrated circuits, familiarizes the reader with basic semiconductor and circuit tech nologies, shows the various methods of layout design, and presents necessary con cepts and strategies of test technology.

Organic Computing has emerged as a challenging vision for future information processing systems. Its basis is the insight that we will increasingly be surrounded by and depend on large collections of autonomous systems, which are equipped with sensors and actuators, aware of their environment, communicating freely, and organising themselves in order to perform actions and services required by the users.

These networks of intelligent systems surrounding us open fascinating ap-plication areas and at the same time bear the problem of their controllability. Hence, we have to construct such systems as robust, safe, flexible, and trustworthy as possible. In particular, a strong orientation towards human needs as opposed to a pure implementation of the tech-nologically possible seems absolutely central. The technical systems, which can achieve these goals will have to exhibit life-like or "organic" properties. "Organic Computing Systems" adapt dynamically to their current environmental conditions. In order to cope with unexpected or undesired events they are self-organising, self-configuring, self-optimising, self-healing, self-protecting, self-explaining, and context-aware, while offering complementary interfaces for higher-level directives with respect to the desired behaviour. First steps towards adaptive and self-organising computer systems are being undertaken. Adaptivity, reconfigurability, emergence of new properties, and self-organisation are hot top-ics in a variety of research groups worldwide.

This book summarises the results of a 6-year priority research program (SPP) of the German Research Foundation (DFG) addressing these fundamental challenges in the design of Organic Computing systems. It presents and discusses the theoretical foundations of Organic Computing, basic methods and tools, learning techniques used in this context, architectural patterns and many applications. The final outlook shows that in the mean-time Organic Computing ideas have spawned a variety of promising new projects.

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This book is the first attempt to bring together current research findings in the domain of interactive horizontal displays. The novel compilation will integrate and summarise findings from the most important international tabletop research teams. It will provide a state-of-the art overview of this research domain and therefore allow for discussion of emerging and future directions in research and technology of interactive horizontal displays.

Latest advances in interaction and software technologies and their increasing availability beyond research labs, refuels the interest in interactive horizontal displays. In the early 1990s Mark Weiser s vision of Ubiquitous Computing redefined the notion of Human Computer Interaction. Interaction was no longer considered to happen only with standard desktop computers but also with elements of their environment.

This book is structured in three major areas: under, on/above and around tabletops. These areas are associated with different research disciplines such as Hardware/Software and Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW). However, the comprehensive and compelling presentation of the topic of the book results from its interdisciplinary character. The book addresses fellow researchers who are interested in this domain and practitioners considering interactive tabletops in real-world projects. It will also be a useful introduction into tabletop research that can be used for the academic curriculum."

TheARCSseriesofconferenceshasover30yearsoftraditionreportingtop-notch results in computer architecture and operating systems research. It is organized by the special interest group on "Computer and System Architecture"of the GI (Gesellschaft fur ] Informatik e.V.) and ITG (Informationstechnische Gesellschaft imVDE InformationTechnologySociety).In2010, ARCSwashostedbyLeibniz University Hannover. This year's special focus was on heterogeneous systems. The conference's topics comprised design aspects of multi-cores and memory systems, adaptive system architectures such as recon?gurable systems in hardware and software, customization and application-speci?c accelerators in heterogeneous archit- tures, organic and autonomic computing, energy-awareness, system aspects of ubiquitous and pervasive computing, and embedded systems. Thecallforpapersattractedabout55submissionsfromallaroundtheworld. Each submission was assigned to at least three members of the Program C- mittee for review. The Program Committee decided to accept 20 papers, which were arranged in seven sessions. The accepted papers are from Belgium, China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the UK. Two keynotes on hetero- neous systems complemented the strong technical program."

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems, ARCS 2009, held in Delft, The Netherlands, in March 2009.

The 21 revised full papers presented together with 3 keynote papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 57 submissions. This year's special focus is set on energy awareness. The papers are organized in topical sections on compilation technologies, reconfigurable hardware and applications, massive parallel architectures, organic computing, memory architectures, enery awareness, Java processing, and chip-level multiprocessing.

As well as conveying a message in words and sounds, the speech signal carries information about the speaker's own anatomy, physiology, linguistic experience and mental state. These speaker characteristics are found in speech at all levels of description: from the spectral information in the sounds to the choice of words and utterances themselves.

This volume and its companion volume, LNAI 4441, constitute a state-of-the-art survey for the field of speaker classification. They approach the following questions: What characteristics of the speaker become manifest in his or her voice and speaking behavior? Which of them can be inferred from analyzing the acoustic realizations? What can this information be used for? Which methods are the most suitable for diversified problems in this area of research? How should the quality of the results be evaluated?

The 19 contributions to this volume comprise general and overview-like articles that are organized in topical sections on fundamentals, characteristics, applications, methods and features, as well as evaluation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Autonomic and Trusted Computing, ATC 2007, held in Hong Kong, China in July 2007, co-located with UIC 2007, the 4th International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing.

The 55 revised full papers presented together with 1 keynote lecture were carefully reviewed and selected from 223 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on cryptography and signatures, autonomic computing and services, secure and trusted computing, autonomic models and architectures, trusted models and systems, intrusion detection, access control, trusted computing and communications, key management, worm detection and data security, secured services and applications, as well as fault-tolerant systems.

Where is system architecture heading? The special interest group on Computer and Systems Architecture (Fachausschuss Rechner- und Systemarchitektur) of the German computer and information technology associations GI and ITG a- ed this question and discussed it during two Future Workshops in 2002. The result in a nutshell: Everything will change but everything else will remain. Future systems technologies will build on a mature basis of silicon and IC technology, onwell-understoodprogramminglanguagesandsoftwareengineering techniques, and on well-established operating systems and middleware concepts. Newer and still exotic but exciting technologies like quantum computing and DNA processing are to be watched closely but they will not be mainstream in the next decade. Although there will be considerable progress in these basic technologies, is there any major trend which uni?es these diverse developments? There is a common denominator - according to the result of the two - ture Workshops - which marks a new quality. The challenge for future systems technologies lies in the mastering of complexity. Rigid and in?exible systems, built under a strict top-down regime, have reached the limits of manageable complexity, as has become obvious by the recent failure of several large-scale projects. Nature is the most complex system we know, and she has solved the problem somehow. We just haven't understood exactly how nature does it. But it is clear that systems designed by nature, like an anthill or a beehive or a swarm of birds or a city, are di?erent from today's technical systems that have beendesignedbyengineersandcomputerscientists.

The first of January 1999 marked the beginning of a macroeconomic experi ment without precedent in modern history. For the first time eleven European countries agreed to abolish their local currencies in favour of a single one, the Euro. Not surprisingly, the necessary preparatory process has been accompa nied by an intensive discussion about the best way to manage the new Euro currency properly. To spur on that discourse was the principal motivation for this thesis. The introductory chapter attempts to bridge economic and econometric views on money demand analysis. It should help to motivate estimation proce dures and to standardize interpretation techniques, hopefully initiating further discussion in that direction. It intends to make the following chapters more accessible. In this thesis I approach the general subject in two principle ways. In chapter 3 I consider technical issues dealing with time series with shifts in the mean. Two years ago, Helmut Liitkepohl and Pentti Saikkonen asked me to join in on a related project which became the cornerstone of this chapter. I have very much appreciated the highly instructive collaboration with both these scholars."

The stylized facts that firms pay and investors react to dividends disregard dividend neutrality. Taking on the perspective that informational asymmetries are the central determinant for dividend value relevance, Christian Muller assumes that firm s dividend decision conveys useful information to investors. He shows that investors use dividend changes to revise their a priori expectations about the persistence of a current earnings change. While his theoretical and empirical analyses generally imply that dividend changes constitute informative, but imperfect information signals, he further identifies situations in which they are substantial to investors. Christian Muller s research comprehensively examines the informational role of dividend policy and provides new insights to the corresponding Bayesian investor learning process.

In diesem Kompendium fuhren 40 Politik- und Wirtschaftswissenschaftler aus insgesamt 25 Hochschulen gemeinsam in die wichtigsten Bereiche der Politischen OEkonomie ein und beleuchten die verschiedenen Teilbereiche jeweils aus Sicht beider Disziplinen. Damit wird in diesem Handbuch erstmals ein explizit integrativer Ansatz verfolgt. Im ersten Teil geben die interdisziplinaren Autorenteams einen UEberblick uber grundlegende Frage- und Problemstellungen, die das Nachdenken uber Politik und Wirtschaft sowie insbesondere die Reflexion uber das Zusammenspiel dieser beiden Gesellschaftsbereiche seit Jahrhunderten gepragt haben. Der zweite Teil bietet eine Einfuhrung in zentrale Aufgabenbereiche der Wirtschaftspolitik, wahrend im dritten Teil die Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen den beteiligten Fachdisziplinen bei der Analyse verschiedener Politikfelder aufgezeigt werden.

This book offers an introduction to the topic of data science based on the visual processing of data. It deals with ethical considerations in the digital transformation and presents a process framework for the evaluation of technologies. It also explains special features and findings on the failure of data science projects and presents recommendation systems in consideration of current developments. Machine learning functionality in business analytics tools is compared and the use of a process model for data science is shown.The integration of renewable energies using the example of photovoltaic systems, more efficient use of thermal energy, scientific literature evaluation, customer satisfaction in the automotive industry and a framework for the analysis of vehicle data serve as application examples for the concrete use of data science. The book offers important information that is just as relevant for practitioners as for students and teachers.