Quantum annealing employs quantum fluctuations in frustrated systems or networks to anneal the system down to its ground state, or more generally to its so-called minimum cost state. Often this procedure turns out to be more effective, in multivariable optimization problems, than its classical counterpart utilizing tunable thermal fluctuations. This volume is divided into three parts. Part I is an extensive tutorial introduction familiarizing the reader with the background material necessary to follow the core of the book. Part II gives a comprehensive account of the fundamentals and applications of the quantum annealing method, and Part III compares quantum annealing with other related optimization methods. This is the first book entirely devoted to quantum annealing and will be both an invaluable primer and guidebook for all advanced students and researchers in this important field.

Human Rights and the Third World: Issues and Discourses deals with the controversial questions on the universalistic notions of human rights. It finds Third World perspectives on human rights and seeks to open up a discursive space in the human rights discourse to address unresolved questions, citing issues and problems from different countries in the Third World: 1.Whether alternative perspectives should be taken as the standard for human rights in the Third World countries? 2.Should there be a universalistic notion of rights for Homo sapiens or are we talking about two diametrically opposite trends and standards of human rights for the same species? 3.How far these Third World perspectives of human rights can ensure the protection of the minorities and the vulnerable sections of population, particularly the women and children within the Third World? 4.Can these alternative perspectives help in fighting the Third World problems like poverty, hunger, corruption, despotism, social exclusion like the caste system in India, communalism, and the like? 5.Can there be reconciliation between the Third World perspectives and the Western perspective of human rights?

Human Rights and the Third World: Issues and Discourses deals with the controversial questions on the universalistic notions of human rights. It finds Third World perspectives on human rights and seeks to open up a discursive space in the human rights discourse to address unresolved questions, citing issues and problems from different countries in the Third World: 1. Whether alternative perspectives should be taken as the standard for human rights in the Third World countries? 2. Should there be a universalistic notion of rights for Homo sapiens or are we talking about two diametrically opposite trends and standards of human rights for the same species? 3. How far these Third World perspectives of human rights can ensure the protection of the minorities and the vulnerable sections of population, particularly the women and children within the Third World? 4. Can these alternative perspectives help in fighting the Third World problems like poverty, hunger, corruption, despotism, social exclusion like the caste system in India, communalism, and the like? 5. Can there be reconciliation between the Third World perspectives and the Western perspective of human rights?

physics

The process of realizing the ground state of some typical (frustrated) quantum many-body systems, starting from the 'disordered' or excited states, can be formally mapped to the search of solutions for computationally hard problems. The dynamics through the critical point, in between, are therefore extremely crucial. In the context of such computational optimization problems, the dynamics (of rapid quenching or slow annealing), while tuning the appropriate elds or uctuations, in particular while crossing the quantum critical point, are extremely intriguing and are being investigated these days intensively. Several successful methods and tricks are now well established. This volume gives a collection of introductory reviews on such developments written by well-known experts. It concentrates on quantum phase transitions and their dynamics as the transition or critical points are crossed. Both the quenching and annealing dynamics are extensively covered. We hope these timely reviews will inspire the young researchers to join and c- tribute to this fast-growing, intellectually challenging, as well as technologically demanding eld. We are extremely thankful to the contributors for their intensive work and pleasant cooperations. We are also very much indebted to Kausik Das for his help in compiling this book. Finally, we express our gratitude to Johannes Zittartz, Series Editor, LNP, and Christian Caron of physics editorial department of Springer for their encouragement and support.