Peter Chan directs this Hong Kong martial arts drama that sees an incredibly scrupulous detective on the trail of a former criminal who has attempted to start a new life. Set in 1917, the film finds Liu Jinxi (Donnie Yen) and his wife Ayu (Wei Tang) living quietly in a small village. Their sense of tranquillity is disrupted when a pair of robbers descend on the local store and Liu's intervention results in their death. Detective Xu Baijiu (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a man so faithfully attached to the law he values it above human life, arrives in the village to investigate and is immediately suspicious of Liu. How could an ordinary villager possess the skills to overcome two hardened criminals? The assiduous detective begins an investigation into Liu's past, threatening to uncover his identity as a retired martial arts expert and lead his many enemies to his door...

While biomedical researchers may be able to follow instructions in the manuals accompanying the statistical software packages, they do not always have sufficient knowledge to choose the appropriate statistical methods and correctly interpret their results. Statistical Thinking in Epidemiology examines common methodological and statistical problems in the use of correlation and regression in medical and epidemiological research: mathematical coupling, regression to the mean, collinearity, the reversal paradox, and statistical interaction. Statistical Thinking in Epidemiology is about thinking statistically when looking at problems in epidemiology. The authors focus on several methods and look at them in detail: specific examples in epidemiology illustrate how different model specifications can imply different causal relationships amongst variables, and model interpretation is undertaken with appropriate consideration of the context of implicit or explicit causal relationships. This book is intended for applied statisticians and epidemiologists, but can also be very useful for clinical and applied health researchers who want to have a better understanding of statistical thinking. Throughout the book, statistical software packages R and Stata are used for general statistical modeling, and Amos and Mplus are used for structural equation modeling.

While biomedical researchers may be able to follow instructions in the manuals accompanying the statistical software packages, they do not always have sufficient knowledge to choose the appropriate statistical methods and correctly interpret their results. Statistical Thinking in Epidemiology examines common methodological and statistical problems in the use of correlation and regression in medical and epidemiological research: mathematical coupling, regression to the mean, collinearity, the reversal paradox, and statistical interaction. Statistical Thinking in Epidemiology is about thinking statistically when looking at problems in epidemiology. The authors focus on several methods and look at them in detail: specific examples in epidemiology illustrate how different model specifications can imply different causal relationships amongst variables, and model interpretation is undertaken with appropriate consideration of the context of implicit or explicit causal relationships. This book is intended for applied statisticians and epidemiologists, but can also be very useful for clinical and applied health researchers who want to have a better understanding of statistical thinking. Throughout the book, statistical software packages R and Stata are used for general statistical modeling, and Amos and Mplus are used for structural equation modeling.

This book introduces a unique, packet-based co-design control framework for networked control systems. It begins by providing a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art research on networked control systems, giving readers a general overview of the field. It then verifies the proposed control framework both theoretically and experimentally - the former using multiple control methodologies, and the latter using a unique online test rig for networked control systems. The framework investigates in detail the most common, communication constraints, including network-induced delays, data packet dropout, data packet disorders, and network access constraints, as well as multiple controller design and system analysis tools such as model predictive control, linear matrix inequalities and optimal control. This unique and complete co-design framework greatly benefits researchers, graduate students and engineers in the fields of control theory and engineering.

This book introduces a unique, packet-based co-design control framework for networked control systems. It begins by providing a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art research on networked control systems, giving readers a general overview of the field. It then verifies the proposed control framework both theoretically and experimentally - the former using multiple control methodologies, and the latter using a unique online test rig for networked control systems. The framework investigates in detail the most common, communication constraints, including network-induced delays, data packet dropout, data packet disorders, and network access constraints, as well as multiple controller design and system analysis tools such as model predictive control, linear matrix inequalities and optimal control. This unique and complete co-design framework greatly benefits researchers, graduate students and engineers in the fields of control theory and engineering.

This book focuses on the stability analysis of Markovian jump systems (MJSs) with various settings and discusses its applications in several different areas. It also presents general definitions of the necessary concepts and an overview of the recent developments in MJSs. Further, it addresses the general robust problem of Markovian jump linear systems (MJLSs), the asynchronous stability of a class of nonlinear systems, the robust adaptive control scheme for a class of nonlinear uncertain MJSs, the practical stability of MJSs and its applications as a modelling tool for networked control systems, Markovian-based control for wheeled mobile manipulators and the jump-linear-quadratic (JLQ) problem of a class of continuous-time MJLSs. It is a valuable resource for researchers and graduate students in the field of control theory and engineering.

Routine applications of advanced statistical methods on real data have become possible in the last ten years because desktop computers have become much more powerful and cheaper. However, proper understanding of the challenging statistical theory behind those methods remains essential for correct application and interpretation, and rarely seen in the medical literature. Modern Methods for Epidemiology provides a concise introduction to recent development in statistical methodologies for epidemiological and biomedical researchers. Many of these methods have become indispensible tools for researchers working in epidemiology and medicine but are rarely discussed in details by standard textbooks of biostatistics or epidemiology. Contributors of this book are experienced researchers and experts in their respective fields. This textbook provides a solid starting point for those who are new to epidemiology, and for those looking for guidance in more modern statistical approaches to observational epidemiology. Epidemiological and biomedical researchers who wish to overcome the mathematical barrier of applying those methods to their research will find this book an accessible and helpful reference for self-learning and research. This book is also a good source for teaching postgraduate students in medical statistics or epidemiology.

This book aims to extend existing works on consensus of multi-agent systems systematically. The agents to be considered range from double integrators to generic linear systems. The primary goal is to explicitly characterize how agent parameters, which reflect both self-dynamics and inner coupling of each agent, and switching network topologies jointly influence the collective behaviors. A series of necessary and/or sufficient conditions for exponential consensus are derived. The contents of this book are as follows. Chapter 1 provides the background and briefly reviews the advances of consensus of multi-agent systems. Chapter 2 addresses the consensus problem of double integrators over directed switching network topologies. It is proven that exponential consensus can be secured under very mild conditions incorporating the damping gain and network topology. Chapter 3 considers generic linear systems with undirected switching network topologies. Necessary and sufficient conditions on agent parameters and connectivity of the communication graph for exponential consensus are provided. Chapter 4 furthers the study of consensus for multiple generic linear systems by considering directed switching network topologies. How agent parameters and joint connectivity work together for reaching consensus is characterized from an algebraic and geometric view. Chapter 5 extends the design and analysis methodology to containment control problem, where there exist multiple leaders. A novel analysis framework from the perspective of state transition matrix is developed. This framework relates containment to consensus and overcomes the difficulty of construction of a containment error. This book serves as a reference to the main research issues and results on consensus of multi-agent systems. Some prerequisites for reading this book include linear system theory, matrix theory, mathematics, and so on.

This book aims to extend existing works on consensus of multi-agent systems systematically. The agents to be considered range from double integrators to generic linear systems. The primary goal is to explicitly characterize how agent parameters, which reflect both self-dynamics and inner coupling of each agent, and switching network topologies jointly influence the collective behaviors. A series of necessary and/or sufficient conditions for exponential consensus are derived. The contents of this book are as follows. Chapter 1 provides the background and briefly reviews the advances of consensus of multi-agent systems. Chapter 2 addresses the consensus problem of double integrators over directed switching network topologies. It is proven that exponential consensus can be secured under very mild conditions incorporating the damping gain and network topology. Chapter 3 considers generic linear systems with undirected switching network topologies. Necessary and sufficient conditions on agent parameters and connectivity of the communication graph for exponential consensus are provided. Chapter 4 furthers the study of consensus for multiple generic linear systems by considering directed switching network topologies. How agent parameters and joint connectivity work together for reaching consensus is characterized from an algebraic and geometric view. Chapter 5 extends the design and analysis methodology to containment control problem, where there exist multiple leaders. A novel analysis framework from the perspective of state transition matrix is developed. This framework relates containment to consensus and overcomes the difficulty of construction of a containment error. This book serves as a reference to the main research issues and results on consensus of multi-agent systems. Some prerequisites for reading this book include linear system theory, matrix theory, mathematics, and so on.

Routine applications of advanced statistical methods on real data have become possible in the last ten years because desktop computers have become much more powerful and cheaper. However, proper understanding of the challenging statistical theory behind those methods remains essential for correct application and interpretation, and rarely seen in the medical literature. Modern Methods for Epidemiology provides a concise introduction to recent development in statistical methodologies for epidemiological and biomedical researchers. Many of these methods have become indispensible tools for researchers working in epidemiology and medicine but are rarely discussed in details by standard textbooks of biostatistics or epidemiology. Contributors of this book are experienced researchers and experts in their respective fields. This textbook provides a solid starting point for those who are new to epidemiology, and for those looking for guidance in more modern statistical approaches to observational epidemiology. Epidemiological and biomedical researchers who wish to overcome the mathematical barrier of applying those methods to their research will find this book an accessible and helpful reference for self-learning and research. This book is also a good source for teaching postgraduate students in medical statistics or epidemiology.