Thinking with Diagrams

Thinking with Diagrams

This book provides an introductory overview of the rapid growth in interdisciplinary research into Thinking with Diagrams. Diagrammatic representations are becoming more common in everyday human experience, yet they offer unique challenges to cognitive science research. Neither linguistic nor perceptual theories are sufficient to completely explain their advantages and applications. These research challenges may be part of the reason why so many diagrams are badly designed or badly used. This is ironic when the user interfaces of computer software and the worldwide web are becoming so completely dominated by graphical and diagrammatic representations. This book includes chapters commissioned from leading researchers in the major disciplines involved in diagrams research. They review the philosophical status of diagrams, the cognitive processes involved in their application, and a range of specialist fields in which diagrams are central, including education, architectural design and visual programming languages. The result is immediately relevant to researchers in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, as well as in applied technology areas such as human-computer interaction and information design.

Thinking with Diagrams

Electromagnetic Properties of Multiphase Dielectrics

Electromagnetic Properties of Multiphase Dielectrics

Recently, several applications, primarily driven by microtechnology, have emerged where the use of materials with tailored electromagnetic (dielectric) properties are necessary for a successful overall design. The “tailored” aggregate properties are achieved by combining an easily moldable base matrix with particles having dielectric properties that are chosen to deliver (desired) effective properties. In many cases, the analysis of such materials requires the simulation of the macroscopic and microscopic electromagnetic response, as well as its resulting coupled thermal response, which can be important to determine possible failures in “hot spots.” This necessitates a stress analysis. Furthermore, because, oftentimes, such processes initiate degratory chemical processes, it can be necessary to also include models for these processes as well. A central objective of this work is to provide basic models and numerical solution strategies to analyze the coupled response of such materials by direct simulation using standard laptop/desktop equipment. Accordingly, this monograph covers: (1) The foundations of Maxwell’s equations, (2) Basic homogenization theory,(3) Coupled systems (electromagnetic, thermal, mechanical and chemical),(4) Numerical methods and(5) An introduction to select biological problems.The text can be viewed as a research monograph suitable for use in an upper-division undergraduate or first year graduate course geared towards students in the applied sciences, mechanics and mathematics that have an interest in the analysis of particulate materials.

Electromagnetic Properties of Multiphase Dielectrics

Handbook of Coherent-Domain Optical Methods

Handbook of Coherent-Domain Optical Methods

This Handbook provides comprehensive coverage of laser and coherent-domain methods as applied to biomedicine, environmental monitoring, and materials science. Worldwide leaders in these fields describe the fundamentals of light interaction with random media and present an overview of basic research. The latest results on coherent and polarization properties of light scattered by random media, including tissues and blood, speckles formation in multiple scattering media, and other non-destructive interactions of coherent light with rough surfaces and tissues, allow the reader to understand the principles and applications of coherent diagnostic techniques. The expanded second edition has been thoroughly updated with particular emphasis on novel coherent-domain techniques and their applications in medicine and environmental science. Volume 1 describes state-of-the-art methods of coherent and polarization optical imaging, tomography and spectroscopy; diffusion wave spectroscopy; elastic, quasi-elastic and inelastic light scattering spectroscopy and imaging; digital holographic microscopy, the Fourier transform light scattering method, and coherent diffractive imaging; wavefront sensing, aberration measurement and adaptive optics for ophthalmology; and laser remote sensing. Volume 2 presents the new and growing field of coherent optics in optical coherence tomography (OCT). Various applications of OCT and confocal microscopy, including biomedical endoscopy, are discussed. A special section covers Mueller matrix polarimetry, nonlinear laser fluorescence spectroscopy, and triplet-triplet annihilation assisted upconversion as optical tools for probing the physical parameters of materials and natural organic compounds. Represents the only reference work offering integrated coverage of coherent-domain optical methods for a wide range of applications involving strong light scattering Covers the fundamentals of light interaction with random media Describes specific interactions of coherent and low-coherent light with tissues and blood Presents advanced optical coherence tomography techniques and other non-destructive diagnostic methods Extensively revised and updated from the 2004 edition

Handbook of Coherent-Domain Optical Methods

Why Society is a Complex Matter

Why Society is a Complex Matter

Society is complicated. But this book argues that this does not place it beyond the reach of a science that can help to explain and perhaps even to predict social behaviour. As a system made up of many interacting agents people, groups, institutions and governments, as well as physical and technological structures such as roads and computer networks society can be regarded as a complex system. In recent years, scientists have made great progress in understanding how such complex systems operate, ranging from animal populations to earthquakes and weather. These systems show behaviours that cannot be predicted or intuited by focusing on the individual components, but which emerge spontaneously as a consequence of their interactions: they are said to be self-organized. Attempts to direct or manage such emergent properties generally reveal that top-down approaches, which try to dictate a particular outcome, are ineffectual, and that what is needed instead is a bottom-up approach that aims to guide self-organization towards desirable states. This book shows how some of these ideas from the science of complexity can be applied to the study and management of social phenomena, including traffic flow, economic markets, opinion formation and the growth and structure of cities. Building on these successes, the book argues that the complex-systems view of the social sciences has now matured sufficiently for it to be possible, desirable and perhaps essential to attempt a grander objective: to integrate these efforts into a unified scheme for studying, understanding and ultimately predicting what happens in the world we have made. Such a scheme would require the mobilization and collaboration of many different research communities, and would allow society and its interactions with the physical environment to be explored through realistic models and large-scale data collection and analysis. It should enable us to find new and effective solutions to major global problems such as conflict, disease, financial instability, environmental despoliation and poverty, while avoiding unintended policy consequences. It could give us the foresight to anticipate and ameliorate crises, and to begin tackling some of the most intractable problems of the twenty-first century.

Why Society is a Complex Matter

Biomechanics of the Gravid Human Uterus

Biomechanics of the Gravid Human Uterus

The complexity of human uterine function and regulation is one of the great wonders of nature and represents a daunting challenge to unravel. This book is dedicated to the biomechanical modeling of the gravid human uterus and gives an example of the application of the mechanics of solids and the theory of soft shells to explore medical problems of labor and delivery. After a brief overview of the anatomy, physiology and biomechanics of the uterus, the authors focus mainly on electromechanical wave processes, their origin, dynamics, and neuroendocrine and pharmacological modulations. In the last chapter applications, pitfalls and problems related to modeling and computer simulations of the pregnant uterus and pelvic floor structures are discussed. A collection of exercises is added at the end of each chapter to help readers with self-evaluation. The book serves as an invaluable source of information for researchers, instructors and advanced undergraduate and graduate students interested in systems biology, applied mathematics and biomedical engineering.

Biomechanics of the Gravid Human Uterus

Printed Physics

Printed Physics

The humanities, natural and technical sciences seemingly have little to say to each other despite all the trans-disciplinary efforts. The Applied Virtuality series will comprise four volumes that create and examine a discourse on the correlations between the larger contexts of ther present. Printed Physics, the first volume, begins with the discussion of developments in information technology that make the physical behavior of matter technologically programmable, allow for its factual construction, industrial production and its determination with symbols. Is it possible that a revitalization of the field of physics looms in the future similar to that which took place with geometry in the 19th century?

Printed Physics

Gene Therapy

Gene Therapy

Each volume of Advances in Pharmacology provides a rich collection of reviews on timely topics. Emphasis is placed on the molecular bases of drug action, both applied and experimental. Volume 40, GeneTherapy, features important new research on gene transfers and therapy in the herpes simplex virus, anti-tumor immunity, steroid receptors, cystic fibroses, and more.

Gene Therapy

Sobolev Spaces

Sobolev Spaces

Sobolev Spaces presents an introduction to the theory of Sobolev Spaces and other related spaces of function, also to the imbedding characteristics of these spaces. This theory is widely used in pure and Applied Mathematics and in the Physical Sciences.

Sobolev Spaces

Space, Structure and Randomness

Space, Structure and Randomness

Space, structure, and randomness: these are the three key concepts underlying Georges Matherons scientific work. He first encountered them at the beginning of his career when working as a mining engineer, and then they resurfaced in fields ranging from meteorology to microscopy. What could these radically different types of applications possibly have in common? First, in each one only a single realisation of the phenomenon is available for study, but its features repeat themselves in space; second, the sampling pattern is rarely regular, and finally there are problems of change of scale. This volume is divided in three sections on random sets, geostatistics and mathematical morphology. They reflect his professional interests and his search for underlying unity. Some readers may be surprised to find theoretical chapters mixed with applied ones. We have done this deliberately. GM always considered that the distinction between the theory and practice was purely academic. When GM tackled practical problems, he used his skill as a physicist to extract the salient features and to select variables which could be measured meaningfully and whose values could be estimated from the available data. Then he used his outstanding ability as a mathematician to solve the problems neatly and efficiently. It was his capacity to combine a physicists intuition with a mathematicians analytical skills that allowed him to produce new and innovative solutions to difficult problems. The book should appeal to graduate students and researchers working in mathematics, probability, statistics, physics, spatial data analysis, and image analysis. In addition it will be of interest to those who enjoy discovering links between scientific disciplines that seem unrelated at first glance. In writing the book the contributors have tried to put GMs ideas into perspective. During his working life, GM was a genuinely creative scientist. He developed innovative concepts whose usefulness goes far beyond the confines of the discipline for which they were originally designed. This is why his work remains as pertinent today as it was when it was first written.

Space, Structure and Randomness

Probabilistic Modeling in Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics

Probabilistic Modeling in Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics

Probabilistic Modelling in Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics has been written for researchers and students in statistics, machine learning, and the biological sciences. The first part of this book provides a self-contained introduction to the methodology of Bayesian networks. The following parts demonstrate how these methods are applied in bioinformatics and medical informatics. All three fields – the methodology of probabilistic modeling, bioinformatics, and medical informatics – are evolving very quickly. The text should therefore be seen as an introduction, offering both elementary tutorials as well as more advanced applications and case studies.

Probabilistic Modeling in Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics

Control of Surge in Centrifugal Compressors by Active Magnetic Bearings

Control of Surge in Centrifugal Compressors by Active Magnetic Bearings

Surge Control of Active-magnetic-bearing-suspended Centrifugal Compressors sets out the fundamentals of integrating active magnetic bearing (AMB) rotor suspension technology in compressor systems, and describes how this relatively new bearing technology can be employed in active control of compressor surge initiation. The authors provide a self-contained and comprehensive review of rotordynamics and the fundamentals of AMB technology. The active stabilization of compressor surge employing AMBs in a machine is fully explored, from modeling of instability and controller design, to the implementation and experimental testing of the control algorithm in a specially-constructed, industrial-size centrifugal compression system. The results of these tests demonstrate the great potential of the new surge control method suggested in this text. This book will be useful for engineers in industries that involve turbocompressors and magnetic bearings, as well as for researchers and graduate students in the field of applied control. Whatever their level of experience, engineers working in the fields of turbomachinery, magnetic bearings, rotordynamics and controls will find the material in this book absorbing as all these important aspects of engineering are integrated to create a multi-disciplinary solution to a real-life industrial problem and the book is a suitable introduction to the area for newcomers.

Control of Surge in Centrifugal Compressors by Active Magnetic Bearings

Differential Evolution

Differential Evolution

Differential evolution is a very simple but very powerful stochastic optimizer. Since its inception, it has proved very efficient and robust in function optimization and has been applied to solve problems in many scientific and engineering fields. In Differential Evolution , Dr. Qing begins with an overview of optimization, followed by a state-of-the-art review of differential evolution, including its fundamentals and up-to-date advances. He goes on to explore the relationship between differential evolution strategies, intrinsic control parameters, non-intrinsic control parameters, and problem features through a parametric study. Findings and recommendations on the selection of strategies and intrinsic control parameter values are presented. Lastly, after an introductory review of reported applications in electrical and electronic engineering fields, different research groups demonstrate how the methods can be applied to such areas as: multicast routing, multisite mapping in grid environments, antenna arrays, analog electric circuit sizing, electricity markets, stochastic tracking in video sequences, and color quantization.

Differential Evolution

Practical Approach to Exergy and Thermoeconomic Analyses of Industrial Processes

Practical Approach to Exergy and Thermoeconomic Analyses of Industrial Processes

Although the exergy method has been featured as the subject of many publishing papers in scientific and engineering journals and at conferences, very few comprehensive books on this subject have been published so far. Practical Approach to Exergy and Thermoeconomic Analyses of Industrial Processes details the exergetic and thermoeconomic analyses of industrial processes using Aspen Plus and a novel Microsoft Excel Application developed by the authors which can be applied to industrial processes across the board. Employing a practical approach to an innovative and complex energy process, every chapter contains extensive explanations of a complex and real case and numerous examples whose solution demonstrates the application of theory to a wide range of real and practical problems. Illustrations, tables and graphs support and illustrate the new methodology to build a deep understanding of the real employment of the fuel used and the cost formation and increase inside the process. Practical Approach to Exergy and Thermoeconomic Analyses of Industrial Processes provides users, students and practitioners of process analysis, power plant design and fuel use optimization, with a broad introduction and approach to computer aided process optimization. It also serves as a comprehensive guide to the operational application of the MHBT to real cases analysis.

Practical Approach to Exergy and Thermoeconomic Analyses of Industrial Processes

An Introduction to Markov State Models and Their Application to Long Timescale Molecular Simulation

An Introduction to Markov State Models and Their Application to Long Timescale Molecular Simulation

The aim of this book volume is to explain the importance of Markov state models to molecular simulation, how they work, and how they can be applied to a range of problems.

An Introduction to Markov State Models and Their Application to Long Timescale Molecular Simulation

Open Quantum Systems I

Open Quantum Systems I

Understanding dissipative dynamics of open quantum systems remains a challenge in mathematical physics. This problem is relevant in various areas of fundamental and applied physics. From a mathematical point of view, it involves a large body of knowledge. Significant progress in the understanding of such systems has been made during the last decade. These books present in a self-contained way the mathematical theories involved in the modeling of such phenomena. They describe physically relevant models, develop their mathematical analysis and derive their physical implications.

Open Quantum Systems I

Agent-Based Models of Geographical Systems

Agent-Based Models of Geographical Systems

This unique book brings together a comprehensive set of papers on the background, theory, technical issues and applications of agent-based modelling (ABM) within geographical systems. This collection of papers is an invaluable reference point for the experienced agent-based modeller as well those new to the area. Specific geographical issues such as handling scale and space are dealt with as well as practical advice from leading experts about designing and creating ABMs, handling complexity, visualising and validating model outputs. With contributions from many of the world s leading research institutions, the latest applied research (micro and macro applications) from around the globe exemplify what can be achieved in geographical context. This book is relevant to researchers, postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students, and professionals in the areas of quantitative geography, spatial analysis, spatial modelling, social simulation modelling and geographical information sciences.

Agent-Based Models of Geographical Systems

Non-thermal Food Engineering Operations

Non-thermal Food Engineering Operations

A number of food engineering operations, in which heat is not used as a preserving factor, have been employed and are applied for preparation (cleaning, sorting, etc.), conversion (milling, agglomeration, etc.) or preservation (irradiation, high pressure processing, pulsed electric fields, etc.) purposes in the food industry. This book presents a comprehensive treatise of all normally used food engineering operations that are carried out at room (or ambient) conditions, whether they are aimed at producing microbiologically safe foods with minimum alteration to sensory and nutritive properties, or they constitute routine preparative or transformation operations. The book is written for both undergraduate and graduate students, as well as for educators and practicing food process engineers. It reviews theoretical concepts, analyzes their use in operating variables of equipment, and discusses in detail different applications in diverse food processes.

Non-thermal Food Engineering Operations

Contemporary Applied Linguistics Volume 1

Contemporary Applied Linguistics Volume 1

Written by internationally renowned academics, this volume provides a snapshot of the field of applied linguistics, and illustrates how linguistics is informing and engaging with neighbouring disciplines.

Contemporary Applied Linguistics Volume 1

Ultrasonic Doppler Velocity Profiler for Fluid Flow

Ultrasonic Doppler Velocity Profiler for Fluid Flow

The ultrasonic velocity profile (UVP) method, first developed in medical engineering, is now widely used in clinical settings. The fluid mechanical basis of UVP was established in investigations by the author and his colleagues with work demonstrating that UVP is a powerful new tool in experimental fluid mechanics. There are diverse examples, ranging from problems in fundamental fluid dynamics to applied problems in mechanical, chemical, nuclear, and environmental engineering. In all these problems, the methodological principle in fluid mechanics was converted from point measurements to spatio-temporal measurements along a line. This book is the first monograph on UVP that offers comprehensive information about the method, its principles, its practice, and applied examples, and which serves both current and new users. Current users can confirm that their application configurations are correct, which will help them to improve the configurations so as to make them more efficient and effective. New users will become familiar with the method, to design applications on a physically correct basis for performing measurements accurately. Additionally, the appendix provides necessary practical information, such as acoustic properties.

Ultrasonic Doppler Velocity Profiler for Fluid Flow

Language Across Boundaries

Language Across Boundaries

A selection of papers from the millennium conference of the British Association of Applied Linguistics. The boundaries of the title have been widely interpreted, ranging from work on the linguistic repercussions of individual and group identity boundaries, to work dealing with ways of crossing national and cultural boundaries through language learning.

Language Across Boundaries