Pattern Classification Using Ensemble Methods

This book describes various patterns of homicide that involve men killing women and other men. A qualitative study, it eschews heavy use of statistics to focus on case studies. Kenneth Polk then establishes the themes which run through four specific 'senarios' of violence. When Men Kill discusses the role of gender and class in homicide and raises a number of important policy issues. It will sharpen international understanding of homicide and the comprehensive classification scheme it develops will be of importance to criminologists everywhere.

Because of their complexity, the new generation of genetically engineered protein drugs can only be made by biotechnological methods, using cultures of animal cells. This book covers all aspects of the technologies needed to turn animal cells into an acceptable and cost-effective tool for drug production. This includes modifying them genetically so that they produce the right product in high yield, getting them to grow reproducibly on an industrial scale, and extracting the required product from them. It also covers biological safety issues, and the verification of the chemical and biological nature of the protein drug produced. The work covers developments in all of these areas and how they all need to be integrated for the design of an effective biotechnological production process. It therefore provides a comprehensive guide to this area of biotechnology.

This book examines the consequences of misspecifications ranging from the fundamental to the nonexistent for the interpretation of likelihood-based methods of statistical estimation and interference. Professor White first explores the underlying motivation for maximum-likelihood estimation, treats the interpretation of the maximum-likelihood estimator (MLE) for misspecified probability models, and gives the conditions under which parameters of interest can be consistently estimated despite misspecification, and the consequences of misspecification, for hypothesis testing in estimating the asymptotic covariance matrix of the parameters. Although the theory presented in the book is motivated by econometric problems, its applicability is by no means restricted to economics. Subject to defined limitations, the theory applies to any scientific context in which statistical analysis is conducted using approximate models.

The exploration and colonisation of the Pacific is a remarkable episode of human prehistory. Early sea-going explorers had no prior knowledge of Pacific geography, no documents to record their route, no metal, no instruments for measuring time and none for exploration. Forty years of modern archaeology, experimental voyages in rafts, and computer simulations of voyages have produced an enormous range of literature on this controversial and mysterious subject. This book represents a major advance in knowledge of the settlement of the Pacific by suggesting that exploration was rapid and purposeful, undertaken systematically, and that navigation methods progressively improved. Using an innovative model to establish a detailed theory of navigation, Geoffrey Irwin claims that rather than sailing randomly downwind in search of the unknown, Pacific Islanders expanded settlement by the cautious strategy of exploring upwind, so as to ease their safe return. The author has tested this hypothesis

The family Equidae have an extensive fossil record spanning the last 58 million years, and the evolution of the horse has frequently been used as a classic example of long-term evolution. In recent years, however, there have been many important discoveries of fossil horses, and these, in conjunction with such new methods as cladistics, and techniques like precise geochronology, have allowed us to achieve a much greater understanding of the evolution and biology of this important group. This book synthesizes the large body of data and research relevant to an understanding of fossil horses from several disciplines including biology, geology and palaeontology. Using horses as the central theme, the author weaves together in the text such topics as modern geochronology, palaeobiogeography, climate change, evolution and extinction, functional morphology, and population biology during the Cenozoic period.

Comparable worth, or pay equity, is now an established policy in some US states, such as Minnesota, and the UK and Australia. Yet Steven Rhoads's research on those jurisdictions indicates there is no consensus on how to compare the value of dissimilar jobs involving 'comparable' amounts of effort, skill and responsibility. Consultants whose job evaluation systems are used in states adopting comparable worth policies do not agree on the factors to be included or how they should be weighed and arbitrary results produced by comparable worth policies have led to inefficient functioning of the labour markets. These policies have generated ill will among the workers who lose pay-equity cases, with political as well as economic consequences. The book argues that jobs are truly incomparable using the methods comparable worth relies on, and that the principles of comparable worth are not reconcilable with those of a market economy.

This work provides a lucid and rigorous account of the foundations of algebraic geometry. The authors have confined themselves to fundamental concepts and geometrical methods, and do not give detailed developments of geometrical properties but geometrical meaning has been emphasised throughout. Here in this volume, the authors have again confined their attention to varieties defined on a ground field without characteristic. In order to familiarize the reader with the different techniques available to algebraic geometers, they have not confined themselves to one method and on occasion have deliberately used more advanced methods where elementary ones would serve, when by so doing it has been possible to illustrate the power of the more advanced techniques, such as valuation theory. The other two volumes of Hodge and Pedoe's classic work are also available. Together, these books give an insight into algebraic geometry that is unique and unsurpassed.

Sporadic Groups is the first step in a programme to provide a uniform, self-contained treatment of the foundational material on the sporadic finite simple groups. The classification of the finite simple groups is one of the premier achievements of modern mathematics. The classification demonstrates that each finite simple group is either a finite analogue of a simple Lie group or one of 26 pathological sporadic groups. Sporadic Groups provides for the first time a self-contained treatment of the foundations of the theory of sporadic groups accessible to mathematicians with a basic background in finite groups such as in the author's text Finite Group Theory. Introductory material useful for studying the sporadics, such as a discussion of large extraspecial 2-subgroups and Tits' coset geometries, opens the book. A construction of the Mathieu groups as the automorphism groups of Steiner systems follows. The Golay and Todd modules, and the 2-local geometry for M24 are discussed. This is fo

This work provides a lucid and rigorous account of the foundations of modern algebraic geometry. The authors have confined themselves to fundamental concepts and geometrical methods, and do not give detailed developments of geometrical properties, but geometrical meaning has been emphasised throughout. This first volume is divided into two parts. The first is devoted to pure algebra; the basic notions, the theory of matrices over a non-commutative ground field and a study of algebraic equations. The second part is concerned with the definitions and basic properties of projective space in n dimensions. It concludes with a purely algebraic account of collineations and correlations. The other two volumes of Hodge and Pedoe's classic work are also available. Together, these books give an insight into algebraic geometry that is unique and unsurpassed.

This is an extensively illustrated laboratory manual of transmission electron microscopy techniques for the technician, graduate student, or researcher. Chapters begin with a general discussion, move on to the chemicals and equipment required for the method being described and conclude with a step-by-step presentation of the method and instructions for the preparation of solutions. Notes at the end of each chapter warn of possible pitfalls and outline 'tricks of the trade'. The methods and techniques outlined have been tested for over ten years in clinical and research laboratory situations, and are entirely reliable. Practical Electron Microscopy covers fixation, dehydration and embedding, semi-thin and thin sectioning, the electron microscope, and photography. For this new edition, the chapters on photography and the electron microscope have been completely rewritten and two new chapters have been added, one on immuno electron microscopy using colloidal gold, and one dealing with suc

Numbers are part of our everyday experience and their properties have fascinated mankind since ancient times. Deciding whether a number is prime and if not, what its factors are, are both fundamental problems. In recent years analysis and solution of these problems have assumed commercial significance since large primes are an essential feature of secure methods of information transmission. The purely mathematical fascination that led to the development of methods for primality testing has been supplemented by the need to test within reasonable timescales, and computational methods have entered at all levels of number theory. In this book, Peter Giblin describes, in the context of an introduction to the theory of numbers, some of the more elementary methods for factorization and primality testing; that is, methods independent of a knowledge of other areas of mathematics. Indeed everything is developed from scratch so the mathematical prerequisites are minimal. An essential feature of t

Ethnobiology is concerned with the social and cultural transformation of biological knowledge. Roy Ellen, who has worked among the Nuaulu people of eastern Indonesia for more than twenty years, argues here that ethnobiology is a key theoretical area of anthropological enquiry, because it relies on accessible ethnography to explain the interrelationship between collective representations and cognitive processes. He demonstrates this through a detailed analysis of Nuaulu classification of animal knowledge: the relationship between animal words and animal categories; the construction of different categories and their relationship to one another, and the actual language of classification. The classifications are shown to be context-bound and socially embedded, of practical importance to their users, and to reflect an interaction between culture, cognitive processes and the material world. This is an innovative study, which takes our understanding beyond the taxonomic abstraction characteri

Comparable worth, or pay equity, is now an established policy in some US states, such as Minnesota, and the UK and Australia. Yet Steven Rhoads's research on those jurisdictions indicates there is no consensus on how to compare the value of dissimilar jobs involving 'comparable' amounts of effort, skill and responsibility. Consultants whose job evaluation systems are used in states adopting comparable worth policies do not agree on the factors to be included or how they should be weighed and arbitrary results produced by comparable worth policies have led to inefficient functioning of the labour markets. These policies have generated ill will among the workers who lose pay-equity cases, with political as well as economic consequences. The book argues that jobs are truly incomparable using the methods comparable worth relies on, and that the principles of comparable worth are not reconcilable with those of a market economy.

Motor development is an integral part of the developmental process. Understanding the organization of the sensory-motor system and its adaptations in response to environmental factors is a vital part of understanding individual development as a whole. This volume describes and discusses human motor development using longitudinal study methods, and from an interdisciplinary perspective. Researchers from a variety of different backgrounds and disciplines provide a broad-ranging analysis of human motor development, from both the practical and theoretical standpoint, in a book which will be of great interest to paediatricians, psychologists, developmental biologists, developmental psychiatrists and neurologists as well as to research scientists in these fields.

Observations of ocean circulation have increased as a result of international field programmes and of remote sensing systems on artificial earth satellites. Oceanographers are increasingly turning to inverse methods for combining these observations with numerical models of ocean circulation. Professor Bennett's work explores the potential for inverse theory, emphasizing possibilities rather than expedient or rudimentary applications. In addition to interpolating the data and adding realism to the model solutions, the methods can yield estimates for unobserved flow variables, forcing fields, and model parameters. Inverse formulations can resolve ill-posed modelling problems, lead to design criteria for oceanic observing systems, and enable the testing of models as scientific hypothesis. Exercises of varying difficulty rehearse technical skills and supplement the central theoretical development. Thus this book will be invaluable for environmental scientists and engineers, advanced underg

The differential geometry of curves and surfaces in Euclidean space has fascinated mathematicians since the time of Newton. Here the authors cast the theory into a new light, that of singularity theory. This second edition has been thoroughly revised throughout and includes a multitude of new exercises and examples. A new final chapter has been added which covers recently developed techniques in the classification of functions of several variables, a subject central to many applications of singularity theory. Also in this second edition are new sections on the Morse lemma and the classification of plane curve singularities. The only prerequisites for students to follow this textbook are a familiarity with linear algebra and advanced calculus. Thus it will be invaluable for anyone who would like an introduction to modern singularity theory.

The differential geometry of curves and surfaces in Euclidean space has fascinated mathematicians since the time of Newton. Here the authors cast the theory into a new light, that of singularity theory. This second edition has been thoroughly revised throughout and includes a multitude of new exercises and examples. A new final chapter has been added which covers recently developed techniques in the classification of functions of several variables, a subject central to many applications of singularity theory. Also in this second edition are new sections on the Morse lemma and the classification of plane curve singularities. The only prerequisites for students to follow this textbook are a familiarity with linear algebra and advanced calculus. Thus it will be invaluable for anyone who would like an introduction to modern singularity theory.

This book presents a coherent introduction to boundary integral, boundary element and singularity methods for steady and unsteady flow at zero Reynolds number. The focus of the discussion is not only on the theoretical foundation, but also on the practical application and computer implementation. The text is supplemented with a number of examples and unsolved problems, many drawn from the field of particulate creeping flows. The material is selected so that the book may serve both as a reference monograph and as a textbook in a graduate course on fluid mechanics or computational fluid mechanics.

This book presents a coherent introduction to boundary integral, boundary element and singularity methods for steady and unsteady flow at zero Reynolds number. The focus of the discussion is not only on the theoretical foundation, but also on the practical application and computer implementation. The text is supplemented with a number of examples and unsolved problems, many drawn from the field of particulate creeping flows. The material is selected so that the book may serve both as a reference monograph and as a textbook in a graduate course on fluid mechanics or computational fluid mechanics.

This book presents the salient features of the general theory of infinite electrical networks in a coherent exposition. Using the basic tools of functional analysis and graph theory, the author examines the fundamental developments in the field and discusses applications to other areas of mathematics. The first half of the book presents existence and uniqueness theorems for both infinite-power and finite-power voltage-current regimes, and the second half discusses methods for solving problems in infinite cascades and grids. A notable feature is the invention of transfinite networks, roughly analogous to Cantor's extension of the natural numbers to the transfinite ordinals. The last chapter is a survey of application to exterior problems of partial differential equations, random walks on infinite graphs, and networks of operators on Hilbert spaces.

This is the first book in welfare economics to be primarily intended for undergraduates and non-specialists. Concepts such as Pareto optimality in a market economy, the compensation criterion, and the social welfare function are explored in detail. Market failures are analysed by using different ways of measuring welfare changes. The book also examines public choice, and the issues of provision of public goods, median voter equilibrium, government failures, efficient and optimal taxation, and intergenerational equity. The three final chapters are devoted to applied welfare economics: methods for revealing people's preferences, cost-benefit analysis, and project evaluation in a risky world. The book is intended for introductory and intermediate courses in welfare economics, microeconomics, and public economics. It will also be suitable for courses in health economics, environmental economics, and cost-benefit analysis, as well as those undertaking project evaluations in government agenc

This collection of papers delivered at the Fifth International Symposium in Economic Theory and Econometrics in 1988 is devoted to the estimation and testing of models that impose relatively weak restrictions on the stochastic behaviour of data. Particularly in highly non-linear models, empirical results are very sensitive to the choice of the parametric form of the distribution of the observable variables, and often nonparametric and semiparametric models are a preferable alternative. Methods and applications that do not require string parametric assumptions for their validity, that are based on kernels and on series expansions, and methods for independent and dependent observations are investigated and developed in these essays by renowned econometricians.

This collection of papers delivered at the Fifth International Symposium in Economic Theory and Econometrics in 1988 is devoted to the estimation and testing of models that impose relatively weak restrictions on the stochastic behaviour of data. Particularly in highly non-linear models, empirical results are very sensitive to the choice of the parametric form of the distribution of the observable variables, and often nonparametric and semiparametric models are a preferable alternative. Methods and applications that do not require string parametric assumptions for their validity, that are based on kernels and on series expansions, and methods for independent and dependent observations are investigated and developed in these essays by renowned econometricians.

This book is an historical and anthropological study of Locorotondo in the province of Bari in south-eastern Italy. It focuses on the unusual nature of peasant society in the region and attempts to explain how it came about. What distinguishes Locorotondo and the neighbouring towns is that peasants live dispersed in the countryside rather than in densely populated rural towns, the pattern more typical for southern Italy. The people are mainly small proprietor grape growers, and have traditionally been better off than other southern Italian peasants. The book traces the development pattern from the eighteenth century. Interweaving anthropological understanding with historical data, the author assesses its effect on family life, social structure, and the relationship between town and country.

This book deals with advanced fluid flow methods for design and analysis of engineering systems. Panel methods employing surface distributions of source and vortex singularities based on the solution of boundary integral equations have been extensively used for modelling external and internal aerodynamic flows. Part 1 describes the surface vorticity method and illustrates applications of this technique over a wide range of engineering problems in aerodynamics and turbo-machines, including lifting aerofoils and cascades, mixed-flow and rotating cascades for fans, pumps or turbines, meridional flows in turbo-machines, flow past axisymmetric bodies, ducts and ducted propellers or fans. Part 2 extends surface vorticity modelling to the fairly new CFM field of vortex dynamics or vortex cloud theory, including foundation chapters on convection and viscous diffusion by the random walk technique. Vortex cloud methods are developed, again from first principles, to deal with shear layers, bounda

This is the completely revised and updated version of the popular and highly regarded textbook, Applied Geophysics. It describes the physical methods involved in exploration for hydrocarbons and minerals, which include gravity, magnetic, seismic, electrical, electromagnetic, radioactivity, and well-logging methods. All aspects of these methods are described, including basic theory, field equipment, techniques of data acquisition, data processing and interpretation, with the objective of locating commercial deposits of minerals, oil, and gas and determining their extent. In the fourteen years or so since the first edition of Applied Geophysics, many changes have taken place in this field, mainly as the result of new techniques, better instrumentation, and increased use of computers in the field and in the interpretation of data. The authors describe these changes in considerable detail, including improved methods of solving the inverse problem, specialized seismic methods, magnetotellur

Written in an appealing and informal style, this text is a self-contained second course on mathematical methods dealing with topics in linear algebra and multivariate calculus that can be applied to statistics, operations research, computer science, econometrics and mathematical economics. The prerequisites are elementary courses in linear algebra and calculus, but the author has maintained a balance between a rigorous theoretical and a cookbook approach, giving concrete and geometric explanations, so that the material will be accessible to students who have not studied mathematics in depth. Indeed, as much of the material is normally available only in technical textbooks, this book will have wide appeal to students whose interest is in application rather than theory. The book is amply supplied with examples and exercises: complete solutions to a large proportion of these are provided.

Written in an appealing and informal style, this text is a self-contained second course on mathematical methods dealing with topics in linear algebra and multivariate calculus that can be applied to statistics, operations research, computer science, econometrics and mathematical economics. The prerequisites are elementary courses in linear algebra and calculus, but the author has maintained a balance between a rigorous theoretical and a cookbook approach, giving concrete and geometric explanations, so that the material will be accessible to students who have not studied mathematics in depth. Indeed, as much of the material is normally available only in technical textbooks, this book will have wide appeal to students whose interest is in application rather than theory. The book is amply supplied with examples and exercises: complete solutions to a large proportion of these are provided.

The theory of surfaces has reached a certain stage of completeness and major efforts concentrate on solving concrete questions rather than developing further the formal theory. Many of these questions are touched upon in this classic volume: such as the classification of quartic surfaces, the description of moduli spaces for abelian surfaces, and the automorphism group of a Kummer surface. First printed in 1905 after the untimely death of the author, this work has stood for most of this century as one of the classic reference works in geometry.

This book examines the relationship between classification and evolutionary theory, with reference to the competing schools of taxonomic thinking. Emphasis is placed on one of these schools, the transformed cladists, who have attempted to reject all evolutionary thinking in classification and to cast doubt on evolution in general. The author examines the limits to this line of thought from a philosophical and methodological perspective rather than from a biological viewpoint. He concludes that transformed cladistics does not achieve what it claims and that it either implicity assumes a Platonic World View, or is unintelligible without taking into account evolutionary processes - the very processes it claims to reject. Through this analysis the author attempts to formulate criteria, of an objective and consistent nature, that can be used to judge competing methodologies and theories without resorting to any particular theoretical standpoint for justification. Philosophers of science, zo

In this book, developed from courses taught at the University of London, the author aims to show the value of using topological methods in combinatorial group theory. The topological material is given in terms of the fundamental groupoid, giving results and proofs that are both stronger and simpler than the traditional ones. Several chapters deal with covering spaces and complexes, an important method, which is then applied to yield the major Schreier and Kurosh subgroup theorems. The author presents a full account of Bass-Serre theory and discusses the word problem, in particular, its unsolvability and the Higman Embedding Theorem. Included for completeness are the relevant results of computability theory.

This 1989 book describes the physico-chemical principles of the high vacuum techniques used by chemists. It is a guide to the choice of suitable equipment, the methods of constructing the systems, and the ways of using them. Professor Plesch's book is the only up-to-date work on the type of high vacuum systems (HVS) used by chemists and it is the first ever to describe in detail the actual construction, manifold uses, method of operation, and final dismantling of an HVS. It includes descriptions of a very wide range of devices for making measurements (conductivity, spectra, kinetics, etc.) in vacuum. The author draws on over 40 years of his own experiences and those of others in many parts of the world, and many of the tricks and gadgets have not been published before. The book will be an essential companion on the bench of every chemist involved in the synthesis of, or measurements on, air-sensitive compounds.

This is the third edition of a successful textbook, now with material added to illustrate the potential of computers for biologists. It is a lucid introduction to the principles and more elementary techniques of statistical reasoning, particularly as they are relevant to the biologist. Special attention is paid to the validity and use of statistical procedures, the interpretation of results, and the meanings of the conclusions which can then be drawn. The understanding of statistical methods is aided by full explanations of how calculations are built up. A particular feature of this edition is the inclusion, of new material to demonstrate the potential usefulness of computers in biological statistical analysis and to this end computer analyses of a selection of the examples are presented, using several different statistical languages. The examples are designed to guide and encourage the biologist to pursue the use of these languages further. The book assumes no mathematical training an

This second of three volumes sets out a general account of the structure and evolution of human societies. The author argues first that societies are to be defined as sets of roles whose incumbents are competitors for access to, or control of, the means of production, persuasion and coercion; and second, that the process by which societies evolve is one of competitive selection of the practices by which roles are defined analagous, but not reducible, to natural selection. He illustrates and tests these theses with evidence drawn from the whole range of societies documented in the historical and ethnographic record. The result is an original, powerful and far-reaching reformulation of evolutionary sociological theory which will make it possible to do for the classification and analysis of societies what Darwin and his successors have done for the classification and analysis of species.

This is a concise graduate level introduction to analytical functional methods in quantum field theory. Functional integral methods provide relatively simple solutions to a wide range of problems in quantum field theory. After introducing the basic mathematical background, this book goes on to study applications and consequences of the formalism to the study of series expansions, measure, phase transitions, physics on spaces with nontrivial topologies, stochastic quantisation, fermions, QED, non-abelian gauge theories, symmetry breaking, the effective potential, finite temperature field theory, instantons and compositeness. Serious attention is paid to the shortcomings of the conventional formalism (e.g. problems of measure) as well as detailed appraisal of the ambiguities of series summation. This book will be of great use to graduate students in theoretical physics wishing to learn the use of functional integrals in quantum field theory. It will also be a useful reference for researc

In a departure from the longstanding emphasis on the frontier in American historical writing, Hal Barron employs a range of sources to reconstruct the social and economic history of a nineteenth-century rural community - Chelsea, Vermont -which was profoundly affected by population loss and economic stagnation at a time when most of the country was experiencing geographical expansion and economic growth. The author's lucid, accessible account explores the hard choices faced by the people of Chelsea as the economic vitality drained out of their community and shows how they dealt with these choices. Using new methods of social history to place Chelsea in the larger context of nineteenth-century American culture and society, this book provides an innovative contribution to the history of rural America.

First published in 1988, this book is a manual of methods for solving problems in radiative transfer. Several of the methods, on operator perturbation as well as on polarised radiative transfer, appeared for the first time in this volume, and the sections dealing with these topics each include introductory articles. The methods described are principally directed at astrophysical plasmas, but the methods are easily adaptable to applications involving other media where self-absorption of the radiation is important. The book is primarily intended for graduate students and research workers in the field of radiative transfer.

This volume will give a systematic exposition of known results for free actions by finite groups on S. The text begins with preliminary material on Seifert manifolds and group classification. This is followed by sections dealing with related topics including free bZe/2 and bZe/3 actions on lens/prism manifolds, the reduction theorem and tangential structure.

This book addresses one of the major theoretical issues that underlies, implicitly or explicitly, some recurrent controversies in macroeconomics - namely, whether a competitive monetary economy has built-in mechanisms that are strong enough to remove excess demands and supplies on all markets, through an automatic adjustment of the price system. Jean-Michel Grandmont sheds light on this complex subject by using the analytical techniques of general equilibrium theory alongside the methods of monetary analysis. The book warns against the indiscriminate use of the rational expectations hypothesis when approaching this topic, and conversely stresses the common-sense observation that short-run learning processes are among the most important characteristics of economic agents. Grandmont argues that such processes are deserving of careful theoretical study, and the result is a clear and rigorous analysis of all the issues involved.

This book provides a clear and concise summary of the present state of the theory of inflation accounting for students and practitioners. It describes all of the main alternative methods of inflation accounting and illustrates them, using simple numerical examples. The theoretical and practical aspects of each method are discussed, in order to give the reader the framework within which he can evaluate the relative merits of the various practical solutions to the inflation accounting problem which are now being implemented in the UK, USA and elsewhere throughout the English-speaking world. The emphasis throughout is on a comparison of the relative merits of alternative systems, rather than aiming to give a single 'best' solution. Indeed the latter aim is seen as most probably illusory, because different types of accounting information may be needed for different purposes.