Functional Analysis Methods for Reliability Models

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

High-level Petri nets are now widely used in both theoretical analysis and practical modelling of concurrent systems. The main reason for the success of this class of net models is that they make it p

Misspecification tests play an important role in detecting unreliable and inadequate economic models. This book brings together many results from the growing literature in econometrics on misspecification testing. It provides theoretical analyses and convenient methods for application. The main emphasis is on the Lagrange multiplier principle, which provides considerable unification, although several other approaches are also considered. The author also examines general checks for model adequacy that do not involve formulation of an alternative hypothesis. General and specific tests are discussed in the context of multiple regression models, systems of simultaneous equations, and models with qualitative or limited dependent variables.

This book is intended as a self-contained introduction for non-specialists, or as a reference work for experts, to the particular area of approximation theory that is concerned with exact constants. The results apply mainly to extremal problems in approximation theory, which in turn are closely related to numerical analysis and optimization. The book encompasses a wide range of questions and problems: best approximation by polynomials and splines; linear approximation methods, such as spline-approximation; optimal reconstruction of functions and linear functionals. Many of the results are based on deep facts from analysis and function theory, such as duality theory and comparison theorems; these are presented in chapters 1 and 3. In keeping with the author's intention to make the book as self-contained as possible, chapter 2 contains an introduction to polynomial and spline approximation. Chapters 4 to 7 apply the theory to specific classes of functions. The last chapter deals with n-w

Four independent chapters present mechanical models, analytical methods, and numerical techniques for determining equilibria and periodic orbits for a self-excited, stick-slip oscillator; two coupled

This book provides an introduction to the methods employed in forecasting the future state of the economy. It provides a comprehensive coverage of methods and applications in this fast-growing area and is intended for use in postgraduate and upper-level undergraduate courses. Part I outlines the available techniques, particularly those used in business forecasting and econometric forecasting. The state of the art in time series modelling is reviewed and includes a discussion of Box-Jenkins models, the vector autogressive approach and cointegration. Ways of combining forecasts are also examined in detail. Part II considers the most important applications of forecasting. Applications in microeconomics include demand and sales forecasting, the use of anticipations data, leading indicators and scenario analysis. In macroeconomics the emphasis is on why errors occur in forecasting asset market prices, including implications of the efficient markets hypothesis for foreign markets, stock mark

This book with software provides powerful tools for the analysis, prediction and creation of new polymer blends, an area of significant commercial potential. The R&D approaches and methods describ

Originally published in 1991, this book reviews the various metabolic and functional mechanisms that animals possess in order to live successfully in their own particular, often unique, environments. The book's purpose is to demonstrate both the diversity of responses that are shown (be they biochemical, physiological or behavioural) and to demonstrate the underlying principles of gas exchange and transport for a wide range of diverse organisms. What results is a useful review and analysis of our modern understanding of the respiratory physiology of helminths, crustacea, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. The approach taken by the editors is essentially comparative and the individual authors were chosen so as to provide a useful, complementary view of the subject.

There are a number of important questions associated with statistical experiments: when does one given experiment yield more information than another; how can we measure the difference in information; how fast does information accumulate by repeating the experiment? The means of answering such questions has emerged from the work of Wald, Blackwell, LeCam and others and is based on the ideas of risk and deficiency. The present work which is devoted to the various methods of comparing statistical experiments, is essentially self-contained, requiring only some background in measure theory and functional analysis. Chapters introducing statistical experiments and the necessary convex analysis begin the book and are followed by others on game theory, decision theory and vector lattices. The notion of deficiency, which measures the difference in information between two experiments, is then introduced. The relation between it and other concepts, such as sufficiency, randomisation, distance, or

This new manual is an indispensable working lab guide and reference for water/wastewater quality analysis. Based on procedures from "Standard Methods" and "Methods for Chemical Analysis of Water and W

Configural Frequency Analysis (CFA) is a method for analysis of groups of individuals in cross-classifications. Individuals belong to a type if their particular pattern of characteristics occurs more often than expected, and to an antityte if their particular pattern of characteristics occurs less often than expected. The author's original contribution is his linking of CFA to log-linear modeling and the General Linear Model, enabling the reader to relate CFA to a well-known statistical background. It is shown that CFA and log-linear modeling are methods that complement each other. Introduction to Configural Frequency Analysis covers the latest developments in CFA, and it will be easy to read even for those with only an elementary statistics course as a background.

This attractively illustrated book reviews the effects of agricultural development on bird populations in Britain. Examining modern farmland as a bird habitat, it explains the changes, both in habitat structure and in available resources, that have occurred as a result of mechanisation and use of agrochemicals. Farmland bird communities are described, and their composition related to farm structure and land use. Based extensively on empirical data extracted from the British Trust for Ornithology's Common Bird Census and from nest histories recorded in the BTO'S Nest Record Scheme, the book presents an important analysis of the position of agricultural bird populations under modern farming systems. Particular examination has been made of the impact of changing methods, rotations and crops, which have been underestimated in the past. Resulting from the co-operation between a professional ornithologist and a working cereal farmer, this book provides an objective and informed view of the i

The study of dynamical systems forms a vast and rapidly developing field even when one considers only activity whose methods derive mainly from measure theory and functional analysis. Karl Petersen has written a book which presents the fundamentals of the ergodic theory of point transformations and then several advanced topics which are currently undergoing intense research. By selecting one or more of these topics to focus on, the reader can quickly approach the specialized literature and indeed the frontier of the area of interest. Each of the four basic aspects of ergodic theory - examples, convergence theorems, recurrence properties, and entropy - receives first a basic and then a more advanced, particularized treatment. At the introductory level, the book provides clear and complete discussions of the standard examples, the mean and pointwise ergodic theorems, recurrence, ergodicity, weak mixing, strong mixing, and the fundamentals of entropy. Among the advanced topics are a thoro

This pioneering book studies the function and status of the written word in Carolingian society in France and Germany in the eighth- and ninth-centuries. It demonstrates that literacy was by no means confined to a clerical élite, but was dispersed in lay society and used for government and administration, and for ordinary legal transactions among the peoples of the Frankish kingdom. While exploiting a huge range of primary material, Professor McKitterick does not confine herself to a functional analysis of the written word in Carolingian northern Europe but goes on to assess the consequences and implications of literacy for the Franks themselves and for the subsequent development of European society after 1000. Key topics discussed include law and the use of the written word, the conduct and record of legal transactions, the economic and social status of the book in Carolingian society, the methods evolved to organize and define written knowledge, and the whole question of lay literacy

First published in 1961 this monograph deals with the analysis of unsteady lift distributions of thin oscillating wings at transonic speeds. Such distributions are needed for the prediction of flutter, which tends to occur more frequently at speeds near that of sound than in any other speed regime. This book emphasises analytical methods that treat the linearised problem for simple wing planforms such as rectangular and delta wings. There is a thorough discussion of the limitations of the validity of linearised theory as well as the proper boundary conditions to be applied for the case of flows with shocks. Although the standard approach in engineering practice is to sense transonic flow calculations with the aid of direct numerical simulations on a high-speed computer, the treatment in this classic monograph is still of value in the physical insight it provides and in the reference 'exact' solutions it supplies for simplified cases that may serve as validation cases for complicated co

The contents of this volume comprise the proceedings of the International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics conference held in 1987 at the IC^T2 (Innovation, Creativity, and Capital) Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. The essays present fundamental new research on the analysis of complicated outcomes in relatively simple macroeconomic models. The book covers econometric modelling and time series analysis techniques in five parts. Part I focuses on sunspot equilibria, the study of uncertainty generated by nonstochastic economic models. Part II examines the more traditional examples of deterministic chaos: bubbles, instability, and hyperinflation. Part III contains the most current literature dealing with empirical tests for chaos and strange attractors. Part IV deals with chaos and informational complexity. Part V, Nonlinear Econometric Modelling, includes tests for and applications of nonlinearity.

The analysis of decision making under uncertainty has again become a major focus of interest. This volume presents contributions from leading specialists in different fields and provides a summary and synthesis of work in this area. It is based on a conference held at the Harvard Business School. The book brings together the different approaches to decision making - normative, descriptive, and prescriptive - which largely correspond to different disciplinary interests. Mathematicians have concentrated on rational procedures for decision making - how people should make decisions. Psychologists have examined how poeple do make decisions, and how far their behaviour is compatible with any rational model. Operations researchers study the application of decision models to actual problems. Throughout, the aim is to present the current state of research and its application and also to show how the different disciplinary approaches can inform one another and thus lay the foundations for the in

Analysis of Ordinal Categorical Data Alan Agresti Statistical Science Now has its first coordinated manual of methods for analyzing ordered categorical data. This book discusses specialized models tha

Demonstrating the ways in which work in a broad range of fields can be pulled together in the analysis of conflict, this book provides the reader with a general introduction to the principles of conflict analysis and lays a methodological foundation for the further development of the interdisciplinary field of peace science. The text begins with an extensive survey of arms race models, from the classic Richardson model to models exploring the effects of factors such as the domestic and international economic environment, public opinion and party politics, and weapons technology and information development. The processes of individual and group problem-solving, in both crisis and non-crisis conditions, are examined, drawing on work in economics, operations research, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. Building on this diverse body of work, the author moves on to develop a framework for conflict management with which to approach a variety of conflict situations and applies th

Brain damage can cause memory to break down in a number of different ways, the analysis of which can illuminate how the intact brain mediates memory processes. After first considering the problems involved in assessing memory, this book provisionally advances a taxonomy of elementary memory disorders and, for each in turn, reviews both the specific processes that are disrupted and the lesions responsible for the disruption. These disorders include short-term memory deficits, deficits in previously well-established memory, memory decifits caused by frontal lobe lesions, the organic amnesias, the disorders of conditioning and skill acquisition. Particular attention is paid to the organic amnesias, about which we know the most, and to the contributions of animal models to our knowledge. Andrew Mayes argues that the memory deficits found in several neurological and psychiatric syndromes comprise co-occurring elementary memory disorders. Finally, he outlines the implications of his taxonomy

This book contains a modern treatment of production economics from a dual perspective, with special emphasis on recent developments. Results that were scattered throughout professional journals and monographs are now gathered into an integrated approach using a common notation. The book prepares the reader to apply the tools of the dual approach to real world problems and data sets. Particular care has been devoted to choosing topics for discussion that achieve this goal. Throughout the book there are worked examples and exercises, which are geared toward developing the reader's facility in using modern developments in production economics. Separate chapters are devoted to production, cost, and profit functions. Other topics include flexible functional forms, aggregation across inputs and outputs using the theory of separable structures, aggregation over economic optimizing firms, the representation of multioutput technologies, and the analysis and measurement of technical change from

In this book, Professor David Starrett organizes within a single framework the major theoretical foundations of modern public sector economics. He presents a unified treatment of market failure that encompasses externalities, pure public goods, local public goods and natural monopolies. Professor Starrett then develops and assesses the efficacy of the various planning procedures - including representative voting, benefit cost analysis, incentive compatible design mechanisms and the free market. He devotes attention to both national and local issues, with the aim of identifying those methods that are best suited to each arena separately. Special attention is paid to financial arrangements, techniques for eliciting necessary information that is not readily available, and identification of biases that will result from incorrect procedures. This study will be useful to graduate students and economists who are interested in public finance or welfare economics.

The second part of this two-volume set contains advanced aspects of the quantitative theory of the dynamics of neurons. It begins with an introduction to the effects of reversal potentials on response to synaptic input. It then develops the theory of action potential generation based on the seminal Hodgkin-Huxley equations and gives methods for their solution in the space-clamped and non-space-clamped cases. The remainder of the book discusses stochastic models of neural activity and ends with a statistical analysis of neuronal data with emphasis on spike trains. The mathematics is more complex in this volume than in the first volume and involves numerical methods of solution of partial differential equations and the statistical analysis of point processes.

Borrowing from contemporary semiotics and post-structuralist criticism, Foster outlines four models for representation in dance which are illustrated through an analysis of the works of contemporary

This 1998 book presents the econometric analysis of single-equation and simultaneous-equation models in which the jointly dependent variables can be continuous, categorical, or truncated. Despite the traditional emphasis on continuous variables in econometrics, many of the economic variables encountered in practice are categorical (those for which a suitable category can be found but where no actual measurement exists) or truncated (those that can be observed only in certain range). Such variables are involved, for example, in models of occupational choice, choice of tenture in housing, and choice of type of schooling. Models with regulated prices and rationing and models for program evaluation also represent areas of application for the techniques presented by the author.

The study of sets of uniqueness for trigonometric series has a long history, originating in the work of Riemann, Heine, and Cantor in the mid-nineteenth century. Since then it has been a fertile ground for numerous investigations involving real analysis, classical and abstract harmonic analysis, measure theory, functional analysis and number theory. In this book are developed the intriguing and surprising connections that the subject has with descriptive set theory. These have only been discovered recently and the authors present here this novel theory which leads to many new results concerning the structure of sets of uniqueness and include solutions to some of the classical problems in this area. In order to make the material accessible to logicians, set theorists and analysts, the authors have covered in some detail large parts of the classical and modern theory of sets of uniqueness as well as the relevant parts of descriptive set theory. Thus the book is essentially self-contained

This book represents a comprehensive examination of interest-group politics in France. Rather than the narrow case studies usually employed to study group politics, the book focuses on the overall pattern of interaction between interest groups and government. Drawing upon extensive interviews with French interest-group leaders and politicians, Wilson examines the structures and methods of group politics, the perspectives and attitudes of group leaders, and the place of interest groups in the broader pattern of French politics. He concludes that neither of the two major conceptualizations of interest-group/government relations is adequate to explain group politics in France. He suggests that the French state is much more powerful than recognized by these or other models of interest-group politics. Political influence is difficult for groups to develop and, once achieved, is fleeting. Consequently, groups engage in a wide range of activities, some of which are pluralist, others corporati

This book is an introduction to the study of mathematical models of electrically active cells, which play an essential role in, for example, nerve conduction and cardiac functions. This is an important and vigorously researched field. In the book, Dr Cronin synthesizes and reviews this material and provides a detailed discussion of the Hodgkin-Huxley model for nerve conduction, which forms the cornerstone of this body of work. Her treatment includes a derivation of the Hodgkin-Huxley model, which is a system of four nonlinear differential equations; a discussion of the validity of this model; and a summary of some of the mathematical analysis carried out on this model. Special emphasis is placed on singular perturbation theory, and arguments, both mathematical and physiological, for using the perturbation viewpoint are presented.

This textbook is an introduction to the techniques of summing and nuclear norms. The author's aim is to present a clear and simple account of these ideas and to demonstrate the power of their application to a variety of Banach space questions. The style is expository and the only prerequisite is a beginner's course on Wormed linear spaces and a minimal knowledge of functional analysis. Thus, Dr Jameson is able to concentrate on important, central results and gives concrete and largely non-technical proofs, often supplying alternative proofs which both contribute something to the understanding. Final-year undergraduates and postgraduates in functional analysis will enjoy this introduction to the subject, and there are many examples and exercises throughout the text to help the reader and to demonstrate the range of application these techniques find. A list of references indicates the way for further reading.

This book is a rigorous introduction to the abstract theory of partial differential equations. The main prerequisite is familiarity with basic functional analysis: more advanced topics such as Fredholm operators, the Schauder fixed point theorem and Bochner integrals are introduced when needed, and the book begins by introducing the necessary material from the theory of distributions and Sobolev spaces. Using such techniques, the author presents different methods available for solving elliptic, parabolic and hyperbolic equations. He also considers the difference process for the practical solution of a partial differential equation, emphasising that it is possible to solve them numerically by simple methods. Many examples and exercises are provided throughout, and care is taken to explain difficult points. Advanced undergraduates and graduate students will appreciate this self-contained and practical introduction.

The American Novel series provides students of American literature with introductory critical guides to the great works of American fiction by giving details of the novel's composition, publication history and contemporary reception. The group of essays, each specially commissioned from a leading scholar in the field, examines the interpretative methods and prominent ideas on the text. There are also helpful guides to further reading. Specifically designed for undergraduates, the series will be a powerful resource for anyone engaged in the critical analysis of major American novels. This collection of essays on Moby-Dick reconnects Melville's great work with concerns that are central to readers in critical studies. Richard Brodhead introduces the volume with a discussion of the book's unique place in the canon of American literature. He then recounts the novel's history from its mixed reception in the mid-nineteenth century to its prevalent status as a classic. The five essays that fol

This book gives a new interpretation of the reception of the new world by the old. It is the first in-depth study of the pre-Enlightenment methods by which Europeans attempted to describe and classify the American Indian and his society. Between 1512 and 1724 a simple determinist view of human society was replaced by a more sophisticated relativist approach. Anthony Pagden uses new methods of technical analysis, already developed in philosophy and anthropology, to examine four groups of writers who analysed Indian culture: the sixteenth-century theologian, Francisco de Vitoria, and his followers; the 'champion of the Indians' Bartolomé de Las Casas; and the Jesuit historians José de Acosta and Joseph François Lafitau. Dr Pagden explains the sources for their theories and how these conditioned their observations. He also examines for the first time the key terms in each writer's vocabulary - words such as 'barbarian' and 'civil' - and the assumptions that lay beneath them.

This book focuses on the main issues of trade and development, and on the attainment of the major development goals generally espoused in the international community: rapid development in the Third World, sustained economic expansion in the industrial countries and the eradication of deep inequalities and of extreme poverty. It consists of four parts. The first three give an overall analysis of the world economy, with commentary and conclusions on major issues of trade and development. The fourth part provides the intuitive basis for the main results within the context of the formal models, and rigorous proofs are found in the references given to the technical literature. The analysis is descriptive, focusing on the particulars of market behaviour and tracing the ways in which markets respond to policies, in the belief that policies cannot be viewed in a vacuum, but must be confronted with the responses of the market. The interplay of domestic policies and international markets is a ma

This is a study of the choices faced by socialist movements as they developed within capitalist societies. Professor Przeworski examines the three principal choices confronted by socialism: whether to work through elections; whether to rely exclusively on the working class; and whether to try to reform or abolish capitalism. He brings to his analysis a number of abstract models of political and economic structure, and illustrates the issues in the context of historical events, tracing the development of socialist strategies since the mid-nineteenth century. Several of the conclusions are novel and provocative. Professor Przeworski argues that economic issues cannot justify a socialist programme, and that the workers had good reasons to struggle for the improvement of capitalism. Therefore, the project of a socialist transformation, and the fight for economic advancement, were separate historical phenomena.

This book presents the econometric analysis of single-equation and simultaneous-equation models in which the jointly dependent variables can be continuous, categorical, or truncated. Despite the traditional emphasis on continuous variables in econometrics, many of the economic variables encountered in practice are categorical (those for which a suitable category can be found but where no actual measurement exists) or truncated (those that can be observed only in certain ranges). Such variables are involved, for example, in models of occupational choice, choice of tenure in housing, and choice of type of schooling. Models with regulated prices and rationing, and models for program evaluation, also represent areas of application for the techniques presented by the author.

Hardbound. The Handbook is a definitive reference source and teaching aid for econometricians. It examines models, estimation theory, data analysis and field applications in econometrics. Comprehensiv

This book, which is almost entirely devoted to unbounded operators, gives a unified treatment of the contemporary local spectral theory for unbounded closed operators on a complex Banach space. While the main part of the book is original, necessary background materials provided. There are some completely new topics treated, such as the complete spectral duality theory with the first comprehensive proof of the predual theorem, in two different versions. Also covered are spectral resolvents of various kinds (monotomic, strongly monotonic, almost localized, analytically invariant), and spectral decompositions with respect to the identity. The book concludes with an extensive reference list, including many papers published in the People's Republic of China, here brought to the attention of Western mathematicians for the first time. Pure mathematicians, especially those working in operator theory and functional analysis, will find this book of interest.

Here is an introductory text on metric spaces that is the first to be written for students who are as interested in the applications as in the theory. Knowledge of metric spaces is fundamental to understanding numerical methods (for example for solving differential equations) as well as analysis, yet most books at this level emphasise just the abstraction and theory. Dr Bryant uses applications to provide motivation and to sustain the development and discusses numerical procedures where appropriate. The reader is expected to have had some exposure to elementary analysis, but the author provides examples throughout to refresh the student's memory and to test and extend understanding. In short, this is an introductory textbook that will appeal to students of mathematics and engineering and will give them the required background for more advanced courses in both analysis and numerical analysis.

This textbook describes the physics of the plastic deformation of solids at high temperatures. It is directed at geologists or geophysicists interested in the high-temperature behaviour of crystals who wish to become acquainted with the methods of materials science in so far as they are useful to earth scientists. It explains the most important models and recent experimental results without losing the reader in the primary literature of materials science. In turn the book deals with the essential solid-state physics; thermodynamics and hydrostatics of creep; creep models and their applications in the geological sciences; diffusion creep; superplastic deformation and deformation enhanced by phase transformations. Five concluding chapters give experimental results for metals, ceramics and minerals. There are extensive bibliographies to aid further study.

This book considers convergence of adapted sequences of real and Banach space-valued integrable functions, emphasizing the use of stopping time techniques. Not only are highly specialized results given, but also elementary applications of these results. The book starts by discussing the convergence theory of martingales and sub-( or super-) martingales with values in a Banach space with or without the Radon-Nikodym property. Several inequalities which are of use in the study of the convergence of more general adapted sequence such as (uniform) amarts, mils and pramarts are proved and sub- and superpramarts are discussed and applied to the convergence of pramarts. Most of the results have a strong relationship with (or in fact are characterizations of) topological or geometrical properties of Banach spaces. The book will interest research and graduate students in probability theory, functional analysis and measure theory, as well as proving a useful textbook for specialized courses on m