Feature Extraction

This book is an up-to-date introduction to univariate spectral analysis at the graduate level, which reflects a new scientific awareness of spectral complexity, as well as the widespread use of spectral analysis on digital computers with considerable computational power. The text provides theoretical and computational guidance on the available techniques, emphasizing those that work in practice. Spectral analysis finds extensive application in the analysis of data arising in many of the physical sciences, ranging from electrical engineering and physics to geophysics and oceanography. A valuable feature of the text is that many examples are given showing the application of spectral analysis to real data sets. Special emphasis is placed on the multitaper technique, because of its practical success in handling spectra with intricate structure, and its power to handle data with or without spectral lines. The text contains a large number of exercises, together with an extensive bibliography

The Petersen graph occupies an important position in the development of several areas of modern graph theory because it often appears as a counter-example to important conjectures. In this account, the authors examine those areas, using the prominent role of the Petersen graph as a unifying feature. Topics covered include: vertex and edge colourability (including snarks), factors, flows, projective geometry, cages, hypohamiltonian graphs, and 'symmetry' properties such as distance transitivity. The final chapter contains a pot-pourri of other topics in which the Petersen graph has played its part. Undergraduate students will be able to profit from reading this book as the prerequisites are few; thus it could be used for a second course in graph theory. On the other hand, the authors have also included a number of unsolved problems as well as topics of recent study. Thus it will also be useful as a reference for graph theorists.

D. M. Armstrong is an eminent Australian philosopher whose work over many years has dealt with such subjects as: the nature of possibility, concepts of the particular and the general, causes and laws of nature, and the nature of human consciousness. This collection of essays explores the many facets of Armstrong's work, concentrating on his more recent interests. There are four sections to the book: possibility and identity, universals, laws and causality, and philosophy of mind. The contributors comprise an international group of philosophers from the United States, England and Australia. An interesting feature of the volume is that Armstrong himself has written responses to each of the essays. There is also a complete bibliography of Armstrong's writings.

Peter Kivy is the author of many books on the history of art and, in particular, the aesthetics of music. This collection of essays spans a period of some thirty years and focuses on a richly diverse set of issues: the biological origins of music, the role of music in the liberal education, the nature of the musical work and its performance, the aesthetics of opera, the emotions of music, and the very nature of music itself. Some of these subjects are viewed as part of the history of ideas, others as current problems in the philosophy of art. A particular feature of the volume is that Kivy avoids the use of musical notation so that no technical knowledge at all is required to appreciate his work. The essays will prove enjoyable and insightful not just to professionals in the philosophy of art and musicologists, or to musicians themselves, but also to any motivated general reader with a deep interest in music.

This book addresses fundamental questions in the philosophy of religion. Can religious experience provide evidence for religious belief? If so, how? Keith Yandell argues against the notion that religious experience is ineffable, while advocating the view that strong numinous experience provides some evidence that God exists. He contends that social science and other non-religious explanations of religious belief and experience do not cancel out the evidential force of religious experience. The core of Yandell's argument concerns the formulation and application of an appropriate principle of experimental evidence. A final chapter considers the relevance of nonexperimental, conceptual issues. An attractive feature of the book is that it does not confine its attention to any one religious cultural tradition, but tracks the nature of religious experience across different traditions in both the East and the West.

Peter Kivy is the author of many books on the history of art and, in particular, the aesthetics of music. This collection of essays spans a period of some thirty years and focuses on a richly diverse set of issues: the biological origins of music, the role of music in the liberal education, the nature of the musical work and its performance, the aesthetics of opera, the emotions of music, and the very nature of music itself. Some of these subjects are viewed as part of the history of ideas, others as current problems in the philosophy of art. A particular feature of the volume is that Kivy avoids the use of musical notation so that no technical knowledge at all is required to appreciate his work. The essays will prove enjoyable and insightful not just to professionals in the philosophy of art and musicologists, or to musicians themselves, but also to any motivated general reader with a deep interest in music.

The El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon is a recurrent feature of the climate in tropical regions. A primary example of large scale coupled ocean-atmosphere interactions, ENSO has received much attention in past years, as a result of widespread climatic anomalies (severe drought and floods, Indian monsoon failure, etc.) that are often associated with the development of such episodes. To enhance our understanding of the mechanisms involved in the low frequency behavior of ENSO and to help improve our ability to forecast the future behavior of this phenomenon, we have combined analysis of the modern aspects of ENSO morphology, modelling and variability with chapters dealing with its historical and prehistorical behavior. this volume examines different approaches to reconstructing ENSO based on a variety of proxy sources. It also illustrates how, in the past, the climatic manifestations associated with ENSO may have been different, in the frequency of occurrence as well as ampl

This is one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date surveys of the philosophy of Sartre, by some of the foremost interpreters in the United States and Europe. The essays are both expository and original, and cover Sartre's writings on ontology, phenomenology, psychology, ethics, and aesthetics, as well as his work on history, commitment, and progress; a final section considers Sartre's relationship to structuralism and deconstruction. Providing a balanced view of Sartre's philosophy and situating it in relation to contemporary trends in Continental philosophy, the volume shows that many of the topics associated with Lacan, Foucault, Levi-Strauss, and Derrida are to be found in the work of Sartre, in some cases as early as 1936. A special feature of the volume is the treatment of the recently published and hitherto little studied posthumous works.

Numbers are an important feature of almost all known cultures. In this detailed anthropological study, Thomas Crump examines how people from a wide range of diverse cultures, and from different historical backgrounds, use and understand numbers. By looking at the logical, psychological and linguistic implications, he analyses how numbers operate within different contexts. The author goes on to consider the relationship of numbers to specific themes, such as ethnoscience, politics, measurement, time, money, music, games and architecture. The Anthropology of Numbers is an original contribution to scholarship, written in a clear and accessible style. It will be of interest to anthropologists who study cognition, symbolism, primitive thought and classification, and to those in adjacent disciplines of psychology, cognitive science and mathematical social science.

This is one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date surveys of the philosophy of Sartre, by some of the foremost interpreters in the United States and Europe. The essays are both expository and original, and cover Sartre's writings on ontology, phenomenology, psychology, ethics, and aesthetics, as well as his work on history, commitment, and progress; a final section considers Sartre's relationship to structuralism and deconstruction. Providing a balanced view of Sartre's philosophy and situating it in relation to contemporary trends in Continental philosophy, the volume shows that many of the topics associated with Lacan, Foucault, Levi-Strauss, and Derrida are to be found in the work of Sartre, in some cases as early as 1936. A special feature of the volume is the treatment of the recently published and hitherto little studied posthumous works.

A guide for women choosing abortion covers all the available methods, from conventional clinical abortions to herbal and vitamin-induced abortions to RU-486

Those who analyze public opinion have long contended that the average citizen is incapable of recounting consistently even the most rudimentary facts about current politics; that the little the average person does know is taken strictly from what the media report, with no critical reflection; and that the consequence is a polity that is ill prepared for democratic governance. And yet social movements, comprised by and large of average citizens, have been a prominent feature of the American political scene throughout American history and have experienced a resurgence. William Gamson asks, how is it that so many people become active in movements if they are so uninterested and badly informed about issues? The conclusion he reaches in this book is a striking refutation of the common wisdom about the public's inability to reason about politics.

Those who analyze public opinion have long contended that the average citizen is incapable of recounting consistently even the most rudimentary facts about current politics; that the little the average person does know is taken strictly from what the media report, with no critical reflection; and that the consequence is a polity that is ill prepared for democratic governance. And yet social movements, comprised by and large of average citizens, have been a prominent feature of the American political scene throughout American history and have experienced a resurgence. William Gamson asks, how is it that so many people become active in movements if they are so uninterested and badly informed about issues? The conclusion he reaches in this book is a striking refutation of the common wisdom about the public's inability to reason about politics.

Here is an introduction to functional programming and its associated systems. A unique feature is its use of the language Haskell for teaching both the rudiments and the finer points of the functional technique. Haskell is a new, internationally agreed and accepted functional language that is designed for teaching, research and applications, that has a complete formal description, that is freely available, and that is based on ideas that have a wide consensus. Thus it encapsulates some of the main thrusts of functional programming itself, which is a style of programming designed to confront the software crisis directly. Programs written in functional languages can be built up from smaller parts, and they can also be proved correct, important when software has to be reliable. Moreover, a certain amount of parallelism can be extracted from functional languages automatically. This book serves as an introduction both to functional programming and Haskell, and will be most useful to student

In this 1992 book, Professor Koslow advances an account of the basic concepts of logic. A central feature of the theory is that it does not require the elements of logic to be based on a formal language. Rather, it uses a general notion of implication as a way of organizing the formal results of various systems of logic in a simple, but insightful way. The study has four parts. In the first two parts the various sources of the general concept of an implication structure and its forms are illustrated and explained. Part 3 defines the various logical operations and systematically explores their properties. A generalized account of extensionality and dual implication is given, and the extensionality of each of the operators, as well as the relation of negation and its dual, are given substantial treatment because of the novel results they yield. Part 4 considers modal operators and studies their interaction with logical operators. By obtaining the usual results without the usual assumptio

This 1991 study deals with a specific set of institutions in nineteenth-century Athens. Relying on matrimonial contracts, travellers' accounts, memoirs and popular literature, the authors show how distinctive forms of marriage, kinship and property transmission evolved in Athens in the nineteenth century. These forms then became a feature of wider Greek society which continued into the twentieth century. Greece was the first post-colonial modern nation state in Europe whose national identity was created largely by peasants who had migrated to the city. As Athenian society became less agrarian, a new mercantile group superseded and incorporated previous elites and went on to dominate and control the new resources of the nation state. Such groups developed their own, more mobile, systems of property transmission, mostly in response to external pressures of a political and economic character. This is a persuasive piece of detective work which has advanced our knowledge of modern Greece. I

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.

The future of mankind depends on ever-increasing agricultural production to provide food, fibre, fuel and other essential commodities. This can only be achieved through a sound knowledge of the plants which feature prominently in agriculture. This book describes these plants in detail, together with the products which are obtained from them. The opening chapter on world population and food supply is followed by a general introduction to plant structure. The major part of the book then considers economically important field crops and pasture plants of temperate and subtropical regions on a family-by-family basis. Fruit crops, flowers and trees are not considered. The book concludes with a discussion of physiological principles of crop growth and yield. This is an introductory text, suitable for the teaching of agricultural botany to undergraduate students, and is intended to bridge the gap between classical botany and agronomy.

This stimulating collection of essays in ethics eschews the simple exposition and refinement of abstract theories. Rather, the author focuses on everyday moral issues, often neglected by philosophers, and explores the deeper theoretical questions which they raise. Such issues are: is it wrong to tell a lie to protect someone from a painful truth? Should one commit a lesser evil to prevent another from doing something worse? Can one be both autonomous and compassionate? Other topics discussed are servility, weakness of will, suicide, obligations to oneself, snobbery, and environmental concerns. A feature of the collection is the contrast of Kantian and utilitarian answers to these problems. The essays are crisply and lucidly written and will appeal to both teachers and students of philosophy.

This stimulating collection of essays in ethics eschews the simple exposition and refinement of abstract theories. Rather, the author focuses on everyday moral issues, often neglected by philosophers, and explores the deeper theoretical questions which they raise. Such issues are: is it wrong to tell a lie to protect someone from a painful truth? Should one commit a lesser evil to prevent another from doing something worse? Can one be both autonomous and compassionate? Other topics discussed are servility, weakness of will, suicide, obligations to oneself, snobbery, and environmental concerns. A feature of the collection is the contrast of Kantian and utilitarian answers to these problems. The essays are crisply and lucidly written and will appeal to both teachers and students of philosophy.

Probability theory is nowadays applied in a huge variety of fields including physics, engineering, biology, economics and the social sciences. This book is a modern, lively and rigorous account which has Doob's theory of martingales in discrete time as its main theme. It proves important results such as Kolmogorov's Strong Law of Large Numbers and the Three-Series Theorem by martingale techniques, and the Central Limit Theorem via the use of characteristic functions. A distinguishing feature is its determination to keep the probability flowing at a nice tempo. It achieves this by being selective rather than encyclopaedic, presenting only what is essential to understand the fundamentals; and it assumes certain key results from measure theory in the main text. These measure-theoretic results are proved in full in appendices, so that the book is completely self-contained. The book is written for students, not for researchers, and has evolved through several years of class testing. Exercis

In this important book, Ellery Eells explores and refines philosophical conceptions of probabilistic causality. In a probabilistic theory of causation, causes increase the probability of their effects rather than necessitate their effects in the ways traditional deterministic theories have specified. Philosophical interest in this subject arises from attempts to understand population sciences as well as indeterminism in physics. Taking into account issues involving spurious correlation, probabilistic causal interaction, disjunctive causal factors, and temporal ideas, Professor Eells advances the analysis of what it is for one factor to be a positive causal factor for another. A salient feature of the book is a theory of token level probabilistic causation in which the evolution of the probability of a later event from an earlier event is central. This will be a book of crucial significance to philosophers of science and metaphysicians; it will also prove stimulating to many economists,

Despite the recent renaissance in studies of the reign of Richard III, most historians have remained focussed on conventional themes, especially the character and motivation of the king and the fate of his nephews. Less attention, as a result, has been devoted to the reign's importance in the patterns of late medieval government and in the evolution of royal authority. Basing her research on a wide range of archival material, Dr Horrox attempts to correct this thematic imbalance by highlighting a crucial feature of royal government in the period, the role of the king's servants. For the years immediately before and during Richard's reign, the book fully explores the practicalities of having commands obeyed, the reciprocal nature of service relationships and the whole structure of late medieval 'affinities', or client systems. Indeed, this first full-length study of royal patronage in a period of social and political upheaval will prove invaluable to anyone concerned with the dynamics o

This book is the first to provide students and researchers in the field of astrophysical jets with a comprehensive and up-to-date account of current research. An important feature of the book is that it combines discussions of both extragalactic and Galactic jets. There are ten chapters, authored by fourteen active researchers, each of whom is an expert on their chosen topic, and the book has been edited to provide a cohesive account of this field of study. This is the first volume to integrate studies of jets on all length scales. It will be an important textbook for graduate students, and a valuable reference source for researchers in many areas of extragalactic and Galactic astronomy. It will also be of interest to plasma physicists and space scientists.

This volume is dedicated to Paul Erdos, who profoundly influenced mathematics in the twentieth century, with over 1200 papers in number theory, complex analysis, probability theory, geometry, interpretation theory, algebra set theory and combinatorics. One of Erdos' hallmarks was the host of stimulating problems and conjectures, to many of which he attached monetary prices, in accordance with their notoriety. A feature of this volume is a collection of some 50 outstanding unsolved problems, together with their 'value'! Eminent mathematicians from around the world have contributed articles to this volume that reflect the diversity of Erdos' interests, and it will be a fund of insight for number theorists, combinatorialists, set theorists and analysts.

Interest in water will continue to grow for a long time to come. It will continue to spread over a large number of disciplines and technologies. Research into water in all its aspects has become so diverse that even those with a direct interest find it impossible to keep up with the original literature beyond a very limited range. On the other hand, scientists want to keep in touch with a wide spectrum of basic and applied research on water and the role played by aqueous solvents in physical, chemical, biological, technological and environmental processes. Water Science Reviews contains three or four critical reviews of the type previously published in the seven volume work Water - A Comprehensive Treatise. Some reviews update previously published topics while others feature areas of Water Sciences that have never yet been reviewed. A common focus is the central position adopted by water in the systems and processes described.

This book gives a rigorous and practical treatment of integral equations. These are significant because they occur in many problems in mathematics, physics and engineering and they offer a powerful (sometimes the only) technique for solving these problems. The book aims to tackle the solution of integral equations using a blend of abstract 'structural' results and more direct, down-to-earth mathematics. The interplay between these two approaches is a central feature of the text and it allows a thorough account to be given of many of the types of integral equation which arise in application areas. Since it is not always possible to find explicit solutions of the problems posed, much attention is devoted to obtaining qualitative information and approximations to the solutions, with the associated error estimates. This treatment is intended for final year mathematics undergraduates, postgraduates and research workers in application areas such as numerical analysis and fluid mechanics.

This book presents an account of several conjectures arising in commutative algebra from the pioneering work of Serre and Auslander-Buchsbaum. The approach is via Hochster's 'Big Cohen-Macaulay modules', though the complementary view point of Peskine-Szpiro and Roberts, who study the homology of certain complexes, is not neglected. Various refinements of Hochster's construction, obtained in collaboration with Bartijn, are included. A special feature is a long chapter written by Van den Dries which explains how a certain type of result can be 'lifted' from prime characteristic to characteristic zero. Though this is primarily a research monograph, it does provide introductions to most of the topics treated. Non-experts may therefore find it an appealing guide into an active area of algebra.

An appreciation of the genetic and environmental determinants of tooth size is fundamental to an understanding of the metric variation of teeth in humans. Thus, besides imparting a sound knowledge of the theories of dental inheritance, development and evolution, this book has an important role in demonstrating the diverse practical applications of odontometrics. A particular feature of the book is the inclusion of numerous tables which bring together a vast body of information on tooth size in different population groups. Students of oral biology, orthodontics, physical anthropology, human biology, forensic science and archaeology will find this work of great value as a text and reference source. As Professor Phillip Tobias writes in the foreword, 'The breadth of Dr Kieser's reading, and his mastery of a staggering array of anthropological, evolutionary, embryological, orthodontic and statistical concepts shine through every page of this work'.

Minority governments in parliamentary democracies are conventionally considered to be unstable and ineffective aberrations from the principle of majority rule. Through analysis of over 350 postwar governments, the author shows that minority governments are neither exceptional nor unstable but in fact a common feature of parliamentary democracies and frequently perform as well as, or better than, majority coalitions. Using the Italian and Norwegian governments as case studies, he suggests that minority governments are particularly likely to form when parties anticipate competitive elections and when opposition parties are able to influence legislative decisions. As an attempt to document and explain a very common form of government in parliamentary democracies, this book will contribute significantly to the understanding of the importance of electoral competition in democratic politics.

Seneca's Phaedra occupies an important and influential position in the tradition of European drama. This new edition concentrates on the dramatic qualities of Phaedra and examines the Greek and Roman background to the play, particularly Seneca's use of Euripides and Ovid, and its philosophical elements grounded in Seneca's Stoicism. The introduction also discusses dramatic and rhetorical presentation, aspects of style including imagery and the transmission of the text. An unusual feature is the treatment of the influence of the Phaedra story in later European literature and music. The commentary examines Seneca's language in detail and looks at his use of earlier poetic models (Virgil and Ovid) as well as plot, characterisation and his use of myth. Although principally for students of Latin literature, this new edition will also be of interest to historians of drama and comparative literature.

Commodity markets are of considerable interest and importance to economists, econometricians and dealers. This book reports the proceedings of an international conference on 'Primary Commodity Prices: Economic Models and Policy', held in London under the auspices of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in March 1989. A range of papers by leading international authorities covers topics such as expectations formation in econometric commodity market models; price determination in the market for aluminium; the estimation of dynamic disequilibrium models with rational expectations; and a comparison of forward markets and buffer stocks as commodity earnings stabilizers. A key feature of this stock is its development of the policy implications of theoretical and empirical work in the field of commodity economics. Most papers are accompanied by discussant's comments to draw out their technical and policy implications. The book's readership will include commodity economists, commodity market

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

Interest in water will continue to grow for a long time to come. It will continue to spread over a large number of disciplines and technologies. Research into water in all its aspects has become so diverse that even those with a direct interest find it impossible to keep up with the original literature beyond a very limited range. On the other hand, scientists want to keep in touch with a wide spectrum of basic and applied research on water and the role played by aqueous solvents in physical, chemical, biological, technological and environmental processes. Water Science Reviews contains three or four critical reviews of the type previously published in the seven volume work Water - A Comprehensive Treatise. Some reviews update previously published topics, while others feature areas of Water Sciences that have never yet been reviewed. A common focus is the central position adopted by water in the systems and processes described.

This is an anthology in English translation of the major texts concerned with the nineteenth-century debates between democratic socialism and revolutionary Marxism. The central figure is Eduard Bernstein, a leading German social democrat and former associate of Engels, who argued that Marx's analysis of society had been overtaken by events, and that his doctrine of revolution should be replaced by a policy of evolutionary reform by democratic means. The ensuing controversy between Bernstein and his opponents (Bebel, Kautsky, Parvus, Rosa Luxemburg, and Belfort Bax) helped create the split between center and far left, which is still a feature of socialist politics in Europe. Most of the articles and letters contained in this book have never been translated before, so the English-speaking reader is able to follow the debate for the first time. The debate is analysed in the introduction and the editors also provide detailed annotation and a bibliography. This volume will be a critical sou

Environmental external effects are evidence of the inability of market prices to reflect the interdependence of economic activities undertaken within a common environment. They are an essential - not a peripheral - feature of all market economics. This essay shows how external effects are produced by the interaction of the economy with its environment, using a classical mass-balance model. No matter how efficient the market may seem to be, the use of market prices to determine depletion and pollution decisions creates more problems than it solves. Far from sharing the stable or relatively stable equilibrium properties of most economic models, the market economy is shown to be forced by its environment through a seemingly chaotic sequence of states. Reliance on the market to accommodate each change of direction merely exaggerates the general instability of the system. The 'market solution' to environmental problems is shown to generate only increasing uncertainty, a progressive myopia,

Taking Care examines the reasons why people take precautions - and the reasons why they do not. Some authors offer theoretical perspectives on issues ranging from the cognitive processes of the individual to the values and historical trends in the larger society to illuminate the puzzle of self-protective behaviour. Others look at prevention programmes themselves: the forms they take, the assumptions they make, and the success or failure they meet. A unique feature of the book is its attention to different types of hazards and its integration of the knowledge that has been gained from research and practical experience in health promotion, natural hazards preparedness, occupational safety and health, consumer safety and community crime prevention. The underlying questions addressed in these different fields of study are much the same, but in the past there has been little communication.

This treatise is concerned with the stresses and deformation of solid bodies in contact with each other, along curved surfaces which touch initially at a point or along a line. Examples are a railway wheel and rail, or a pair of gear wheel teeth. Professor Johnson first reviews the development of the theory of contact stresses since the problem was originally addressed by H. Hertz in 1882. Next he discusses the influence of friction and the topographical roughness of surfaces, and this is incorporated into the theory of contact mechanics. An important feature is the treatment of bodies which deform plastically or viscoelastically. In addition to stationary contact, an appreciable section of the book is concerned with bodies which are in sliding or rolling contact, or which collide.

Elliptic functions and Riemann surfaces played an important role in nineteenth-century mathematics. At the present time there is a great revival of interest in these topics not only for their own sake but also because of their applications to so many areas of mathematical research from group theory and number theory to topology and differential equations. In this book the authors give elementary accounts of many aspects of classical complex function theory including Möbius transformations, elliptic functions, Riemann surfaces, Fuchsian groups and modular functions. A distinctive feature of their presentation is the way in which they have incorporated into the text many interesting topics from other branches of mathematics. This book is based on lectures given to advanced undergraduates and is well-suited as a textbook for a second course in complex function theory. Professionals will also find it valuable as a straightforward introduction to a subject which is finding widespread applic