Innovative Computing Methods and Their Applications to Engineering Problems

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 devoted to the role of chemical synthetic techniques in the development of advanced ceramic materials. It bridges the gap between existing volumes dealing with the properties of ceramic materials, for example their mechanical properties, and those on chemistry. The author describes the variety of advanced ceramics and their conventional synthesis and fabrication. This is followed by a description of the range of non-conventional synthetic methods. The basic chemistry of the synthesis is described and well-illustrated by reference to ceramics made on both laboratory and industrial scales. This resource book will be of value to anyone working with advanced ceramics in research laboratories, and to postgraduate students and research workers in chemistry, material science, physics, metallurgy and mechanical engineering departments involved with ceramic materials.

There has recently been a rapid growth of activity in nonlinear optics. Effects such as frequency doubling, stimulated Raman scattering, phase conjugation and solitons are of great interest both for their fundamental properties and their many important applications in science and engineering. It is mainly these applications - especially in telecommunications and information processing - that have stimulated the recent surge of activity. This book is a self contained account of the most important principles of nonlinear optics. Assuming only a familiarity with basic mathematics, the fundamentals of nonlinear optics are fully developed from basic concepts. The essential quantum mechanical apparatus is introduced and explained. In later chapters the underlying ideas are illustrated by discussing particular experimental configurations and materials. This book will be an invaluable introduction to the field for beginning graduates in physics or engineering, and will provide an excellent ov

The various approaches to pest control are reviewed with emphasis on their history, advantages, disadvantages and future potential. The book discusses how far chemical control has created problems and how far these may be solved by further chemical control or by alternative methods. The reasons why insects are pest problems are discussed so that the ecological merits and demerits of the various control methods can be assessed. Stress is laid on both the biotic and economic environments in which pest control has to operate. • Presents a balanced case concerning the advantages and disadvantages of the chemical control of pests in historical context. • A wide variety of examples are cited and an up-to-date guide to original sources is presented. • Thoroughly revised and updated edition of a highly successful concise textbook.

"This book by a leading researcher and masterly expositor of the subject studies diophantine approximations to algebraic numbers and their applications to diophantine equations. The methods are classi

A leading M.I.T. social scientist and consultant examines five professions - engineering, architecture, management, psychotherapy, and town planning - to show how professionals really go about solving problems. The best professionals, Donald Schön maintains, know more than they can put into words.To meet the challenges of their work, they rely less on formulas learned in graduate school than on the kind of improvisation learned in practice. This unarticulated, largely unexamined process is the subject of Schön's provocatively original book, an effort to show precisely how 'reflection-in-action' works and how this vital creativity might be fostered in future professionals.

The study of spatial processes and their applications is an important topic in statistics and finds wide application particularly in computer vision and image processing. This book is devoted to statistical inference in spatial statistics and is intended for specialists needing an introduction to the subject and to its applications. One of the themes of the book is the demonstration of how these techniques give new insights into classical procedures (including new examples in likelihood theory) and newer statistical paradigms such as Monte-Carlo inference and pseudo-likelihood. Professor Ripley also stresses the importance of edge effects and of lack of a unique asymptotic setting in spatial problems. Throughout, the author discusses the foundational issues posed and the difficulties, both computational and philosophical, which arise. The final chapters consider image restoration and segmentation methods and the averaging and summarising of images. Thus, the book will find wide appeal

Computing developed as a branch of mathematics, only to drift away from this home as computer science diverged towards more general topics such as the theory of how a computer works. Recently the emphasis has become more mathematical and the new disciplines of software engineering and information technology have emerged. This book is designed to form the basis of a one year course in discrete mathematics for first year computer scientists or software engineers. The material presented covers much of undergraduate algebra with a particular bias towards the computing applications. Topics covered include mathematical logic, set theory, finite and infinite relations and mappings, graphs, graphical algorithms and axiom systems. It concludes with implementations of many of the algorithms in Modula-2 to illustrate how the mathematics may be turned into concrete calculations. Numerous examples and exercises are included with selected solutions to the problems appearing in the appendix. Discrete

The application of time series techniques in economics has become increasingly important, both for forecasting purposes and in the empirical analysis of time series in general. In this book, Terence Mills not only brings together recent research at the frontiers of the subject, but also analyses the areas of most importance to applied economics. It is an up-to-date text which extends the basic techniques of analysis to cover the development of methods that can be used to analyse a wide range of economic problems. The book analyses three basic areas of time series analysis: univariate models, multivariate models, and non-linear models. In each case the basic theory is outlined and then extended to cover recent developments. Particular emphasis is placed on applications of the theory to important areas of applied economics and on the computer software and programs needed to implement the techniques. This book clearly distinguishes itself from its competitors by emphasising the techniques

Structured methodologies are a popular and powerful tool in information systems development. Many different ones exist, each employing a number of models and so a specification must be converted from one form to another during the development process. To solve this problem, Dr Tse proposes in this 1991 book a unifying framework behind popular structured models. He approaches the problem from the viewpoints of algebra and category theory. He not only develops the frameworks but also illustrates their practical and theoretical usefulness. Thus this book will provide insight for software engineers into how methodologies can be formalised and will open up a range of applications and problems for theoretical computer scientists.

This book, the first in the Cambridge Nonlinear Science Series, presents the fundamentals of chaos theory in conservative systems, providing a systematic study of the theory of transitional states of physical systems which lie between deterministic and chaotic behaviour. The authors' treatment of transitions to chaos, the theory of stochastic layers and webs, and the numerous applications of this theory, particularly to pattern symmetry, will make the book of importance to scientists from many disciplines.The authors have been meticulous in providing a detailed presentation of the material, enabling the reader to learn the necessary computational methods and to apply them in other problems. The inclusion of a significant amount of computer graphics is also an important aid to understanding. The final section of the book contains a fascinating collection of patterns in art and living nature. The book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in physics and mathematics who

This book introduces the reader to methods of selecting materials for engineering applications. With the rapid growth in the variety of manufacturing materials available, the choice of the optimum material for an engineering design is of increasing importance and difficulty. Materials have to be chosen that satisfy several, often conflicting, criteria including strength, durability, flammability, and cost. The author, an acknowledged expert on materials, provides a guide to many of the classes of engineering materials currently available. He includes tables and lists of standards, along with lists of consultants' addresses and references. Materials covered include metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites, and there are chapters on surface finishes, materials' performance, and the impact of manufacturing processes on design possibilities.

The rapid development of the theories of Volterra integral and functional equations has been strongly promoted by their applications in physics, engineering and biology. This text shows that the theory of Volterra equations exhibits a rich variety of features not present in the theory of ordinary differential equations. The book is divided into three parts. The first considers linear theory and the second deals with quasilinear equations and existence problems for nonlinear equations, giving some general asymptotic results. Part III is devoted to frequency domain methods in the study of nonlinear equations. The entire text analyses n-dimensional rather than scalar equations, giving greater generality and wider applicability and facilitating generalizations to infinite-dimensional spaces. The book is generally self-contained and assumes only a basic knowledge of analysis. The many exercises illustrate the development of the theory and its applications, making this book accessible to res

The aim of this book is to develop the concepts and relations pertinent to the solution of many thermodynamic problems encountered in multi-phase, multi-component systems. In doing so, it emphasizes a comprehension and development of general expressions for solving such problems, rather than ready-made equations for particular applications. Throughout the book, the methods of Gibbs are used with emphasis on the chemical potential. Many topics omitted in more elementary texts are amply discussed defining the state of a thermodynamic system, particularly the indifferent systems; the use of the Gibbs-Duhem equation in single-phase and multi-phase component systems; the conditions of stability for single-phase and multi-phase component systems; and the graphical representation of the thermodynamic functions. Special attention is given to reference and standard states. The material is presented in a rigorous and mathematical manner, and SI units are used throughout. A detailed bibliography

This book discusses procedures for handling information derived from the fossil record, and the application of this information to solving problems in geological succession and earth history. The main purpose of the book is to analyse shortcomings of the existing procedures, and to propose in their place an alternative set of data-handling arrangements of much greater simplicity and efficiency. The author argues that the procedures in current use are cumbersome and inefficient, and that, partly as a consequence of these information-handling methods, palaeontology has failed to make advances commensurate with technological improvements. In this book he proposes a system which could make possible the integrated use of every detail of geological information taken from the rocks. This would achieve better resolution in sequence correlation, in paleoecologic interpretation and in logging the course of evolution. Compatibility of style with existing records has been maintained to avoid any d

The purpose of this book is to provide an introduction to the theory of jet bundles for mathematicians and physicists who wish to study differential equations, particularly those associated with the calculus of variations, in a modern geometric way. One of the themes of the book is that first-order jets may be considered as the natural generalisation of vector fields for studying variational problems in field theory, and so many of the constructions are introduced in the context of first- or second-order jets, before being described in their full generality. The book includes a proof of the local exactness of the variational bicomplex. A knowledge of differential geometry is assumed by the author, although introductory chapters include the necessary background of fibred manifolds, and on vector and affine bundles. Coordinate-free techniques are used throughout, although coordinate representations are often used in proofs and when considering applications.

Shell structures form key components in a very wide range of engineering enterprise. The theory of shell structures is an old and large subject, with a huge literature. However, this book is not a compilation of results from the past. Instead, it is an attempt to bring the essence of the subject within the grasp of engineers. It tackles the fundamental question of how bending and stretching effects combine and interact in shell structures from a physical point of view; and it shows that this approach leads to an understanding of the structural mechanics of shells in general, and to useful results in particular problems. The first half of the book is concerned mainly with the basic ideas and equations of equilibrium, geometry and elasticity, and their combination in various useful ways. In particular, it includes a simple treatment of the geometry of general curved surfaces. The second half of the book first investigates the behaviour of various practical shell structures under static l

This collection of classroom-tested laboratory and field exercises engages students and their instructors in a thorough exploration of central problems and topics in social psychology. The book is divided into three sections: technique demonstrations, technique applications, and problem investigations. Each section includes exercises on topics such as questionnaire design, interviewing, speech style, the observation of children, eyewitness testimony, and co-operation and competition. Students are provided with the necessary background knowledge of each social phenomenon investigated to make their research effort involving and meaningful. An instructor's manual accompanies the book and provides the supplementary information instructors need to organise the exercises for their students.

This collection of classroom-tested laboratory and field exercises engages students and their instructors in a thorough exploration of central problems and topics in social psychology. The book is divided into three sections: technique demonstrations, technique applications, and problem investigations. Each section includes exercises on topics such as questionnaire design, interviewing, speech style, the observation of children, eyewitness testimony, and co-operation and competition. Students are provided with the necessary background knowledge of each social phenomenon investigated to make their research effort involving and meaningful. An instructor's manual accompanies the book and provides the supplementary information instructors need to organise the exercises for their students.

This book is a self-contained introduction to the theory of atomic motion in proteins and nucleic acids. An understanding of such motion is essential because it plays a crucially important role in biological activity. The authors, both of whom are well known for their work in this field, describe in detail the major theoretical methods that are likely to be useful in the computer-aided design of drugs, enzymes and other molecules. A variety of theoretical and experimental studies is described and these are critically analyzed to provide a comprehensive picture of dynamic aspects of biomolecular structure and function. The book will be of interest to graduate students and research workers in structural biochemistry (X-ray diffraction and NMR), theoretical chemistry (liquids and polymers), biophysics, enzymology, molecular biology, pharmaceutical chemistry, genetic engineering and biotechnology.

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 book reviews the phylogenetic data derived from molecular methods and from classical morphology, and analyses the contribution each can make to the study of evolution. Molecular biology and traditional areas of evolutionary biology such as morphology have not enjoyed a particularly happy marriage. Molecular biologists have the advantages of modernity, high technology, and visibility: their results often seem to represent the cutting edge of science, superseding and outmoding what went before. Nevertheless, this book shows that the partnership between those who study morphology and those who study molecules is alive and well: reconciliation is possible, necessary and inevitable because the problems involved in reconstructing the history of life do not change, whatever the source of the data. In eight chapters, leading exponents of molecular and morphological methods explore phylogeny, starting with hominoids, the most thoroughly studied group, then working outwards through the vert

It is the aim of this book to take undergraduates in science and engineering to an acceptable level of competence in network analysis. The author assumes no previous knowledge of the subject. The book starts from basic physical ideas and progresses through essential network laws and theorems to Fourier and Laplace transform methods of analysing transient and steady-state problems. Traditional transient and alternating-current theory is covered prior to introducing transform methods, since the author believes that the gain in physical insight from such an approach is invaluable. Throughout, the relevance of the analysis to practical electric and electronic circuits is stressed. This book will be of value to students in universities and polytechnics in physics and electrical and electronics engineering departments.

It is the aim of this book to take undergraduates in science and engineering to an acceptable level of competence in network analysis. The author assumes no previous knowledge of the subject. The book starts from basic physical ideas and progresses through essential network laws and theorems to Fourier and Laplace transform methods of analysing transient and steady-state problems. Traditional transient and alternating-current theory is covered prior to introducing transform methods, since the author believes that the gain in physical insight from such an approach is invaluable. Throughout, the relevance of the analysis to practical electric and electronic circuits is stressed. This book will be of value to students in universities and polytechnics in physics and electrical and electronics engineering departments.

This textbook is intended for introductory courses in physics, engineering and chemistry at universities, polytechnics and technical colleges. It provides either an elementary treatment of thermal physics, complete in itself, for those who need to carry the subject no further, or a sound foundation for further study in more specialised courses. The author gives a clear and concise account of those basic concepts that provide the foundations for an understanding of the thermal properties of matter. The area covered corresponds very roughly to the traditional topics of heat, kinetic theory, and those properties of matter for which there are elementary explanations in terms of interatomic forces. The book is not concerned with experimental detail but with ideas and concepts, and their quantitative application through simple models. The author provides many problems for which the answers are included. The book should also be useful in teacher training and as a reference book in the librari

In this 1987 text Professor Jech gives a unified treatment of the various forcing methods used in set theory, and presents their important applications. Product forcing, iterated forcing and proper forcing have proved powerful tools when studying the foundations of mathematics, for instance in consistency proofs. The book is based on graduate courses though some results are also included, making the book attractive to set theorists and logicians.

Enlarged and updated in 1983, this is the second edition of Dr Steel's popular textbook on interferometry. The text has been revised throughout and major additions have been made to reflect the phenomenal growth of laser techniques and applications. The book provides a general treatment that brings together the many different applications of the interference of light waves, light being used in its most general sense to include all electromagnetic radiation. The applications can cover precise measurement of length, the testing of optical components against a computed hologram, measurements of atmospheric pollution by infrared spectroscopy and many of the methods of radio astronomy and the measurement of size of visible stars. These apparently unrelated methods have a common theory, which the book presents and extends to each main field of application. It shows workers in one field how their problems relate to those in other fields, where they may have been solved already. The book will

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 1985 book comprises the papers presented at the symposium of the Internation Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Sheffield April 1984, held in memory of the late J. D. Eshelby FRS, Professor of the Theory of Materials at the University of Sheffield. The papers reflect the range of Professor Eshelby's interests. Topics include conservation laws and their applications; inclusions, inhomogeneities and composites; short cracks; the dynamics of dislocations and cracks; dislocations and point defects; and creep fracture. There is also an obituary of Professor Eshelby, together with a complete list of his publications. The 45 papers in this volume provide an international survey of work in the field of deformation and fracture, with theoretical examinations, reports of empirical investigations and descriptions of experimental techniques. It will be of interest to professionals and researchers in the science of materials, mechanics of solids and mechanical engineering and to relat

This new edition of Ahmed and Spreadbury's excellent textbook Electronics for Engineers provides, like the first edition, an introduction to electronic circuits covering the early part of degree level courses in electronics and electrical engineering. The text of the first edition has been entensively revised and supplemented to bring it up to date; two entirely new chapters have been added on the subject of digital electronics. A first chapter on the general principles of signal handling in electronic circuits is followed by descriptions of amplifiers using field-effect and bipolar transistors and integrated circuit op-amps, written from the point of view of the engineering student building up a system. Subsequent chapters discuss the principles of applying negative and positive feedback in amplifiers, leading the reader to the final two chapters covering digital circuits and their applications. All chapters conclude with a solved problem followed by a number of practice questions fro

This book presents a theory motivated by the spaces LP, 0 ≤ p

The common denominator of a growing number of hard decisions facing modern societies is the need to determine 'how safe is safe enough?'. The authors begin by defining acceptable-risk problems and analysing why they are so difficult to resolve, considering such issues as uncertainty about their definition, lack of relevant facts, conflicting and conflicted social values, and disagreements between technical experts and the lay public. Drawing on their own experience in risk management as well as the relevant research literatures, they identify and characterise the variety of methods that have been proposed for resolving acceptable-risk problems. They subject these methods to a rigorous critique in terms of philosophical presuppositions, technical feasibility, political acceptability, and validity of underlying assumptions about human behaviour. The authors construct a framework for deciding how to make decisions about risks, and offer recommendations for research, public policy, and pra

How can the drag coefficient of a car be reduced? What factors govern the variation in the shape of the Earth's magnetosphere? What is the basis of weather prediction? These are examples of problems that can only be tackled with a sound knowledge of the principles and methods of fluid dynamics. This important discipline has applications which range from the study of the large-scale properties of the galaxies to the design of high precision engineering components. This book introduces the subject of fluid dynamics from the first principles. The first eleven chapters cover all the basic ideas of fluid mechanics, explaining carefully the modelling and mathematics needed. The last six chapters illustrate applications of this material to linearised sound and water waves, to high speed flow of air, to non-linear water waves on channels, and to aerofoil theory. Over 350 diagrams have been used to illustrate key points. Exercises are included to help develop and reinforce the reader's understa

A 'soliton' is a localized nonlinear wave of permanent form which may interact strongly with other solitons so that when they separate after the interaction they regain their original forms. This textbook is an account of the theory of solitons and of the diverse applications of the theory to nonlinear systems arising in the physical sciences. The essence of the book is an introduction to the method of inverse scattering. Solitary waves, cnoidal waves, conservation laws, the initial-value problem for the Korteweg-de Vries equation, the Lax method, the sine-Gordon equation and Backlund transformations are treated. The book will be useful for research workers who wish to learn about solitons as well as graduate students in mathematics, physics and engineering.

The series is devoted to the publication of monographs and high-level textbooks in mathematics, mathematical methods and their applications. Apart from covering important areas of current interest, a

A concise, easy to understand introduction that emphasizes the relevance of statistics to real world problems. Describes traditional statistical methods, their uses and limitations, and explains how t

The division of the world into rich and poor nations, and the division within poor nations between a minority of rich people and a majority of poor people living at a minimum subsistence level, has been obvious to careful observers for a long time. This book gives an overview of the problems of underdevelopment confronting third-world countries, making use of both Marxist and neo-Keynesian methods of analysis. It makes clear the historical origins of these contemporary problems, particularly with reference to the major countries of Asia and Latin America, and discusses the ways in which inequalities, both within and between countries, are propaged and perpetuated. Other problems analysed are the typical patterns of fluctuating growth faced by third-world countries; the social structures in both rural and urban areas and their influence on the behaviour of governments and private investors in these countries; and environmental control and population planning issues faced by these countr

The thirty-five chapters in this book describe various judgmental heuristics and the biases they produce, not only in laboratory experiments but in important social, medical, and political situations as well. Individual chapters discuss the representativeness and availability heuristics, problems in judging covariation and control, overconfidence, multistage inference, social perception, medical diagnosis, risk perception, and methods for correcting and improving judgments under uncertainty. About half of the chapters are edited versions of classic articles; the remaining chapters are newly written for this book. Most review multiple studies or entire subareas of research and application rather than describing single experimental studies. This book will be useful to a wide range of students and researchers, as well as to decision makers seeking to gain insight into their judgments and to improve them.