bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Bayesian Inference on Latent Structure in Time Series
Authors: Aguilar Omar , Huerta Gabriel , Prado Raquel , West Mike
Published: November 2023

A range of developments in Bayesian time series modelling in recent years has focussed on issues of identifying latent structure in time series. This has led to new uses and interpretations of existing theory for latent process decompositions of dynamic models, and to new models for univariate and multivariate time series. This article draws together concepts and modelling approaches that are central to applications of time series decomposition methods, and reviews recent modelling and applied developments. Several applications in time series analyses in geology, climatology, psychiatry and finance are discussed, as are related modelling directions and current research frontiers.
From the RNA world to the modern world
Authors: Maynard Smith John , SzathmáRy EöRs
Published: November 2023

In the last chapter, we explained an apparent ‘catch-22’ in the origin of life. Complex protein enzymes cannot exist without substantial lengths of DNA to code for them, but only rather short pieces of DNA could be reliably copied without enzymes: in short, no enzymes without long DNA molecules, and no long DNA molecules without enzymes. An escape from this catch-22 of the origin of life came with the discovery that RNA molecules can act not only as templates for copying but also as enzymes.
The amygdala: anxiety and benzodiazepines
Authors: File Sandra E
Published: November 2023

This chapter reviews the role of the benzodiazepine receptors in the amygdala in mediating behaviour in animal tests of anxiety. Indications of the physiological role of amygdala nuclei can be obtained from the effects of central injections of the benzodiazepine receptor antagonist, flumazenil. When benzodiazepine agonists are injected it is crucial to determine whether the effects are genuinely due to pharmacological activation of the receptors in a specific area. The use of low concentrations, injected in sma11 volumes and an effect that is antagonised by flumazenil is the best indication that this is so. High concentrations of benzodiazepines have a local anaesthetic action and thus their effects are more those of a lesion than of receptor activation; the drug may also spread to other nuclei of the amygdala. At present, there is no strong evidence that the benzodiazepine receptors in the central nucleus play either a physiological or pharmacological role in animal tests of anxiety. However, activation of the receptors in the basolateral nucleus has anxiolytic effects in many, but not all, animal tests. These effects are dependent on the endogenous GABA tone that is generated by the particular test conditions.
Introduction
Authors: Sellers James R
Published: November 2023

The term myosin is now used to refer to a diverse superfamily of molecular motors capable either of translocating actin filaments or of translocating vesicles or other cargo on fixed actin filaments. This superfamily is currently represented by at least 15 distinct classes based on sequence homology, only one of which comprises the familiar and well-studied myosin II class which is capable of forming thick filaments at low ionic strength [29,41,79,100,487,2707] (Figs 1 and 2, Table 1). Myosin I proteins, which are single headed, were originally discovered in Acanthamoeba [871,2781] and are now expected to be ubiquitous in eukaryotes [21,49]. Much less is known about the structure, subunit composition, function, and intracellular localization of members of classes IIIXV. In fact, some of these are known only as partial cDNA sequences derived by RT-PCR and it is, indeed, through the power of PCR that so many new myosins have been discovered in the last few years.
Myosin binding proteins
Authors: Sellers James R
Published: November 2023

There are many proteins that interact with class II myosins (Table 16). The most studied interactions are the proteins that bind in a regular manner to vertebrate skeletal muscle thick filaments. These include MyBP-C (formerly known as C protein), M-protein, creatine phosphokinase, myomesin, MyBP-H (H-protein, 86-kDa protein), and titin. Electron micrographs of thick filaments show eleven transverse stripes that begin just inside the bare zone (0.07 µm from the centre of the thick filament) and are spaced at 43 nm intervals [1422,1444]. MyBP-C is located in seven of these bands (5-11) and is found in both fast and slow muscles [2368,2379]. MyBP-H, also called 86-kDa protein, also labels the stripes, but the labelling pattern varies between chicken and rabbit muscles [2364,2368]. Molecular cloning indicates that MyBP-H and MyBP-C share significant homology, both having C2-type IgG and type II fibronectin homology regions [2453,2475]. MyBP-C interacts with myosin primarily through its carboxyl-terminal portion via a particular set of IgG repeats [2392].
Mutations in myosin
Authors: Sellers James R
Published: November 2023

Approximately 15–30% of the families afflicted with familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM, sometimes referred to as FHC) have inherited mutations in the heavy chain of their β-cardiac myosin gene located on chromosome 14q1 [51,96,97,124,2524,2531]. This disease is characterized by cardiac hypertrophy, particularly of the left ventricular wall and septum, myofibrillar disarray, and fibrosis. There are a variety of symptoms including arrhythmias, angina, and sudden death. Some mutations are associated with a high penetrance and severe symptoms including a high incidence of sudden death, whereas others have a more benign phenotype [2523,2637]. More recently disease causing mutations have also been found in the RLC and ELC [2526,2600]. Four other disease loci have been localized to particular genes, troponin-T on chromosome lq, MyBP-C on chromosome 11p11.2 [2371,2484], tropomyosin on chromosome 15q2 [2938], and troponin I on chromosome 19p13.2-q13.2 [2935].
Navier-Stokes equations and fluid turbulence
Authors: Constantin P
Published: November 2023

Incompressible fluids are described by the Navier-Stokes equation. Turbu lence ([1], [2], [3]) experiments provide measurements that correspond to aver ages of certain quantities associated to the variables appearing in the Navicr Stokes equation. The present mathematical knowledge about the Navier-Stokes equations is incomplete. Some of the quantities measured in experiments are accessible to mathematical theory. They are usually low order, one-point bulk averages like the time average of integrals of squares of gradients. Most other measured quantities are not amenable to rigorous quantitative a priori analysis. Turbulence is concerned with statistical or collective properties of fluids. Nevcr theless, the main impediment to progress in the rigorous analysis of turbulence is the present lack of understanding of possible blow up in individual solution of the Euler and Navier-Stokes systems.
Adaptive computational methods for differential equations
Authors: Johnson Claes
Published: November 2023

A shortcut through the history of mechanics and physics up to modern finance mathematics is given through the following list of models and solution methods: Lagrange’s equation, Laplace’s equation, Poisson’s equation, Navier-Stokes’ equations, Navier’s equations, Maxwell’s equations, Boltzmann’s equation, Schrodinger’s equation, Einstein’s equation, together with Newton’s method, d’Alembert’s formula, Fourier’s method, Gauss’ elimination method, Galerkin’s method, Black-Scholes formula. The importance of these models, which are all of the form of a differential equation, is reflected in the traditional organization of a technical university with one department associated with one equation: Mechanics with Lagrange’s equation, Physics with Schrodinger’s equation, Fluid Mechanics with Navier-Stokes’ equations, Solid Mechanics with Navier’s equations, Electrotechnics with Maxwell’s equations, etc.
Friend or Foe of Mankind?*
Authors: Perutz Max F
Published: November 2023

These lines from Tony Harrison’s play Square Rounds epitomize the ambiguous personality and career of Fritz Haber. He was a German chemist, born in 1868, famous for being the first scientist to have synthesized ammonia from the nitrogen in the air; this opened the way to the synthesis of the nitrogen fertilizers that have dramatically increased agricultural production throughout the world. He is also infamous for having introduced poison gas in the First World War.
Bomb Designer Turned Dissident*
Authors: Perutz Max F
Published: November 2023

There seem to have been two very different Sakharovs who hardly communicated with each other. The first was the cold-blooded inventor of the Russian hydrogen bombs; the second the fearless leader of the Russian intelligentsia’s struggle for human rights. For twenty years, from 1948 until his dismissal in 1968, Sakharov masterminded the scientific groundwork for the development and perfection of ever more lethal atomic weapons, blindly and obsessively absorbed in work that he describes as a theoretician’s paradise. His inventive genius was rewarded by election to full membership of the Academy of Sciences at the unprecedented age of 32, and by being decorated three times with the gold medal of Hero of Socialist Labour.
Liberating France*
Authors: Perutz Max F
Published: November 2023

Successful people’s autobiographies often follow the pattern of Charlie Chaplin’s, who first delights us with his youthful acting talent, which raised him to fame and fortune from a childhood of penury and want, and then bores us with an enumeration of his movies and all the important people he has met. By contrast, François Jacob gives no hint that he became president of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, a Nobel Laureate, and one of the world’s leading biologists, but presents us with a life symbolic of the tragedy and rebirth of France. Jacob was born in Paris in 1920, of well-to-do Jewish middle-class parents, and had a happy childhood.
High on Science*
Authors: Perutz Max F
Published: November 2023

Peter Medawar was a great biologist whose research helped to make possible the transplantation of human organs. He also thought profoundly about the methods, the meaning, and the values of scientific research, and he published his thoughts in books and essays that are models of clarity, style, and wit. Born in 1915 in Brazil of a Lebanese father and an English mother, he received his education in England and made his career there. He became a full professor at thirty-two, a Fellow of the Royal Society at thirty-four, a Nobel Laureate at forty-five, and head of Britain’s largest medical research laboratory at forty-seven.
Deconstructing Pasteur*
Authors: Perutz Max F
Published: November 2023

Scientists at that time believed that the fermentation of grapes, or the souring of milk, or the putrefaction of meat, were processes unrelated to microorganisms. The causes of infectious diseases were unknown. Malaria was believed to arise from “miasmas” emanating from swampy ground, and outbreaks of plague were attributed to unfavorable constellations, to comets, to the wrath of God, or to the poisoning of wells by Jews (who often paid for it with their lives). The “animalcules” first observed in the seventeenth century by the Dutchman Anton van Leeuwenhoek were believed to arise spontaneously in decaying meat or vegetable matter; they had not as yet been connected with disease.
Life’s Energy Cycle*
Authors: Perutz Max F
Published: November 2023

Four months later, shortly after Hitler seized power, this same dean sent him a “Notification of Immediate Removal from Office,” obediently implementing the Minister’s orders against members of the Jewish race. Krebs kept several such letters and also various press cuttings from those days and had them reproduced as facsimiles in his book. There is the “Manifesto Against the Un-German Spirit” published by the Freiburg Student Union and posted in the University: “Our most dangerous adversary is the Jew and he who serves him.
How Nerves Conduct Electricity*
Authors: Perutz Max F
Published: November 2023

In August 1939, Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley joined forces at the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth for experiments on the transmission of nervous impulses along the giant axons of the squid. Hodgkin was a young research fellow at Trinity College in Cambridge and Huxley had just finished his undergraduate work in physiology there.
Jean Lerond D’Alembert (1717-1783)
Authors: Ewald William
Published: November 2023

D’ Alembert contributed several articles on mathematics to the famous Encyclopédia of which he and Denis Diderot were the principal editors (Diderot et alii 1751-72); he also wrote the philosophical introduction, the Discours preliminaire de l’Encyclopédie (D’Alembert 1751), which contains a lengthy and influential treatment of the philosophical views of Descartes, Bacon, Newton, and Locke, and which became a manifesto for the philosophes of the French enlightenment.
Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding: a Prelude to Mendel
Authors: Wood Roger J , Orel Vítêzslav
Published: November 2023

Before Mendel, who came closest to the truth about heredity? This book examines the activities of sheep breeders able to transform the appearance and qualities of their stock by combining different traits of body or wool into new patterns. Exploiting what were then untried procedures - individual trait selection, very close inbreeding and progeny testing - they demonstrated inheritance from both sexes and showed how it could be stabilised. Major advances in breeding are associated with the English farmer Robert Bakewell (1725-1795). By the following century, when the same procedures had been established at breeding centres in central Europe, theory as well as practice became the subject of wider attention. In the Brno Sheep Breeders' Society, discussions of patterns of heredity finally gave way to the physiological question, 'What is inherited and how?' The question was posed by Cyrill Napp, abbot of the monastery to which Mendel was admitted six years later.
Kähler Manifolds
Authors: Joyce Dominic D
Published: November 2023

In this chapter we shall introduce the very rich geometry of complex and Kähler manifolds. Complex manifolds are manifolds with a geometric structure called a complex structure, which gives every tangent space the structure of a complex vector space. They are defined in §4.1, together with complex submanifolds and holomorphic maps. Section 4.2 discusses tensors on complex manifolds, and their decomposition into components using the complex structure, and §4.3 defines holomorphic vector bundles over a complex manifold.
Unconscious Processing in Neglect and Extinction
Authors: Driver Jon , Vuilleumier Patrik
Published: November 2023

Unilateral spatial neglect is a complex neurological disorder after unilateral brain damage, usually to the right hemisphere. It has many components, but is generally characterized by a lack of conscious perception, and of spatially directed action, for stimuli on the side of space contralateral to the brain damage (i.e. usually towards the left). Neglect patients not only fail to notice stimuli on the contralesional side of space, but often appear inadequate at exploring for them. They may ignore people approaching from the contralesional side; miss words or letters when reading; incorrectly take ipsilesional turns in a corridor or a street; eat food from only the ipsilesional side of a plate; and shave or make up only this side of their face (Mesulam, 1981; Heilman et al., 1997; Halligan and Marshall, 1998).

On bedside clinical tests (Figure 7.1), neglect patients typically miss contralesional targets in cancellation tasks, deviate ipsilesionally on line bisection, and omit contralesional details when drawing or copying a picture. The phenomenon of perceptual ‘extinction’ is another common clinical sign (Figure 7.2); the patient can detect a contralesional stimulus when presented alone, yet remains unaware of the same stimulus when presented together with a concurrent stimulus on the ipsilesional side (Bender and Teuber, 1946; Rafal, 1994). Extinction often accompanies other signs of spatial neglect, but can be reported in isolation (Liu et al., 1992). Neglect and extinction can affect every sensory modality, although it is unclear whether this is invariably so. Besides deficits in perceptual awareness, spatial neglect can also involve lateralized biases in overt motor responses, with eye, head, and/or limb movements preferentially directed towards the ipsilesional side. Recent research has sought to examine whether such motor biases are simply the consequence of perceptual biases, or may instead have a separate origin (e.g. Bisiach et al., 1990; Mattingley et al., 1998).
DNA-DNA recognition: non-standard and higher order DNA structures
Authors: Neidle Stephen
Published: November 2023

Base pairing in DNA should not be considered solely in terms of Watson-Crick hydrogen bonding. Even though 16 distinct arrangements for A•T and G•C base pair hydrogen bonding are in principle possible, not all have actually been observed. The Hoogsteen and reverse Hoogsteen pairs (Fig. 4.la,b) have been found in several crystal structures of adenine-thymine and adenine-uracil complexes.
Point transects
Authors: Buckland S T , Anderson D R , Burnham K P , Laake J L , Borchers D L , Thomas L
Published: November 2023

Songbird surveys often utilize point transects rather than line transects for several reasons. Once the observer is at the point, he or she can concentrate solely on detecting, locating and identifying birds, without the need to traverse what may be difficult terrain; he or she can take the easiest route into and away from the point, whereas good line transect practice dictates that the observer follows routes determined in advance and according to a randomized design. Further, patchy habitats can be sampled more easily by point transects. Frequently, density estimates are required for each habitat type, or estimation is stratified by habitat to improve precision. Even with the advent of geographic information systems, because the geometry of point sampling is simpler than that for line sampling, designing a point transect survey so that each habitat type is represented in the desired proportions is easier than for line transects. It is also easier to model density as a function of habitat if point samplers are used rather than line samplers. Other advantages of point transects are that known distances from the (stationary) observer may be flagged, to aid distance estimation, and only the observer-to-object distance is required, which is easier to estimate than the perpendicular distance required in line transect sampling if the observer is far from that part of the line closest to the object.
Glutathione transferase
Authors: Tsuchida Shigeki
Published: November 2023

The glutathione transferases (GSTs) are a family of multi-functional proteins which act as enzymes and also as binding proteins in detoxification processes (1-5). GSTs catalyse the nucleophilic attack of the sulfur atom of reduced glutathione by electrophilic groups in a second substrate. Most GSTs are located in the cytosol, and are grouped into five classes, Alpha, Mu, Pi, Theta and Sigma. Some forms of GST have selenium-independent glutathione peroxidase activity towards lipid hydroperoxides.
Mathematical And Fluid Mechanical Introduction
Authors: Sobey I J
Published: November 2023

We live in a world which is largely fluid. Air, oceans, rivers and so on are all fluids whose behaviour is mostly described by a simple set of continuum equations, the Navier-Stokes equations. There are many fluids which are not described by these equations: visco-elastic fluids, visco-plastic fluids, thixotropic fluids and others all show more complicated behaviour, but for most fluids we encounter, the Navier-Stokes equations are adequate to model their motion.
The generation of magnetic fields
Authors: Edmonds D T
Published: November 2023

The magnetic fields that are created by the currents carried by the straight wire, the long solenoid and the circular plane coil are deduced using only Gauss’s law and Ampe’re’s law. The Biot-Savart law, which can be used to calculate the magnetic fields generated by currents flowing in a conductor of any geometry, is introduced. The regions where the magnetic field varies by less than 1% and by less than 5% are calculated for the most practical configurations of coils used to generate magnetic fields in the laboratory.
The motion of a charged particle in electric and magnetic fields and relativity
Authors: Edmonds D T
Published: November 2023

In this chapter the forces that act upon static and moving charged particles in electric and magnetic fields are collected together as the Lorentz force equation. The motion of a free charged particle and a charged particle subject to a strong centrally directed force are explored as examples of these forces. The Larmor theorem is introduced, which describes in general the rotation that is superimposed on motion that is caused by a strong centrally directed force, when an additional magnetic field is applied. The relativistic approach to the understanding of magnetic fields is briefly discussed and contrasted with the approach taken in this book.
Mathematical preliminaries
Authors: Bressan Alberto
Published: November 2023

This chapter presents various background material which will be used in later chapters. Section 2.1 recalls the implicit function theorem, while in Section 2.2 we discuss the continuous dependence on parameters of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a hyperbolic matrix. Section 2.3 reviews the most basic definitions in the theory of distributions. The concept of distributional derivative given here will become essential in what follows, when we consider discontinuous solutions to a conservation law.
Semilinear and quasilinear systems
Authors: Bressan Alberto
Published: November 2023

A quasilinear system of n equations in one space variable takes the form By a classical solution of (3.1) we mean a continuously differentiable function u = uft, x) which satisfies (3.1) at every point of its domain. In later sections, we shall also consider broad solutions, corresponding to fixed points of a suitable integral functional.
The single conservation law
Authors: Bressan Alberto
Published: November 2023

This chapter is concerned with the Cauchy problem for a scalar conservation law
Qualitative properties
Authors: Bressan Alberto
Published: November 2023

We continue here the study of entropy weak solutions to the hyperbolic system of conservation laws

with small total variation. Owing to the uniqueness results proved in the previous chapter, all these solutions can be obtained as limits of front tracking approximations.
Radiation, physics, and measurement
Authors: Holmes-Siedle Andrew , Adams Len
Published: November 2023

The art of ‘radiation effects’, as practised by the authors, is an interdisciplinary subject centred on radiological physics and solid-state physics along with some interest in radiobiology. Radiology is the science of high-energy particles and photons and their interaction with matter. This science began with the discoveries, in the 1890s, of X-rays and radioactivity by Rontgen, of radioactivity by Becquerel, and of radium by the Curies (see Roesch and Attix 1968). The effect of natural radiation on silver chloride–a mixture of a physical and a chemical radiation effect–was the phenomenon which ushered in Becquerel’s discovery of radioactivity. The damage that radiation can do to human tissues–a biological radiation effect–was discovered, at some personal cost, by the users of Rontgen’s tubes. The radiation effects which we describe occur predominantly in solids and require a considerable appreciation of solid-state physics.
Diodes, solar cells, and optoelectronics
Authors: Holmes-Siedle Andrew , Adams Len
Published: November 2023

We are combining a discussion of diodes and optoelectronics because, throughout their history, the two series of devices have had a lot in common (see, for example Holmes-Siedle and Watts 1997). Since the discoverer of the silicon p-n junction in1944 noticed that it yielded a large photovoltaic effect (Riordan and Hoddeson 1997), semiconductor diodes have been used as optical detectors and power generators. Indeed, radiation damage in silicon was first noted by Loferski and Rappaport (1958) when developing an isotope as a micro-power source. The class of diodes includes, of course, vacuum tubes (the original pre-war ‘electric eye,). Commercial semiconductor diodes have a wide range: simple, very small discrete silicon rectifiers sealed in a thin glass vial; photodiodes and discrete III-V light-emitters carry a window and, with the arrival of blue and UV emitters and detectors such as AIGaN and InGaN alloys, the ‘browning’ of glasses is of greater significance (see Chapter 8). The next stage of complexity includes several junctions on a chip, several layers of materiat made by implantation or epitaxy. High power levels require large sizes of rectifier and vacuum tube. Most optoelectronic devices have a very high level of complexity. The many special functions (avalanching, switching etc; see e.g. Sze 1981) require special types of silicon. In some applications (solar cells, particle detectors etc) serious effort has been put into ‘defect engineering’ to enhance tolerance to radiation. This is because, as long ago as 1972 (Heijne 1975; Heijne et al. 1975) the need for silicon detectors in high-energy physics beams was recognized (see Section 6.8).
Radiation testing
Authors: Holmes-Siedle Andrew , Adams Len
Published: November 2023

The sensitivity of semiconductors and some other engineering materials to radiation is often very variable and it is therefore impossible to use theory alone to predict the effect on a device of a given exposure to radiation. See e.g. the story of the ‘mavericks’ in Section 5.4 and the effect of air and moisture in Section 10.5. Actual irradiation tests must therefore be an integral part of the evaluation of the parts of a system and, sometimes, tests must be performed on each batch of parts. The simulation of radiation effects in the laboratory is quite difficult and the results thereof are often not those expected during planning. This chapter is aimed at providing guidance on the design of adequate test programmes.
On the shoulders of computers
Authors: Tweed Douglas
Published: November 2023

The dream of creating an artificial mind goes back at least to Rabbi Loewe, who lived in Prague in the 16th century. According to legend, the rabbi fashioned a human-shaped statue called a golem out of the mud of the Moldau river and animated it with a sort of software in the form of a text written in Hebrew on a slip of paper inserted under the creature’s tongue.9 Another pioneer in this field was Dr Frankenstein, but he assembled his creature from prefabricated parts dug out of grave yards, which is cheating. Rabbi Loewe’s closest modern successors may be the roboticists, who build their creations out of metal and electronic parts. Brain theorists pursue the same dream in a slightly different way, building our artificial minds inside computer simulations instead of in hardware. This is mainly a matter of convenience. When we want to try out a new idea, we reach for a computer keyboard and mouse, not a blow torch and safety glasses. Development goes faster, and if our creation turns evil and runs amok, we switch off the computer rather than hunting down the creature through the sewers of Prague, as Rabbi Loewe had to do.
Genome for a network
Authors: Tweed Douglas
Published: November 2023

Even if there is no objection in principle to the idea of simulating a mind inside a computer there are still practical problems, the main one being the sheer complexity of the brain. It helps that we will be starting with simpler neural systems and leaving the details to computers, but what matters most is that we find patterns in the brain’s organization to simplify our descriptions. Our role models might be the image-compression algorithms like JPEG, which exploit regularities in pictures to shrink graphics files. Grander examples are the laws of physics, which are regularities that simplify our description of the universe. But some people doubt that many such simplifying principles exist for the brain. The law-based approach that has worked so well in physics may not work in neuroscience, they say, because the brain may be its own simplest description. It may be incompressible, like a computer file that has already been zipped once and can’t be zipped any further. In this chapter I will suggest that we can learn from the example of natural selection, which has managed to zip the brain dramatically, into a self-extracting file in the form of an egg cell, though I will also urge that the egg cell’s lessons have to be interpreted with care.
Unfolding in time
Authors: Tweed Douglas
Published: November 2023

In the 17th century, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, and others made the momentous discovery that many aspects of order in the universe, including some of the most basic laws of nature, can’t be seen in a single snapshot but are manifest in the way things unfold in time. Nature’s patterns are temporal patterns. To survive in this dynamic universe, the brain has to be able to detect and create order in temporal streams of signals.

Most of what the brain does, from vision to speech comprehension to steering the eyes and limbs, involves sensing and controlling temporal patterns. Music, for instance, affects our brains largely through its temporal unfolding. It is possible to get some pleasure from a chord sounding all on its own, but generally if you choose a favorite moment in a piece of music, and then omit everything that came before, playing only that one sound, the impact is diminished.
The flow of information
Authors: Tweed Douglas
Published: November 2023

Information is in some ways like so much water that has to be pumped from place to place in the brain. To move more information you need a stronger pump or a bigger pipe. And contaminants can reduce the amount of useful information that arrives at the far end. It was an American engineer, Claude Shannon, who in the late 1940s managed to define, in a precise way, the concept of information. He defined the unit of information, called the bit, which I mentioned in Chapters 2 and 3, and he derived mathematical formulae for estimating the number of bits in a signal and for quantifying how signals are contaminated by noise.
Plenary presentations
Authors: Chapman Anthony RO , Anderson Robert J
Published: November 2023

The South African seaweed industry uses two kelps, three species of Gelidium, and Gracilaria!Gracilariopsis. Most material is exported for colloid extraction, but minor uses include florist products and fish-food additives. Ecklonia (kelp) is harvested for the production of a plant-growth stimulant, and, increasingly, to feed cultured abalone. In the last decade there has been considerable research on all the above as well as five potential carrageenophytes and Porphyra. Mariculture research has concentrated on open-water cultivation of Gracilaria/Gracilariopsis in the only two suitable bays on the west coast. The Namibian seaweed industry is centred in Liideritz Bay, and based on Graci/aria (mariculture and beach-cast, all dried and exported) and harvested kelp, Laminaria, used for soil-conditioner (stipes) and in cosmetics and thalassotherapy (fronds). Beach-cast kelp is exported for use in fish-feed and for alginate extraction. There is research on phycocolloids and seaweed as a substrate for mushroom cultivation. Policies for the management of South African and Namibian seaweed resources are discussed. In Angola, civil war has prevented the development of a seaweed industry, although species with potential are found and sever al bay systems may be suitable for mariculture. In Mozambique, the best prospects are probably in the mar iculture of warm-water carrageenophytes.
Pollution, remediation and nuisance factors
Authors: Chapman Anthony RO , Anderson Robert J
Published: November 2023

The metal plating and processing industries generate large volumes of effluent containing dissolved and par ticulate metals. The removal of heavy metals from industrial effluent has been practiced for several decades, but the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the most common physical-chemical processes has been ques tioned. A study has been carried out on the biosorption of heavy metals from aqueous effluents by natural biosorbent materials derived from the seaweed processing industry. The interest in seaweeds and materials derived from seaweeds lies in the combination of their efficient biosorption and their low cost. While metal ion binding experiments in the past have used standard metal ion solutions, the comparison of these results with practical applications is limited. The presence of surfactants, greases, cleaning agents and other mate rials used in the plating process is likely to affect biosorption. The ability of dealginated seaweed waste, a waste product from the commercial manufacture of alginates, to sequester cadmium, copper, aluminium and zinc ions from ‘raw’ metal plating wastewaters, at laboratory scale, has been determined.
Perpetuum Mobile
Authors: Park Robert L
Published: November 2023

“Well, the pace of technological change is breathtaking these day, isn’t it?” Dan Rather asked rhetorically on the CBS Evening News. “Now a backyard tinkerer in Mississippi says he’s built a machine, a kind of perpetual motion machine, that defies the laws of physics—and you know, some people think that just maybe he has. Bill Whitaker has taken a look at it.” I couldn’t believe it. It was March n, 1987, more than three years since CBS first visited Joe Newman and his Energy Machine. Just when it looked like he had finally run out of energy, CBS was giving him another jump start! Bill Whitaker caught up with Newman in Biloxi, Mississippi, standing beside the red Sterling sports car.
Only Mushrooms Grow in the Dark
Authors: Park Robert L
Published: November 2023

In 1994 Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall agreed to issue an unprecedented blanket order relieving anyone with information about an alleged 1947 UFO incident near Roswell, New Mexico, from any obligation to keep the information secret. A no-nonsense physicist and aeronautical engineer on leave from MIT, Secretary Widnall thought the air force had more important business than chasing down UFO stories, but Representative Steven Schiff of New Mexico was insisting on an all-out search for records and witnesses. Schiff wanted to reassure the public that there was no government cover-up. I did not expect anyone to come forward with new information, but I recalled with some chagrin my own “Roswell incident.”
Basic models and simple applications
Authors: Pawitan Yudi
Published: November 2023

We use models to represent reality in simpler ways, so we can understand, describe, predict or control it better. In statistics, the reality is variability, without which there would be no statistics (and life would be rather dull). In modelling we typically separate a systematic pattern from the stochastic variation. The systematic pattern may describe a relationship between variables of interest, while the stochastic variation usually represents the unaccounted part of the total variation. Probability models are used to represent this stochastic variation.
Evidence and the likelihood principle*
Authors: Pawitan Yudi
Published: November 2023

There is a strong consensus about the utility of likelihood for modelling, but its direct use for inference is controversial. This is not surprising: most of the consensus in statistics is associated with modelling, and most of the controversies with inference. While we are able to specify and estimate very complex models, statisticians still cannot agree on how to interpret the CIs (see Section 5.10). The persistent controversies indicate that the issues are not simple.
Large-sample results
Authors: Pawitan Yudi
Published: November 2023

While likelihood-based quantities can be computed at any sample size, small-sample frequentist calibration depends on specific models such as the normal, Poisson, binomial, etc. (Chapter 5). A general technique for complex models is provided by the large-sample theory. As the price for this generality, the theory is only approximate. The results in this chapter provide theoretical justifications for the previous claims regarding the sampling properties of likelihood ratio and the MLE. In modelling, we use the large-sample theory to suggest approximate likelihoods.
Dealing with nuisance parameters
Authors: Pawitan Yudi
Published: November 2023

Nuisance parameters create most of the complications in likelihood theory. They appear on the scene as a natural consequence of our effort to use ‘bigger and better ‘ models: while some parameters are of interest, others are only required to complete the model. The issue is important since nuisance parameters can have a dramatic impact on the inference for the parameters of interest. Even if we are interested in all of the parameters in a model, our inability to view multidimensional likelihood forces us to see individual parameters in isolation. While viewing one, the other parameters are a nuisance.
Robustness of likelihood specification
Authors: Pawitan Yudi
Published: November 2023

In Section 9.4 we have shown that, under general conditions, the likelihood approach leads to the best possible inference. The notion of ‘best ‘, e.g. achieving the Cram´er-Rao lower bound, is measured within a particular model. The likelihood approach requires a full specification of the probability structure, and it is difficult to quantify the uncertainty associated with model selection. The question we will address is how sensitive the result is to the correctness of an assumed model.
Estimating equations and quasi-likelihood
Authors: Pawitan Yudi
Published: November 2023

There are many practical problems for which a complete probability mechanism is too complicated to specify, hence precluding a full likelihood approach. This is typically the case with non-Gaussian time series, including repeated measures or longitudinal studies, and image analysis problems. From our discussion in Chapter 13 we can specify convenient working models that do not necessarily match the underlying model. It makes sense, however, to require that the model and methodology achieves a robust inference for the parameters of interest.
Spatial distance sampling models
Authors: Hedley S L , Buckland S T , Borchers D L
Published: November 2023

Increasingly, wildlife managers wish to extract more than just an abundance estimate from their sightings surveys. They frequently need to relate animal density to spatial variables reflecting topography, habitat, and other factors that affect the animals’ environment. This aids assessment of how to manage that environment, and the animals within it. There is therefore a strong demand for spatial models for analysing line transect data.
Further topics in distance sampling
Authors: Burnham K P , Buckland S T , Laake J L , Borchers D L , Marques T A , Bishop J R B , Thomas L
Published: November 2023

Conceptually, line transects can be considered as one-dimensional distance sampling, because only distances perpendicular to the line of travel are used, even though objects are distributed in two dimensions. Point transects sample distances in those two dimensions because radial detection distances are taken at any angle in what could be represented as an x y coordinate system. In principle, distance sampling can be conducted in three dimensions, such as underwater for fish, where objects can be located anywhere in three dimensions relative to the observer. The observer might traverse a ‘line’, and record detection distance in two dimensions perpendicular to the line of travel, or remain at a point, recording data in three dimensions within the sphere centred at the point. Given the assumption of random line or point placement with respect to the three-dimensional distribution of objects, the mathematical theory is easily developed for the three-dimensional case. In practice, the third dimension may pose a problem: there may only be a thin layer in three dimensions, and in the vertical dimension, objects may exhibit strong density gradients (e.g. birds in a forest canopy, or fish near the sea surface).
Dynamical systems theory
Authors: Sprott Julien Clinton
Published: November 2023

We have seen examples of dynamical systems for iterated maps and continuous flows. Maps are simpler to analyze numerically and have a rich variety of dynamical behaviors, even in one dimension. By contrast, except in the simplest cases, flows require approximate numerical methods, and in one dimension the solutions cannot do anything more complicated than grow or decay to an equilibrium point. Even in two dimensions, the most complicated behavior is a growth or decay to a periodic limit cycle.
Calculation of the fractal dimension
Authors: Sprott Julien Clinton
Published: November 2023

Much of the interest in chaos is motivated by the hope that an apparently random time series from some experiment arises from a low-dimensional dynamic, in which case it is amenable to simple modeling and short-term prediction. Chapters 9 and 10 described a few such models and discussed how you might fit them to data and test for predictability. Another important indicator of low-dimensional chaos is the existence of a strange attractor.
Integral Estimates
Authors: Iwaniec Tadeusz , Martin Gaven
Published: November 2023

In recent years .Jacobians of mappings and wedge products of closed differential forms have been studied intensively and have proven to be fundamental tools in the calculus of variations, PDEs and non-linear elasticity. Some of their rather special properties were already visible in the “div–curl” lemma of Murat [262] and Tartar [320]. This lemma initiated the theory of “compensated compactness”. Because of its wide application and theoretical significance the subject has been greatly expanded. Here we shall restrict our attention to those aspects of this theory that pertain to mappings of finite distortion.
The encouragement of talent 1667–77
Authors: Hall Marie Boas
Published: November 2023

One might think that in the 1670s when Oldenburg was spending so much time and energy in organizing networks of correspondence between established scientists he would not have had any time left for any other sort of correspondence. But this was far from being the case during the last ten years of his life, for it was precisely in this very period that he found it possible to encourage a considerable number of younger men, either relative beginners in the world of international natural philosophy or living in isolation on the fringes of the European scientific scene. (It should be remembered that Newton himself appeared to belong to this class in 1670 for the important mathematical work he had already accomplished was then virtually unknown even to the Royal Society and hence hardly at all outside England. It only gradually became known after Oldenburg began to correspond with him, to encourage him, and to elicit from him accounts of his optical work for the benefit of the Royal Society and subsequently the learned world.)
Colleagues, friends, and Family
Authors: Hall Marie Boas
Published: November 2023

Increasingly, as the years went by, Oldenburg’s life was so closely bound up with the affairs of the Royal Society and he was so ineluctably identified with it that the history of one is nearly the history of the other. Hence the history of his public and private lives are difficult to separate.
Causal inference via ancestral graph models
Authors: Richardson Thomas S , Spirtes Peter
Published: November 2023

In this article we introduce a new class of graphical models, called ancestral graph Markov models. These models are designed to provide a framework for making inferences about causal structure, and in special cases treatment effects, from background knowledge and non-randomized samples. We first provide some informal background and motivation for the models we subsequently introduce; the concepts used here will be defined more precisely in later sections.
Linking theory and practice of MCMC
Authors: Roberts Gareth O
Published: November 2023

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methodology is a mature and well-established technique in physics and computer science. However, it is still only some ten years since it became well known in the statistical community and acquired its reputation as the numerical method of choice for a wide range of problems.
Trans-dimensional Bayesian non-parametrics with spatial point processes
Authors: Heikkinen Juha
Published: November 2023

Point processes are a class of models where the notion of a variable dimension is inherent. The main part of this discussion is concerned with the application of marked point processes as prior models in non-parametric Bayesian function estimation, reformulating and revising earlier joint work with Elja Arjas and listing some other related work (Section 2).
Introduction
Authors: Wilson Robert A
Published: November 2023

In this book, we will study graph theory with particular reference to colouring problems. Perhaps the most famous graph theory problem is the four-colour conjecture (4CC), first stated by Guthrie in 1852, widely publicized by Cayley in 1878, but only solved in 1976 with computer assistance (so now we can call it the four-colour theorem, or 4CT). We will study this and related problems.
Basic graph theory
Authors: Wilson Robert A
Published: November 2023

Before we get onto the real subject matter of the book, we revise the basic definitions of graph theory. It is unfortunate that even the most basic of these definitions is not entirely standardized, to the extent that not everyone agrees even on the meaning of the word ‘graph’. Thus, you need to be aware of possible differences in meaning when comparing with other sources.
Colouring non-planar graphs
Authors: Wilson Robert A
Published: November 2023

Whilst we cannot prove that every map can be 4-coloured, we can prove that (with one exception) every triangular map can be 3-coloured. As usual, we state and prove this in the dual form. In fact, this result is true even without the assumption that the graph is planar, and is the case Δ= 3 of Theorem 8.1.
Ecological basis of mating system diversity
Authors: Bennett Peter M , Owens Ian P F
Published: November 2023

Adaptive explanations of avian mating systems are dominated by six themes, all of which were first identified in the late 1960s and 1970s. Most bird species are socially monogamous because, unlike male mammals, male birds can make a worthwhile contribution to parental care (Lack 1968). Hence, selection favours males that provide paternal care because such males produce more surviving offspring than males that desert their offspring to seek additional mating opportunities. In birds, desertion of offspring and social mate only occurs when biparental care no longer provides a net benefit.
Guaranteed Error Bounds for Ordinary Differential Equations
Authors: Corliss George F
Published: November 2023

Hamming once said, “The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers.” If that is so, then the speed of our computers should be measured in insights per year, not operations per second. One key insight we wish from nearly all computing in engineering and scientific applications is, “How accurate is the answerã” Standard numerical analysis has developed techniques of forward and backward error analysis to help provide this insight, but even the best codes for computing approximate answers can be fooled.
Some Applications Of The Degree Theory To Topology
Authors: Fonseca Irene , Gangbo Wilfrid
Published: November 2023

In this section we give two versions of the Brouwer Fixed Point Theorem.

Definition 3.1 A set E⊂ ℝN  is said to be a convex set if for every x, y ∈E and for every). E (0, 1), λ.x + (1 λ)y ∈E.