bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Religious Diversity in a “Christian Nation”
Authors: Wuthnow Robert
Published: September 2007

This chapter summarizes the most important descriptive results of the Religion and Diversity Survey and offers some conclusions about the distinctive ways in which religious diversity is being received in the United States, compared with other countries in which Christianity has historically been dominant, notably those in Western Europe. The discussion proceeds as follows: a description of the scope of influence of Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists in the United States; an overview of attitudes toward these groups among the adult population of the United States; an assessment of the extent to which Americans still perceive themselves to be living in a “Christian nation” and the impact of this perception on their attitudes toward non-Christian religions and other minority groups; and a discussion of the tensions within American culture surrounding religious diversity and the implications of these tensions for American democracy.
Pluralism, Tolerance, and Democracy
Authors: Davie Grace
Published: September 2007

This chapter has three sections. The first discusses the conceptual difficulties arising from the study of religious pluralism and democracy, drawing on the work of James Beckford — particularly his discussion of religious pluralism as social construct. The second examines the study of new religious movements and the questions that such movements raise for democracy. The third section discusses the growing faith communities in Europe and the gradual process of accommodation, or otherwise, as these communities become part of their chosen societies. The British case is developed in some detail, with the French and Dutch cases offering points of comparison.
Religion and Nationalism
Authors: Stan Lavinia , Turcescu Lucian
Published: September 2007

In Romania, religion has often intersected with nationalism and ethnic identity. In this chapter we discusse the religious determinants of Romanian nationalism, the role of Greek Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the formation of ethnic identity, and the post‐1989 redefinition of nation and ethnic identity as a result of domestic and external pressures. Internally, Romania's minorities have asked for a civic, not ethnic, understanding of the nation. Externally, Romania has faced pressures from the West to view its ethnic diversity as an advantage, not a liability, and recognize minorities as full‐fledged members of the national community.
Religion and Elections
Authors: Stan Lavinia , Turcescu Lucian
Published: September 2007

This chapter investigates the role of religious groups in local and general elections and the use of religious symbols by political parties and electoral candidates. It documents the change of heart from political involvement to political neutrality on the part of the Orthodox Church, the refusal of religious minorities to adhere to political neutrality, the participation of priests in political parties as members and candidates, and the increased prominence of religiosity and religious ritual in presidential elections. The chapter argues that collaboration in the area of electoral politics benefited politicians, who won additional capital, more than it benefited churches, which were tainted by collaboration.
Why Are Prices Sticky?
Authors: Aucremanne Luc , Druant Martine
Published: September 2007

This chapter reports the results of a survey on price setting behavior conducted in 2004 among 2,000 Belgian firms. The results clearly deviate from a situation of perfect competition and show that firms have some market power. Prices are rather sticky, the average duration between two consecutive price reviews being ten months, whereas it amounts to thirteen months between two consecutive price changes, and both time-dependent and state-dependent behavior are observed. Evidence is found in favor of both nominal (mainly implicit and explicit contracts) and real rigidities (including flat marginal costs and counter-cyclical movements in desired mark-ups). The survey results point to a non-negligible degree of non-optimal price setting.
Asymmetries in Price Setting
Authors: Loupias Claire , Ricart Roland
Published: September 2007

This chapter reports the results on price setting asymmetries of French manufacturing companies from a survey conducted by the Banque de France during winter 2003–04. Price increases are more likely (70 percent) than price decreases (30 percent) among price changes. The magnitude of positive price changes over the year 2003 (3 percent for the median increase) is lower than the one of negative price changes (−5 percent). Asymmetries are found to be different for cost shocks compared to demand shocks: prices are more rigid downward than upward for cost shocks, while the reverse is true for demand shocks (prices are more rigid upward than downward).
A Comparison Based on International Survey Evidence
Authors: Lünnemann Patrick , Mathä Thomas
Published: September 2007

This chapter compares internationally the available survey evidence of firms' price setting behavior. It reports a number of remarkable similarities across countries. Firms typically operate in imperfectly competitive markets, where they have a low market share, face several competitors, and are primarily engaged in long-term relationships with their customers, mainly other firms. The modal price review and price change frequency per year is one across countries. Implicit and explicit contracts, coordination failure, and cost-based pricing are recognized as the most important reasons for price rigidity.
Feminist Theology and the Challenge of Difference
Authors: Kamitsuka Margaret D.
Published: September 2007

How can we respect the irreducible diversity of women's experiences and unmask entrenched forms of privilege in feminist theological discourse? This book offers proposals on how to address the challenge of difference for constructive theological purposes. Toward this end, the objective of this book is three-fold: 1) to make the case for why ongoing attentiveness to differences of race and sexuality is needed in order to avoid the imposition of white racial privilege and heterosexual privilege; 2) to make creative use of poststructuralism principally (Judith Butler, Michel Foucault), but also postcolonial, queer, and other theoretical resources in order to complicate our understanding of embodied selfhood, moral agency, and empowerment; and 3) to make constructive proposals in light of those theories on methodological issues (e.g., appeals to women's experience, to the erotic, or to women's solidarity), on hermeneutical issues (e.g., white feminist uses of the literature of women of color or interpreting biblical texts that harbor patriarchal, imperialist, heteronormative, and other biases), and on doctrinal issues (e.g., sin, creation in the image of God, and christology). New theoretical resources are indispensable for analyzing divisive issues in feminist theology today, and for carving out new avenues for critical negotiation with a religious tradition that feminists see as both alienating and sustaining, repressive and empowering.
1 Rationality and the Good
Authors: Audi Robert
Published: September 2007

This chapter provides an overview of major themes in his work in ethics, epistemology, and action theory, in which a conception of rationality that connects these domains is sketched out.
3 Intuitionism and Disagreement
Authors: Roger Crisp
Published: September 2007

This chapter argues that, due to the kind of normative disagreement found in philosophical ethics, Audi's epistemology of self-evident normative principles will not properly apply to any specific first‐order view, such as the Rossian pluralism he endorses. This chapter states that if our normative intuitions are denied by others who are in an equally good epistemic position, then we should suspend judgment on the matter. Granting that there is strong consensus on some normative claims, Crisp insists that there is much disagreement on underlying principles (“at the level of theory”) among equally well‐placed participants in philosophical ethics. This chapter closes with a discussion of how we should proceed in philosophy and in life in the face of this normative disagreement.
Liturgical Selfhood
Authors: Kepnes Steven
Published: September 2007

Cohen's Religion of Reason is based on careful textual reasonings of Torah and creative interpretations of Jewish liturgies such as the Sabbath and High Holidays. Cohen places liturgy at the crucial bridge points between the self and the other, the self and the community, and the self and God. Cohen uses liturgy to map out a path for the growth of the self into moral autonomy. I refer to this moral self as a “liturgical self.” What Cohen's liturgical self explains, and Kantian ethics does not, is how the individual becomes at once autonomous and moral, at once for others, for itself, and for its community. Cohen's textual and liturgical thinking makes him an important resource to critique both modern foundational and postmodern views of the self‐other relation.
6 Sacvan Bercovitch as “American” Scholar
Authors: Fuller Randall
Published: September 2007

This chapter examines the construction of Emerson by Sacvan Bercovitch and the New Americanists. Focusing on the so-called subversion-containment model of the New Historicism, it reveals how Bercovitch's application of this model to Emerson grew out of his own unusual circumstances as a Canadian Jew who own gradually migrated to American Studies.
Neural Representations Used to Specify Action
Authors: Bunge Silvia A. , Souza Michael J.
Published: September 2007

To understand how humans use rules to determine actions, it is critical to learn more about how they select responses on the basis of associations in long‐term memory. This chapter discusses what has been learned thus far about the neural substrates of rule storage, retrieval, and maintenance. This chapter presents evidence that rule knowledge associated with environmental cues is stored in areas of the posterior temporal lobes, such as the middle temporal gyrus. It also provides evidence that ventrolateral prefrontal cortex is engaged in the effortful retrieval of rule meanings from long‐term memory. During initial rule retrieval, there is some evidence that different brain structures are recruited, depending on the type of rule retrieved. In contrast, during rule maintenance, brain activation in prefrontal cortex and other brain regions appears to be sensitive to the amount of information to be held in mind, rather than the type of rule or instructional cue.
The Neurophysiology of Abstract Response Strategies
Authors: Genovesio Aldo , Wise Steven P.
Published: September 2007

In traditional animal learning theory, stimuli, responses, and outcomes determine an animal's behavior. But how can animals, or people, for that matter, make decisions regarding stimuli they have never encountered? One way involves abstract response strategies. These strategies are considered abstract because they do not depend on experience with particular, previously experienced stimulus‐response mappings. This chapter reviews relevant neurophysiological data from macaque monkeys and addresses the following questions: (1) What is a strategy? (2) How, if at all, do strategies differ from rules? (3) Does the idea that prefrontal cortex subserves strategies contribute to contemporary ideas about its evolutionary history? (4) What are the adaptive advantages of a strategy‐implementing prefrontal cortex for those animals that have one?
Task‐Switching in Human and Nonhuman Primates: Understanding Rule Encoding and Control from Behavior to Single Neurons
Authors: Stoet Gijsbert , Snyder Lawrence
Published: September 2007

Task‐switching paradigms are ideal for studying how primates implement and apply rules. This chapter summarizes a large body of work conducted on the comparative primatology and neurophysiology of task‐switching in macaque monkeys. This chapter presents ?ndings of rule representations from single‐neuron recordings in the intraparietal sulcus in posterior parietal cortex and argues that rule representation and control is implemented by a network spanning both frontal and posterior brain regions. These ?ndings provide a useful model for studying neuronal representations of task rules and the neural processes that apply those rules.
Neural Mechanisms of Cognitive Control in Cued Task‐Switching: Rules, Representations, and Preparation
Authors: Ruge Hannes , Braver Todd S.
Published: September 2007

This chapter discusses the possible role and neural basis of three different types of rules used in the service of cognitive control, including: (1) rules for the specification of responses based on preceding events (stimulus‐response mappings); (2) rules for the specification of responses based on anticipated effects (i.e. goals to be reached, or response‐effect mappings); and (3) rules that determine behavior by specifying cost‐benefit tradeoffs. Considered are recent results from functional magnetic resonance imaging and behavioral studies on preparatory activation in cued task‐switching. Furthermore, included is a larger review of relevant literature regarding cognitive flexibility and competition resolution to provide a broader context for this theoretical perspective on cognitive control.
The Development of Rule Use in Childhood
Authors: Zelazo Philip David
Published: September 2007

The ability to follow explicit rules improves dramatically during the course of childhood, and this improvement depends, in part, on a growing ability to formulate and use increasingly complex systems of rules. Relatively little is known, however, about the changes in brain structure and function that underlie these cognitive changes. Drawing from neuroscientific studies in human adults and other animals, as well as an emerging literature in developmental cognitive neuroscience, this chapter proposes a brain‐based account of the development of rule use in childhood. This account focuses on four types of rules represented in different parts of prefrontal cortex (PFC). It is hypothesized that the pattern of developmental changes in rule use reflects the different rates of development of specific regions within PFC. According to this account, lateral PFC‐mediated reprocessing allows one to reflect on relatively simple rules (i.e. at a higher level of consciousness) and formulate higher‐order rules that control the application of these simpler rules. As individuals engage in recursive reprocessing, ascend through levels of consciousness, and formulate more complex rule systems, they recruit an increasingly complex hierarchical network of PFC regions.
9 The Politics of Transparency and the Moral Work of Truth
Authors: Urban Walker Margaret
Published: September 2007

The proliferation of truth commissions and the establishment of a “right to truth” concerning human rights violations embody a politics of transparency that makes moral claims for truth telling about violence and injustice. This chapter argues that having told, being told, and telling truths in these cases has more than the instrumental value of identifying wrongs. Truth telling, through acknowledgment and voice, serves to establish or restore the dignity of victims and to reconfigure a moral community. Dignity is the moral standing of a full participant in practices of mutual accountability. Acknowledgment, as successful apology shows, validates a victims'experience and shifts the reflective equilibrium of common belief to secure stable recognition. Having voice demonstrates one's competence and credibility as a giver of accounts, a constitutive feature of full participation in practices of accountability.
Problems of Colocation
Authors: Thomasson Amie L.
Published: September 2007

Those who accept an ontology of ordinary objects face the problem of colocation: holding that different objects — such as a lump of clay and a statue — occupy the same place at the same time or are composed of the same parts. Anti-colocation arguments appear in several forms: rhetorical appeals that surely there is nothing “over and above” the clay, claims that this violates the plausible principle that no two objects may share the same space or parts, and worries that this falsely leads to “doubling up” property instances (such as weighing ten pounds). This chapter aims to defuse all these related worries. We are then left with the grounding problem: how can two objects share all the same parts and non-modal, non-sortal properties, yet differ in their identity and persistence conditions? It is argued that the modal conceptualist view of Chapter 3 provides the key to resolving this problem.
Handling Existence Questions
Authors: Thomasson Amie L.
Published: September 2007

This chapter investigates what is involved in asking general ontological questions such as: “what exists?” and “how many things are there?” It is argued that well-formed existence and counting questions are “specific” existence questions that specify a certain category or sort of entity enquired about. Purely “generic” existence and counting questions (asking about “anything whatsoever”, where “thing” is not used sortally) are ill-formed unanswerable questions. This gives us reason to think that quantificational claims likewise presuppose certain categories of entity quantified over. It also suggests that many of the questions driving ontological debates are based on pseudo-questions, and does so without subscribing to anti-realism or quantifier variance. The chapter closes by considering whether we can revive a form of universal quantification by way of a “covering” use of “thing” that generalizes over a range of category-specific terms.
5 Becoming African in the English Atlantic
Authors: Sidbury James
Published: September 2007

This chapter focuses on the emergence of the African church movement in various cities along the eastern seaboard — especially Baltimore and Philadelphia — and the efforts of the sea captain, Paul Cuffe, to initiate a black-controlled emigration movement that he hoped would build long-lasting ties between Sierra Leone and blacks in North America, helping to create an “African” people and a diasporic “African” nation.
Twin Research: Evolutionary Perspective on Social Relations
Authors: Segal Nancy L. , Chavarria Kevin A. , Stohs Joanne Hoven
Published: September 2007

Assessing evolutionary-based hypotheses relevant to social processes and outcomes within families requires studying pairs of individuals who vary in their genetic and environmental relatedness. Twin studies, in particular, provide novel approaches to old problems regarding human social relations. This chapter reviews the biological differences between twin types and outlines ways of incorporating twins in evolutionary psychological research.
Conversion
Authors: Gribben Crawford
Published: September 2007

This chapter documents Irish Cromwellian debates about conversion–one of the most elemental components of protestant theology. Surprisingly, Irish Cromwellians could not agree whether conversion should be the basis or the goal of church membership and an individual's participation in the sacraments. Protestants in mid‐seventeenth century Ireland were prepared to accuse each other of preaching a false gospel, and of promoting an unbalanced mysticism in the search for religious assurance.
The Rural Landscapes of Imperial Italy
Authors: Patterson John R.
Published: September 2007

The opening chapter outlines the wealth of evidence for rural settlement in Italy collected in the course of archaeological field survey over the past forty years, the diversity of settlement patterns this reveals, and the methodological issues that arise in interpreting these data, which are summarized in an appendix. It then explores whether increasing or declining numbers of rural sites should be understood as reflecting changes in levels of population, in patterns of migration, or in agricultural practices. The discussion focuses in particular on Campania, Etruria, Lucania, and Samnium: important factors in the changing patterns of settlement in these areas, and the chronology of those changes, include the economic demand generated by the city of Rome, the presence in a locality of members of the Roman elite, and (in the Apennines) the importance of pastoralism.
The Nestorian Crisis
Authors: Clayton, Jr. Paul B.
Published: September 2007

This chapter examines the Christological concepts and terms employed by Theodoret in the Nestorian controversy and in the movements that eventually led to a shaky peace with Cyril in the years 432-5. An examination of the texts shows that the Christology of this period is exactly what was uncovered in De Incarnatione Domini. The discovery of that work as Theodoret's allows us to see more clearly how the texts of 431-5 are to be interpreted, which in turn allows us to settle some of the disagreements among earlier students of Theodoret's works. The materials examined in this chapter include the Reprehensio XII Anathematismorum, undertaken early in 431 at the request of John of Antioch as a rebuttal from the Antiochene side to Cyril's third letter to Nestorius with its subjoined twelve anathemas or chapters; Epistles 150-79, which are concerned with the Nestorian crisis, the Council of Ephesus, and its aftermath; a few epistles from Collectio Casinensis, a Latin version of events surrounding Ephesus and the Union Creed of 432-3; and the few fragments of the Pentalogos which are extant, a work written by Theodoret against the Cyrillian Council of Ephesus.
5 Hieronymus' Ethnography: Indian Widows and Nabataean Nomads
Authors: Bosworth A. B.
Published: September 2007

The principal source which is examined for the period after the death of Alexander the Great is Hieronymus of Cardia. He is reputed for his supposedly dispassionate narrative of events, his factual accuracy, backed by verbatim citation of documents. However, Hieronymus had a penchant for digression, enlivening his narrative of men and events with picturesque descriptions of engineering and artistic monuments, the social mores of exotic peoples, and the origins of famous cities. Hieronymus' digressions, it may be argued, had a certain sophistication. They were not written solely to break the narrative and add exotic colour. There was on occasion an implied message, moral or political, which the reader might detect beneath the plain text of the excursus. We may see the method at work in two of the lengthiest ethnographic interludes in Diodorus. The first concerns a description of a deeply impressive event that occurred after the Battle of Paraetacene. The commander of the Indian contingent, a prince named Ceteus, had died heroically in battle, and was given a spectacular funeral. It gives the first recorded instance of the Indian institution of sati (widow burning).
Classical Latin Women Poets
Authors: Stevenson Jane
Published: September 2007

Women's lack of access to public life in Republican and Imperial Rome, and its effect on their use of language are discussed. Women's education and the evidence for women's verse-writing are examined. Cornificia's epigrams and her relationship with the circle of Catullus, Ovid's evidence for a poet called Perilla, Sulpicia's relationship to the circle of Tibullus, her social position, and a consideration of her surviving verse are also addressed. Evidence for women poets and scholars in the early Empire is presented, together with Martial's evidence for women as poets in his own social circle, above all for Sulpicia II, whose work was circulating down to the 6th century.
Women Latin Poets in Early Medieval Europe
Authors: Stevenson Jane
Published: September 2007

This chapter discusses the education and culture of noblewomen of the late Roman empire and successor states. It presents evidence for the literary culture of Radegund of Poitiers and later medieval royal women of the Merovingian, Carolingian, and Ottonian dynasties, and their involvement with education and the promotion of scholarship. Further evidence for literary culture in convents, and nuns as scribes and chroniclers is provided. The chapter includes specific sections on Dhuoda, educated women in Anglo-Saxon England, particularly in the circle of St Boniface, the playwright Hrotsvitha, and educated women in the Ottonian world, ending with a discussion of anonymous lyric verse in Latin.
Twistor methods
Authors: Baird Paul , Wood John C.
Published: September 2007

This chapter discusses how twistor methods can be used to construct nonconstant harmonic morphisms from (orientable) Einstein 4-manifolds to Riemann surfaces. It is shown that any such map induces an (integrable) Hermitian structure J on the 4-manifold with respect to which the map is holomorphic. The fibres of the map are ‘superminimal’, i.e., J is parallel along them. Conversely, a Hermitian structure induces (local) harmonic morphisms with these properties. Thus, the problem of finding harmonic morphisms is converted into that of finding Hermitian structures and superminimal surfaces in an Einstein 4-manifold; a problem that can be solved by twistor theory. This gives explicit constructions of all harmonic morphisms from domains of Euclidean 4-space, the 4-sphere, and complex projective 2-space to surfaces. The last section discusses harmonic morphisms from other Einstein manifolds, including the join of two complex projective 2-spaces endowed with the Page metric.
Responses of Phytoplankton Communities to climate Variability
Authors: Belgrano Andrea , Lima Mauricio , Stenseth Nils Chr. , Lindahl Odd
Published: September 2007

This chapter presents a general statistical approach to studying changes in phytoplankton species abundance in relation to climate variability. It then applies this method to an example where changes in phytoplankton species diversity, the dynamics of three phytoplankton species in a Swedish fjord, are related to the North Atlantic Oscillation and other abiotic factors. The chapter concludes with a general outlook underlining the importance of further studies of changes in phytoplankton biovolume.
Effects of Climate Variability on Benthic Communities
Authors: Hagberg Jacob , Tunberg Björn G. , Wieking Gunther , Kröncke Ingrid , Belgrano Andrea
Published: September 2007

Climatic variability is most likely to have an effect on marine populations and it is important to understand further the synchronicity between climatic oscillations and the life cycle of benthic species. This chapter presents a variety of studies on climate influence on marine benthos communities in the North Sea, Skagerrak, and Baltic. The main conclusion is that the NAO affects single species as well as whole communities and functional groups, and that the impact may differ geographically and depend on the species composition of the communities.
Electromagnetic fields
Authors: Fabrizio Mauro , Angelo Morro
Published: September 2007

This chapter presents the basic notions of electromagnetism, chiefly the balance laws in global and local form. The corresponding Maxwell’s differential equations and boundary conditions are then derived. Electromagnetic potentials are introduced along with gauge conditions. They are then applied to determine the electromagnetic field in various cases. Although the standpoint is nonrelativistic, the chapter also exhibits the Lorentz-invariant form of Maxwell’s equations, essential for any relativistic approach.
Green's functions and retarded potentials
Authors: Fabrizio Mauro , Angelo Morro
Published: September 2007

This chapter gives a concise and self-contained presentation of the use of Green’s functions to solve linear problems with a given point source. Specific functions are determined for the harmonic oscillator, the wave equation, and the lossy wave equation. The solution to the inhomogeneous wave equation is derived through a retarded potential and by the Kirchhoff procedure. The field generated by a moving charge is determined through the Lienard-Wiechert potential. A Cauchy problem and a boundary-value problem are investigated for the wave equation and the telegraph equation.
STRUCTURED MATRIX ANALYSIS
Authors: Bini D. A. , Latouche G. , Meini B.
Published: September 2007

This chapter describes structural and computational properties which are the basis of the design and analysis of fast algorithms for the numerical solution of structured Markov chains. Toeplitz matrices, circulant and z-circulant matrices with their block analogs are introduced together with the fast algorithms for their manipulation. The concept of discrete Fourier transform is recalled with the FFT algorithm for its computation. Attention is given to the concept of displacement operator and of displacement rank needed to design efficient algorithms for a wide class of matrices related to Toeplitz matrices.
Theory of Fluctuations in Superconductors
Authors: Larkin (late) Anatoly , Varlamov Andrei
Published: September 2007

This book presents itself as both an encyclopedia and a textbook of fluctuation phenomena in superconductors. The first half presents the phenomenological methods of the Ginzburg-Landau theory and microscopical methods of the quantum field theory in the description of fluctuations. The second half provides a wide panorama of the superconductive fluctuations manifestated in different observables: their role in fields such as high temperature superconductivity, nano-superconductivity, the physics of Josephson junctions and granular superconductors, and strongly disordered superconductors. Other textbooks on this subject postulate that the BCS theory of superconductivity is an exact one. This book dispels this, indicating the limits of the applicability of the mean field theory and demonstrating the existence of a wide circle of interesting phenomena beyond its confines.
FLUCTUATION TRANSPORT
Authors: Larkin Anatoly , Varlamov Andrei
Published: September 2007

The time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation is phenomenologically introduced in relation to the order parameter relaxation in quasi-stationary approximation. This is applied to the fluctuation transport relative to superconducting transition. A general formula for the direct contribution of fluctuation Cooper pairs to the conductivity tensor of a superconductor with the arbitrary spectrum in the a.c. field and in the presence of external constant magnetic field is obtained. This is used to analyse fluctuation conductivity of the samples of arbitrary dimensionality, a.c., magnetoconductivity, and Hall conductivity of a layered superconductor nanotube. The transport equation of Boltzmann type for the fluctuation Cooper pair distribution function is derived.
FLUCTUATIONS IN VORTEX STRUCTURES
Authors: Larkin Anatoly , Varlamov Andrei
Published: September 2007

The effect of two different types of fluctuations on the properties of the vortex state of type-II superconductors is discussed. The first are the time-independent structure fluctuations (quenched disorder), related to nonhomogeneous distribution of impurities. The second type of fluctuations — changing the properties of the vortex lattice qualitatively — are the thermal fluctuations of the order parameter. The phenomena-like magnetic flux resistivity, collective pinning, and its effect on the value of critical current, thermal depinning, creep, and fluctuation melting of the vortex lattice are considered.
MICROSCOPIC DERIVATION OF THE GL FUNCTIONAL
Authors: Larkin Anatoly , Varlamov Andrei
Published: September 2007

This chapter demonstrates how the Ginzburg-Landau functional can be carried out from the microscopic theory of superconductivity. For this, the method of functional integration, alternative to the diagrammatic technique approach, is used. The partition function is presented as the functional integral of the exponent of effective action over all possible fluctuation realizations of the order parameter. The analysis corresponding to this free energy function permits the reproduction of both the results of the BCS theory (mean field approximation) and allows us to obtain microscopically the GL functional. This analysis is generalized for the case of a nontrivial order parameter symmetry.
FLUCTUATIONS IN JOSEPHSON JUNCTIONS
Authors: Larkin Anatoly , Varlamov Andrei
Published: September 2007

The chapter starts with a discussion of the general properties of a Josephson junction. Fluctuation broadening of the emission line due to both thermal fluctuations of the voltage and thermal fluctuations of the order parameter are then calculated. In the framework of the Ginzburg-Landau formalism, the fluctuation suppression of the Josephson current below Tc is found. Josephson current decay due to the thermal phase fluctuations and the phenomenon of macroscopic quantum tunneling are discussed. Different regimes of pair tunneling through the washboard potential are considered.
ROLE OF FLUCTUATIONS IN HIGH TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
Authors: Larkin Anatoly , Varlamov Andrei
Published: September 2007

The chapter starts with a discussion of the schematic phase diagram of high temperature superconductors and the role of fluctuations in its different domains. Some modern ideas concerning the origin of high temperature superconductivity and involving the term ‘fluctuations’ are reviewed. These include resonating valence bond theory, the theory of spin-charge separation, the idea of the existence of hidden order phase, bose-metal state, staggered flux state, vortices localization, bipolaron superconductivity, strong coupling BCS-like schemes, BEC-BCS scenario, marginal Fermi liquid theory, and Bose phenomenology.
PRESSURE AND TEMPERATURE ESTIMATES
Authors: Feireisl Eduard
Published: September 2007

The discussion on the variational solutions is further developed in this chapter, where more delicate estimates of the pressure and temperature necessary for future analysis are obtained. These are based on a generalized inverse of the divergence operator as well as a careful analysis of the heat energy balance.
FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS
Authors: Feireisl Eduard
Published: September 2007

Given the rather poor a priori estimates available, the methods of weak convergence play a decisive role in the mathematical theory to be developed in this book. Both ‘classical’ problems of this approach — the presence of oscillations and concentrations in sequences of approximate solutions — are present. The well-known results of the theory of compensated compactness are used in order to cope with possible density oscillations. More specifically, the fundamental properties of the effective viscous pressure discovered by P.-L. Lions are discussed together with an alternative proof of ‘continuity’ of this quantity via the famous div-curl lemma. Next, the concept of oscillation defect measure is introduced, and its relation to the propagation of oscillations and the renormalized continuity equation is established. Furthermore, the whole machinery is applied to the problem of propagation of density oscillations in a sequence of solutions, and it is shown that the oscillations decay in time at a uniform rate independent of the choice of initial data provided the pressure is a monotone function of the density. The weak sequential stability (compactness) of the set of weak solutions is established for optimal values of the ‘adiabatic’ exponent. In particular, the physically interesting case of the monoatomic gas in the isentropic regime in three space dimensions can be treated — a problem left open in current theory. Possible concentrations in the temperature are treated via the method of renormalization (rescaling). A ‘renormalized’ formulation of the thermal energy equation is supplemented with the concept of a renormalized limit, usefulness of which being demonstrated on the problem of weak sequential stability and the study of possible concentrations of the temperature in the thermal energy equation.
LANDMARK-BASED REGISTRATION
Authors: Modersitzki Jan
Published: September 2007

This chapter discusses image registration techniques based on a finite set of parameters and/or a finite set of so-called image features. The basic idea is to determine the desired transformation for a finite number of features, any feature of the template image is mapped onto the corresponding feature on the reference image. This general notion of image features is made concrete using image landmarks. A naive approach to landmark based registration is formalized and theoretical issues such as existence and uniqueness are discussed. The naive approach is replaced by a proper regularized approach, and analytical solutions are derived using the theory of representers, radial basis functions, and thin-plate-splines. Using this advanced theoretical framework, the strict interpolation approach is further extended to a more flexible approximation approach. The various approaches (linear, quadratic, interpolating, and approximating thin-plate splines) are compared and illustrated. It is shown that landmark-based registration may not result in a meaningful one-to-one overall transformation.
THE COARSE GRAINED APPROACH IN POLYMER PHYSICS
Authors: Oono Y. , Ohta T.
Published: September 2007

This chapter discusses Sam Edwards' extension of polymer theory beyond dilute solutions through to block co-polymer melts.
Modeling food-web dynamics: complexity–stability implications
Authors: Dunne Jennifer A. , Brose Ulrich , Williams Richard J. , Martinez Neo D.
Published: September 2007

One of the challenges in the study of complex systems is how to integrate recent network structure discoveries with advances in modeling the dynamics of large non-linear systems. This is important for ecology, where the study of ecological networks — particularly in the form of webs — is a central organizing principle for research into the relationships between ecosystem complexity and diversity, and ecosystem stability, robustness, and persistence. Ecologists and physicists have applied recent advances in statistical mechanics of network topology to food web data. Such studies have uncovered general properties of food web structure, extended previous generalities of ‘real-world’ network structure, and new insights of complex network structure and robustness. However, although large complex networks of interacting species are observed in nature and their broad-scale structure is well described, few, if any, biologically plausible models have been able to simulate the persistent dynamics of such networks. Advanced theoretical insights into the dynamics of ecological networks are confined to relatively low-dimensional subsystems with less than a half dozen species, or to high-dimensional models that have a priori, biologically implausible stability assumptions. This chapter reviews efforts to characterize food web network structure as well as research into ecological non-linear dynamics. It also discusses approaches that seek to integrate food web structure and dynamics, highlighting factors that appear critical for the persistence and stability of complex species ecosystems.
INTERACTIVE PROGRAMS AND WEAKLY FINAL COALGEBRAS IN DEPENDENT TYPE THEORY
Authors: Hancock Peter , Setzer Anton
Published: September 2007

This chapter considers the representation of interactive programs in dependent type theory and bases it on the monadic I/O used in Haskell. Two versions are described: in the first the interface with the real world is fixed, while in the second the potential interactions may depend on the history of previous interactions. It also looks at client and server programs, which run on opposite sides of an interface. The type of interactive program is defined as a weakly final coalgebra for a general form of polynomial functor. The chapter gives formation/introduction/elimination/equality rules for these coalgebras. The relationship of the corresponding rules with guarded induction is studied by showing that the introduction rules are a slightly restricted form of guarded induction. However, the form in which they represent guarded induction is not by means of recursive equations but by using an elimination operator in a crucial way.
APPROXIMATIONS TO THE NUMERICAL RANGE OF AN ELEMENT OF A BANACH ALGEBRA
Authors: Bridges Douglas , Havea Robin
Published: September 2007

The theory of Banach algebras presents a fine interplay between the topological and the algebraic, and as such is a good challenge for the constructive mathematician. In constructive mathematics, since the Hahn-Banach theorem does not produce norm-preserving extensions of linear functionals, the numerical range of an element of a Banach algebra has to be described using approximations. Nevertheless, these approximations suffice to produce constructive proofs of theorems such as that of Allan Sinclair on the spectral range of a Hermitian element. This chapter indicates once more that exact solutions whose existence can merely be guaranteed by classical logic are often unnecessary to prove a statement of a concrete character even when they occur in most classical proofs.
THE CONSTRUCTIVE UNIQUENESS OF THE LOCALLY CONVEX TOPOLOGY ON ℝN
Authors: Bridges Douglas , Vîtă Luminita
Published: September 2007

This chapter proves constructively that every n-dimensional real locally convex space is homeomorphic to ℝn. Although essentially nonconstructive theorems of real analysis are used in the customary proofs of the uniqueness of the topology on the real Euclidean space of a fixed dimension, this chapter succeeds in avoiding any fragment of the law of excluded middle, at least when the given topology is locally convex. The proof uses barely more than elementary geometric reasoning combined with approximation techniques typical of constructive analysis, but contains an algorithm for computing the desired homeomorphism. This algorithm could, in principle, be extracted and implemented by any of the several systems designed for such a purpose.
Late twentieth-century patterns and trends in Amazon tree turnover
Authors: Phillips Oliver L. , Baker Timothy R. , Arroyo Luzmila , Higuchi Niro , Killeen Timothy , Laurance William F. , Lewis Simon L. , Lloyd Jon , Malhi Yadvinder , Monteagudo Abel , Neill David A. , Vargas Percy Nuñez , Silva J. Natalino N. , Martinez Rodolfo Vásquez , Alexiades Miguel , Almeida Samuel , Brown Sandra , Chave Jerome , Comiskey James A. , Czimczik Claudia I. , Di Fiore Anthony , Erwin Terry , Kuebler Caroline , Laurance Susan G. , Nascimento Henrique E. M. , Olivier Jean , Palacios Walter , Patiño Sandra , Pitman Nigel , Quesada Carlos A. , Saldias Mario , Lezama Armando Torres , Vinceti Barbara
Published: September 2007

Previous work found that tree turnover, biomass, and large liana densities increased in mature tropical forests in the late 20th century, indicating a concerted shift in forest ecological processes. However, the findings have proved controversial. Here, regional-scale patterns of tree turnover are characterized, using improved datasets available for Amazonia that span the last twenty-five years. The main findings include: trees at least 10 cm in diameter recruit and die twice as fast on the richer soils of western Amazonia compared to trees on the poorer soils of eastern Amazonia; turnover rates have increased throughout Amazonia over the last two decades; mortality and recruitment rates have tended to increase in every region and environmental zone; recruitment rates consistently exceed mortality rates; and increases in recruitment and mortality rates are greatest in western Amazonia. These patterns and trends are not caused by obvious artefacts in the data or the analyses, and cannot be directly driven by a mortality driver such as increased drought because the biomass in these forests has simultaneously increased. Apparently, therefore, widespread environmental changes are stimulating the growth and productivity of Amazon forests.
THE TOPOLOGICAL VERTEX
Authors: Mariño Marcos
Published: September 2007

This chapter explains the cut-and-paste approach to toric Calabi-Yau manifolds developed previously with the large-N duality relating Chern-Simons theory and topological strings, to find a building block for topological string amplitudes on those geometries. This building block is an open string amplitude called the topological vertex. In order to understand topological vertex it is necessary to discuss one aspect of open string amplitudes: the framing ambiguity. Three gluing rules for the topological vertex are discussed: for a change of orientation in one edge, for the propagator, and for the matching of framings in the gluing. Some examples of computation of topological string amplitudes by using the topological vertex are presented.
PRELIMINARIES AND BASIC ESTIMATES
Authors: Vázquez Juan Luis
Published: September 2007

This chapter provides preliminary material on parabolic equations needed to develop the main theories of the book. It begins with a review of useful properties of quasilinear parabolic equations. Section 3.2 is devoted to non-degenerate versions of the generalized PME that will be used in approximating the degenerate cases. Section 3.3 focuses on properties that are formally satisfied by the PME; they will be justified in later chapters and used in the constructions of the different theories. Finally, Section 3.4 reviews the properties of the most popular alternative formulations of the PME.
THE DIRICHLET PROBLEM III. STRONG SOLUTIONS
Authors: Vázquez Juan Luis
Published: September 2007

This chapter addresses the question of how regular the solutions constructed in previous chapters actually are. Section 8.1 considers the question of further regularity of the time derivative ut. Both in the case u = 0 and in the signed case, it is proved that ut is a locally integrable function. This allows the introduction in Section 8.2 of the more stringent concept of solution called strong solutions, i.e., weak solutions such that both ut and ΔΦ(u) are locally integrable functions. Strong solutions have nice calculus properties. Some of those properties are examined in detail. The concepts of super- and subsolutions are also discussed.
FULL ANALYSIS OF SELF-SIMILARITY
Authors: Vázquez Juan Luis
Published: September 2007

This chapter examines the class of solutions of the PME that are invariant under the scaling group in the variables (x, t, u), and take therefore the so-called self-similar form. After a detailed analysis of the application of the scaling group to the PME, it is shown that the self-similar solutions can be classified into tree different types: forward, backward, and exponential self-similarity. Section 16.4 introduces the technique of phase-plane analysis that allows for a rather complete description of these solutions for all parameters (under the restriction of radial symmetry in several dimensions) to be obtained. An alternative phase plane is introduced in Section 16.5 which clarifies the behaviour at infinity of the previous plane. The tools are completed in Section 16.6 with the study of sign-change trajectories through inversion. Oscillating signed solutions are studied in Section 16.7 and two special solutions are constructed that are important in the existence and uniqueness theory of signed solutions. The special features of self-similar solutions of Type II are examined in Section 16.8. Finally two short sections contain supplementary material.
ASYMPTOTIC BEHAVIOUR I. THE CAUCHY PROBLEM
Authors: Vázquez Juan Luis
Published: September 2007

This chapter begins with a study of the behaviour of solutions of the PME for large times. The cornerstone of the presentation is the interplay between asymptotic behaviour and self-similarity. It is also shown that large time behaviour gives rise to the formation of patterns. Section 18.2 contains a proof of the asymptotic theorem for non-negative solutions using the so-called four step method, based on rescaling and compactness. The convergence of supports and interfaces for compactly supported data occupies Section 18.3. Section 18.4 examines the so-called continuous scaling and the associated Fokker-Planck equations. Section 18.6 introduces another functional, the entropy. Section 18.7 delves in to the peculiarities of asymptotic behaviour in one space dimension; this allows us to establish optimal convergence rates. Section 18.8 contains a proof of asymptotic convergence for signed solutions, and the extension to cover integrable forcing terms. Section 18.9 gives an introduction to the special properties of the large time behaviour of the FDE.