Our understanding of reproduction and reproductive processes is often biased towards the behaviour of organisms most familiar to us. As such, the amazing disparity of the phenomena of reproduction and sex is often overlooked. Understanding Reproduction addresses all the main facets of this large chapter of the life sciences, including discussions of asexual reproduction, parthenogenesis, sex determination, reproductive effort, and much more. The book features an abundance of examples from across the tree of life, including animals, plants, fungi, protists and bacteria. Written in an accessible and easy to digest style, overcoming the intimidating diversity of the technical terminology, this book will appeal to interested general readers, biologists, science educators, philosophers and medical doctors.
Adaptive Voltage Control in Power Systems, a self-contained blend of theory and novel application, offers in-depth treatment of such adaptive control schemes. Coverage moves from power-system-modelling problems through illustrations of the main adaptive control systems, including self-tuning, model-reference and nonlinearities compensation to a detailed description of design methods: Kalman filtering, parameter-identification algorithms and discrete-time controller design are all represented. Case studies address applications issues in the implementation of adaptive voltage control.
Evolutionary developmental biology, or 'evo-devo', is the study of the relationship between evolution and development. Dealing specifically with the generative mechanisms of organismal form, evo-devo goes straight to the core of the developmental origin of variation, the raw material on which natural selection (and random drift) can work. Evolving Pathways brings together contributions that represent a diversity of approaches. Topics range from developmental genetics to comparative morphology of animals and plants alike, and also include botany and palaeontology, two disciplines for which the potential to be examined from an evo-devo perspective has largely been ignored until now. Researchers and graduate students will find this book a valuable overview of current research as we begin to fill a major gap in our perception of evolutionary change.
This monograph (in two volumes) deals with non scalar variational problems arising in geometry, as harmonic mappings between Riemannian manifolds and minimal graphs, and in physics, as stable equilibrium configuations in nonlinear elasticity or for liquid crystals. The presentation is selfcontained and accessible to non specialists. Topics are treated as far as possible in an elementary way, illustrating results with simple examples; in principle, chapters and even sections are readable independently of the general context, so that parts can be easily used for graduate courses. Open questions are often mentioned and the final section of each chapter discusses references to the literature and sometimes supplementary results. Finally, a detailed Table of Contents and an extensive Index are of help to consult this monograph
The aim of the paper is twofold. On one hand the authors want to present a new technique called $p$-caloric approximation, which is a proper generalization of the classical compactness methods first developed by DeGiorgi with his Harmonic Approximation Lemma. This last result, initially introduced in the setting of Geometric Measure Theory to prove the regularity of minimal surfaces, is nowadays a classical tool to prove linearization and regularity results for vectorial problems. Here the authors develop a very far reaching version of this general principle devised to linearize general degenerate parabolic systems. The use of this result in turn allows the authors to achieve the subsequent and main aim of the paper, that is, the implementation of a partial regularity theory for parabolic systems with degenerate diffusion of the type $\partial_t u - \mathrm{div} a(Du)=0$, without necessarily assuming a quasi-diagonal structure, i.e. a structure prescribing that the gradient non-linearities depend only on the the explicit scalar quantity.
This study presents a new regional history of the middle Tiber valley as a lens through which to view the emergence and transformation of the city of Rome from 1000 BC to AD 1000. Setting the ancient city within the context of its immediate territory, the authors reveal the diverse and enduring links between the metropolis and its hinterland.
The book contains recent contributions in the field of waves propagation and stability in continuous media. In particular, the contributions consider discontinuity and shock waves, stability in fluid dynamics, small parameter problems, kinetic theories towards continuum models, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, and numerical applications. The volume is the fourth in a series published by World Scientific since 1999. The following distinguished authors contribute to the present book: S Bianchini, R Caflish, C Cercignani, Y Choquet-Bruhat, C Dafermos, L Desvillettes, V Giovangigli, H Gouin, I Muller, D Parker, B Straughan, M Sugiyama and W Weiss. Contents: On Whitham Equations for Camassa-Holm (S Abenda et al.); An Operational Description of Stock Markets (F Bagarello); Vortex Layers in the Small Viscosity Limit (R E Caflisch & M Sammartino); Integration of Partially Integrable Equations (R Conte); Waves and Vibrations in a Solid of Second Grade (M Destrade & G Saccomandi); Multicomponent Reactive Flows (V Giovangigli); Singularities for Prandtl''s Equations (G Lo Bosco et al.); Stability of Solitons of the ZakharovOCoRubenchik Equation (F Oliveira); Plain Waves and Vibrations in the Elastic Mixtures (M Svanadze); Extended Thermodynamics with Consistent Order (W Weiss); and other papers. Readership: Academics, researchers and post-graduates in mathematics and physics.
One of the main novelties of this book is its establishment of a clear relationship between social and public choice on one hand and multiple criteria decision analysis on the other. This relationship leads to the new concept of Social Multi-Criteria Evaluation (SMCE). SMCE is proposed as a policy framework to integrate different scientific languages, for example, when concerns about civil society and future generations have to be considered along with policy imperatives and market conditions.
The Variational Analysis and Aerospace Engineering conference held in Erice, Italy in September 2007 at International School of Mathematics, Guido Stampacchia provided a platform for aerospace engineers and mathematicians to discuss the problems requiring an extensive application of mathematics. This work contains papers presented at the workshop.
Migraine is a very prevalent disease with great individual disability and socioeconomic burden. Despite intensive research effort in recent years, the etiopathogenesis of the disease remains to be elucidated. Recently, much importance has been given to mechanisms underlying the cortical excitability that has been suggested to be dysfunctional in migraine. In recent years, noninvasive brain stimulation techniques based on magnetic fields (transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS) and on direct electrical currents (transcranial direct current stimulation, tDCS) have been shown to be safe and effective tools to explore the issue of cortical excitability, activation, and plasticity in migraine. Moreover, TMS, repetitive TMS (rTMS), and tDCS, thanks to their ability to interfere with and/or modulate cortical activity inducing plastic, persistent effects, have been also explored as potential therapeutic approaches, opening an interesting perspective for noninvasive neurostimulation for both symptomatic and preventive treatment of migraine and other types of headache. In this chapter we critically review evidence regarding the role of noninvasive brain stimulation in the pathophysiology and treatment of migraine, delineating the advantages and limits of these techniques together with potential development and future application.
Recently much attention has been devoted to the optimization of transportation networks in a given geographic area. One assumes the distributions of population and of services/workplaces (i.e. the network's sources and sinks) are known, as well as the costs of movement with/without the network, and the cost of constructing/maintaining it. Both the long-term optimization and the short-term, "who goes where," optimization are considered. These models can also be adapted for the optimization of other types of networks, such as telecommunications, pipeline or drainage networks. In the monograph we study the most general problem settings, namely, when neither the shape nor even the topology of the network to be constructed is known a priori.
This book includes four courses on geometric measure theory, the calculus of variations, partial differential equations, and differential geometry. Authored by leading experts in their fields, the lectures present different approaches to research topics with the common background of a relevant underlying, usually non-Riemannian, geometric structure. In particular, the topics covered concern differentiation and functions of bounded variation in metric spaces, Sobolev spaces, and differential geometry in the so-called Carnot–Carathéodory spaces. The text is based on lectures presented at the 10th School on "Analysis and Geometry in Metric Spaces" held in Levico Terme (TN), Italy, in collaboration with the University of Trento, Fondazione Bruno Kessler and CIME, Italy. The book is addressed to both graduate students and researchers.
This monograph gathers and evaluates data on adverse events (AEs) associated specifically with those “biomedicines” – monoclonal antibodies, fusion proteins, and cytokines – that have recently entered therapeutic use in humans. All AEs observed when using each member of this new drug class are covered, with a view to improving understanding of pathogenesis, facilitating prevention, monitoring, and control, and contributing to the development of better drugs that provide benefits while minimizing risk. Further aspects here examined include the role of drug mechanisms of action and immunogenicity in relation to AEs outcome and induction of systemic syndromes. Additional data on AEs in off-label treatments are also considered. Electronic data sheets, downloadable from Springer Extra Materials platform, include more detailed safety data as well as additional basic information on product characteristics, pre- and post-marketing AEs classified according to frequency, and system/organ targeting. Data on excipients and selected information on drug interactions and associations are also provided. Adverse Events with Biomedicines: Prevention Through Understanding will serve as a detailed, practical guideline to this important new area, which demands the attention of clinicians, immunologists, oncologists, allergologists, public health professionals, and drug companies.
This book analyses the effectiveness of climate finance as political instrument to reduce the effect of anthropogenic activities on climate change and promote the green growth in developing countries. The book highlights that close attention should also be paid to the analysis of political contexts in a broad sense. Particularly focusing on the international negotiations process that enables the direction of funds toward specific needs and priorities and the issue of access to electricity. For example, the difficulties that developing countries face when trying to improve their green economic development without access to carbon remains a matter of the utmost importance and urgency for many developing countries that lack significant aid from developed countries. This book will be of interest to a wide body of academics and practitioners in climate change and energy policies. Moreover, this project is a valid instrument for students in energy policies and climate programs.
This book is devoted to a theory of gradient ?ows in spaces which are not nec- sarily endowed with a natural linear or di?erentiable structure. It is made of two parts, the ?rst one concerning gradient ?ows in metric spaces and the second one 2 1 devoted to gradient ?ows in the L -Wasserstein space of probability measures on p a separable Hilbert space X (we consider the L -Wasserstein distance, p? (1,?), as well). The two parts have some connections, due to the fact that the Wasserstein space of probability measures provides an important model to which the “metric” theory applies, but the book is conceived in such a way that the two parts can be read independently, the ?rst one by the reader more interested to Non-Smooth Analysis and Analysis in Metric Spaces, and the second one by the reader more oriented to theapplications in Partial Di?erential Equations, Measure Theory and Probability.
This volume is an excellent guide for anyone interested in variational analysis, optimization, and PDEs. It offers a detailed presentation of the most important tools in variational analysis as well as applications to problems in geometry, mechanics, elasticity, and computer vision. This second edition covers several new topics: new section on capacity theory and elements of potential theory now includes the concepts of quasi-open sets and quasi-continuity; increased number of examples in the areas of linearized elasticity system, obstacles problems, convection-diffusion, and semilinear equations; new section on mass transportation problems and the Kantorovich relaxed formulation of the Monge problem; new subsection on stochastic homogenization establishes the mathematical tools coming from ergodic theory; and an entirely new and comprehensive chapter (17) devoted to gradient flows and the dynamical approach to equilibria. The book is intended for Ph.D. students, researchers, and practitioners who want to approach the field of variational analysis in a systematic way.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity, SIROCCO 2007, held in Castiglioncello, Italy in June 2007. The 23 revised full papers and four invited talks cover graph exploration, fault tolerance, distributed algorithms and data structures, location problems, wireless networks, fault tolerance, as well as parallel computing and selfish routing.
Hilbert Functions play major roles in Algebraic Geometry and Commutative Algebra, and are becoming increasingly important also in Computational Algebra. They capture many useful numerical characters associated to a projective variety or to a filtered module over a local ring. Starting from the pioneering work of D.G. Northcott and J. Sally, we aim to gather together in one place many new developments of this theory by using a unifying approach which gives self-contained and easier proofs. The extension of the theory to the case of general filtrations on a module, and its application to the study of certain graded algebras which are not associated to a filtration are two of the main features of the monograph. The material is intended for graduate students and researchers who are interested in Commutative Algebra, in particular in the theory of the Hilbert Functions and related topics.
An Apocryphal Dictionary of Psychoanalysis is a book of transpositions, collecting together the author’s clinical vignettes, enigmatic objects, stray thoughts, projects, images, notes from readings, and musings; but also remarks on films and exhibitions, memories, episodes from daily life, summaries of papers to write, questions, doubts and obsessions - all of which have shaped the author’s understanding of psychoanalysis. Born from moments in which the author has sensed a solution for problems encountered in daily work or for obscure but exciting points of the theory, the entries are ordered in an apocryphal manner, offering a personal and challenging view of psychoanalysis. Like small epiphanies in which there is always an emotion - be it that of amusement, astonishment, gratitude, sadness, joy – they express the style of the analyst and of the person in treating mental suffering and give a glimpse into the imaginary which nurtures it. Ideas for psychoanalysis are outlined where at centre stage is the ability to wait, to be surprised; to operate from the place of the unconscious, which by definition is a place of negativity, and to exercise a form of soft scepticism – ultimately, a mode of hospitality. An Apocryphal Dictionary of Psychoanalysis will be of great use to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.
In The Violence of Emotions the author marries an ability to introduce the reader to the intimate climate of an analytic session with a passionate rereading of Bion. To emphasize both the empirical nature of psychoanalysis and its extraordinary capacity to engender illuminating hypotheses concerning the functioning of the mind, clinical examples alternate with theoretical argument. The psychoanalytic model espoused by Giuseppe Civitarese in his approach to both is analytic field theory. Developed by various authors, including Ferro, commencing with Bion and continued with contributions from the Barangers, Grotstein and Ogden, the theory of the analytic field reveals the social nature of subjectivity and, in clinical work, the intersubjective and dreamlike climate in which a psychoanalytic session unfolds. This leads to a new way of interpreting the facts of analysis. As such, topics of discussion include: transcending the caesura as Bion’s theoretical method hypochondria as de-subjectivation and narrative genre in analysis the aesthetic conflict and alfa function Bion’s search for ambiguity the casting of characters in the analytic dialogue metaphor of text and translation in Freud and Bion. Yet the book has an even more specific objective, focusing attention as it does on the central importance of emotions in mental life and of aesthetic experience as the model of what truly happens in analysis. This is an aspect which the author rediscovers and explores in the thought of Bion and his successors, and which he regards as a way of investigating the deepest and most primitive levels of mental life. This book will be of great interest to psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and psychotherapists.
Leading researchers in the field of Optimal Transportation, with different views and perspectives, contribute to this Summer School volume: Monge-Ampère and Monge-Kantorovich theory, shape optimization and mass transportation are linked, among others, to applications in fluid mechanics granular material physics and statistical mechanics, emphasizing the attractiveness of the subject from both a theoretical and applied point of view. The volume is designed to become a guide to researchers willing to enter into this challenging and useful theory.
Shape optimization problems are treated from the classical and modern perspectives Targets a broad audience of graduate students in pure and applied mathematics, as well as engineers requiring a solid mathematical basis for the solution of practical problems Requires only a standard knowledge in the calculus of variations, differential equations, and functional analysis Driven by several good examples and illustrations Poses some open questions.
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