The Age of Information is destined to become an important research topic in networked systems. This monograph provides the reader with an easy-to-read tutorial-like introduction into this novel approach of dealing with the freshness of information within systems.
Brachytherapy has become the modality of choice for several cancer localizations, minimizing the possibility of unacceptable risks for healthy tissues and providing a more cost-effective and convenient treatment for patients. Written by leading experts in the physics, development, and implementation of brachytherapy, The Physics of Modern Brachythe
This text contains chapters on domestic legal status of international treaties, domestic legal status of decisions of international organizations, judicial and quasi-judicial binding decisions, and decisions adopted by the EU within the II. and III. pillars.
At the point of independence in 1948, Sri Lanka was projected to be a success story in the developing world. However, in July 1983 a violent ethnic conflict which pitted the Sinhalese against the Tamils began, and did not come to an end until 2009. This conflict led to nearly 50,000 combatant deaths and approximately 40,000 civilian deaths, as well as almost 1 million internally-displaced refugees and to the permanent migration abroad of nearly 130,000 civilians. With a focus on Sri Lanka, this book explores the political economy of ethnic conflict, and examines how rival political leaders are able to convince their ethnic group members to follow them into violent conflict. Specifically, it looks at how political leaders can influence and utilize changes in the level of economic liberalization in order to mobilize members of a certain ethnic group, and in the case of Sri Lanka, shows how ethnic mobilization drives can turn violent when minority ethnic groups are economically marginalized by the decisions that the majority ethnic group leaders make in order to stay in power. Taking a political economy approach to the conflict in Sri Lanka, this book is unique in its historical analysis and provides a longitudinal view of the evolution of both Tamil and Sinhalese ethnic drives. As such, this interdisciplinary study will be of interest to policy makers as well as academics in the field of South Asian studies, political science, sociology, development studies, political economy and security studies.
The recent refugee and immigrant inflows from the Middle East, Northern Africa and Asia have become massive, and concern millions of people who attempt to be channelled into Europe through specific gateways in Southern-European areas. Among those, the Greek islands of the Eastern Aegean Sea, Lesvos and Chios, are serving as the main entrance-point for refugee and migration flows. This book highlights the attitudes of the residents of Mytilene, Lesvos, regarding the way the immigrant-refugee issue has affected their everyday lives and the economy of the island. It is based on a large-scale primary survey using statistical analysis and represented by appropriate statistical tables and figures that make the whole text engaging. As the issues investigated here are of great contemporary interest, academics, teachers, social scientists, students, policy makers, managers in the private sector, and NGOs will find the book interesting, informative and useful. The book will also prove a useful tool for a better policy implementation concerning recent massive migration flows towards Europe.
Recent developments in multi-parametric optimization and control Multi-Parametric Optimization and Control provides comprehensive coverage of recent methodological developments for optimal model-based control through parametric optimization. It also shares real-world research applications to support deeper understanding of the material. Researchers and practitioners can use the book as reference. It is also suitable as a primary or a supplementary textbook. Each chapter looks at the theories related to a topic along with a relevant case study. Topic complexity increases gradually as readers progress through the chapters. The first part of the book presents an overview of the state-of-the-art multi-parametric optimization theory and algorithms in multi-parametric programming. The second examines the connection between multi-parametric programming and model-predictive control—from the linear quadratic regulator over hybrid systems to periodic systems and robust control. The third part of the book addresses multi-parametric optimization in process systems engineering. A step-by-step procedure is introduced for embedding the programming within the system engineering, which leads the reader into the topic of the PAROC framework and software platform. PAROC is an integrated framework and platform for the optimization and advanced model-based control of process systems. Uses case studies to illustrate real-world applications for a better understanding of the concepts presented Covers the fundamentals of optimization and model predictive control Provides information on key topics, such as the basic sensitivity theorem, linear programming, quadratic programming, mixed-integer linear programming, optimal control of continuous systems, and multi-parametric optimal control An appendix summarizes the history of multi-parametric optimization algorithms. It also covers the use of the parametric optimization toolbox (POP), which is comprehensive software for efficiently solving multi-parametric programming problems.
This volume studies multivalued evolution equations driven by time-dependent subdifferential operators and optimal control problems for such systems. The formulation is general enough to incorporate problems with time varying constraints. For evolution inclusions, existence relaxation and structural results for the solution set are proved. For optimal control problems, a general existence theory is developed, different forms of the relaxed problem are introduced and studied, well-posedness properties are investigated and the precise relation between the properties of relaxability and well-posedness is established. Various examples of systems which fit in the abstract framework are analysed.
This volume pulls together more than forty years of research to provide graduate students and researchers in astrophysics, gravitational physics, and astronomy with the first self-contained treatment of the structure, stability, and oscillations of rotating neutron stars.
This book presents a comprehensive optimization-based theory and framework that exploits the synergistic interactions and tradeoffs between process design and operational decisions that span different time scales. Conventional methods in the process industry often isolate decision making mechanisms with a hierarchical information flow to achieve tractable problems, risking suboptimal, even infeasible operations. In this book, foundations of a systematic model-based strategy for simultaneous process design, scheduling, and control optimization is detailed to achieve reduced cost and improved energy consumption in process systems. The material covered in this book is well suited for the use of industrial practitioners, academics, and researchers. In Chapter 1, a historical perspective on the milestones in model-based design optimization techniques is presented along with an overview of the state-of-the-art mathematical tools to solve the resulting complex problems. Chapters 2 and 3 discuss two fundamental concepts that are essential for the reader. These concepts are (i) mixed integer dynamic optimization problems and two algorithms to solve this class of optimization problems, and (ii) developing a model based multiparametric programming model predictive control. These tools are used to systematically evaluate the tradeoffs between different time-scale decisions based on a single high-fidelity model, as demonstrated on (i) design and control, (ii) scheduling and control, and (iii) design, scheduling, and control problems. We present illustrative examples on chemical processing units, including continuous stirred tank reactors, distillation columns, and combined heat and power regeneration units, along with discussions of other relevant work in the literature for each class of problems.
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