Nonlinear Mathematics For Uncertainty And Its Applications

This volume is a collection of papers presented at the international conference on Nonlinear Mathematics for Uncertainty and Its Applications (NLMUA2011), held at Beijing University of Technology during the week of September 7--9, 2011. The conference brought together leading researchers and practitioners involved with all aspects of nonlinear mathematics for uncertainty and its applications. Over the last fifty years there have been many attempts in extending the theory of classical probability and statistical models to the generalized one which can cope with problems of inference and decision making when the model-related information is scarce, vague, ambiguous, or incomplete. Such attempts include the study of nonadditive measures and their integrals, imprecise probabilities and random sets, and their applications in information sciences, economics, finance, insurance, engineering, and social sciences. The book presents topics including nonadditive measures and nonlinear integrals, Choquet, Sugeno and other types of integrals, possibility theory, Dempster-Shafer theory, random sets, fuzzy random sets and related statistics, set-valued and fuzzy stochastic processes, imprecise probability theory and related statistical models, fuzzy mathematics, nonlinear functional analysis, information theory, mathematical finance and risk managements, decision making under various types of uncertainty, and others.

This book is focused on the recent developments on problems of probability model uncertainty by using the notion of nonlinear expectations and, in particular, sublinear expectations. It provides a gentle coverage of the theory of nonlinear expectations and related stochastic analysis. Many notions and results, for example, G-normal distribution, G-Brownian motion, G-Martingale representation theorem, and related stochastic calculus are first introduced or obtained by the author. This book is based on Shige Peng’s lecture notes for a series of lectures given at summer schools and universities worldwide. It starts with basic definitions of nonlinear expectations and their relation to coherent measures of risk, law of large numbers and central limit theorems under nonlinear expectations, and develops into stochastic integral and stochastic calculus under G-expectations. It ends with recent research topic on G-Martingale representation theorem and G-stochastic integral for locally integrable processes. With exercises to practice at the end of each chapter, this book can be used as a graduate textbook for students in probability theory and mathematical finance. Each chapter also concludes with a section Notes and Comments, which gives history and further references on the material covered in that chapter. Researchers and graduate students interested in probability theory and mathematical finance will find this book very useful.

This book presents the fundamental notions and advanced mathematical tools in the stochastic modeling of uncertainties and their quantification for large-scale computational models in sciences and engineering. In particular, it focuses in parametric uncertainties, and non-parametric uncertainties with applications from the structural dynamics and vibroacoustics of complex mechanical systems, from micromechanics and multiscale mechanics of heterogeneous materials. Resulting from a course developed by the author, the book begins with a description of the fundamental mathematical tools of probability and statistics that are directly useful for uncertainty quantification. It proceeds with a well carried out description of some basic and advanced methods for constructing stochastic models of uncertainties, paying particular attention to the problem of calibrating and identifying a stochastic model of uncertainty when experimental data is available. This book is intended to be a graduate-level textbook for students as well as professionals interested in the theory, computation, and applications of risk and prediction in science and engineering fields.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Modeling Decisions for Artificial Intelligence, MDAI 2012, held in Girona, Catalonia, Spain, in November 2012. The 32 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 49 submissions and are presented with 4 plenary talks. The papers are organized in topical sections on aggregation operators, integrals, data privacy and security, reasoning, applications, and clustering and similarity.

Grid-based Nonlinear Estimation and its Applications presents new Bayesian nonlinear estimation techniques developed in the last two decades. Grid-based estimation techniques are based on efficient and precise numerical integration rules to improve performance of the traditional Kalman filtering based estimation for nonlinear and uncertainty dynamic systems. The unscented Kalman filter, Gauss-Hermite quadrature filter, cubature Kalman filter, sparse-grid quadrature filter, and many other numerical grid-based filtering techniques have been introduced and compared in this book. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations are provided to show the relationships and distinct features of different estimation techniques. To assist the exposition of the filtering concept, preliminary mathematical review is provided. In addition, rather than merely considering the single sensor estimation, multiple sensor estimation, including the centralized and decentralized estimation, is included. Different decentralized estimation strategies, including consensus, diffusion, and covariance intersection, are investigated. Diverse engineering applications, such as uncertainty propagation, target tracking, guidance, navigation, and control, are presented to illustrate the performance of different grid-based estimation techniques.

This book focuses on recent advances in nonlinear analysis and optimization with important applications drawn from various fields, such as artificial intelligence, genetic algorithms, optimization problems under uncertainty, and fuzzy logic. Specifically, it is devoted to nonlinear problems associated with optimization which have some connection with applications. The ideas and techniques developed here will serve to stimulate further research in this dynamic field, and, in this way, the book will become a valuable reference for researchers, engineers and students in the field of mathematics, management science, operations research, optimal control science and economics.

Nonlinear Dynamics of Complex Systems describes chaos, fractal and stochasticities within celestial mechanics, financial systems and biochemical systems. Part I discusses methods and applications in celestial systems and new results in such areas as low energy impact dynamics, low-thrust planar trajectories to the moon and earth-to-halo transfers in the sun, earth and moon. Part II presents the dynamics of complex systems including bio-systems, neural systems, chemical systems and hydro-dynamical systems. Finally, Part III covers economic and financial systems including market uncertainty, inflation, economic activity and foreign competition and the role of nonlinear dynamics in each.

In recent years, the theory has become widely accepted and has been further developed, but a detailed introduction is needed in order to make the material available and accessible to a wide audience. This will be the first book providing such an introduction, covering core theory and recent developments which can be applied to many application areas. All authors of individual chapters are leading researchers on the specific topics, assuring high quality and up-to-date contents. An Introduction to Imprecise Probabilities provides a comprehensive introduction to imprecise probabilities, including theory and applications reflecting the current state if the art. Each chapter is written by experts on the respective topics, including: Sets of desirable gambles; Coherent lower (conditional) previsions; Special cases and links to literature; Decision making; Graphical models; Classification; Reliability and risk assessment; Statistical inference; Structural judgments; Aspects of implementation (including elicitation and computation); Models in finance; Game-theoretic probability; Stochastic processes (including Markov chains); Engineering applications. Essential reading for researchers in academia, research institutes and other organizations, as well as practitioners engaged in areas such as risk analysis and engineering.