Amartya Sen "Equality," I spoke the word As if a wedding vow Ah, but I was so much older then, I am younger than that now. Thus sang Bob Dylan in 1964. Approbation of equality varies not only with our age (though it is not absolutely clear in which direction the values may shift over one's life time), but also with the spirit of the times. The 1960s were good years for singing in praise of equality. The spirit of the present times would probably be better reflected by melodies in admiration of the Federal Reserve System. And yet the technical literature on the evaluation and measurement of...
Amartya Sen "Equality," I spoke the word As if a wedding vow Ah, but I was so much older then, I am younger than that now. Thus sang Bob Dylan in 1964...
Ira Horowitz Depending upon one's perspective, the need to choose among alternatives can be an unwelcome but unavoidable responsibility, an exciting and challenging opportunity, a run-of-the-mill activity that one performs seem- ingly "without thinking very much about it," or perhaps something in between. Your most recent selections from a restaurant menu, from a set of jobs or job candidates, or from a rent-or-buy or sell-or-Iease option, are cases in point. Oftentimes we are involved in group decision processes, such as the choice of a president, wherein one group member's unwelcome...
Ira Horowitz Depending upon one's perspective, the need to choose among alternatives can be an unwelcome but unavoidable responsibility, an exciting a...
Bernard R. Gifford As we edge toward the year 2000, the information age is a reality; the global marketplace is increasingly competitive; and the U.S. labor force is shrinking. Today more than ever, our nation's economic and social well-being hinges on our ability to tap our human resources-to identify talent, to nurture it, and to assess abilities and disabilities in ways that help every individual reach his or her full potential. In pursuing that goal, decision-makers in education, industry, and government are relying increasingly on standardized tests: sets of question- with identical...
Bernard R. Gifford As we edge toward the year 2000, the information age is a reality; the global marketplace is increasingly competitive; and the U.S....
We have undertaken this volume in the belief that there is now sufficient research completed on environmental risk to justify a retrospective assessment of what is known. Our authors and our intended audience are eclectic indeed. Environ mental risk assessment receives increasing attention in the media today. The populace is practically assaulted with stories, with anecdotes, and with conflicting evidence. It is our hope that these chapters will provide the reader with a comprehensive glimpse of a fast-growing field in public policy. No complete survey of the literature would be possible or...
We have undertaken this volume in the belief that there is now sufficient research completed on environmental risk to justify a retrospective assessme...
Reinforcement learning is the learning of a mapping from situations to actions so as to maximize a scalar reward or reinforcement signal. The learner is not told which action to take, as in most forms of machine learning, but instead must discover which actions yield the highest reward by trying them. In the most interesting and challenging cases, actions may affect not only the immediate reward, but also the next situation, and through that all subsequent rewards. These two characteristics -- trial-and-error search and delayed reward -- are the most important distinguishing features of...
Reinforcement learning is the learning of a mapping from situations to actions so as to maximize a scalar reward or reinforcement signal. The learner ...
Computer-aided synthesis of digital circuits from behavioral level specifications offers an effective means to deal with increasing complexity of digital hardware design. High Level Synthesis of ASICsUnder Timing and Synchronization Constraints addresses both theoretical and practical aspects in the design of a high-level synthesis system that transforms a behavioral level description of hardware to a synchronous logic-level implementation consisting of logic gates and registers. High Level Synthesis of ASICs Under Timing and Synchronization...
Computer-aided synthesis of digital circuits from behavioral level specifications offers an effective means to deal with increasing complexity of digi...
When we first invited the group of distinguished scholars represented here to contribute to a new volume on Austrian economics, four themes were stressed: tensions, new directions, selectivity, and criticism. In this brief introduction we will explain why those themes were emphasized and thereby shed light on our intentions and aspirations for the volume. The subtitle "Tensions and New Directions" indicates clearly the intent of the volume desired. If we take the 1871 publication of Carl Menger's Principles of Economics (Grundsiitze der Volkswirthschaftslehre) as mark ing its birth, the...
When we first invited the group of distinguished scholars represented here to contribute to a new volume on Austrian economics, four themes were stres...
The theory of finite fields, whose origins can be traced back to the works of Gauss and Galois, has played a part in various branches in mathematics. Inrecent years we have witnessed a resurgence of interest in finite fields, and this is partly due to important applications in coding theory and cryptography. The purpose of this book is to introduce the reader to some of these recent developments. It should be of interest to a wide range of students, researchers and practitioners in the disciplines of computer science, engineering and mathematics. We shall focus our attention on some specific...
The theory of finite fields, whose origins can be traced back to the works of Gauss and Galois, has played a part in various branches in mathematics. ...
Building a robot that learns to perform a task has been acknowledged as one of the major challenges facing artificial intelligence. Self-improving robots would relieve humans from much of the drudgery of programming and would potentially allow operation in environments that were changeable or only partially known. Progress towards this goal would also make fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence by furthering our understanding of how to successfully integrate disparate abilities such as perception, planning, learning and action. Although its roots can be traced back to the...
Building a robot that learns to perform a task has been acknowledged as one of the major challenges facing artificial intelligence. Self-improving rob...
Elliptic curves have been intensively studied in algebraic geometry and number theory. In recent years they have been used in devising efficient algorithms for factoring integers and primality proving, and in the construction of public key cryptosystems. Elliptic Curve Public Key Cryptosystems provides an up-to-date and self-contained treatment of elliptic curve-based public key cryptology. Elliptic curve cryptosystems potentially provide equivalent security to the existing public key schemes, but with shorter key lengths. Having short key lengths means smaller bandwidth and...
Elliptic curves have been intensively studied in algebraic geometry and number theory. In recent years they have been used in devising efficient algor...