The Workshop on Parameter Identification and Inverse Problems in Hydrology, Geology and Ecology, Karlsruhe, April 10-12, 1995, was organized to bring to gether an interdisciplinary group drawn from the areas of science, engineering and mathematics for the following purposes: - to promote, encourage and influence more understanding and cooperation in the community of parameter identifiers from various disciplines, - to forge unity in diversity by bringing together a variety of disciplines that attempt to understand the reconstruction of inner model parameters, un known nonlinear constitutive...

This book aims to develop an institutional approach to general economic equi- librium. Thus far, institutional economics has essentially been confined to purely verbal discourse. Here I argue the case that general equilibrium theory forms a well rounded basis for the development of an institutional economic the- ory. The fundamental economic trade mechanism underlying this refocusing is that of the Edgeworthian barter mechanism modelled through the equilibrium notion of the core of an economy. There is an extensive literature that links the core with the Walrasian price mechanism, which is...

This volume presents the procedings of an "Advanced Research Workshop," held under the auspices of the NATO International Scientific Exchange Programme, on the Environmental and Non-environmental Determinants of the East-West Life Expectancy Gap in Europe. The workshop brought together individuals from Eastern and Western Europe and North America who had a common interest in understanding the evolution of the relative declines in life expectancy in Central and Eastern Europe, compared to the West, over the past 30 years. Between 1989 and 1993, I carried out a series of investigations into the...

One of the central areas of concern in late twentieth-century philosophy is the debate between Realism and anti-Realism. But the precise nature of the issues that form the focus of the debate remains controversial. In Realism and Explanatory Priority a new way of viewing the debate is developed. The primary focus is not on the notions of existence, truth or reference, but rather on independence. A notion of independence is developed using concepts derived from the theory of explanation. It is argued that this approach enables us to clarify the exact nature of the empirical evidence...

The theory of practical rationality does not belong to one academic discipline alone. There are quite divergent philosophical, economical, sociological, psychological and politological contributions. Sometimes the disciplinary boundaries impede theoretical progress. On the other hand it is an indication for the high complexity of the subject that so many divergent paradigms compete with one another, or - what is worse - live separately in a kind of splendid isolation. Decision theory in the broader sense, embracing the theory of games and collective choice theory, can help to understand...

The 1980s and 1990s have been a period of exciting new developments in the modelling of decision-making under risk and uncertainty. Extensions of the theory of expected utility and alternative theories of non-expected utility' have been devised to explain many puzzles and paradoxes of individual and collective choice behaviour. This volume presents some of the best recent work on the modelling of risk and uncertainty, with applications to problems in environmental policy, public health, economics and finance. Eighteen papers by distinguished economists, management scientists, and...

A central problem of prescriptive decision making is the mismatch between the elegant formal models of decision theory and the less elegant, informal thinking of decision makers, especially when dealing with ill-structured situations. This problem has been a central concern of the authors and their colleagues over the past two decades. They have wisely (to my mind) realized that any viable solution must be informed by a deep understanding of both the structural properties of alternative formalisms and the cognitive demands that they impose on decision makers. Considering the two in parallel...

In t.lw fHll of ) )2, Professor Dr. M. Alt.ar, chairman of tIw newly established dppartnwnt or Managenwnt. wit.h Comput.er Science at thp Homanian -American Univprsity in Bucharest (a private univprsil.y), inl.roducod in t.he curriculum a course on DiffenHltial Equations and Optimal Cont.rol, asking lIS to teach such course. It was an inter8sting challengo, since for t.Iw first tim8 wo had to t8ach such mathemaLical course for st.udents with economic background and interosts. It was a natural idea to sl.m't by looking at pconomic models which were described by differpntial equations and for...

This volume is based on the lectures given at the First Inter University Graduate School on Gravitation and Cosmology organized by IUCAA, Pune, in 1989. This series of Schools have been carefully planned to provide a sound background and preparation for students embarking on research in these and related topics. Consequently, the contents of these lectures have been meticulously selected and arranged. The topics in the present volume offer a firm mathematical foundation for a number of subjects to be de veloped later. These include Geometrical Methods for Physics, Quantum Field Theory Methods...

What is "scientific" about the natural and human sciences? Precisely this: the legibility of our worlds and the distinctive reading strategies that they provoke. That account of the essence of science comes from Edith Stein, who as HusserI's assistant 1916-1918 labored in vain to bring his massive Ideen to publication, and then went on to propose her own solution to the problem of finding a unified foundation for the social and physical sciences. Stein argued that human bodily life itself affords direct access to the interplay of natural causality, cultural motivation, and personal initiative...