This volume addresses recent developments in mathematical modeling in three areas of optical science: diffractive optics, photonic band gap structures, and waveguides. Particular emphasis is on the formulation of mathematical models and the design and analysis of new computational approaches. The book contains cutting-edge discourses on emerging technology in optics that provides significant challenges and opportunities for applied mathematicians, researchers, and engineers.

Abstract Biological vision is a rather fascinating domain of research. Scientists of various origins like biology, medicine, neurophysiology, engineering, math ematics, etc. aim to understand the processes leading to visual perception process and at reproducing such systems. Understanding the environment is most of the time done through visual perception which appears to be one of the most fundamental sensory abilities in humans and therefore a significant amount of research effort has been dedicated towards modelling and repro ducing human visual abilities. Mathematical methods play a central role in this endeavour. Introduction David Marr's theory v^as a pioneering step tov^ards understanding visual percep tion. In his view human vision was based on a complete surface reconstruction of the environment that was then used to address visual subtasks. This approach was proven to be insufficient by neuro-biologists and complementary ideas from statistical pattern recognition and artificial intelligence were introduced to bet ter address the visual perception problem. In this framework visual perception is represented by a set of actions and rules connecting these actions. The emerg ing concept of active vision consists of a selective visual perception paradigm that is basically equivalent to recovering from the environment the minimal piece information required to address a particular task of interest.

This book constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of the International Conference on Mathematical Modeling and Computational Physics, MMCP 2011, held in Stará Lesná, Slovakia, in July 2011. The 41 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. They are organized in topical sections on mathematical modeling and methods, numerical modeling and methods, computational support of the experiments, computing tools, and optimization and simulation.

This book is intended to support and promote interdisciplinary research in optical fiber communications by providing essential background in both the physical and mathematical principles of the discipline. It is written to be as independent as possible while taking the reader to the frontiers of research on fiber optics communications.

"Pulling Rabbits Out of Hats: Using Mathematical Modeling in the Material, Biophysical, Fluid Mechanical, and Chemical Sciences focuses on those assumptions made during applied mathematical modeling in which the phenomenological data and the model predictions are self-consistent. This comprehensive reference demonstrates how to employ a variety of mathematical techniques to quantify a number of problems from the material, biophysical, fluid mechanical, and chemical sciences. In doing so, methodology of modelling, analysis, and result generation are all covered"--

This concise and clear introduction to the topic requires only basic knowledge of calculus and linear algebra - all other concepts and ideas are developed in the course of the book. Lucidly written so as to appeal to undergraduates and practitioners alike, it enables readers to set up simple mathematical models on their own and to interpret their results and those of others critically. To achieve this, many examples have been chosen from various fields, such as biology, ecology, economics, medicine, agricultural, chemical, electrical, mechanical and process engineering, which are subsequently discussed in detail. Based on the author`s modeling and simulation experience in science and engineering and as a consultant, the book answers such basic questions as: What is a mathematical model? What types of models do exist? Which model is appropriate for a particular problem? What are simulation, parameter estimation, and validation? The book relies exclusively upon open-source software which is available to everybody free of charge. The entire book software - including 3D CFD and structural mechanics simulation software - can be used based on a free CAELinux-Live-DVD that is available in the Internet (works on most machines and operating systems).