This book is about modeling as a prinicipal component of scientific investigations. In general terms, modeling is the funamental process of combining intellectual creativity with physical knowledge and mathematical techniques in order to learn the properties of the mechanisms underlying a physical phenomenon and make predictions. The book focuses on a specific class of models, namely, random field models and certain of their physical applications in the context of a stochastic data analysis and processing research program. The term application is considered here in the sense wherein the mathematical random field model is shaping, but is also being shaped by, its objects.This book explores the application of random field models and stochastic data processing to problems in hydrogeology, geostatistics, climate modeling, and oil reservoir engineering, among others Researchers in the geosciences who work with models of natural processes will find discussion of; - Spatiotemporal random fields - Space transformation - Multidimensional estimation - Simulation - Sampling design - Stochastic partial differential equations

Gaussian Markov Random Field (GMRF) models are most widely used in spatial statistics - a very active area of research in which few up-to-date reference works are available. This is the first book on the subject that provides a unified framework of GMRFs with particular emphasis on the computational aspects. This book includes extensive case-studie

This book is devoted to the study and optimization of spatiotemporal stochastic processes - processes which develop simultaneously in space and time under random influences. These processes are seen to occur almost everywhere when studying the global behavior of complex systems. The book presents problems and content not considered in other books on controlled Markov processes, especially regarding controlled Markov fields on graphs.

This book provides an inter-disciplinary introduction to the theory of random fields and its applications. Spatial models and spatial data analysis are integral parts of many scientific and engineering disciplines. Random fields provide a general theoretical framework for the development of spatial models and their applications in data analysis. The contents of the book include topics from classical statistics and random field theory (regression models, Gaussian random fields, stationarity, correlation functions) spatial statistics (variogram estimation, model inference, kriging-based prediction) and statistical physics (fractals, Ising model, simulated annealing, maximum entropy, functional integral representations, perturbation and variational methods). The book also explores links between random fields, Gaussian processes and neural networks used in machine learning. Connections with applied mathematics are highlighted by means of models based on stochastic partial differential equations. An interlude on autoregressive time series provides useful lower-dimensional analogies and a connection with the classical linear harmonic oscillator. Other chapters focus on non-Gaussian random fields and stochastic simulation methods. The book also presents results based on the author’s research on Spartan random fields that were inspired by statistical field theories originating in physics. The equivalence of the one-dimensional Spartan random field model with the classical, linear, damped harmonic oscillator driven by white noise is highlighted. Ideas with potentially significant computational gains for the processing of big spatial data are presented and discussed. The final chapter concludes with a description of the Karhunen-Loève expansion of the Spartan model. The book will appeal to engineers, physicists, and geoscientists whose research involves spatial models or spatial data analysis. Anyone with background in probability and statistics can read at least parts of the book. Some chapters will be easier to understand by readers familiar with differential equations and Fourier transforms.

Quantitative Analysis and Modeling of Earth and Environmental Data: Space-Time and Spacetime Data Considerations introduces the notion of chronotopologic data analysis that offers a systematic, quantitative analysis of multi-sourced data and provides information about the spatial distribution and temporal dynamics of natural attributes (physical, biological, health, social). It includes models and techniques for handling data that may vary by space and/or time, and aims to improve understanding of the physical laws of change underlying the available numerical datasets, while taking into consideration the in-situ uncertainties and relevant measurement errors (conceptual, technical, computational). It considers the synthesis of scientific theory-based methods (stochastic modeling, modern geostatistics) and data-driven techniques (machine learning, artificial neural networks) so that their individual strengths are combined by acting symbiotically and complementing each other. The notions and methods presented in Quantitative Analysis and Modeling of Earth and Environmental Data: Space-Time and Spacetime Data Considerations cover a wide range of data in various forms and sources, including hard measurements, soft observations, secondary information and auxiliary variables (ground-level measurements, satellite observations, scientific instruments and records, protocols and surveys, empirical models and charts). Including real-world practical applications as well as practice exercises, this book is a comprehensive step-by-step tutorial of theory-based and data-driven techniques that will help students and researchers master data analysis and modeling in earth and environmental sciences (including environmental health and human exposure applications). - Explores the analysis and processing of chronotopologic (i.e., space-time and spacetime) data that varies spatially and/or temporally, which is the case with the majority of data in scientific and engineering disciplines - Studies the synthesis of scientific theory and empirical evidence (in its various forms) that offers a mathematically rigorous and physically meaningful assessment of real-world phenomena - Covers a wide range of data describing a variety of attributes characterizing physical phenomena and systems including earth, ocean and atmospheric variables, environmental and ecological parameters, population health states, disease indicators, and social and economic characteristics - Includes case studies and practice exercises at the end of each chapter for both real-world applications and deeper understanding of the concepts presented

Spatiotemporal Random Fields: Theory and Applications, Second Edition, provides readers with a new and updated edition of the text that explores the application of spatiotemporal random field models to problems in ocean, earth, and atmospheric sciences, spatiotemporal statistics, and geostatistics, among others. The new edition features considerable detail of spatiotemporal random field theory, including ordinary and generalized models, as well as space-time homostationary, isostationary and hetrogeneous approaches. Presenting new theoretical and applied results, with particular emphasis on space-time determination and interpretation, spatiotemporal analysis and modeling, random field geometry, random functionals, probability law, and covariance construction techniques, this book highlights the key role of space-time metrics, the physical interpretation of stochastic differential equations, higher-order space-time variability functions, the validity of major theoretical assumptions in real-world practice (covariance positive-definiteness, metric-adequacy etc.), and the emergence of interdisciplinary phenomena in conditions of multi-sourced real-world uncertainty. - Contains applications in the form of examples and case studies, providing readers with first-hand experiences - Presents an easy to follow narrative which progresses from simple concepts to more challenging ideas - Includes significant updates from the previous edition, including a focus on new theoretical and applied results

The three-volume set LNCS 5101-5103 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computational Science, ICCS 2008, held in Krakow, Poland in June 2008. The 167 revised papers of the main conference track presented together with the abstracts of 7 keynote talks and the 100 revised papers from 14 workshops were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the three volumes. The main conference track was divided into approximately 20 parallel sessions addressing topics such as e-science applications and systems, scheduling and load balancing, software services and tools, new hardware and its applications, computer networks, simulation of complex systems, image processing and visualization, optimization techniques, numerical linear algebra, and numerical algorithms. The second volume contains workshop papers related to various computational research areas, e.g.: computer graphics and geometric modeling, simulation of multiphysics multiscale systems, computational chemistry and its applications, computational finance and business intelligence, physical, biological and social networks, geocomputation, and teaching computational science. The third volume is mostly related to computer science topics such as bioinformatics' challenges to computer science, tools for program development and analysis in computational science, software engineering for large-scale computing, collaborative and cooperative environments, applications of workflows in computational science, as well as intelligent agents and evolvable systems.