Trains pull into a railroad station and must wait for each other before leaving again in order to let passengers change trains. How do mathematicians then calculate a railroad timetable that accurately reflects their comings and goings? One approach is to use max-plus algebra, a framework used to model Discrete Event Systems, which are well suited to describe the ordering and timing of events. This is the first textbook on max-plus algebra, providing a concise and self-contained introduction to the topic. Applications of max-plus algebra abound in the world around us. Traffic systems, computer communication systems, production lines, and flows in networks are all based on discrete even systems, and thus can be conveniently described and analyzed by means of max-plus algebra. The book consists of an introduction and thirteen chapters in three parts. Part One explores the introduction of max-plus algebra and of system descriptions based upon it. Part Two deals with a real application, namely the design of timetables for railway networks. Part Three examines various extensions, such as stochastic systems and min-max-plus systems. The text is suitable for last-year undergraduates in mathematics, and each chapter provides exercises, notes, and a reference section.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Combinatorial Optimization and Applications, COCOA 2019, held in Xiamen, China, in December 2019. The 49 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 108 submissions. The papers cover the various topics, including cognitive radio networks, wireless sensor networks, cyber-physical systems, distributed and localized algorithm design and analysis, information and coding theory for wireless networks, localization, mobile cloud computing, topology control and coverage, security and privacy, underwater and underground networks, vehicular networks, information processing and data management, programmable service interfaces, energy-efficient algorithms, system and protocol design, operating system and middleware support, and experimental test-beds, models and case studies.

In some way or another most of us are "stuck"-in a secret sin we can't control or maybe by an inability to stand up for ourselves. In Escaping the Matrix, authors Gregory A. Boyd and Al Larson use the vehicle of The Matrix film trilogy to argue that our struggles with habitual sin, thought patterns, damaged emotions, and phobias happen because we do not know how to take charge of the way we experience reality. The authors draw on biblical and psychological insights to provide practical resources for helping believers escape the matrix of the world system that ensnares them. While this book is aimed at the newest generation of Christian readers, all ages will be inspired by the book's innovative strategies for experiencing a deeper life in Christ.

Written by experts that include originators of some key ideas, chapters in the Handbook of Multiple Testing cover multiple comparison problems big and small, with guidance toward error rate control and insights on how principles developed earlier can be applied to current and emerging problems. Some highlights of the coverages are as follows. Error rate control is useful for controlling the incorrect decision rate. Chapter 1 introduces Tukey's original multiple comparison error rates and point to how they have been applied and adapted to modern multiple comparison problems as discussed in the later chapters. Principles endure. While the closed testing principle is more familiar, Chapter 4 shows the partitioning principle can derive confidence sets for multiple tests, which may become important as the profession goes beyond making decisions based on p-values. Multiple comparisons of treatment efficacy often involve multiple doses and endpoints. Chapter 12 on multiple endpoints explains how different choices of endpoint types lead to different multiplicity adjustment strategies, while Chapter 11 on the MCP-Mod approach is particularly useful for dose-finding. To assess efficacy in clinical trials with multiple doses and multiple endpoints, the reader can see the traditional approach in Chapter 2, the Graphical approach in Chapter 5, and the multivariate approach in Chapter 3. Personalized/precision medicine based on targeted therapies, already a reality, naturally leads to analysis of efficacy in subgroups. Chapter 13 draws attention to subtle logical issues in inferences on subgroups and their mixtures, with a principled solution that resolves these issues. This chapter has implication toward meeting the ICHE9R1 Estimands requirement. Besides the mere multiple testing methodology itself, the handbook also covers related topics like the statistical task of model selection in Chapter 7 or the estimation of the proportion of true null hypotheses (or, in other words, the signal prevalence) in Chapter 8. It also contains decision-theoretic considerations regarding the admissibility of multiple tests in Chapter 6. The issue of selected inference is addressed in Chapter 9. Comparison of responses can involve millions of voxels in medical imaging or SNPs in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Chapter 14 and Chapter 15 provide state of the art methods for large scale simultaneous inference in these settings.