James A. Foster - Böcker

Suitable for a one-semester course in general relativity for senior undergraduates or beginning graduate students, this text clarifies the mathematical aspects of Einstein's theory of relativity without sacrificing physical understanding. The text begins with an exposition of those aspects of tensor calculus and differential geometry needed for a proper treatment of the subject. The discussion then turns to the spacetime of general relativity and to geodesic motion. A brief consideration of the field equations is followed by a discussion of physics in the vicinity of massive objects, including an elementary treatment of black holes and rotating objects. The main text concludes with introductory chapters on gravitational radiation and cosmology. This new third edition has been updated to take account of fresh observational evidence and experiments. It includes new sections on the Kerr solution (in Chapter 4) and cosmological speeds of recession (in Chapter 6). A more mathematical treatment of tensors and manifolds, included in the 1st edition, but omitted in the 2nd edition, has been restored in an appendix.Also included are two additional appendixes - "Special Relativity Review" and "The Chinese Connection" - and outline solutions to all exercises and problems, making it especially suitable for private study.

The two volume set LNCS 3102/3103 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, GECCO 2004, held in Seattle, WA, USA, in June 2004.The 230 revised full papers and 104 poster papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 460 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on artificial life, adaptive behavior, agents, and ant colony optimization; artificial immune systems, biological applications; coevolution; evolutionary robotics; evolution strategies and evolutionary programming; evolvable hardware; genetic algorithms; genetic programming; learning classifier systems; real world applications; and search-based software engineering.

The two volume set LNCS 3102/3103 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, GECCO 2004, held in Seattle, WA, USA, in June 2004.The 230 revised full papers and 104 poster papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 460 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on artificial life, adaptive behavior, agents, and ant colony optimization; artificial immune systems, biological applications; coevolution; evolutionary robotics; evolution strategies and evolutionary programming; evolvable hardware; genetic algorithms; genetic programming; learning classifier systems; real world applications; and search-based software engineering.

The set LNCS 2723 and LNCS 2724 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionaty Computation Conference, GECCO 2003, held in Chicago, IL, USA in July 2003.The 193 revised full papers and 93 poster papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 417 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on a-life adaptive behavior, agents, and ant colony optimization; artificial immune systems; coevolution; DNA, molecular, and quantum computing; evolvable hardware; evolutionary robotics; evolution strategies and evolutionary programming; evolutionary sheduling routing; genetic algorithms; genetic programming; learning classifier systems; real-world applications; and search based softare engineering.

These proceedings contain the papers presented at the 5th Annual Genetic and EvolutionaryComputationConference(GECCO2003).Theconferencewasheld in Chicago, USA, July 12-16, 2003. A total of 417 papers were submitted to GECCO 2003. After a rigorous doubleblind reviewing process, 194 papers were accepted for full publication and oral presentation at the conference, resulting in an acceptance rate of 46.5%. An additional 92 submissions were accepted as posters with two-page extended abstracts included in these proceedings. This edition of GECCO was the union of the 8th Annual Genetic Progr- mingConference(whichhasmetannuallysince1996)andthe12thInternational Conference on Genetic Algorithms (which, with its ?rst meeting in 1985, is the longest running conference in the ?eld). Since 1999, these conferences have m- ged to produce a single large meeting that welcomes an increasingly wide array of topics related to genetic and evolutionary computation. Possibly the most visible innovation in GECCO 2003 was the publication of theproceedingswithSpringer-VerlagaspartoftheirLectureNotesinComputer Science series.This will make the proceedings available in many libraries as well asonline,wideningthedisseminationoftheresearchpresentedattheconference. OtherinnovationsincludedanewtrackonCoevolutionandArti?cialImmune Systems and the expansion of the DNA and Molecular Computing track to include quantum computation. In addition to the presentation of the papers contained in these proceedings, the conference included 13 workshops, 32 tutorials by leading specialists, and presentation of late-breaking papers. GECCO is sponsored by the International Society for Genetic and Evolut- nary Computation (ISGEC). The ISGEC by-laws contain explicit guidance on the organization of the conference, including the following principles: (i)GECCOshouldbeabroad-basedconferenceencompassingthewhole?eld of genetic and evolutionary computation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Genetic Programming, EuroGP 2002, held in Kinsale, Ireland, in April 2002. The 18 revised full papers and 14 posters presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 42 submissions. All current aspects of genetic programming and genetic algorithms are addressed, ranging from theoretical and foundational issues to applications in a variety of fields.