Neil F. Johnson - Böcker

Financial markets are a fascinating example of 'complexity in action': a real-world complex system whose evolution is dictated by the decisions of crowds of traders who are continually trying to win in a vast global 'game'. This book draws on recent ideas from the highly-topical science of complexity and complex systems, to address the following questions: how do financial markets behave? Why do financial markets behave in the way that they do? What can we do to minimize risk, given this behavior? Standard finance theory is built around several seemingly innocuous assumptions about market dynamics. This book shows how these assumptions can give misleading answers to crucially important practical problems such as minimizing financial risk, coping with extreme events such as crashes or drawdowns, and pricing derivatives. After discussing the background to the concept of complexity and the structure of financial markets in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 examines the assumptions upon which standard finance theory is built. Reality sets in whith Chapter 3, where data from two seemingly different markets are analyzed and certain universal features uncovered which cannot be explained within standard finance theory. Chapters 4 and 5 mark a significant departure from the philosophy of standard finance theory, being concerned with exploring microscopic models of markets which are faithful to real market microstructure yet, which also reproduce real-world features. Chapter 6 moves to the practical problem of how to quantify and hedge risk in real world markets. Chapter 7 discusses deterministic descriptions of market dynamics, incorporating the topics of chaos and the all-important phenomenon of market crashes.

This text deals with information hiding. With the proliferation of multimedia on the Internet, information hiding addresses two areas of concern: privacy of information from surveillance (steganography) and protection of intellectual property (digital watermarking). Steganography (literally, covered writing) explores methods to hide the existence of hidden messages. These methods include invisible ink, microdot, digital signature, covert channel, and spread spectrum communication. Digital watermarks represent a commercial application of steganography. Watermarks can be used to track the copyright and ownership of electronic media. In this volume, the authors focus on techniques for hiding information in digital media. They analyze the hiding techniques to uncover their limitations. These limitations are employed to devise attacks against hidden information. The goal of these attacks is to expose the existence of a secret message or render a digital watermark unusable. In assessing these attacks, countermeasures are developed to assist in protecting digital watermarking systems.Understanding the limitations of the current methods will lead us to build more robust methods that can survive various manipulation and attacks. The more information that is placed in the public's reach on the Internet, the more owners of such information need to protect themselves from theft and false representation. Systems to analyze techniques for uncovering hidden information and recover seemingly destroyed information will be useful to law enforcement authorities in computer forensics and digital traffic analysis.

Information Hiding: Steganography and Watermarking - Attacks and Countermeasures deals with information hiding. With the proliferation of multimedia on the Internet, information hiding addresses two areas of concern: privacy of information from surveillance (steganography) and protection of intellectual property (digital watermarking). Steganography (literally, covered writing) explores methods to hide the existence of hidden messages. These methods include invisible ink, microdot, digital signature, covert channel, and spread spectrum communication. Digital watermarks represent a commercial application of steganography. Watermarks can be used to track the copyright and ownership of electronic media. In this volume, the authors focus on techniques for hiding information in digital media. They analyze the hiding techniques to uncover their limitations. These limitations are employed to devise attacks against hidden information. The goal of these attacks is to expose the existence of a secret message or render a digital watermark unusable. In assessing these attacks, countermeasures are developed to assist in protecting digital watermarking systems. Understanding the limitations of the current methods will lead us to build more robust methods that can survive various manipulation and attacks. The more information that is placed in the public's reach on the Internet, the more owners of such information need to protect themselves from theft and false representation. Systems to analyze techniques for uncovering hidden information and recover seemingly destroyed information will be useful to law enforcement authorities in computer forensics and digital traffic analysis. Information Hiding: Steganography and Watermarking - Attacks and Countermeasures presents the authors' research contributions in three fundamental areas with respect to image-based steganography and watermarking: analysis of data hiding techniques, attacks against hidden information, and countermeasures to attacks against digital watermarks. Information Hiding: Steganography and Watermarking &endash; Attacks and Countermeasures is suitable for a secondary text in a graduate level course, and as a reference for researchers and practitioners in industry.

The Editors are sorry that the production of this volume was delayed by the ill­ health of one of them and we hope that this does not detract from the value of the con­ tents. For once this delay is not the fault of any of the authors only the editors are to blame. Many of the workers in the field of fibre toxicology became convinced by the middle 1980's that the worst of the furore over asbestos was over although we were left with an intriguing problem - how does asbestos cause disease? It was expected that the future impact of fibres on human health would be very small since asbestos exposure would be controlled and there was little chance that man-made fibres would prove haz­ ardous. These man-made fibres are much thicker than asbestos and, in most cases, they are less durable in the body. Both of these properties are believed to make them much less likely to cause disease. However many of us had fallen into the habit of calling these materials "asbestos substitutes" and thus they have acquired a little of the notoriety at­ tached to the natural fibrous minerals. Very few of these man-made fibres are actually used as replacements for asbestos. Asbestos was not suitable for the uses to which the insulation wools are usually put and the ceramic fibres are replacements for fire brick not asbestos which is destroyed at the temperatures at which these materials are used.