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Well-posed Problem
The mathematical term well-posed problem stems from a definition given by 20th-century French mathematician Jacques Hadamard. He believed that mathematical models of physical phenomena should have the properties that: # a solution exists, # the solution is unique, # the solution's behaviour changes continuously with the initial conditions. Examples of archetypal well-posed problems include the Dirichlet problem for Laplace's equation, and the heat equation with specified initial conditions. These might be regarded as 'natural' problems in that there are physical processes modelled by these problems. Problems that are not well-posed in the sense of Hadamard are termed ill-posed. Inverse problems are often ill-posed. For example, the inverse heat equation, deducing a previous distribution of temperature from final data, is not well-posed in that the solution is highly sensitive to changes in the final data. Continuum models must often be discretized in order to obtain a numerica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics with the major subdisciplines of number theory, algebra, geometry, and analysis, respectively. There is no general consensus among mathematicians about a common definition for their academic discipline. Most mathematical activity involves the discovery of properties of abstract objects and the use of pure reason to prove them. These objects consist of either abstractions from nature orin modern mathematicsentities that are stipulated to have certain properties, called axioms. A ''proof'' consists of a succession of applications of deductive rules to already established results. These results include previously proved theorems, axioms, andin case of abstraction from naturesome basic properties that are considered true starting points of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accuracy And Precision
Accuracy and precision are two measures of ''observational error''. ''Accuracy'' is how close a given set of measurements ( observations or readings) are to their '' true value'', while ''precision'' is how close the measurements are to each other. In other words, ''precision'' is a description of '' random errors'', a measure of statistical variability. ''Accuracy'' has two definitions: # More commonly, it is a description of only ''systematic errors'', a measure of statistical bias of a given measure of central tendency; low accuracy causes a difference between a result and a true value; ISO calls this ''trueness''. # Alternatively, ISO defines accuracy as describing a combination of both types of observational error (random and systematic), so high accuracy requires both high precision and high trueness. In the first, more common definition of "accuracy" above, the concept is independent of "precision", so a particular set of data can be said to be accurate, precise, both, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expectation–maximization Algorithm
In statistics, an expectation–maximization (EM) algorithm is an iterative method to find (local) maximum likelihood or maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimates of parameters in statistical models, where the model depends on unobserved latent variables. The EM iteration alternates between performing an expectation (E) step, which creates a function for the expectation of the log-likelihood evaluated using the current estimate for the parameters, and a maximization (M) step, which computes parameters maximizing the expected log-likelihood found on the ''E'' step. These parameter-estimates are then used to determine the distribution of the latent variables in the next E step. History The EM algorithm was explained and given its name in a classic 1977 paper by Arthur Dempster, Nan Laird, and Donald Rubin. They pointed out that the method had been "proposed many times in special circumstances" by earlier authors. One of the earliest is the gene-counting method for estimating allele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Total Absorption Spectroscopy
Total absorption spectroscopy is a measurement technique that allows the measurement of the gamma radiation emitted in the different nuclear gamma transitions that may take place in the daughter nucleus after its unstable parent has decayed by means of the beta decay process. This technique can be used for beta decay studies related to beta feeding measurements ''within the full decay energy window'' for nuclei far from stability. It is implemented with a special type of detector, the "''total absorption spectrometer''" (TAS), made of a scintillator crystal that almost completely surrounds the activity to be measured, covering a solid angle of approximately 4π. Also, in an ideal case, it should be thick enough to have a peak efficiency close to 100%, in this way its total efficiency is also very close to 100% (this is one of the reasons why it is called "total" absorption spectroscopy). Finally, it should be blind to any other type of radiation. The gamma rays produced in the deca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
P-norm
In mathematics, the spaces are function spaces defined using a natural generalization of the -norm for finite-dimensional vector spaces. They are sometimes called Lebesgue spaces, named after Henri Lebesgue , although according to the Bourbaki group they were first introduced by Frigyes Riesz . spaces form an important class of Banach spaces in functional analysis, and of topological vector spaces. Because of their key role in the mathematical analysis of measure and probability spaces, Lebesgue spaces are used also in the theoretical discussion of problems in physics, statistics, economics, finance, engineering, and other disciplines. Applications Statistics In statistics, measures of central tendency and statistical dispersion, such as the mean, median, and standard deviation, are defined in terms of metrics, and measures of central tendency can be characterized as solutions to variational problems. In penalized regression, "L1 penalty" and "L2 penalty" refer to pen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dirichlet Boundary Conditions
In the mathematical study of differential equations, the Dirichlet (or first-type) boundary condition is a type of boundary condition, named after Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (1805–1859). When imposed on an ordinary or a partial differential equation, it specifies the values that a solution needs to take along the boundary of the domain. In finite element method (FEM) analysis, ''essential'' or Dirichlet boundary condition is defined by weighted-integral form of a differential equation. The dependent unknown ''u in the same form as the weight function w'' appearing in the boundary expression is termed a ''primary variable'', and its specification constitutes the ''essential'' or Dirichlet boundary condition. The question of finding solutions to such equations is known as the Dirichlet problem. In applied sciences, a Dirichlet boundary condition may also be referred to as a fixed boundary condition. Examples ODE For an ordinary differential equation, for instance, y'' + y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tikhonov Regularization
Ridge regression is a method of estimating the coefficients of multiple-regression models in scenarios where the independent variables are highly correlated. It has been used in many fields including econometrics, chemistry, and engineering. Also known as Tikhonov regularization, named for Andrey Tikhonov, it is a method of regularization of ill-posed problems. It is particularly useful to mitigate the problem of multicollinearity in linear regression, which commonly occurs in models with large numbers of parameters. In general, the method provides improved efficiency in parameter estimation problems in exchange for a tolerable amount of bias (see bias–variance tradeoff). The theory was first introduced by Hoerl and Kennard in 1970 in their ''Technometrics'' papers “RIDGE regressions: biased estimation of nonorthogonal problems” and “RIDGE regressions: applications in nonorthogonal problems”. This was the result of ten years of research into the field of ridge analysis. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regularization (mathematics)
In mathematics, statistics, finance, computer science, particularly in machine learning and inverse problems, regularization is a process that changes the result answer to be "simpler". It is often used to obtain results for ill-posed problems or to prevent overfitting. Although regularization procedures can be divided in many ways, following delineation is particularly helpful: * Explicit regularization is regularization whenever one explicitly adds a term to the optimization problem. These terms could be priors, penalties, or constraints. Explicit regularization is commonly employed with ill-posed optimization problems. The regularization term, or penalty, imposes a cost on the optimization function to make the optimal solution unique. * Implicit regularization is all other forms of regularization. This includes, for example, early stopping, using a robust loss function, and discarding outliers. Implicit regularization is essentially ubiquitous in modern machine learning app ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Numerical Stability
In the mathematical subfield of numerical analysis, numerical stability is a generally desirable property of numerical algorithms. The precise definition of stability depends on the context. One is numerical linear algebra and the other is algorithms for solving ordinary and partial differential equations by discrete approximation. In numerical linear algebra, the principal concern is instabilities caused by proximity to singularities of various kinds, such as very small or nearly colliding eigenvalues. On the other hand, in numerical algorithms for differential equations the concern is the growth of round-off errors and/or small fluctuations in initial data which might cause a large deviation of final answer from the exact solution. Some numerical algorithms may damp out the small fluctuations (errors) in the input data; others might magnify such errors. Calculations that can be proven not to magnify approximation errors are called ''numerically stable''. One of the common tas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Condition Number
In numerical analysis, the condition number of a function measures how much the output value of the function can change for a small change in the input argument. This is used to measure how sensitive a function is to changes or errors in the input, and how much error in the output results from an error in the input. Very frequently, one is solving the inverse problem: given f(x) = y, one is solving for ''x,'' and thus the condition number of the (local) inverse must be used. In linear regression the condition number of the moment matrix can be used as a diagnostic for multicollinearity. The condition number is an application of the derivative, and is formally defined as the value of the asymptotic worst-case relative change in output for a relative change in input. The "function" is the solution of a problem and the "arguments" are the data in the problem. The condition number is frequently applied to questions in linear algebra, in which case the derivative is straightforward b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chaos Theory
Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have completely random states of disorder and irregularities. Chaos theory states that within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnection, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization. The butterfly effect, an underlying principle of chaos, describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state (meaning that there is sensitive dependence on initial conditions). A metaphor for this behavior is that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas. Small differences in initial conditions, such as those due to errors in measurements or due to roundin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Complex Systems
A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication systems, complex software and electronic systems, social and economic organizations (like cities), an ecosystem, a living cell, and ultimately the entire universe. Complex systems are systems whose behavior is intrinsically difficult to model due to the dependencies, competitions, relationships, or other types of interactions between their parts or between a given system and its environment. Systems that are " complex" have distinct properties that arise from these relationships, such as nonlinearity, emergence, spontaneous order, adaptation, and feedback loops, among others. Because such systems appear in a wide variety of fields, the commonalities among them have become the topic of their independent area of research. In many cases, it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
