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Books : reviews

Anthony J. Crilly, Rae A. Earnshaw, Huw Jones, eds.
Fractals and Chaos.
Springer. 1991

(read but not reviewed)

This volume brings together a number of distinctive contributions in the areas of fractals, chaos, and the interrelationship between the two domains. These contributions cover a wide variety of application areas, indicating the extent to which fractal and chaotic phenomena are being studied in the various disciplines. It is anticipated that the interdisciplinary nature of this subject will increase, which in turn will yield useful information on the potential (and also limitations in some cases) of fractals and chaos as modelling tools for the investigation of various natural and scientific phenomena.

It is hoped that an understanding of fractals and chaos will lead to a common basis for examining the growth, development, organization, and behaviour of complex dynamical systems, many of which make up the natural world of which we are part. It is anticipated that the investigations of fractal structure associated with phase portraits will be an exciting area for future work.

Contents

• Huw Jones. Fractals before Mandelbrot: a selective history. 1991
• Dominic E. Reeve. Mandelbrot, Julia sets and nonlinear mappings. 1991
• Michael Batty. Cities as fractals: simulating growth and form. 1991
• Jaap A. Kaandorp. Modelling growth forms of sponges with fractal techniques. 1991
• Dietmar Saupe. Random fractals in image synthesis. 1991
• Alastair N. Norn. IFSs and the iterative design of tiling structures. 1991
• Paul C. Bressloff, Jaroslav Stark. Neural networks, learning automata and Iterated Function Systems. 1991
• Anthony J. Crilly. The roots of chaos---a brief guide. 1991
• John Lansdown. Chaos, design and creativity. 1991
• Miroslav M. Novak. Relativistic particles in a magnetic field. 1991
• Tom Mullin. Chaos in physical systems. 1991
• Alan G. Darbyshire, Tim J. Price. Phase portraits from chaotic time series. 1991
• David Pottinger. Data visualisation techniques for nonlinear systems. 1991

Anthony J. Crilly, Rae A. Earnshaw, Huw Jones, eds.
Applications of Fractals and Chaos.
Springer. 1993

(read but not reviewed)

This volume brings together a number of distinctive contributions in the applications of fractals and chaos. The wide range of application areas indicates the extent to which fractals and chaos are being applied and shows their major potential as modelling tools for the investigation of natural and scientific phenomena. Cross fertilization of ideas will give researchers insights into methods that can be applied within a range of disciplines.

The material presented in this volume shows many of the major areas that have been advanced by recent applications of the theories of fractals and chaos. It covers the visual and musical arts; biology, physiology, medicine and psychology; aeronautical, mechanical, nautical and electronic engineering; image processing for camouflage and enhancement of features; the behaviours of road traffic and economic indicators. The richness of this collection indicates that the study of fractals and chaos is soundly based. The current wave of interest is more than faddish; there is enough solid theoretical material to ensure that the topics’ importance will extend beyond any fashionable peak. They will continue to contribute positively to technical and aesthetic applications. Fractals and Chaos are here to stay.

Contents

• Richard F. Voss. 1/f noise and fractal in DNA-base sequences. 1993
• Kenneth J. Hsu. Fractal geometry of music: from bird songs to Bach. 1993
• Jaap A. Kaandorp. 2D and 3D modelling of marine sessile organisms. 1993
• Steven R. Bishop, Mohamed S. Soliman. The prediction of ship capsize: not all fractals are environment friendly. 1993
• Jonathan M. Blackledge. On the synthesis and processing of fractal signals and images. 1993
• Lewis F. Jardine. Fractal-based analysis and synthesis of multispectral visual texture for camoflage. 1993
• Graham H. Watson, J. Glynn Jones. Positive wavelet representation of fractal signals and images. 1993
• Michael D. Impey, Peter Grindrod. Application of fractal geometry to geological site characterization. 1993
• Maaruf Ali, Michael A. Gennert, Trevor G. Clarkson. Analysis, generation and compression of pavement distress images using fractals. 1993
• Richard F. Voss, James C. Y. Wyatt. Multifractals and the local connected fractal dimension: classification of early Chinese landscape paintings. 1993
• Robert L. Devaney. Chaotic bursts in complex dynamical systems. 1993
• John Lansdown. Chaos, complexity and design applications. 1993
• Arun V. Holden, Julie Hyde, Henggui Zhang. Computing with the unpredictable: chaotic dynamics and fractal structures in the brain. 1993
• David Jarrett, Zhang Xiaoyan. The dynamic behaviour of road traffic flow: stability or chaos?. 1993
• J. C. Vassilicos, A. Demos, F. Tata. No evidence of chaos but some evidence of multifractals in the foreign exchange and the stock markets. 1993
• Jonathan J. Healey. Spatio-temporal evolution of disturbances in boundary layer transition. 1993
• Richard D. Neilson, Diane H. Gonsalves. Chaotic motion of a rotor system with a bearing clearance. 1993