Books

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