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From the Palantir co-founder, one of tech’s boldest thinkers and The Economist’s “best CEO of 2024,” and his deputy, a sweeping indictment of the West’s culture of complacency, arguing that timid leadership, intellectual fragility, and an unambitious view of technology’s potential in Silicon Valley have made the U.S. vulnerable in an era of mounting global threats. “Fascinating and important.”—Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Elon Musk ONE OF FINANCIAL TIMES’ MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF THE YEAR Silicon Valley has lost its way. Our most brilliant engineering minds once collaborated with government to advance world-changing technologies. Their efforts secured the West’s dominant place in the geopolitical order. But that relationship has now eroded, with perilous repercussions. Today, the market rewards shallow engagement with the potential of technology. Engineers and founders build photo-sharing apps and marketing algorithms, unwittingly becoming vessels for the ambitions of others. This complacency has spread into academia, politics, and the boardroom. The result? An entire generation for whom the narrow-minded pursuit of the demands of a late capitalist economy has become their calling. In this groundbreaking treatise, Palantir co-founder and CEO Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska offer a searing critique of our collective abandonment of ambition, arguing that in order for the U.S. and its allies to retain their global edge—and preserve the freedoms we take for granted—the software industry must renew its commitment to addressing our most urgent challenges, including the new arms race of artificial intelligence. The government, in turn, must embrace the most effective features of the engineering mindset that has propelled Silicon Valley’s success. Above all, our leaders must reject intellectual fragility and preserve space for ideological confrontation. A willingness to risk the disapproval of the crowd, Karp and Zamiska contend, has everything to do with technological and economic outperformance. At once iconoclastic and rigorous, this book will also lift the veil on Palantir and its broader political project from the inside, offering a passionate call for the West to wake up to our new reality.

This book offers an in-depth overview of polyhedral methods and efficient algorithms in combinatorial optimization.These methods form a broad, coherent and powerful kernel in combinatorial optimization, with strong links to discrete mathematics, mathematical programming and computer science. In eight parts, various areas are treated, each starting with an elementary introduction to the area, with short, elegant proofs of the principal results, and each evolving to the more advanced methods and results, with full proofs of some of the deepest theorems in the area. Over 4000 references to further research are given, and historical surveys on the basic subjects are presented.

A complete, highly accessible introduction to one of today's most exciting areas of applied mathematics One of the youngest, most vital areas of applied mathematics, combinatorial optimization integrates techniques from combinatorics, linear programming, and the theory of algorithms. Because of its success in solving difficult problems in areas from telecommunications to VLSI, from product distribution to airline crew scheduling, the field has seen a ground swell of activity over the past decade. Combinatorial Optimization is an ideal introduction to this mathematical discipline for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of discrete mathematics, computer science, and operations research. Written by a team of recognized experts, the text offers a thorough, highly accessible treatment of both classical concepts and recent results. The topics include: * Network flow problems * Optimal matching * Integrality of polyhedra * Matroids * NP-completeness Featuring logical and consistent exposition, clear explanations of basic and advanced concepts, many real-world examples, and helpful, skill-building exercises, Combinatorial Optimization is certain to become the standard text in the field for many years to come.

Since the publication of the first edition of our book, geometric algorithms and combinatorial optimization have kept growing at the same fast pace as before. Nevertheless, we do not feel that the ongoing research has made this book outdated. Rather, it seems that many of the new results build on the models, algorithms, and theorems presented here. For instance, the celebrated Dyer-Frieze-Kannan algorithm for approximating the volume of a convex body is based on the oracle model of convex bodies and uses the ellipsoid method as a preprocessing technique. The polynomial time equivalence of optimization, separation, and membership has become a commonly employed tool in the study of the complexity of combinatorial optimization problems and in the newly developing field of computational convexity. Implementations of the basis reduction algorithm can be found in various computer algebra software systems. On the other hand, several of the open problems discussed in the first edition are still unsolved. For example, there are still no combinatorial polynomial time algorithms known for minimizing a submodular function or finding a maximum clique in a perfect graph. Moreover, despite the success of the interior point methods for the solution of explicitly given linear programs there is still no method known that solves implicitly given linear programs, such as those described in this book, and that is both practically and theoretically efficient. In particular, it is not known how to adapt interior point methods to such linear programs.

Theory of Linear and Integer Programming Alexander Schrijver Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica, Amsterdam, The Netherlands This book describes the theory of linear and integer programming and surveys the algorithms for linear and integer programming problems, focusing on complexity analysis. It aims at complementing the more practically oriented books in this field. A special feature is the author's coverage of important recent developments in linear and integer programming. Applications to combinatorial optimization are given, and the author also includes extensive historical surveys and bibliographies. The book is intended for graduate students and researchers in operations research, mathematics and computer science. It will also be of interest to mathematical historians. Contents 1 Introduction and preliminaries; 2 Problems, algorithms, and complexity; 3 Linear algebra and complexity; 4 Theory of lattices and linear diophantine equations; 5 Algorithms for linear diophantine equations; 6 Diophantine approximation and basis reduction; 7 Fundamental concepts and results on polyhedra, linear inequalities, and linear programming; 8 The structure of polyhedra; 9 Polarity, and blocking and anti-blocking polyhedra; 10 Sizes and the theoretical complexity of linear inequalities and linear programming; 11 The simplex method; 12 Primal-dual, elimination, and relaxation methods; 13 Khachiyan's method for linear programming; 14 The ellipsoid method for polyhedra more generally; 15 Further polynomiality results in linear programming; 16 Introduction to integer linear programming; 17 Estimates in integer linear programming; 18 The complexity of integer linear programming; 19 Totally unimodular matrices: fundamental properties and examples; 20 Recognizing total unimodularity; 21 Further theory related to total unimodularity; 22 Integral polyhedra and total dual integrality; 23 Cutting planes; 24 Further methods in integer linear programming; Historical and further notes on integer linear programming; References; Notation index; Author index; Subject index

Fluorescence is the most popular technique in chemical and biological sensing and this book provides systematic knowledge of basic principles in the design of fluorescence sensing and imaging techniques together with critical analysis of recent developments. Its ultimate sensitivity, high temporal and spatial resolution and versatility enables high resolution imaging within living cells. It develops rapidly in the directions of constructing new molecular recognition units, new fluorescence reporters and in improving sensitivity of response, up to the detection of single molecules. Its application areas range from the control of industrial processes to environmental monitoring and clinical diagnostics. Being a guide for students and young researchers, it also addresses professionals involved in basic and applied research. Making a strong link between education, research and product development, this book discusses prospects for future progress.

Theoretical foundations of atmospheric remote sensing are electromagnetic theory, radiative transfer and inversion theory. This book provides an overview of these topics in a common context, compile the results of recent research, as well as fill the gaps, where needed. The following aspects are covered: principles of remote sensing, the atmospheric physics, foundations of the radiative transfer theory, electromagnetic absorption, scattering and propagation, review of computational techniques in radiative transfer, retrieval techniques as well as regularization principles of inversion theory. As such, the book provides a valuable resource for those who work with remote sensing data and want to get a broad view of theoretical foundations of atmospheric remote sensing. The book will be also useful for students and researchers working in such diverse fields like inverse problems, atmospheric physics, electromagnetic theory, and radiative transfer.

Reformers have promoted mixed-member electoral systems as the “best of both worlds.” In this volume, internationally recognized political scientists evaluate the ways in which the introduction of a mixed-member electoral system affects the configuration of political parties. The contributors examine several political phenomena, including cabinet post allocation, nominations, preelectoral coalitions, split-ticket voting, and the size of party systems and faction systems. Significantly, they also consider various ways in which the constitutional system—especially whether the head of government is elected directly or indirectly—can modify the incentives created by the electoral system. The findings presented here demonstrate that the success of electoral reform depends not only on the specification of new electoral rules per se but also on the political context—and especially the constitutional framework—within which such rules are embedded.

Drawing on a range of meditation tools and techniques, this work explains the principles of meditation to therapists and demonstrates how to utilize these principles in psychotherapeutic work with clients.