The Hybrid Phenomena Theory (HPT) is a framework for formalizing how dynamic state space models of physical systems are built from first principles. The HPT descends from the Qualitative Process Theory (QPT), [Forb us, 1984], from which it inherits basic concepts like views, phenomena and influences. However, the HPT redefines some of these concepts in a more strict manner in order to represent...

The physical description in itself can be based on the kind of coupling being involved (i.e., thermal, gravitational, electromagnetic, or by matter exchange). Gravitational coupling is related to celestial mechanics and tidal deformation. Thermal coupling is ultimately concerned with energy balance. Matter exchange is concerned with the interaction between contiguous systems, and particularly i...

Advances in biochemistry and molecular biology have made it possible to identify a number of mechanisms active in the immune phenomena of echinoderms. It is obvious that echinoderms have the ability to distinguish between different foreign objects (pathologically changed tissues, microorganisms, parasites, grafts) and to express variable effector mechanisms which are elicited specifically and r...

In the course of some studies (1) on the vasomotor activity in human fingers I noted that definite circulatory changes occur during spontaneous yawning. An attempt to correlate these observations with existing data on yawning revealed that the few pertinent studies of this subject have not found their way into British or American publications. Although yawning and its associated phenomena appea...

Scaling behaviour is observed in many elds and its ubiquity has been amply witnessed in telecommunications traac data. Whereas the notion of scaling can be attached to diierent features such as self-similarity, long-range dependence or (multi-)fractality, it leads in all cases to challenging problems in terms of analysis, estimation and synthesis. These issues are addressed here by using the na...

Despite considerable overlap, the confusion hovering over the four common sparing signs can be cleared as follows: Reverse Koebner relates to sparing by physical trauma; isotopic non-response/reverse isotopic response relates to sparing over an already healed dermatosis; Renbok Phenomenon relates to sparing among two concomitant active diseases often with autoimmune etiology; anatopic phenomeno...

Valence fluctuation phenomena occur in rare-earth compounds in which the proximity of the 4f level to the Fermi energy leads to instabilities of the charge configuration (valence) and/or of the magnetic moment. We review the experimental results observed in the subset of such systems for which the 4f ions form a lattice with identical valence on each site. The discussion includes key thermodyna...

This paper presents a physically based simulation of atmospheric phenomena. It takes into account the physics of non-homogeneous media in which the index of refraction varies continuously, creating curved light paths. As opposed to previous research on this area, we solve the physically based differential equation that describes the trajectory of light. We develop an accurate expression of the ...

I seek to define rigorously the concept of an emergent phenomenon in a complex system, together with its implications for explanation, understanding and prediction in such systems. I argue that in a certain fundamental sense, emergent systems are those in which even perfect knowledge and understanding may give us no predictive information. In them the optimal means of prediction is simulation. ...