Vaccines: Recent Trends and Progress (NATO Science Series A:, 215)

The success of vaccination in controlling infectious diseases is well documented. However, low profitability, expense and liability have hindered research and development of vaccines. Recently, increasing realization (enhanced by the AIDS pandemic) of the need to overcome such difficulties has led to steps being taken by national authorities, non-profit and commercial organizations to resolve them. This has been facilitated by developments in recombinant DNA techniques, the advent of monoclonal anti­ bodies and progress in the understanding of the immunological structure of proteins which have laid the foundation of a new generation of vaccines. Such vaccines are defined at the molecular level, can elicit immune responses controlling infectious organisms and are therefore potentially free of the problems encountered in conventional ones. Unfortunately, subunit and synthetic peptide vaccines are often only weakly or non­ inmunogenic. However, developments in both antigen production and immuno­ potentiation of weak antigens have opened new avenues with exciting prospects for vaccine design.

Dedication. Preface. Acknowledgments. Clifford Geometric Algebras in Multilinear Algebra and Non-Euclidean Geometries.- Geometric algebra Projective Geometries; Affine and other geometries; Affine Geometry of pseudo-euclidean space; Conformal Geometry and the Horosphere; References. Content-Based Information Retrieval by Group Theoretical Methods.- Introduction; Motivating Examples; General Concept; Fault Tolerance.- Applications, Prototypes, and Test Results; Related Work and Future Research; References.- Four Problems in Radar.-Introduction; Radar Fundamentals; Radar Waveforms; Signal Processing; Space-Time Adaptive Processing; Four Problems in Radar; Conclusions. Introduction to Generalized Classical and Quantum Signal and System Theories on Groups and Hypergroups.-Generalized classical signal/system theory on hypergroups; Generalized quantum signal/system theory on hypergroups; Conclusion; References. Lie Groups and Lie Algebras in Robotics.- Introduction -- Rigid Body Motions; Lie Groups; Finite Screw Motions; Mechanical Joints; Invisible Motion and Gripping; Forward Kinematics; Lie Algebra; The Adjoint Representation; The Exponential Map Derivatives of Exponentials; Jacobians; Concluding Remarks; References. Quantum/Classical Interface: a Geometric Approach from the Classical Side.- Introduction Paravector Space as Spacetime; Eigenspinors; Spin; Dirac Equation; Bell's Theorem; Qubits and Entanglement; Conclusions; References. PONS, Reed-Muller Codes, and Group Algebras.- Introduction; Analytic Theory of One-Dimensional PONS (Welti); Shapiro Sequences, Reed-Muller Codes, and Functional Equations; Group Algebras; Reformulation of Classical PONS; Group Algebra of Classical PONS; GroupAlgebra Convolution; Splitting Sequences; Historical Appendix on PONS; References. Clifford Algebras as a Unified Language.- Introduction; Clifford algebras as models of physical spaces; Clifford Algebras as Models of Perceptual Multicolor Spaces; Hypercomplex-Valued invariants of nD multicolor images; Conclusions; Acknowledgments; References. Recent Progress and Applications in Group FFTs.-Introduction; Finite group FFTs; FFTs for compact groups; Noncompact groups; References. Group Filters and Image Processing.- Introduction: Classical Digital Signal Processing; Abelian Group DSP; Nonabelian Groups; Examples; Group Transforms; Group Filters; Line-like Images; Acknowledgments; References. A Geometric Algebra Approach to Some Problems of Robot Vision.- Introduction; Local Analysis of Multi-dimensional Signals; Knowledge Based Neural Computing; Acknowledgments; References. Group Theory in Radar and Signal Processing.- Introduction; How a Radar Works; Representations; Representations and Radar; Ambiguity Functions; The Wide Band Case; References. Geometry of Paravector Space with Applications to Relativistic Physics.- Clifford Algebras in Physics; Paravector Space as Spacetime; Interpretation; Eigenspinors; Maxwell's Equation; Conclusions; References. A Unified Approach to Fourier-Clifford-Prometheus Transforms- Introduction; New construction of classical and multiparametric Prometheus transforms; PONS associated with Abelian groups; Fast Fourier-Prometheus Transforms; Conclusions; Acknowledgments; References. Fast Color Wavelet Transforms.- Introduction; Color images; Color Wavelet-Haar-Prometheus transforms; Edge detection and compression of color images; Conclusion; Acknowledgments; References. Selected Problems; Various Authors.- Transformations of Euclidean Space and Clifford Geometric; Algebra; References; On the Distribution of Kloosterman Sums on Polynomials over Quaternions; References; Harmonic Sliding Analysis Problems; References; Spectral Analysis under Conditions of Uncertainty; A Canonical Basis for Maximal Tori of the Reductive Centrizer of a Nilpotent Element; References; 6 The Quantum Chaos Conjecture References; Four Problems in Radar; Topic Index; Author Index