The result of the first Appalachian Conference on neurodynamics, this volume focuses on processing in biological neural networks. How do brain processes become organized during decision making? That is, what are the neural antecedents that determine which course of action is to be pursued? Half of the contributions deal with modelling synapto-dendritic and neural ultrastructural processes; the remainder, with laboratory research findings, often cast in terms of the models. The interchanges at the conference and the ensuing publication also provide a foundation for further meetings. These will address how processes in different brain systems, coactive with the neural residues of experience and with sensory input, determine decisions.

The world is witnessing the rapid evolution of its own nervous system by an unparalleled growth in communication technology. Like the evolution of the nervous systems in animals, this growth is being driven by a survival-of-the-fittest-mechanism. In telecommunications, the entities that fuel this growth are companies and nations who compete with each other. Companies with superior information systems can outrun and outsmart others because they serve their customers better. On the threshold of an explosion in the variety, speed and usefulness of telecommunication networks, neural network researchers can make important contributions to this emerging new telecommunications infrastructure. The first International Workshop on Applications of Neural Networks to Telecommunications (IWANNT) was planned in response to the telecommunications industry's needs for new adaptive technologies. This workshop featured 50 talks and posters that were selected by an organizing committee of experts in both telecommunications and neural networks. These proceedings will also be available on-line in an electronic format providing multimedia figures, cross-referencing, and annotation.

This book is the third in a series based on conferences sponsored by the Metroplex Institute for Neural Dynamics, an interdisciplinary organization of neural network professionals in academia and industry. The topics selected are of broad interest to both those interested in designing machines to perform intelligent functions and those interested in studying how these functions are actually performed by living organisms and generate discussion of basic and controversial issues in the study of mind.The topic of optimality was chosen because it has provoked considerable discussion and controversy in many different academic fields. There are several aspects to the issue of optimality. First, is it true that actual behavior and cognitive functions of living animals, including humans, can be considered as optimal in some sense? Second, what is the utility function for biological organisms, if any, and can it be described mathematically? Rather than organize the chapters on a "biological versus artificial" basis or by what stance they took on optimality, it seemed more natural to organize them either by what level of questions they posed or by what intelligent functions they dealt with.The book begins with some general frameworks for discussing optimality, or the lack of it, in biological or artificial systems. The next set of chapters deals with some general mathematical and computational theories that help to clarify what the notion of optimality might entail in specific classes of networks. The final section deals with optimality in the context of many different high-level issues, including exploring one's environment, understanding mental illness, linguistic communication, and social organization. The diversity of topics covered in this book is designed to stimulate interdisciplinary thinking and speculation about deep problems in intelligent system organization.

This monograph from a leading neuroscientist and neural networks researcher investigates and offers a fresh approach to the perplexing scientific and philosophical problems of minds and brains. It explains how brains have evolved from our earliest vertebrate ancestors. It details how brains provide the basis for successful comprehension of the environment, for the formulation of actions and prediction of their consequences, and for cooperating or competing with other beings that have brains. The book also offers observations regarding such issues as:* how and why people fall in and out of love;* the biological basis for experiencing feelings of love and hate; and* how music and dance have provided the ancestral technology for forming social groups such as tribes and clans.The author reviews the history of the mind-brain problem, and demonstrates how the new sciences of behavioral electrophysiology and nonlinear dynamics -- combined with the latest computer technology -- have made it possible for us to observe brains in action. He also provides an answer to the question: What happens to a stimulus after it enters the brain? The answer: The stimulus triggers the construction of a percept and is then washed away. All that we know is what our brains construct for us by neurodynamics. Brains are not logical devices that process information. They are dynamical systems that create meaning through interactions with the environment -- and each other.The book shows how the learning process by which brains construct meaning tends to isolate brains into self-centered worlds, and how nature has provided a remedy -- first appearing in mammals as a mechanism for pair-bonding -- to ensure reproduction of the young dependent on parents. The remedy is based in the neurochemistry of sex which serves to dissolve belief structures in order to open the way for new patterns of understanding and behavior. Individuals experience these changes in various ways, such as falling in love, collegiate indoctrination, tribal bonding, brain washing, political or religious conversions, and related types of socialization. The highest forms of meaning for humans come through these social attachments.

This monograph from a leading neuroscientist and neural networks researcher investigates and offers a fresh approach to the perplexing scientific and philosophical problems of minds and brains. It explains how brains have evolved from our earliest vertebrate ancestors. It details how brains provide the basis for successful comprehension of the environment, for the formulation of actions and prediction of their consequences, and for cooperating or competing with other beings that have brains. The book also offers observations regarding such issues as:* how and why people fall in and out of love;* the biological basis for experiencing feelings of love and hate; and* how music and dance have provided the ancestral technology for forming social groups such as tribes and clans.The author reviews the history of the mind-brain problem, and demonstrates how the new sciences of behavioral electrophysiology and nonlinear dynamics -- combined with the latest computer technology -- have made it possible for us to observe brains in action. He also provides an answer to the question: What happens to a stimulus after it enters the brain? The answer: The stimulus triggers the construction of a percept and is then washed away. All that we know is what our brains construct for us by neurodynamics. Brains are not logical devices that process information. They are dynamical systems that create meaning through interactions with the environment -- and each other.The book shows how the learning process by which brains construct meaning tends to isolate brains into self-centered worlds, and how nature has provided a remedy -- first appearing in mammals as a mechanism for pair-bonding -- to ensure reproduction of the young dependent on parents. The remedy is based in the neurochemistry of sex which serves to dissolve belief structures in order to open the way for new patterns of understanding and behavior. Individuals experience these changes in various ways, such as falling in love, collegiate indoctrination, tribal bonding, brain washing, political or religious conversions, and related types of socialization. The highest forms of meaning for humans come through these social attachments.

This book is the fourth in a series based on conferences sponsored by the Metroplex Institute for Neural Dynamics (MIND), an interdisciplinary organization of Dallas-Fort Worth area neural network professionals in both academia and industry. This topic was chosen as the focus for this special issue because of the increasing interest by neuroscientists and psychologists in both rhythmic and chaotic activity patterns observed in the nervous system.Neither the mathematical structure of neural oscillations nor their functional significance is precisely understood. There are a great many open problems in both the structure and function of neural oscillations, whether rhythmic, chaotic, or a combination of the two, and many of these problems are dealt with in the chapters of this book.

A year before his death, B.F. Skinner wrote that "There are two unavoidable gaps in any behavioral account: one between the stimulating action of the environment and the response of the organism and one between consequences and the resulting change in behavior. Only brain science can fill those gaps. In doing so, it completes the account; it does not give a different account of the same thing." This declaration ended the epoch of radical behaviorism to the extent that it was based on the doctrine of the "empty organism," the doctrine that a behavioral science must be constructed purely on its own level of investigation. However, Skinner was not completely correct in his assessment. Brain science on its own can no more fill the gaps than can single level behavioral science. It is the relation between data and formulations developed in the brain and the behavioral sciences that is needed. This volume is the result of The Fourth Appalachian Conference on Behavioral Neurodynamics, the first three of which were aimed at filling Skinner's first gap. Taking the series in a new direction, the aim of the fourth and subsequent conferences is to explore the second of the gaps in the behavioral account noted by Skinner. The aim of this conference was to explore the aphorism: The motivation for learning is self organization. In keeping with this aim and in the spirit of previous events, this conference's mission was to acquaint scientists working in one discipline with the work going on in other disciplines that is relevant to both. As a result, it brought together those who are making advances on the behavioral level -- mainly working in the tradition of operant conditioning -- and those working with brains -- mainly amygdala, hippocampus, and far frontal cortex.

This 5th volume of the Appalachian Conference discusses how the brain processes information, the role of memory and value, and models of creativity. It pursues aspects of cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neurodynamics, such as the topic of values and quantum-distributed processing in the brain.

This book is the fourth in a series based on conferences sponsored by the Metroplex Institute for Neural Dynamics (MIND), an interdisciplinary organization of Dallas-Fort Worth area neural network professionals in both academia and industry. This topic was chosen as the focus for this special issue because of the increasing interest by neuroscientists and psychologists in both rhythmic and chaotic activity patterns observed in the nervous system.Neither the mathematical structure of neural oscillations nor their functional significance is precisely understood. There are a great many open problems in both the structure and function of neural oscillations, whether rhythmic, chaotic, or a combination of the two, and many of these problems are dealt with in the chapters of this book.

Centered around 20 major topic areas of both theoretical and practical importance, the World Congress on Neural Networks provides its registrants -- from a diverse background encompassing industry, academia, and government -- with the latest research and applications in the neural network field.

This 5th volume of the Appalachian Conference discusses how the brain processes information, the role of memory and value, and models of creativity. It pursues aspects of cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neurodynamics, such as the topic of values and quantum-distributed processing in the brain.

A year before his death, B.F. Skinner wrote that "There are two unavoidable gaps in any behavioral account: one between the stimulating action of the environment and the response of the organism and one between consequences and the resulting change in behavior. Only brain science can fill those gaps. In doing so, it completes the account; it does not give a different account of the same thing." This declaration ended the epoch of radical behaviorism to the extent that it was based on the doctrine of the "empty organism," the doctrine that a behavioral science must be constructed purely on its own level of investigation. However, Skinner was not completely correct in his assessment. Brain science on its own can no more fill the gaps than can single level behavioral science. It is the relation between data and formulations developed in the brain and the behavioral sciences that is needed. This volume is the result of The Fourth Appalachian Conference on Behavioral Neurodynamics, the first three of which were aimed at filling Skinner's first gap. Taking the series in a new direction, the aim of the fourth and subsequent conferences is to explore the second of the gaps in the behavioral account noted by Skinner. The aim of this conference was to explore the aphorism: The motivation for learning is self organization. In keeping with this aim and in the spirit of previous events, this conference's mission was to acquaint scientists working in one discipline with the work going on in other disciplines that is relevant to both. As a result, it brought together those who are making advances on the behavioral level -- mainly working in the tradition of operant conditioning -- and those working with brains -- mainly amygdala, hippocampus, and far frontal cortex.

This book is the third in a series based on conferences sponsored by the Metroplex Institute for Neural Dynamics, an interdisciplinary organization of neural network professionals in academia and industry. The topics selected are of broad interest to both those interested in designing machines to perform intelligent functions and those interested in studying how these functions are actually performed by living organisms and generate discussion of basic and controversial issues in the study of mind.The topic of optimality was chosen because it has provoked considerable discussion and controversy in many different academic fields. There are several aspects to the issue of optimality. First, is it true that actual behavior and cognitive functions of living animals, including humans, can be considered as optimal in some sense? Second, what is the utility function for biological organisms, if any, and can it be described mathematically? Rather than organize the chapters on a "biological versus artificial" basis or by what stance they took on optimality, it seemed more natural to organize them either by what level of questions they posed or by what intelligent functions they dealt with.The book begins with some general frameworks for discussing optimality, or the lack of it, in biological or artificial systems. The next set of chapters deals with some general mathematical and computational theories that help to clarify what the notion of optimality might entail in specific classes of networks. The final section deals with optimality in the context of many different high-level issues, including exploring one's environment, understanding mental illness, linguistic communication, and social organization. The diversity of topics covered in this book is designed to stimulate interdisciplinary thinking and speculation about deep problems in intelligent system organization.

The result of the second Appalachian conference on neurodynamics, this volume focuses on the problem of "order," its origins, evolution, and future. Central to this concern lies our understanding of time. Both classical and quantum physics have developed their conceptions within a framework of time symmetry. Divided into four major sections, this book: * provides refreshingly new approaches to the problem of the evolution of order, indicating the directions that need to be taken in subsequent conferences which will address learning and memory more directly; * addresses the issue of how information becomes transmitted in the nervous system; * shows how patterns are constructed at the synaptodendritic level of processing and how such pattern construction relates to image processing; and * deals with the control operations which operate on image processing to construct entities such as visual and auditory objects such as phonemes. The aim of the conference was to bring together professionals to exchange ideas -- some were fairly worked out; others were in their infancy. As a result, one of the most valuable aspects of the conference is that it fostered lasting interactive relationships among these leading researchers.

Centered around major topic areas of both theoretical and practical importance, the World Congress on Neural Networks provides its registrants -- from a diverse background encompassing industry, academia, and government -- with the latest research and applications in the neural network field.

The world is witnessing the rapid evolution of its own nervous system by an unparalleled growth in communication technology. Like the evolution of the nervous systems in animals, this growth is being driven by a survival-of-the-fittest-mechanism. In telecommunications, the entities that fuel this growth are companies and nations who compete with each other. Companies with superior information systems can outrun and outsmart others because they serve their customers better. On the threshold of an explosion in the variety, speed and usefulness of telecommunication networks, neural network researchers can make important contributions to this emerging new telecommunications infrastructure. The first International Workshop on Applications of Neural Networks to Telecommunications (IWANNT) was planned in response to the telecommunications industry's needs for new adaptive technologies. This workshop featured 50 talks and posters that were selected by an organizing committee of experts in both telecommunications and neural networks. These proceedings will also be available on-line in an electronic format providing multimedia figures, cross-referencing, and annotation.

The result of the first Appalachian Conference on neurodynamics, this volume focuses on processing in biological neural networks. How do brain processes become organized during decision making? That is, what are the neural antecedents that determine which course of action is to be pursued? Half of the contributions deal with modelling synapto-dendritic and neural ultrastructural processes; the remainder, with laboratory research findings, often cast in terms of the models. The interchanges at the conference and the ensuing publication also provide a foundation for further meetings. These will address how processes in different brain systems, coactive with the neural residues of experience and with sensory input, determine decisions.

organizing committee:Paul Werbos, Chairman, National Science FoundationHarold Szu, Naval Surface Warfare CenterBernard Widrow, Stanford UniversityCentered around 20 major topic areas of both theoretical and practical importance, the World Congress on Neural Networks provides its registrants -- from a diverse background encompassing industry, academia, and government -- with the latest research and applications in the neural network field.

The result of the second Appalachian conference on neurodynamics, this volume focuses on the problem of "order," its origins, evolution, and future. Central to this concern lies our understanding of time. Both classical and quantum physics have developed their conceptions within a framework of time symmetry. Divided into four major sections, this book: * provides refreshingly new approaches to the problem of the evolution of order, indicating the directions that need to be taken in subsequent conferences which will address learning and memory more directly; * addresses the issue of how information becomes transmitted in the nervous system; * shows how patterns are constructed at the synaptodendritic level of processing and how such pattern construction relates to image processing; and * deals with the control operations which operate on image processing to construct entities such as visual and auditory objects such as phonemes. The aim of the conference was to bring together professionals to exchange ideas -- some were fairly worked out; others were in their infancy. As a result, one of the most valuable aspects of the conference is that it fostered lasting interactive relationships among these leading researchers.

The result of the first Appalachian Conference on neurodynamics, this volume focuses on processing in biological neural networks. How do brain processes become organized during decision making? That is, what are the neural antecedents that determine which course of action is to be pursued? Half of the contributions deal with modelling synapto-dendritic and neural ultrastructural processes; the remainder, with laboratory research findings, often cast in terms of the models. The interchanges at the conference and the ensuing publication also provide a foundation for further meetings. These will address how processes in different brain systems, coactive with the neural residues of experience and with sensory input, determine decisions.

The world is witnessing the rapid evolution of its own nervous system by an unparalleled growth in communication technology. Like the evolution of the nervous systems in animals, this growth is being driven by a survival-of-the-fittest-mechanism. In telecommunications, the entities that fuel this growth are companies and nations who compete with each other. Companies with superior information systems can outrun and outsmart others because they serve their customers better. On the threshold of an explosion in the variety, speed and usefulness of telecommunication networks, neural network researchers can make important contributions to this emerging new telecommunications infrastructure. The first International Workshop on Applications of Neural Networks to Telecommunications (IWANNT) was planned in response to the telecommunications industry's needs for new adaptive technologies. This workshop featured 50 talks and posters that were selected by an organizing committee of experts in both telecommunications and neural networks. These proceedings will also be available on-line in an electronic format providing multimedia figures, cross-referencing, and annotation.

This book is the third in a series based on conferences sponsored by the Metroplex Institute for Neural Dynamics, an interdisciplinary organization of neural network professionals in academia and industry. The topics selected are of broad interest to both those interested in designing machines to perform intelligent functions and those interested in studying how these functions are actually performed by living organisms and generate discussion of basic and controversial issues in the study of mind.The topic of optimality was chosen because it has provoked considerable discussion and controversy in many different academic fields. There are several aspects to the issue of optimality. First, is it true that actual behavior and cognitive functions of living animals, including humans, can be considered as optimal in some sense? Second, what is the utility function for biological organisms, if any, and can it be described mathematically? Rather than organize the chapters on a "biological versus artificial" basis or by what stance they took on optimality, it seemed more natural to organize them either by what level of questions they posed or by what intelligent functions they dealt with.The book begins with some general frameworks for discussing optimality, or the lack of it, in biological or artificial systems. The next set of chapters deals with some general mathematical and computational theories that help to clarify what the notion of optimality might entail in specific classes of networks. The final section deals with optimality in the context of many different high-level issues, including exploring one's environment, understanding mental illness, linguistic communication, and social organization. The diversity of topics covered in this book is designed to stimulate interdisciplinary thinking and speculation about deep problems in intelligent system organization.

This monograph from a leading neuroscientist and neural networks researcher investigates and offers a fresh approach to the perplexing scientific and philosophical problems of minds and brains. It explains how brains have evolved from our earliest vertebrate ancestors. It details how brains provide the basis for successful comprehension of the environment, for the formulation of actions and prediction of their consequences, and for cooperating or competing with other beings that have brains. The book also offers observations regarding such issues as:* how and why people fall in and out of love;* the biological basis for experiencing feelings of love and hate; and* how music and dance have provided the ancestral technology for forming social groups such as tribes and clans.The author reviews the history of the mind-brain problem, and demonstrates how the new sciences of behavioral electrophysiology and nonlinear dynamics -- combined with the latest computer technology -- have made it possible for us to observe brains in action. He also provides an answer to the question: What happens to a stimulus after it enters the brain? The answer: The stimulus triggers the construction of a percept and is then washed away. All that we know is what our brains construct for us by neurodynamics. Brains are not logical devices that process information. They are dynamical systems that create meaning through interactions with the environment -- and each other.The book shows how the learning process by which brains construct meaning tends to isolate brains into self-centered worlds, and how nature has provided a remedy -- first appearing in mammals as a mechanism for pair-bonding -- to ensure reproduction of the young dependent on parents. The remedy is based in the neurochemistry of sex which serves to dissolve belief structures in order to open the way for new patterns of understanding and behavior. Individuals experience these changes in various ways, such as falling in love, collegiate indoctrination, tribal bonding, brain washing, political or religious conversions, and related types of socialization. The highest forms of meaning for humans come through these social attachments.

This monograph from a leading neuroscientist and neural networks researcher investigates and offers a fresh approach to the perplexing scientific and philosophical problems of minds and brains. It explains how brains have evolved from our earliest vertebrate ancestors. It details how brains provide the basis for successful comprehension of the environment, for the formulation of actions and prediction of their consequences, and for cooperating or competing with other beings that have brains. The book also offers observations regarding such issues as:* how and why people fall in and out of love;* the biological basis for experiencing feelings of love and hate; and* how music and dance have provided the ancestral technology for forming social groups such as tribes and clans.The author reviews the history of the mind-brain problem, and demonstrates how the new sciences of behavioral electrophysiology and nonlinear dynamics -- combined with the latest computer technology -- have made it possible for us to observe brains in action. He also provides an answer to the question: What happens to a stimulus after it enters the brain? The answer: The stimulus triggers the construction of a percept and is then washed away. All that we know is what our brains construct for us by neurodynamics. Brains are not logical devices that process information. They are dynamical systems that create meaning through interactions with the environment -- and each other.The book shows how the learning process by which brains construct meaning tends to isolate brains into self-centered worlds, and how nature has provided a remedy -- first appearing in mammals as a mechanism for pair-bonding -- to ensure reproduction of the young dependent on parents. The remedy is based in the neurochemistry of sex which serves to dissolve belief structures in order to open the way for new patterns of understanding and behavior. Individuals experience these changes in various ways, such as falling in love, collegiate indoctrination, tribal bonding, brain washing, political or religious conversions, and related types of socialization. The highest forms of meaning for humans come through these social attachments.

This book is the fourth in a series based on conferences sponsored by the Metroplex Institute for Neural Dynamics (MIND), an interdisciplinary organization of Dallas-Fort Worth area neural network professionals in both academia and industry. This topic was chosen as the focus for this special issue because of the increasing interest by neuroscientists and psychologists in both rhythmic and chaotic activity patterns observed in the nervous system.Neither the mathematical structure of neural oscillations nor their functional significance is precisely understood. There are a great many open problems in both the structure and function of neural oscillations, whether rhythmic, chaotic, or a combination of the two, and many of these problems are dealt with in the chapters of this book.

A year before his death, B.F. Skinner wrote that "There are two unavoidable gaps in any behavioral account: one between the stimulating action of the environment and the response of the organism and one between consequences and the resulting change in behavior. Only brain science can fill those gaps. In doing so, it completes the account; it does not give a different account of the same thing." This declaration ended the epoch of radical behaviorism to the extent that it was based on the doctrine of the "empty organism," the doctrine that a behavioral science must be constructed purely on its own level of investigation. However, Skinner was not completely correct in his assessment. Brain science on its own can no more fill the gaps than can single level behavioral science. It is the relation between data and formulations developed in the brain and the behavioral sciences that is needed. This volume is the result of The Fourth Appalachian Conference on Behavioral Neurodynamics, the first three of which were aimed at filling Skinner's first gap. Taking the series in a new direction, the aim of the fourth and subsequent conferences is to explore the second of the gaps in the behavioral account noted by Skinner. The aim of this conference was to explore the aphorism: The motivation for learning is self organization. In keeping with this aim and in the spirit of previous events, this conference's mission was to acquaint scientists working in one discipline with the work going on in other disciplines that is relevant to both. As a result, it brought together those who are making advances on the behavioral level -- mainly working in the tradition of operant conditioning -- and those working with brains -- mainly amygdala, hippocampus, and far frontal cortex.

This 5th volume of the Appalachian Conference discusses how the brain processes information, the role of memory and value, and models of creativity. It pursues aspects of cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neurodynamics, such as the topic of values and quantum-distributed processing in the brain.

This book is the fourth in a series based on conferences sponsored by the Metroplex Institute for Neural Dynamics (MIND), an interdisciplinary organization of Dallas-Fort Worth area neural network professionals in both academia and industry. This topic was chosen as the focus for this special issue because of the increasing interest by neuroscientists and psychologists in both rhythmic and chaotic activity patterns observed in the nervous system.Neither the mathematical structure of neural oscillations nor their functional significance is precisely understood. There are a great many open problems in both the structure and function of neural oscillations, whether rhythmic, chaotic, or a combination of the two, and many of these problems are dealt with in the chapters of this book.

Centered around 20 major topic areas of both theoretical and practical importance, the World Congress on Neural Networks provides its registrants -- from a diverse background encompassing industry, academia, and government -- with the latest research and applications in the neural network field.

This 5th volume of the Appalachian Conference discusses how the brain processes information, the role of memory and value, and models of creativity. It pursues aspects of cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neurodynamics, such as the topic of values and quantum-distributed processing in the brain.

A year before his death, B.F. Skinner wrote that "There are two unavoidable gaps in any behavioral account: one between the stimulating action of the environment and the response of the organism and one between consequences and the resulting change in behavior. Only brain science can fill those gaps. In doing so, it completes the account; it does not give a different account of the same thing." This declaration ended the epoch of radical behaviorism to the extent that it was based on the doctrine of the "empty organism," the doctrine that a behavioral science must be constructed purely on its own level of investigation. However, Skinner was not completely correct in his assessment. Brain science on its own can no more fill the gaps than can single level behavioral science. It is the relation between data and formulations developed in the brain and the behavioral sciences that is needed. This volume is the result of The Fourth Appalachian Conference on Behavioral Neurodynamics, the first three of which were aimed at filling Skinner's first gap. Taking the series in a new direction, the aim of the fourth and subsequent conferences is to explore the second of the gaps in the behavioral account noted by Skinner. The aim of this conference was to explore the aphorism: The motivation for learning is self organization. In keeping with this aim and in the spirit of previous events, this conference's mission was to acquaint scientists working in one discipline with the work going on in other disciplines that is relevant to both. As a result, it brought together those who are making advances on the behavioral level -- mainly working in the tradition of operant conditioning -- and those working with brains -- mainly amygdala, hippocampus, and far frontal cortex.

This book is the third in a series based on conferences sponsored by the Metroplex Institute for Neural Dynamics, an interdisciplinary organization of neural network professionals in academia and industry. The topics selected are of broad interest to both those interested in designing machines to perform intelligent functions and those interested in studying how these functions are actually performed by living organisms and generate discussion of basic and controversial issues in the study of mind.The topic of optimality was chosen because it has provoked considerable discussion and controversy in many different academic fields. There are several aspects to the issue of optimality. First, is it true that actual behavior and cognitive functions of living animals, including humans, can be considered as optimal in some sense? Second, what is the utility function for biological organisms, if any, and can it be described mathematically? Rather than organize the chapters on a "biological versus artificial" basis or by what stance they took on optimality, it seemed more natural to organize them either by what level of questions they posed or by what intelligent functions they dealt with.The book begins with some general frameworks for discussing optimality, or the lack of it, in biological or artificial systems. The next set of chapters deals with some general mathematical and computational theories that help to clarify what the notion of optimality might entail in specific classes of networks. The final section deals with optimality in the context of many different high-level issues, including exploring one's environment, understanding mental illness, linguistic communication, and social organization. The diversity of topics covered in this book is designed to stimulate interdisciplinary thinking and speculation about deep problems in intelligent system organization.

The result of the second Appalachian conference on neurodynamics, this volume focuses on the problem of "order," its origins, evolution, and future. Central to this concern lies our understanding of time. Both classical and quantum physics have developed their conceptions within a framework of time symmetry. Divided into four major sections, this book: * provides refreshingly new approaches to the problem of the evolution of order, indicating the directions that need to be taken in subsequent conferences which will address learning and memory more directly; * addresses the issue of how information becomes transmitted in the nervous system; * shows how patterns are constructed at the synaptodendritic level of processing and how such pattern construction relates to image processing; and * deals with the control operations which operate on image processing to construct entities such as visual and auditory objects such as phonemes. The aim of the conference was to bring together professionals to exchange ideas -- some were fairly worked out; others were in their infancy. As a result, one of the most valuable aspects of the conference is that it fostered lasting interactive relationships among these leading researchers.

Centered around major topic areas of both theoretical and practical importance, the World Congress on Neural Networks provides its registrants -- from a diverse background encompassing industry, academia, and government -- with the latest research and applications in the neural network field.

The world is witnessing the rapid evolution of its own nervous system by an unparalleled growth in communication technology. Like the evolution of the nervous systems in animals, this growth is being driven by a survival-of-the-fittest-mechanism. In telecommunications, the entities that fuel this growth are companies and nations who compete with each other. Companies with superior information systems can outrun and outsmart others because they serve their customers better. On the threshold of an explosion in the variety, speed and usefulness of telecommunication networks, neural network researchers can make important contributions to this emerging new telecommunications infrastructure. The first International Workshop on Applications of Neural Networks to Telecommunications (IWANNT) was planned in response to the telecommunications industry's needs for new adaptive technologies. This workshop featured 50 talks and posters that were selected by an organizing committee of experts in both telecommunications and neural networks. These proceedings will also be available on-line in an electronic format providing multimedia figures, cross-referencing, and annotation.

The result of the first Appalachian Conference on neurodynamics, this volume focuses on processing in biological neural networks. How do brain processes become organized during decision making? That is, what are the neural antecedents that determine which course of action is to be pursued? Half of the contributions deal with modelling synapto-dendritic and neural ultrastructural processes; the remainder, with laboratory research findings, often cast in terms of the models. The interchanges at the conference and the ensuing publication also provide a foundation for further meetings. These will address how processes in different brain systems, coactive with the neural residues of experience and with sensory input, determine decisions.

organizing committee:Paul Werbos, Chairman, National Science FoundationHarold Szu, Naval Surface Warfare CenterBernard Widrow, Stanford UniversityCentered around 20 major topic areas of both theoretical and practical importance, the World Congress on Neural Networks provides its registrants -- from a diverse background encompassing industry, academia, and government -- with the latest research and applications in the neural network field.

The result of the second Appalachian conference on neurodynamics, this volume focuses on the problem of "order," its origins, evolution, and future. Central to this concern lies our understanding of time. Both classical and quantum physics have developed their conceptions within a framework of time symmetry. Divided into four major sections, this book: * provides refreshingly new approaches to the problem of the evolution of order, indicating the directions that need to be taken in subsequent conferences which will address learning and memory more directly; * addresses the issue of how information becomes transmitted in the nervous system; * shows how patterns are constructed at the synaptodendritic level of processing and how such pattern construction relates to image processing; and * deals with the control operations which operate on image processing to construct entities such as visual and auditory objects such as phonemes. The aim of the conference was to bring together professionals to exchange ideas -- some were fairly worked out; others were in their infancy. As a result, one of the most valuable aspects of the conference is that it fostered lasting interactive relationships among these leading researchers.