Virtual Organisms
Virtual Organisms

Author: Mark Ward

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2014-06-24

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1466874309

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Harmless artificial life forms are on the loose on the Internet. Computer viruses and even robots are now able to evolve like their biological counterparts. Telecommunications companies are sending small packets of software to go forth and multiply to cope with ever-increasing telephone traffic. Protein-based computers are on the agenda, and a team in Japan is building an organic brain as clever as a kitten. Welcome to the startling world of Artificial Life. Artificial Life scientists are taking inanimate materials such as computer software and robots and making them behave just like living organisms. In the process they are discovering much about what drives evolution and just what it means to say that something is alive. Virtual Organisms traces the origins of this field from the days when it was practiced by a few maverick scientists to the present and the current boom in Alife research. Leading technology correspondent Mark Ward presents a fascinating survey of current ideas about the origins of life and the engines of evolution. Through interviews with leading developers of Artificial Life, and through his own compelling research, Ward shows how the convergence of technology with biology has enormous implications. In an accessible, entertaining manner, Virtual Organisms reveals an unexplored avenue in predicting the future of Artificial Life, and whether new forms of Alife may be evolving beyond their designer's control.

The Electricity of Every Living Thing
The Electricity of Every Living Thing

Author: Katherine May

Publisher: Melville House

Published: 2021-10-26

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1612199607

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The New York Times bestselling author of Wintering writes a life-affirming exploration of wild landscapes, what it means to be different and, above all, how we can all learn to make peace with our own unquiet minds . . . In anticipation of her 38th birthday, Katherine May set out to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path. She wanted time alone, in nature, to understand why she had stopped coping with everyday life; why motherhood had been so overwhelming and isolating; and why the world felt full of expectations she couldn't meet. She was also reeling from a chance encounter with a voice on the radio that sparked her realisation that she might be autistic. And so begins a trek along the ruggedly beautiful but difficult path by the sea that takes readers through the alternatingly frustrating, funny, and enlightening experience of re-awakening to the world around us… The Electricity of Every Living Thing sees Katherine come to terms with that diagnosis leading her to re-evaluate her life so far — with a much kinder, more forgiving eye. We bear witness to a new understanding that finally allows her to be different rather than simply awkward, arrogant or unfeeling. The physical and psychological journeys of this joyous and inspiring book become inextricably entwined, and as Katherine finds her way across the untameable coast, we learn alongside her how to find our way back to our own true selves.

The Way of the Cell
The Way of the Cell

Author: Franklin M. Harold

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0195163389

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Schrodinger's riddle -- The quality of life -- Cells in nature and in theory -- Molecular logic -- A (almost) comprehensible cell -- It takes a cell to make a cell -- Morphogenesis: where form and function meet -- The advance of the microbes -- By descent with modification -- So what is life? -- Searching for the beginning.

The Vital Question
The Vital Question

Author: Nick Lane

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781781250372

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A game-changing book on the origins of life, called the most important scientific discovery 'since the Copernican revolution' in The Observer.

Representation and Reality in Humans, Other Living Organisms and Intelligent Machines
Representation and Reality in Humans, Other Living Organisms and Intelligent Machines

Author: Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-08-29

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 3319437844

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book enriches our views on representation and deepens our understanding of its different aspects. It arises out of several years of dialog between the editors and the authors, an interdisciplinary team of highly experienced researchers, and it reflects the best contemporary view of representation and reality in humans, other living beings, and intelligent machines. Structured into parts on the cognitive, computational, natural sciences, philosophical, logical, and machine perspectives, a theme of the field and the book is building and presenting networks, and the editors hope that the contributed chapters will spur understanding and collaboration between researchers in domains such as computer science, philosophy, logic, systems theory, engineering, psychology, sociology, anthropology, neuroscience, linguistics, and synthetic biology.

The Last Lecture
The Last Lecture

Author: Randy Pausch

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780340978504

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

5th European Conference of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering 14 - 18 September 2011, Budapest, Hungary
5th European Conference of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering 14 - 18 September 2011, Budapest, Hungary

Author: Ákos Jobbágy

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-02-02

Total Pages: 1477

ISBN-13: 3642235085

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume presents the 5th European Conference of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering (EMBEC), held in Budapest, 14-18 September, 2011. The scientific discussion on the conference and in this conference proceedings include the following issues: - Signal & Image Processing - ICT - Clinical Engineering and Applications - Biomechanics and Fluid Biomechanics - Biomaterials and Tissue Repair - Innovations and Nanotechnology - Modeling and Simulation - Education and Professional

Advances in Artificial Intelligence
Advances in Artificial Intelligence

Author: Enrique Alba

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2021-08-24

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 9783030857127

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 19th Conference of the Spanish Association for Artificial Intelligence, CAEPIA 2020, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, amalgamated with CAEPIA 2021, and held in Malaga, Spain, during September 2021. The 25 full papers presented were carefully selected from 40 submissions. The Conference of the Spanish Association of Artificial Intelligence (CAEPIA) is a biennial forum open to researchers from all over the world to present and discuss their latest scientific and technological advances in Antificial Intelligence (AI). The book is subdivided into the following topical headings: machine learning, optimization and search, and real-world applications. It covers such themes as ambient intelligence and smart environments; computer vision and robotics; constraints, search and planning; creativity and A.I.; education and A.I.; explainable and responsible A.I.; foundation, models and applications of A.I, and others.

Player and Avatar
Player and Avatar

Author: David Owen

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2017-07-03

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1476667195

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Do you make small leaps in your chair while attempting challenging jumps in Tomb Raider? Do you say "Ouch!" when a giant hits you with a club in Skyrim? Have you had dreams of being inside the underwater city of Rapture? Videogames cast the player as protagonist in an unfolding narrative. Like actors in front of a camera, gamers' proprioception, or body awareness, can extend to onscreen characters, thus placing them "physically" within the virtual world. Players may even identify with characters' ideological motivations. The author explores concepts central to the design and enjoyment of videogames--affect, immersion, liveness, presence, agency, narrative, ideology and the player's virtual surrogate: the avatar. Gamer and avatar are analyzed as a cybernetic coupling that suggests fulfillment of Atonin Artaud's vision of the "body without organs."

Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual
Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual

Author: William Sims Bainbridge

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2009-12-08

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 184882825X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

William Sims Bainbridge Virtual worlds are persistent online computer-generated environments where people can interact, whether for work or play, in a manner comparable to the real world. The most prominent current example is World of Warcraft (Corneliussen and Rettberg 2008), a massively multiplayer online game with 11 million s- scribers. Some other virtual worlds, notably Second Life (Rymaszewski et al. 2007), are not games at all, but Internet-based collaboration contexts in which people can create virtual objects, simulated architecture, and working groups. Although interest in virtual worlds has been growing for at least a dozen years, only today it is possible to bring together an international team of highly acc- plished authors to examine them with both care and excitement, employing a range of theories and methodologies to discover the principles that are making virtual worlds increasingly popular and may in future establish them as a major sector of human-centered computing.