LSI Modular Computers, Systems, and Networks

Modular LSI-based design makes possible new patterns of computer and network organization, providing greater computational power and flexibility.     

Robot Brains. Circuits and Systems for Conscious Machines (P. Haikonen; 2007) [Book review]

In the past few years, various attempts to define the problem of consciousness from engineering or computational perspective have emerged. This book explores the topic of what will make a robot conscious. It outlines an engineering approach that should lead toward cognitive and conscious machines. Some of the topics covered include: a vector representation of information as a substitute for nonnumerical information processing by brains; neuron models and associate neural networks; circuit assemblies; machine perception; motor control; machine cognition; machine emotions; natural language understanding; cognitive architecture; and machine consciousness. The book should be interesting to people working in computational intelligence and cognitive robots. Researchers in computational neuroscience, who usually focus on details, may also benefit from the integrative approach presented in this book. While the book introduces a number of interesting points of view, no breakthrough technologies are proposed and no software or hardware demonstration is provided.     

William H. Calvin,How Brains Think: Evolving Intelligence,Then and Now

Minds and Machines -     

Computers in Russia: science, education, and industry

The history of Russian computer development is described from the first experiments in 1948 to modern times. In the past decade (1989-99), in connection with the change in the general political situation-the disintegration of the Soviet Union into independent states and the economic crisis in Russia-the conditions have changed for scientific research and education in the field of computers. In connection with industrial recession, this branch of science suffered heavy damage, especially in areas associated with the military-industrial complex. Russian enterprises have sharply reduced their development of computers oriented to military-industrial use. The restrictions of the state budget on science have had an effect on scientific activity of state research institutes and higher educational establishments. There have been changes in the system of financing scientific organizations and educational establishments     

Computers in mineral exploration: Some uses,limitations, and requirements

Essential requirements for the use of computers in mineral exploration are: (1) an adaptable storage-retrieval system, (2) adequate data files, (3) a minimum establishment in terms of staff and organization, (4) integration of computer filing systems with paper filing systems so that they complement one another, and (5) understanding by users of the application of computer techniques to geological information.Data files applicable to mineral exploration fall into three categories: Field-Data files, Bibliographic-Index files, and Mineral-Deposit files. An increasing proportion of data files used by exploration companies will be acquired from government organizations and service agencies.Computer techniques must be used selectively. They become more applicable as: (1) projects last longer, (2) the amount of exploration work per unit area increases, and (3) the amount of previously generated information becomes greater.Limitations include: (1) nonapplicability of computer techniques to some types of exploration, (2) expense of file creation, (3) short-time span of many exploration projects, and (4) need to maintain a balance between a computer facility and the exploration department it is designed to serve.Causes of disappointment include preoccupation with statistical techniques at the expense of storage and retrieval, the nonselective application of computers, and failure to attain a minimum organizational establishment.Although individual computer-based approaches may lead directly to exploration targets which would not have been detected without computers, the essential advantage of a computer facility lies in its ability to improve the performance of each exploration geologist by increasing the quantity and quality of available data.     

Computers,Computation, and Problems

Abstract

The automatic recognition of targets involving significant intraclass variations is a challenging problem if the solution is constrained by practical implementability considerations. In the case of Gaussian intraclass variations the exact solution is implementable but in a somewhat complex way. The exact solutions of non-Gaussian cases are, with few exceptions, not implementable. We have developed a systematic approximation procedure for obtaining implementable solutions for these cases. Analysis of the approximation errors is given.     

Computers,myths and development

The paper discusses the question of the extent to which computers contribute to the development process of the Third World. An answer is not easily found as long as the evaluation is primarily quantitative and the most common measure seems to be the total number or value of computers installed. The computerization process is discussed from both global and developing perspectives and, with reference to other writers, the importance of qualitative measures is emphasized. The case of Egypt is taken as an example: the number of installed computers seems impressive but as most of these belong to the technology of the mid‐1970s Egypt has a low computer capacity at a high cost. Finally, the paper raises the question of whether the contribution of computers to the development process is a myth.     

Computers, programming and people

Now part of consumer society and marketed globally, computers are designed to be sold rather than used. Software marketers, e-businesses, and their technicians consider having an understanding of how the underlying machinery works to be utterly irrelevant. For them, the most important skills are marketing, management, and graphical expertise. The profession should strive to make it easy for people to exploit the computer on their own terms in their own culture. The symbolic programming system should be completely straightforward, but adaptable to different writing systems. Any complexity should be subsumed by the operating system or concealable within the macro-coding system     

Thomas K. Landauer / The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness,Usability, and Productivity

User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction -     

Computers,Justification, and Mathematical Knowledge

The original proof of the four-color theorem by Appel and Haken sparked a controversy when Tymoczko used it to argue that the justification provided by unsurveyable proofs carried out by computers cannot be a priori. It also created a lingering impression to the effect that such proofs depend heavily for their soundness on large amounts of computation-intensive custom-built software. Contra Tymoczko, we argue that the justification provided by certain computerized mathematical proofs is not fundamentally different from that provided by surveyable proofs, and can be sensibly regarded as a priori. We also show that the aforementioned impression is mistaken because it fails to distinguish between proof search (the context of discovery) and proof checking (the context of justification). By using mechanized proof assistants capable of producing certificates that can be independently checked, it is possible to carry out complex proofs without the need to trust arbitrary custom-written code. We only need to trust one fixed, small, and simple piece of software: the proof checker. This is not only possible in principle, but is in fact becoming a viable methodology for performing complicated mathematical reasoning. This is evinced by a new proof of the four-color theorem that appeared in 2005, and which was developed and checked in its entirety by a mechanical proof system.

Brains,Bodies, and Beyond: Competitive Co-Evolution of Robot Controllers,Morphologies and Environments

This paper presents a series of simulation experiments that incrementally extend previous work on neural robot controllers in a predator-prey scenario, in particular the work of Floreano and Nolfi, and integrates it with ideas from work on the ‘co-evolution’ of robot morphologies and control systems. The aim of these experiments has been to further systematically investigate the tradeoffs and interdependencies between morphological parameters and behavioral strategies through a series of predator-prey experiments in which increasingly many aspects are subject to self-organization through competitive co-evolution. Motivated by the fact that, despite the emphasis of the interdependence of brain, body and environment in much recent research, the environment has actually received relatively little attention, the last set of experiments lets robots/species actively adapt their environments to their own needs, rather than just adapting themselves to a given environment. This paper is an extended version of: Buason and Ziemke. “Co-evolving task-dependent visual morphologies in predator-prey experiments,” in Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, Cantu-Paz et al. (Eds.), Springer Verlag: Berlin, 2003, pp. 458–469.