This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN'97, held in Lausanne, Switzerland,in October 1997. The 201 revised papers presented were selected from a large number of submissions and give a unique documentation of the state of the art in the area. The papers are organized in parts on coding and learning in biology; cortical maps and receptive fields; learning: theory and applications; signal processing: blind source separation, vector quantization, and self-organization; robotics, autonomous agents, and control; speech, vision and pattern recognition; prediction, forecasting and monitoring; and implementations.

The use of neural networks is permeating every area of signal processing. They can provide powerful means for solving many problems, especially in nonlinear, real-time, adaptive, and blind signal processing. The Handbook of Neural Network Signal Processing brings together applications that were previously scattered among various publications to provide an up-to-date, detailed treatment of the subject from an engineering point of view. The authors cover basic principles, modeling, algorithms, architectures, implementation procedures, and well-designed simulation examples of audio, video, speech, communication, geophysical, sonar, radar, medical, and many other signals. The subject of neural networks and their application to signal processing is constantly improving. You need a handy reference that will inform you of current applications in this new area. The Handbook of Neural Network Signal Processing provides this much needed service for all engineers and scientists in the field.

The 2003 edition of ICANNGA marks a milestone in this conference series, because it is the tenth year of its existence. The series began in 1993 with the inaugural conference at Innsbruck in Austria. At that first conference, the organisers decided to organise a similar scientific meeting every two years. As a result, conferences were organised at Ales in France (1995), Norwich in England (1997), Portoroz in Slovenia (1999) and Prague in the Czech Republic (2001). It is a great honour that the conference is taking place in France for the second time. Each edition of ICANNGA has been special and had its own character. Not only that, participants have been able to sample the life and local culture in five different European coun tries. Originally limited to neural networks and genetic algorithms the conference has broadened its outlook over the past ten years and now includes papers on soft computing and artificial intelligence in general. This is one of the reasons why the reader will find papers on fuzzy logic and various other topics not directly related to neural networks or genetic algorithms included in these proceedings. We have, however, kept the same name, "International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms". All of the papers were sorted into one of six principal categories: neural network theory, neural network applications, genetic algorithm and evolutionary computation theory, genetic algorithm and evolutionary computation applications, fuzzy and soft computing theory, fuzzy and soft computing applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 24th Seminar on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Informatics, SOFSEM'97, held in Milovy, Czech Republic, in November 1997. SOFSEM is special in being a mix of a winter school, an international conference, and an advanced workshop meeting the demand for ongoing education in the area of computer science. The volume presents 22 invited contributions by leading experts together with 24 revised contributed papers selected from 63 submissions. The invited presentations are organized in topical sections on foundations, distributed and parallel computing, software engineering and methodology, and databases and information systems.

Classically, behavioural neuroscience theorizes about experimental evidence in a qualitative way. However, more recently there has been an increasing development of mathematical and computational models of experimental results, and in general these models are more clearly defined and more detailed than their qualitative counter parts. These new computational models can be set up so that they are consistent with both single neuron and whole-system levels of operation, allowing physiological results to be meshed with behavioural data – thus closing the gap between neurophysiology and human behaviour. There is considerable diversity between models with respect to the methodology of designing a model, the degree to which neurophysiological processes are taken into account and the way data (behavioural, electrophysiological, etc) constrains a model. This book presents examples of this diversity and in doing so represents the state-of-art in the field through a unique collection of papers from the world's leading researchers in the area of computational modelling in behavioural neuroscience. Based on talks given at the third Behavioural Brain Sciences Symposium, held at the Behavioural Brain Sciences Centre, University of Birmingham, in May 2007, the book appeals to a broad audience, from postgraduate students beginning to work in the field to experienced experimenters interested in an overview.

How high-level behaviors arise from low-level rules, and how understanding this relationship can suggest novel solutions to complex real-world problems such as disease prevention, stock-market prediction, and data mining on the Internet. The term "artificial life" describes research into synthetic systems that possess some of the essential properties of life. This interdisciplinary field includes biologists, computer scientists, physicists, chemists, geneticists, and others. Artificial life may be viewed as an attempt to understand high-level behavior from low-level rules -- for example, how the simple interactions between ants and their environment lead to complex trail-following behavior. An understanding of such relationships in particular systems can suggest novel solutions to complex real-world problems such as disease prevention, stock-market prediction, and data mining on the Internet. Since their inception in 1987, the Artificial Life meetings have grown from small workshops to truly international conferences, reflecting the field's increasing appeal to researchers in all areas of science.

Proceedings of the Fifth International School on Neural Networks "E.R. Caianiello" on Visual Attention MechaProceedings of the Fifth International School on Neural Networks "E.R. Caianiello" on Visual Attention Mechanisms, held 23-28 October 2000 in Vietri sul Mare, Italy.nisms, held 23-28 October 2000 in Vietri sul Mare, Italy. The book covers a number of broad themes relevant to visual attention, ranging from computer vision to psychology and physiology of vision. The main theme of the book is the attention processes of vision systems and it aims to point out the analogies and the divergences of biological vision with the frameworks introduced by computer scientists in artificial vision.