This volume contains the proceedings of the 14th Spring School of the LITP (Laboratoire d`Informatique Thorique et de Programmation, Universit Paris VI-VII, CNRS) held May 12-16, 1986 in Argels-Village on the French Catalan coast. This meeting was organized by C. Choffrut, M. Nivat, F. Robert, P. Sall and gathered a hundred participants. The proceedings of the last two Spring Schools have already been published in this series and deal with "Automata on Infinite Words" (LNCS 192) and "Combinators and Functional Programming Languages" (LNCS 242). The purpose of this yearly meeting is to present the state of the art in a specific topic which has gained considerable maturity. The field chosen this year was the theory of automata networks. Though the content of this book is essentially restricted to computer science aspects of the topic, illustrations were given at the meeting on how the model of cellular automata could be used to solve problems in statistical, fluid and solid state mechanics. Applications to biology with growth models also exist

This book investigates automata networks as algebraic structures and develops their theory in line with other algebraic theories.

Investigates automata networks as algebraic structures and develops their theory in line with other algebraic theories, such as those of semigroups, groups, rings, and fields. The authors also investigate automata networks as products of automata, that is, as compositions of automata obtained by cascading without feedback or with feedback of various restricted types or, most generally, with the feedback dependencies controlled by an arbitrary directed graph. They survey and extend the fundamental results in regard to automata networks, including the main decomposition theorems of Letichevsky, of Krohn and Rhodes, and of others.

"Et moi ..., si j'avait Sll comment en revenir. One sennce mathematics has rendered the human race. It has put common sense back je n'y serais point alle.' Jules Verne whe", it belongs, on the topmost shelf next to the dusty canister labelled 'discarded non- The series is divergent; therefore we may be smse'. able to do something with it. Eric T. Bell O. Heaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics .. .'; 'One service logic has rendered com puter science .. .'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics .. .'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d'!ltre of this series

Networks of Learning Automata: Techniques for Online Stochastic Optimization is a comprehensive account of learning automata models with emphasis on multiautomata systems. It considers synthesis of complex learning structures from simple building blocks and uses stochastic algorithms for refining probabilities of selecting actions. Mathematical analysis of the behavior of games and feedforward networks is provided. Algorithms considered here can be used for online optimization of systems based on noisy measurements of performance index. Also, algorithms that assure convergence to the global optimum are presented. Parallel operation of automata systems for improving speed of convergence is described. The authors also include extensive discussion of how learning automata solutions can be constructed in a variety of applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Cellular Automata for Research and Industry, ACRI 2006. The book presents 53 revised full papers and 19 revised poster papers together with 6 invited lectures. Topical sections include CA theory and implementation, computational theory, population dynamics, physical modeling, urban, environmental and social modeling, traffic and boolean networks, multi-agents and robotics, as well as crowds and cellular automata, and more.