This volume contains the proceedings of the seventh Italian Workshop on Neural Nets WIRN VIETRI '95, organized by the International Institute for Advanced Scientific Studies 'E R Caianiello' (IIASS) and Società Italiana Reti Neuroniche (SIREN).The spectrum of contributors and participants covers the activity of Italian research in the field. The papers of the two invited speakers, M J Jordan ('Sigmoid Belief Networks') and E Oja ('Principal and Independent Component Analysis'), and the two reviews ('Fast Learning Algorithms for Feedforward NN' and 'ANN Ensembles: a Bayesian Standpoint') complete the highly qualified contents of the volume.

This volume contains selected papers from WIRN VIETRI-96, the 8th Italian Workshop on Neural Nets, held Vietri sul Mare, Salerno, Italy, from 23-25 May 1996. The papers cover a variety of topics related to neural networks, including pattern recognition, signal processing, theoretical models, applications in science and industry, virtual reality, fuzzy systems, and software algorithms. By providing the reader with a comprehensive overview of recent research work in this area, the volume makes an invaluable contribution to the Perspectives in Neural Computing Series. Neural Nets - WIRN VIETRI-96 will provide invaluable reading material for anyone who needs to keep up to date with the latest developments in neural networks and related areas. It will be of particular interest to academic and industrial researchers, and postgraduate and graduate students.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed postproceedings of the 16th Italian Workshop on Neural Nets, WIRN 2005, as well as the satellite International Workshop on Natural and Artificial Immune Systems, NAIS 2005, held in Vietri sul Mare, Italy in June 2005. The 41 revised papers presented together with a lecture by the winner of the Premio Caianiello award were carefully reviewed and improved during two rounds of selection and refereeing.

The proceedings of this workshop include invited lectures by Professors Stan Gielen and Lotfi Zadeh. The workshop was the last to be organised by the late Professor Eduardo R. Cainello, known worldwide for his fundamental contributions to cybernetics and theoretical physics, and to whom this volume is dedicated.

The textbook aims to present general relativity and modern cosmology in a friendly form suitable for advanced undergraduates. The text begins with a self-contained introduction to the theory of manifolds and then develops the tools needed to understand curved spaces and curved spacetimes. Special relativity can then be understood in a geometrical context, bypassing some of the difficulties students have when encountering relativistic effects (e.g. time dilation and length contraction) for the first time. The theory of curvature and its effects leads to the Einstein field equations and its classic tests in the precession of Mercury and the deflection of starlight.The second part of the book covers modern cosmology, starting with the evolution equations for the expansion of the universe. The microwave background, evidence for dark matter, and the clustering of galaxies are examined in detail.

This volume contains selected papers from WIRN VIETRI-97, the 9th Italian Workshop on Neural Nets, held Vietri sul Mare, Salerno, Italy, from 22-24 May 1997. The papers cover a variety of topics related to neural networks, including pattern recognition, signal processing, theoretical models, applications in science and industry, virtual reality, fuzzy systems, and software algorithms. = By providing the reader with a comprehensive overview of recent research work in this area, the volume makes an invaluab le contribution to the Perspectives in Neural Computing Series. Neural Nets - WIRN VIETRI-97 will provide invaluable reading material for anyone who needs to keep up to date with the latest developments in neural networks and related areas. It will be of particular interest to academic and industrial researchers, and postgraduate and graduate students.

This book constitutes, together with its compagnion LNCS 1606, the refereed proceedings of the International Work-Conference on Artificial and Neural Networks, IWANN'99, held in Alicante, Spain in June 1999. The 91 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. This volume is devoted to applications of biologically inspired artificial neural networks in various engineering disciplines. The papers are organized in parts on artificial neural nets simulation and implementation, image processing, and engineering applications.