book announcement--Forbes

[David Weininger]

I thought readers of the Connectionists List might be interested in this 
book.  For more information, please visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/0262062410/ 
 Thank you!

Best,
David

Imitation of Life
How Biology Is Inspiring Computing
Nancy Forbes

As computers and the tasks they perform become increasingly complex, 
researchers are looking to nature--as model and as metaphor--for inspiration. 
The organization and behavior of biological organisms present scientists with 
an invitation to reinvent computing for the complex tasks of the future. In 
Imitation of Life Nancy Forbes surveys the emerging field of biologically 
inspired computing, looking at some of the most impressive and influential 
examples of this fertile synergy.

Forbes points out that the influence of biology on computing goes back to the 
early days of computer science--John von Neumann, the architect of the first 
digital computer, used the human brain as the model for his design. Inspired 
by von Neumann and other early visionaries, as well as by her work on the 
"Ultrascale Computing" project at the Defense Advanced Research Projects 
Agency (DARPA), Forbes describes the exciting potential of these 
revolutionary new technologies. She identifies three strains of biologically 
inspired computing: the use of biology as a metaphor or inspiration for the 
development of algorithms; the construction of information processing systems 
that use biological materials or are modeled on biological processes, or 
both; and the effort to understand how biological organisms "compute," or 
process information.

Forbes then shows us how current researchers are using these approaches. In 
successive chapters, she looks at artificial neural networks; evolutionary 
and genetic algorithms, which search for the "fittest" among a generation of 
solutions; cellular automata; artificial life--not just a simulation, but 
"alive" in the internal ecosystem of the computer; DNA computation, which 
uses the encoding capability of DNA to devise algorithms; self-assembly and 
its potential use in nanotechnology; amorphous computing, modeled on the kind 
of cooperation seen in a colony of cells or a swarm of bees; computer immune 
systems; bio-hardware and how bioelectronics compares to silicon; and the 
"computational" properties of cells.

Nancy Forbes works as a science and technology analyst for the federal 
government. She has advanced degrees both in physics and the humanities, and 
has served as a contributing editor for The Industrial Physicist and 
Computing in Science and Engineering.

6 x 9, 176 pp., 48 illus., cloth, ISBN 0-262-06241-0, $25.95

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David Weininger
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