A System Architecture Approach to the Brain PDF Download

Author: L. Andrew Coward
Publisher: Nova Publishers
ISBN: 9781594544330
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 372

View

Book Description
This book is the integrated presentation of a large body of work on understanding the operation of biological brains as systems. The work has been carried out by the author over the last 22 years, and leads to a claim that it is relatively straightforward to understand how human cognition results from and is supported by physiological processes in the brain. This claim has roots in the technology for designing and manufacturing electronic systems which manage extremely complex telecommunications networks with high reliability, in real time and with no human intervention. Such systems perform very large numbers of interacting control features. Although there is little direct resemblance between such systems and biological brains, the ways in which these practical considerations force system architectures within some specific bounds leads to an understanding of how different but analogous practical considerations constrain the architectures of brains within different bounds called the Recommendation Architecture. These architectural bounds make it possible to relate cognitive phenomena to physiological processes.

Author: Sarah Williams Goldhagen
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062199188
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 235

View

Book Description
One of the nation’s chief architecture critics reveals how the environments we build profoundly shape our feelings, memories, and well-being, and argues that we must harness this knowledge to construct a world better suited to human experience Taking us on a fascinating journey through some of the world’s best and worst landscapes, buildings, and cityscapes, Sarah Williams Goldhagen draws from recent research in cognitive neuroscience and psychology to demonstrate how people’s experiences of the places they build are central to their well-being, their physical health, their communal and social lives, and even their very sense of themselves. From this foundation, Goldhagen presents a powerful case that societies must use this knowledge to rethink what and how they build: the world needs better-designed, healthier environments that address the complex range of human individual and social needs. By 2050 America’s population is projected to increase by nearly seventy million people. This will necessitate a vast amount of new construction—almost all in urban areas—that will dramatically transform our existing landscapes, infrastructure, and urban areas. Going forward, we must do everything we can to prevent the construction of exhausting, overstimulating environments and enervating, understimulating ones. Buildings, landscapes, and cities must both contain and spark associations of natural light, greenery, and other ways of being in landscapes that humans have evolved to need and expect. Fancy exteriors and dramatic forms are never enough, and may not even be necessary; authentic textures and surfaces, and careful, well-executed construction details are just as important. Erudite, wise, lucidly written, and beautifully illustrated with more than one hundred color photographs, Welcome to Your World is a vital, eye-opening guide to the spaces we inhabit, physically and mentally, and a clarion call to design for human experience.

Author: Chris Eliasmith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199794693
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 475

View

Book Description
How to Build a Brain provides a detailed exploration of a new cognitive architecture - the Semantic Pointer Architecture - that takes biological detail seriously, while addressing cognitive phenomena. Topics ranging from semantics and syntax, to neural coding and spike-timing-dependent plasticity are integrated to develop the world's largest functional brain model.

Author: and Director NIBS Neuroscience Program University of Southern California Larry W. Swanson Milo Don and Lucille Appleman Professor of Biological Sciences
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198026463
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 283

View

Book Description
Depending on your point of view the brain is an organ, a machine, a biological computer, or simply the most important component of the nervous system. How does it work as a whole? What are its major parts and how are they interconnected to generate thinking, feelings, and behavior? This book surveys 2,500 years of scientific thinking about these profoundly important questions from the perspective of fundamental architectural principles, and then proposes a new model for the basic plan of neural systems organization based on an explosion of structural data emerging from the neuroanatomy revolution of the 1970's. The importance of a balance between theoretical and experimental morphology is stressed throughout the book. Great advances in understanding the brain's basic plan have come especially from two traditional lines of biological thought-- evolution and embryology, because each begins with the simple and progresses to the more complex. Understanding the organization of brain circuits, which contain thousands of links or pathways, is much more difficult. It is argued here that a four-system network model can explain the structure-function organization of the brain. Possible relationships between neural networks and gene networks revealed by the human genome project are explored in the final chapter. The book is written in clear and sparkling prose, and it is profusely illustrated. It is designed to be read by anyone with an interest in the basic organization of the brain, from neuroscience to philosophy to computer science to molecular biology. It is suitable for use in neuroscience core courses because it presents basic principles of the structure of the nervous system in a systematic way.

Author: John P. Eberhard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195331729
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 280

View

Book Description
Brain Landscape: The Coexistence of Neuroscience and Architecture is the first book to serve as an intellectual bridge between architectural practice and neuroscience research. John P. Eberhard, founding President of the non-profit Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, argues that increased funding, and the ability to think beyond the norm, will lead to a better understanding of how scientific research can change how we design, illuminate, and build spaces. Inversely, he posits that by better understanding the effects that buildings and places have on us, and our mental state, the better we may be able to understand how the human brain works. This book is devoted to describing architectural design criteria for schools, offices, laboratories, memorials, churches, and facilities for the aging, and then posing hypotheses about human experiences in such settings.

Author: Peter Carruthers
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191525812
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 481

View

Book Description
This book is a comprehensive development and defense of one of the guiding assumptions of evolutionary psychology: that the human mind is composed of a large number of semi-independent modules. The Architecture of the Mind has three main goals. One is to argue for massive mental modularity. Another is to answer a 'How possibly?' challenge to any such approach. The first part of the book lays out the positive case supporting massive modularity. It also outlines how the thesis should best be developed, and articulates the notion of 'module' that is in question. Then the second part of the book takes up the challenge of explaining how the sorts of flexibility and creativity that are distinctive of the human mind could possibly be grounded in the operations of a massive number of modules. Peter Carruthers's third aim is to show how the various components of the mind are likely to be linked and interact with one another - indeed, this is crucial to demonstrating how the human mind, together with its familiar capacities, can be underpinned by a massively modular set of mechanisms. He outlines and defends the basic framework of a perception / belief / desire / planning / motor-control architecture, as well as detailing the likely components and their modes of connectivity. Many specific claims about the place within this architecture of natural language, of a mind-reading system, and others are explained and motivated. A number of novel proposals are made in the course of these discussions, one of which is that creative human thought depends upon a prior kind of creativity of action. Written with unusual clarity and directness, and surveying an extensive range of research in cognitive science, this book will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the nature and organization of the mind.

Author: Olaf Sporns
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262528983
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 433

View

Book Description
An integrative overview of network approaches to neuroscience explores the origins of brain complexity and the link between brain structure and function. Over the last decade, the study of complex networks has expanded across diverse scientific fields. Increasingly, science is concerned with the structure, behavior, and evolution of complex systems ranging from cells to ecosystems. In Networks of the Brain, Olaf Sporns describes how the integrative nature of brain function can be illuminated from a complex network perspective. Highlighting the many emerging points of contact between neuroscience and network science, the book serves to introduce network theory to neuroscientists and neuroscience to those working on theoretical network models. Sporns emphasizes how networks connect levels of organization in the brain and how they link structure to function, offering an informal and nonmathematical treatment of the subject. Networks of the Brain provides a synthesis of the sciences of complex networks and the brain that will be an essential foundation for future research.

Author: Harry Francis Mallgrave
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118078675
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 279

View

Book Description
The Architect's Brain: Neuroscience, Creativity, and Architecture is the first book to consider the relationship between the neurosciences and architecture, offering a compelling and provocative study in the field of architectural theory. Explores various moments of architectural thought over the last 500 years as a cognitive manifestation of philosophical, psychological, and physiological theory Looks at architectural thought through the lens of the remarkable insights of contemporary neuroscience, particularly as they have advanced within the last decade Demonstrates the neurological justification for some very timeless architectural ideas, from the multisensory nature of the architectural experience to the essential relationship of ambiguity and metaphor to creative thinking

Author: Milin Zhang
Publisher: River Publishers
ISBN: 877022000X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 554

View

Book Description
Low Power Circuit Design Using Advanced CMOS Technology is a summary of lectures from the first Advanced CMOS Technology Summer School (ACTS) 2017. The slides are selected from the handouts, while the text was edited according to the lecturers talk. ACTS is a joint activity supported by the IEEE Circuit and System Society (CASS) and the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS). The goal of the school is to provide society members as well researchers and engineers from industry the opportunity to learn about new emerging areas from leading experts in the field. ACTS is an example of high-level continuous education for junior engineers, teachers in academe, and students. ACTS was the results of a successful collaboration between societies, the local chapter leaders, and industry leaders. This summer school was the brainchild of Dr. Zhihua Wang, with strong support from volunteers from both the IEEE SSCS and CASS. In addition, the local companies, Synopsys China and Beijing IC Park, provided support. This first ACTS was held in the summer 2017 in Beijing. The lectures were given by academic researchers and industry experts, who presented each 6-hour long lectures on topics covering process technology, EDA skill, and circuit and layout design skills. The school was hosted and organized by the CASS Beijing Chapter, SSCS Beijing Chapter, and SSCS Tsinghua Student Chapter. The co-chairs of the first ACTS were Dr. Milin Zhang, Dr. Hanjun Jiang and Dr. Liyuan Liu. The first ACTS was a great success as illustrated by the many participants from all over China as well as by the publicity it has been received in various media outlets, including Xinhua News, one of the most popular news channels in China.

Author: Aria Adli
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110346850
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 322

View

Book Description
Where is the locus of language variation? In the grammar, outside the grammar or somewhere in between? Taking up the debate between system- and usage-based approaches, this volume provides new discussions of fundamental issues of language variation. It includes several highly insightful theoretical contributions as well as innovative empirical studies considering different types of data, the role of priming in language change and rare phenomena.