PACS and Imaging Informatics: Basic Principles and Applications

Book Description

This new Second Edition addresses the latest in picture archiving and communications systems (PACS), from the electronic patient record to the full range of topics in digital imaging. In contrast to the previous edition, this updated text uses the framework of image informatics, not physics or engineering principles, to explain PACS. This book is the only resource that thoroughly covers the critical issues of hardware/software design and implementation in a systematic and easily comprehensible manner.
The new edition features additional chapters on web-based PACS, security, integrating the healthcare enterprise, clinical management systems, and the electronic patient record.
It addresses how PACS can improve workflow, therapy, and treatment, and discusses integration of PACS in hospitals. Offering a clear guide for those purchasing and installing PACS, it is written in clear, non-technical language by a widely acknowledged pioneer in the field and does not assume advanced knowledge of physics, engineering, or math principles. The text also contains substantive new treatment of key topics in image informatics, including light imaging, digital radiography, teleconsultation, and image archive servers.

Customer Reviews:

Quality Issue ?.......2007-05-15

The context of the book definately meets my expectations.The book provides a complete overview of PACs I am a bit concerned as to to quality of the book. The binding has already started to become loose in one section. the book has not been abused in any way. Carried in a briefcase and read at home. May be just this copy.

Average customer rating:

The Perception of Visual Information
William R. Hendee , and Peter N.T. Wells
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387949100

Book Description

The presentation and interpretation of visual information is essential to almost every activity in human life and most endeavors of modern technology. This book examines the current status of what is known (and not known) about human vision, how human observers interpret visual data, and how to present such data to facilitate their interpretation and use. Written by experts who are able to cross disciplinary boundaries, the book provides an educational pathway through several models of human vision; describes how the visual response is analyzed and quantified; presents current theories of how the human visual response is interpreted; discusses the cognitive responses of human observers; and examines such applications as space exploration, manufacturing, surveillance, earth and air sciences, and medicine. The book is intended for everyone with an undergraduate-level background in science or engineering with an interest in visual science. This second edition has been brought up to date throughout and contains a new chapter on "Virtual reality and augmented reality in medicine."

Integrated Geospatial Technologies: A Guide to GPS, GIS, and Data Logging

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Integrated Geospatial Technologies: A Guide to GPS, GIS, and Data Logging
Jeff Thurston , Thomas K. Poiker , and J. Patrick Moore
Manufacturer: Wiley
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0471244090

Book Description

Discusses the underlying theory of GPS and GIS without becoming overly technical.
* Includes case studies presenting international experience and real-world applications.
* Provides discussions of instrumentation and guidelines for selecting the right device for the job.

Dynamic Modeling (Modeling Dynamic Systems)

Average customer rating:

learning to use STELLA on different problems
Dynamic Modeling, Second Edition
Great blend of concept and practice
Stimualting book for those interested in System Dynamics

Dynamic Modeling (Modeling Dynamic Systems)
Bruce Hannon , and Matthias Ruth
Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover

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Dynamic Modeling for Business Management: An Introduction (Modeling Dynamic Systems)
Dynamic Modeling of Environmental Systems (Modeling Dynamic Systems)
Modeling the Environment: An Introduction To System Dynamics Modeling Of Environmental Systems
Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World with CD-ROM
Principles of Systems

Accessories:

Biomedical Informatics: Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine (Health Informatics)
Fundamentals of Clinical Research: Bridging Medicine, Statistics and Operations (Statistics for Biology and Health)
Patient Flow: Reducing Delay in Healthcare Delivery (International Series in Operations Research & Management Science)

ASIN: 0387988688

Book Description

Computer models offer a means of interpreting and analyzing the dynamics of real-world systems ranging from population growth to ozone depletion and a new section on modeling in genetics. Dynamic Modeling introduces an approach to modeling that makes it a more practical, intuitive endeavor. The book enables readers to convert their understanding of a phenomenon to a computer model, and then to run the model and let it yield the inevitable dynamic consequences built into the structure of the model. Dynamic Modeling uses STELLA software to develop simulation models. Part I provides an introduction to modeling dynamic systems. Part II offers general methods for modeling. Parts III through VIII apply these methods to model real-world phenomena from chemistry, genetics, ecology, economics, and engineering. To develop and execute dynamic simulation models, Dynamic Modeling comes with STELLA run-time software compatible with both Windows and Mac systems, as well as computer files of sample models used in the book. Dynamic Modeling offers a clear, approachable introduction to the modeling process, and will be of interest in any field where real problems can be illuminated by computer simulation.

Customer Reviews:

learning to use STELLA on different problems.......2006-01-27

The book teaches the use of a modelling program called STELLA, that can be used to simulate the behaviour of dynamical systems. You can treat the text as an extended user's manual about the capabilities of STELLA. It appears to be an easy program to learn. Its user interface hides the gory details of coupled integro-differential equations that actually model the systems.

More generally, the theory of modelling a dynamical system is developed. With a deprecating of the maths. Showing how positive and negative feedback and randomness can or should be introduced. The idea is to introduce STELLA to a broad audience, who can then perform modelling. Where otherwise they might have been put off by the amount of maths to be understood or the amount of code to be written.

Then, several chapters go into important special cases. There is a chapter on chemical models for mass action. This chapter is a little terse. No mention of molecular dynamics, which has been a very active area of simulation for decades and is highly developed.

And a chapter on genetics, where evolution is discussed. Then a chapter on different types of models of ecologies. Including, naturally, the predator-prey models. And a perhaps very topical section on how epidemics might spread. This is important in trying to understand how to contain AIDS, SARS or a new influenza.

Economic modelling is also gone into. Simulating scarcity of resources and how firms might compete.

Dynamic Modeling, Second Edition.......2003-06-21

This is an excellent book for beginning and intermediate modelers. I found it to be engaging, practical, and easy to understand. Dynamic modeling has become an essential tool to facilitate understanding developments in our increasingly complex and interdependent world, to communicate ideas across disciplinary boundaries, and to help solve problems. This book is a great place to begin. It offers a hands-on introduction to dynamic modeling.

The authors start with an easy to understand, step-by-step description of the modeling process, key principles of modeling, and general methods of modeling. This is followed-up with and numerous examples from chemistry, genetics, ecology, economics, and engineering. But this is not just a book to read. The book comes with run-time versions of the easy to learn STELLA and Madonna software as well as copies of the various models developed in each of the 37 chapters.

The authors encourage readers to build the models themselves as they work through the chapters, and then explore the dynamics by experimenting with the models. This is an active, fun way to learn. It definitely helped me to expand my systems thinking capability. Although my substantive interest is organizations, I learned a great deal by analogy from working through models of problems from other disciplines. Basic systems principles apply across disciplines, and useful insights can be gleaned from recognizing similar dynamic structures underlying different systems.

I particularly liked the instruction by example that is used throughout this book. I learned so much from this book because the reading and modeling, modeling and reading formed a positive feedback loop. The reading provided direction and engaged me in the modeling, and the modeling clarified and reinforced the concepts in the reading. Drawing from my experience with this book, I think it is ideal for those who are just getting started in dynamic modeling or have been learning for several years but want to sharpen and expand their systems thinking and modeling skills.

Great blend of concept and practice.......2003-06-20

I have been involved in static data modeling as part of database design throughout my career, and because of that know very well that to really learn how to model, you have to do more than listen to lectures or read a text. This book, along with the accompanying STELLA modeling tool, is an excellent blend of concept and practice.

The book begins with a short tutorial of the STELLA tool, a run-time version of which is included. (STELLA is very easy to use, and although the math underlying it relies heavily on differential equations, the user can be completely removed from that and still model effectively.) The early chapters gradually develop an understanding of dynamic modeling by building on basic concepts. The following chapters work through models in various areas, such as genetics, economics, and ecology, and provide exposure to modeling in these disciplines, as well as introducing some very interesting aspects of models, such as chaos, randomness, and non-predictable results.

By way of introduction to modeling concepts, case studies are presented clearly and concisely. These are followed by an explanation of a basic model of the system being examined. There are always additional questions that lead to expansion of the ideas being presented, so that the reader can increase their understanding and have opportunities to practice the skills presented.

I used this book for a course in Dynamic Modeling, and found it to be great in presenting the basic concepts of dynamic modeling and in developing a heightened awareness that any system being studied is really a dynamic process. It took this understanding to the next step and showed how to model that process and how to run the model and watch the dynamics in action, while honing the skills of analyzing, refining, and looking for trends and unanticipated results. The book opened up a whole new way of viewing systems for me.

Stimualting book for those interested in System Dynamics.......2002-06-05

The book is extremely well written and is so far the best attempt by any author(s)to achieve the right mix of theory and practice in the field of system dynamics. The organization of contents of the book is unique and it highlights the potential use of system dynamics principles for modeling a variety of hydro, ecological, environmental and engineered systems. The principles of system dynamics modeling and the complexities of physical systems are clearly explained by the authors and real-world examples from a number of disciplines are provided. Modelers can benefit from the actual code/examples from the simulation modeling environment, STELLA. The book includes a CD-ROM with all the examples/models discussed in the text to enhance the learning experience of modelers.

Silicon Second Nature: Culturing Artificial Life in a Digital World, Updated With a New Preface

Average customer rating:

What a revelation!
Inside Stefan's head
An entertaining disappointment
Inpenetrable
Wonderful study of ALife social-contextual issues

Silicon Second Nature: Culturing Artificial Life in a Digital World, Updated With a New Preface
Stefan Helmreich
Manufacturer: University of California Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520208005

Amazon.com

Few scientific disciplines are as ripe for ethnographic study as artificial life, known as a-life, a hybrid, high-tech field with practitioners who routinely suggest that the self-replicating computer programs they design not only mimic but actually are living creatures. As Stanford anthropologist Stefan Helmreich convincingly demonstrates, it takes more than just chutzpah to advance such a claim--it takes a powerful belief system. The belief system Helmreich fingers is the complex web of historical, mythical, and religious narratives that form the fabric of modern Western culture.

Of course, a good deal of solid science goes into a-life's elaborate digital simulations of the biological world, and Helmreich takes care not to let his cultural analysis drown that science out. Indeed, his descriptions of the theories and techniques behind some researchers' attempts at concocting artificial life--ranging from simple computer viruses to Tom Ray's globally distributed Tierra system for breeding digital "organisms"--are occasionally more compelling than his own attempts to read disturbing racial and sexual mythologies into those experiments.

Ultimately, though, what fascinates Helmreich about a-life is neither the biology nor the mythology, but the way this unique discipline highlights the intersection of the two. A-life researchers may or may not have created new organisms, but what they have created, Helmreich argues, points the way to a new and more sophisticated understanding of the delicate relationship between science and culture. --Julian Dibbell

Book Description

Silicon Second Nature takes us on an expedition into an extraordinary world where nature is made of bits and bytes and life is born from sequences of zeroes and ones. Artificial Life is the brainchild of scientists who view self-replicating computer programs--such as computer viruses--as new forms of life. Anthropologist Stefan Helmreich's look at the social and simulated worlds of Artificial Life--primarily at the Santa Fe Institute, a well-known center for studies in the sciences of complexity--introduces readers to the people and programs connected with this unusual hybrid of computer science and biology.
When biology becomes an information science, when DNA is downloaded into virtual reality, new ways of imagining "life" become possible. Through detailed dissections of the artifacts of Artifical Life, Helmreich explores how these novel visions of life are recombining with the most traditional tales told by Western culture. Because Artificial Life scientists tend to see themselves as masculine gods of their cyberspace creations, as digital Darwins exploring frontiers filled with primitive creatures, their programs reflect prevalent representations of gender, kinship, and race, and repeat origin stories most familiar from mythical and religious narratives.
But Artificial Life does not, Helmreich says, simply reproduce old stories in new software. Much like contemporary activities of cloning, cryonics, and transgenics, the practice of simulating and synthesizing life in silico challenges and multiplies the very definition of vitality. Are these models, as some would claim, actually another form of the real thing? Silicon Second Nature takes Artifical Life as a symptom and source of our mutating visions of life itself.

Customer Reviews:

What a revelation!.......2004-04-18

I must admit that it took me repeated readings to appreciate the depth of the research that has gone into this insightful book. Dr. Stefan Helmreich's critique of the tribe of Artificial Life scientists is right on, courageous and extremely thought provoking.

(...)

Inside Stefan's head.......2002-06-10

The cover blurb says "Anthropologist Stefan Helmreich's look at the social and simulated worlds of Artificial Life" and it turns out to be horribly true. I hoped to learn how the programmers viewed their simulated worlds, and how that relates to their culture. Instead I found how Stefan looks at the programmers, and what he thinks of science. The background description of individuals and institutions isn't bad. The rest is.

Camille Paglia is not usually classified as an anthropologist, but this book reminded me of her - if she couldn't write well and ignored the culture she wrote about. This book has little bearing on its purported subject, and the author's personal views of science aren't interesting (largely because he's speaking on a subject he clearly doesn't understand). If you want Camille Paglia, read Camille Paglia. If you want an actual anthroplogical study of science or A-life, don't waste your time here.

An entertaining disappointment.......2002-05-29

Stefan Helmreich presents an entertaining glimpse into the culture, the lives, and the musings of many of the leading voices in the field of artificial life. One of the real strengths of this book is his ability to offer a perspective from 'inside' the discipline--a view not only of the history and present status and future direction of the field of artificial life, but of the scientists and researchers responsible. That, plus his personal fascination with the subject matter and his obvious writing skills, strike you within the first few pages. This was at times a literate and enjoyable read.

Unfortunately, it was also frustrating and, ultimately, disappointing. Frustrating because it is patently obvious that the author approached his subject matter with his ethnographic conclusions firmly in place prior to ever examining the evidence. There is no other way one can explain the lengths he goes to convince the reader that white, heterosexual, male-dominated mythologies lurk under every bush he came across in Santa Fe. As such, truly interesting questions he raises--such as the religious aspect of silicon-based creation--are either left unread by the reader long since turned off by his biased approach, or else unfairly dismissed as equally prejudiced.

And disappointing, because in the long run most of his efforts are either irrelevant, or trivial. Computational studies in evolution are at bottom a matter of binary code. Zero's and one's. They are neither black nor white, Baptist or Buddhist, straight or gay, male or female. Now, clearly the researcher at their computer may indeed be any of the above--but that does not change the code itself. So in this sense Helmreich's observations are irrelevant. On the other hand, no one would argue the fact that personal bias may well contaminate interpretations of computational results. Personal bias may well contaminate almost everything we say and do, to one degree or another. But that is a rather trivial observation to make--one that has everything to do with human beings, and next to nothing to do with the science of computational evolution, which is what I had assumed from the title "Silicon Second Nature" that this book was about.

Inpenetrable.......2001-10-15

The best I can say about this book is that it is the most outstanding example of academic pretentiousness I've ever encountered. The author's acknowledgments alone cover six pages and include over 185 names.
My own background includes a college education (philosophy and mathematics) and ten years as a college instructor in computer science. I'm quite used to reading and comprehending technically sophisticated literature, often poorly written. I can even claim to have understood much of Microsoft's documentation for their developer products. Nevertheless, I found Mr. Helmreich's prose quite inpenetrable. If his goal was to explain the people and culture behind the new field of Artificial Life to a lay audience, he has failed miserably.
To be fair, I must admit that I put the book down after struggling through the first thirty pages of the main text. The book's cover states that Mr. Helmreich is a professor at NYU. If the prose in his book is any indication of the lucidity of his lectures to his students, they have my deepest sympathy.

Wonderful study of ALife social-contextual issues.......2000-04-27

The book is easy-to-read and yet profound. It delineates some of the biases, givens, and constants that may exist and are unperceived. The book also serves as an excellent intro to ALife studies at one of the worlds major thinktanks and research centers.

Digital Zoology Version 2.0 CD-ROM with Workbook

Average customer rating:

exceeds expectations

Digital Zoology Version 2.0 CD-ROM with Workbook
Jon Houseman
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0072564814

Book Description

Digital Zoology provides students in whole animal biology courses such as general zoology, invertebrate zoology, and vertebrate zoology with an interactive guide to the specimens and materials that they will be studying in their laboratory and lecture sessions. Digital Zoology Version 2.0 offers additional invertebrate specimens, an interactive glossary that has doubled in size, and "Read Abouts," which take a detailed look at the over 100 animal groups included in the program. Also, Digital Zoology is now an Internet, web browser-based program that can be run from the CD-ROM included in the Student Workbook, or from the Digital Zoology website: www.digitalzoology.com. Users of the website will find additional features that aren't available on the CD-ROM: the ability to take notes and place personalized bookmarks in the program for handy reference to sections important for your studies. The Student Workbook provides a quick look at different animals traditionally studied in zoology labs and serves as a useful study tool for review of lab dissection exercises.

Customer Reviews:

exceeds expectations.......2005-09-28

i received this item within good time and the item came to me in good condition.

Heaven in a Chip: Fuzzy Visions of Society and Science in the Digital Age

Average customer rating:

"Heaven in a Chip" destroyed the value of this book
Read With an Empty Stomach and an Open Mind
Clarifies the Fuzzy Future
An Ambitious Attempt to Integrate Numerous Ideas
Kosko's Predictions for the Future of Technology

Heaven in a Chip: Fuzzy Visions of Society and Science in the Digital Age
Bart Kosko
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Noise
Fuzzy Thinking: The New Science of Fuzzy Logic
Fuzzy Logic: The Revolutionary Computer Technology That Is Changing Our World
Fuzzy Logic for Beginners
Fuzzy Engineering

ASIN: 0609805673
Release Date: 2000-11-07

Amazon.com

As the leading American proponent and theorist of the software-design philosophy known as fuzzy logic, Bart Kosko, author of Fuzzy Future: From Society and Science to Heaven in a Chip, can be expected to have high hopes for the discipline. And it's not like it hasn't lived up to some of them already. Forsaking the binary either/or at the heart of digital computing, fuzzy logic's emphasis on the shades of gray between true and false makes it a valuable way to program microchips that guide factories, cars, household appliances, and other gadgetry that works with the physical world's nonbinary facts. It also makes for a pretty slick philosophical end run around the yes-or-no logic that has been the basis of Western thought for the last couple of millennia.

But here Kosko announces that fuzzy logic is ready to do more. Taxes, voting rights, abortion, warfare, genetic engineering, deep physics, computer-generated art, the quest for transcendent posthuman immortality--all of these and more, he tells us, may in the future be transformed by the powerful techniques of fuzzy thinking. The overall result: less government, ignorance, poverty, death; more power to the people. This of course is exciting news, and that may explain why Kosko sometimes seems less than interested in nailing down the details of what fuzz has to do with any of it. So if it's an education in fuzziness you want, look elsewhere--at Kosko's earlier, more introductory Fuzzy Thinking perhaps. But for a vivid snapshot of fuzzy thinking at its most ambitious, jump right on in. --Julian Dibbell

Book Description

Would you still be you if a chip replaced your brain? Who draws the line in the digital age? Those with the most power? Does the digital age even have black-and-white parameters? Where does one country's Internet jurisdiction end and another's begin? Who owns the ocean or the moon -- or your genome blueprint? Bart Kosko sheds new insight on these questions and shows how a revolutionary way of thinking will affect every aspect of life from politics and genetics to warfare, technology, art, privacy, and even mortality itself.

Customer Reviews:

"Heaven in a Chip" destroyed the value of this book.......2007-09-10

"Your memory is just one small database that you can access at the speed of light. You can command armies of intelligent agents and search thousands or millions of database and knowledge networks. And you can sense all store knowledge of art and science and news and history much as you scan a newspaper."

>>Frankly, there is not enough information. There will always be more search engines than information. Information will be repackaged and refractored in numerous variations, but the core information is infinite. The brains poor memory is offset by its ability to create. Can a chip create new thought? To touch the divine is to create. Creation of thought is not random. Genetic Algorithms work because all the states of the problem are known. GA converge faster when intelligent analysis reduces the number of states and more clear defines the rules.

"You can dampen or amplify pain and pleasure signals and weave new patterns of emotion or feeling and shut them off when you are tire of them."

>>Emotion is necessary element to thinking and reasoning and by shutting down the wrong emotion the individual will become disoriented and confused. Emotion is necessary for recognition and consciousness. Lose of emotion will resulting in neurological paralysis in the cognitive processes of the mind.

>>Evolution destroys morality and it cancels out a life purpose, and traps the person into believing free will does not exist. By shutting down the emotion of guilt a person shuts down the emotion that help will they avoid wrong morals behavior and chose right moral behavior. For example, it is immortal to steal and kill. Strong emotional barriers based on morality help individuals deter from acting out these behaviors. The ability to turn emotion on or off is not preferred. The power to cancel out emotion morality is the evolutionist dream; it is the perfect way to destroy any feeling of morality. The resulting behavior is destructive. A hedonist will amplify pleasurable emotions and dampen painful emotions; this will distort the perfect balance that exists in the mind.

"You can relive any past memory or modify memory as vividly as you lie the current moment. And all and some of this you can share with others in the chipnet or chiploaf."

>>If memory can be modified then it also can be reprogrammed and cloned. Memory distinction is a valuable part of existence. Memory and experience provides a distinct signature of who we are.

"In a chip time passes a million or billion times more slowly if you want to...A good crystal chip could last for thousands or millions of years or until it fell into a star or black hole."

>>A brain in a chip requires a society is a society of disembodied agents in a complex network of information interconnected with hierarchical rules of order. Complexity does not provide meaning. Increased complexity provides no advantage in terms of gain or increase for man. The loss of identity and the appreciation for individuality will be the values destroyed by assimilation. A parent and child enjoy a social communication, bond, and relationship and bring emotional satisfaction. The emotion of joy and love are prized emotions that intelligent beings desire. The acquisition of knowledge does not perpetual increase. Intelligence perpetuates increase in context and meaning. The ability to feel pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, love and hate are the ends of intelligence not the means.

"That long life in a chip might be as close as we can come to heaven in a universe made of matter and energy and information. It can be heaven or hell in a chip...Bit streams have no more purpose than do the blind genetic pathways of Darwinian evolution."

>>No purpose, no meaning, no intelligent design, no direction, no context, and devoid of creative thought. Pure thought will not create an utopian world.

"Believers may also transfer their belief to a chip's bit stream."

>>What is belief? It is a feeling that something is true, it is an emotion. It is impossible to transfer an emotion to a chip. Chips can only mimck the responses of emotion with puppet strings and gestures. Real emotions in a chip will not exist. Is reality what we think?

"And religion has failed to explain the mechanics of the soul".

>>Science has proven nothing. Faith is not a mechanical recreation. Faith is the substance of things that are true but not seen. True faith, philosophy, and science will cooperate and explain complexity and provide meaning and context. Random convergence of hidden rules will not explain complexity. Instead, it will not be understood and it will be worshipped. Evolutionary science will fail to explain the mechanics of its creations.

"A digital mind has a physical identity because it is a unique pattern in a bit stream."

>>Can a hologram have a soul? Is a hologram aware of his existence? Digital bits have no awareness or identity. If the bit patterns in the stream morph by rules embedded within the data, the digital identity is lost.

"Where is the justice in granting someone infinite pleasure in exchange for finite pain or for finite good deeds or worship?"

>>We learn from experience. Pain is necessary for survival. Remove pain and you won't last a week. Pain drives us to eat and work. Pain is a part of life.

Read With an Empty Stomach and an Open Mind.......2007-03-12

There is a lot going on in this book. I'd like to say that it was actually good. But I can't. It was OK. About ten years ago I read an interview of Kosko in the IEEE Spectrum magazine. I was immediately floored by this man's talents: musician, mathematician, scientist, philosopher, you name it, the man had done it. At about the same time, I read Kosko's Fuzzy Thinking. This was at the tail end of a graduate school career, and I enjoyed it very much. The raves from that interview were true. That book opened my mind to a whole new way of approaching math. Recently, I was in the book store, and noticed Kosko's newest book, Noise, on the shelf; I opened it up, skimmed the contents, and remembered what a pleaseure it was to read Fuzzy Thinking so many years ago. I thought I would "catch up" with my Kosko reading before tackling his newest volume. So this is why I bought Heaven in a Chip.

The book is full of ideas.

Unfortunately, many of these ideas read like science fiction, and only a small fraction of them will prove prescient. The appendix is loaded with equations and notes that, I think, would have read better if they were integrated into the main text. The book reads like a stream-of-consciousness at times, with the end-notes tacked on to provide some rigor. Kosko surely knows his stuff.

Being ten years older than when I read Kosko for the first time, I'm much more tuned in to the man's writing ability, his ability to convey ideas in a tight manner, and his grammar and punctuation. Probably due to the success of his previous work (or laziness by the editor) many punctuation errors abound, giving way to choppy sentences and difficult to understand prose. The ideas are there, but they're not tight.

The book is divided into three parts:
Part 1: Fuzzy Politics
Part 2: Fuzzy science
Part 3: Fuzzy Digital Culture

Each part is divided into chapters that give examples of how fuzzy logic can help make a better society, make better technology, or make better government.

In brief, fuzzy logic is the application of the belief that things in the world (and universe) are not just "black and white," but shades of gray. Objects can "be" two apposing properties at once. For example, a person can be both evil and good, to a certain degree, at the same time. Extend this reasoning to math, and then apply it to society, government, and science, and you have the jist of this book.

I don't know where you will find a book quite like this one. Buy it because it's unique, but try not to squirm too much every time Kosko misses a comma.

Clarifies the Fuzzy Future.......2003-05-07

Kosko hits a home run here. Much better than his Fuzzy Thinking tome.

An Ambitious Attempt to Integrate Numerous Ideas.......2001-11-27

"The Fuzzy Future" is a wide-ranging work that attempts to integrate concepts from disciplines as diverse as physics, neurophysiology, and the social sciences. It's well-written, but not always easy to follow, due to the diverse subject matter. Definitely not "light reading"!

Kosko's Predictions for the Future of Technology.......2000-01-28

Kosko predicts the future within the framework of a paradigm shift from binary thinking to fuzzy logic. There is an extensive index to allow for easy reference and about 100 pages of footnotes that keep the technical jargon out of the primary text. The story flows like a science fiction novel in which the author is constantly surprising the reader with new insights into the way things may be. A great book that leaves you feeling enlightened and just plain smarter.

Average customer rating:

An excellent introductory text.
A fascinating read
Disappointing
Maybe a good layman introduction to the field.
Fantastic duet of computer science and biology

Digital Biology
Peter J. Bentley
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Machine Nature: The Coming Age of Bio-Inspired Computing
Environmental Evolution - 2nd Edition: Effects of the Origin and Evolution of Life on Planet Earth
Life Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaning
Creation: Life and How to Make It
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software

ASIN: 0743204476

Amazon.com

Viruses, bugs, bots, ants: the metaphors, language, and realities of the digital world increasingly parallel those of the biological world. This vigorous book shows why those parallels are appropriate, even natural.

By studying the biological world and applying it to cyberspace and by using the natural processes responsible for life within computer systems, evolutionary biologist Peter Bentley writes, "we are overturning all preconceptions of what computers can and cannot do." They can do much, of course. Computers today can grow architectural models from digital "genes," can detect the difference between healthy and malignant cells, can even mimic certain behaviors of living beings. Tucking a handy primer in biological theory among sometimes heady discussions of the digital universe, Bentley focuses closely on the workings of computers today, projecting what might be true of those machines just a few years from now thanks to the workings of evolution--not strictly Darwinian evolution, to be sure, but evolution all the same.

Of interest to a wide range of readers, Bentley's book raises provocative questions as it prowls around inside the "benign cream-colored boxes" that surround us. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

Imagine a future world where computers can create universes -- digital environments made from binary ones and zeros. Imagine that within these universes there exist biological forms that reproduce, grow, and think. Imagine plantlike forms, ant colonies, immune systems, and brains, all adapting, evolving, and getting better at solving problems. Imagine if our computers became greenhouses for a new kind of nature. Just think what digital biology could do for us.

Perhaps it could evolve new designs for us, think up ways to detect fraud using digital neurons, or solve scheduling problems with ants. Perhaps it could detect hackers with immune systems or create music from the patterns of growth of digital seashells. Perhaps it would allow our computers to become creative and inventive.

Now stop imagining.

digital biology is an intriguing glimpse into the future of technology by one of the most creative thinkers working in computer science today. As Peter J. Bentley explains, the next giant step in computing technology is already under way as computer scientists attempt to create digital universes that replicate the natural world. Within these digital universes, we will evolve solutions to problems, construct digital brains that can learn and think, and use immune systems to trap and destroy computer viruses.

The biological world is the model for the next generation of computer software. By adapting the principles of biology, computer scientists will make it possible for computers to function as the natural world does. In practical terms, this will mean that we will soon have "smart" devices, such as houses that will keep the temperature as we like it and automobiles that will start only for drivers they recognize (through voice recognition or other systems) and that will navigate highways safely and with maximum fuel efficiency. Computers will soon be powerful enough and small enough that they can become part of clothing. "Digital agents" will be able to help us find a bank or restaurant in a city that we have never visited before, even as we walk through the airport. Miniature robots may even be incorporated into our bodies to monitor our health.

Digital Biology is also an exploration of biology itself from a new perspective. We must understand how nature works in its most intimate detail before we can use these same biological processes inside our computers. Already scientists engaged in this work have gained new insights into the elegant simplicity of the natural universe.

This is a visionary book, written in accessible, nontechnical language, that explains how cutting-edge computer science will shape our world in the coming decades.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent introductory text........2004-05-25

It is difficult to read this book and not catch the bug of biologically inspired computing. It is fascinating, inspiring and comprehensive (even my dad read it). It clearly makes the point that by understanding the way nature solves its problems we have discovered a whole new class of computation.

The book takes you smoothly through the basic domains of biologically inspired computing. Starting with the definition of a digital universe (that makes you think twice about our own), it introduces evolutionary computation, neural networks, ant colonies, artificial immune systems and other fascinating computational metaphors. It explains their foundations and underlying theories and describes their practical applications.

My only complaint: there are no references to scientific papers. The motivated reader will have to spent some time searching the web for further reading, other than the books included in the bibliography.

A fascinating read.......2004-05-15

I've got to say that I thought this was a wonderful book. An absolutely fascinating overview of a new and developing field of science. Nicely laid out, elegantly written, very "easy style", lots of detailed material is covered for each of the areas the author touches on, so you get depth aswell as the overview. The author presents some very interesting perspectives on existing ideas about biology and machines. Useful notes at the end and the further reading section is good.

Rather than be another "here is the future" book by yet another science journalist, this is a book with its feet very much in the present and written by a scientist who is active in the field (rather than a journalist). Do not be alarmed! This guy writes well. I'm not going to say it's a one- sitting read (because that would just make me too much of a techno-nerd), however it's definitely a page-turner.

In terms of books available, I think that there is presently only one other non text-book that takes an overview of this field (Moshe Sipper - Machine Nature), though I'm sure there are gonna be a lot more before too long . If you want 2 books - buy both. If you just want the one - I thought Peter Bentley's had detail aswell as breadth whereas Moshe Sippers, whilst still a very good book, stayed more at an overview level.

Disappointing.......2003-09-05

This book did not deliver what I was expecting. I thought there would be detailed examples of the use of biological concepts in computing. Unfortunately I was very wrong.

There are some examples, however they are very vague with little or no detail. Frequently the author asserts a technique has too many applications to go into in any detail without boring the reader. Next he proceeds to rattle off a dozen vague applications such as scheduling, optimization, etc. without giving enough information about the application to be useful.

The center of the book contains a number of pictures that are the result of one technique or another. Unfortunately he does not elaborate on how any of them were created. I enjoyed seeing the coffee table his computer designed. Unfortunately the only explaination he gave on how the program worked was something to the effect that it was complicated. A bit more detail or perhaps even code would have been much better.

Beyond my perceived technical shortcomings, the author's style did not appeal to me. For example he wrote a fairly detailed account of what it might be like (as though a virus could think) to be a virus invading a host. Perhaps this was an attempt to engage the readers' imaginations. If so, the effect was wasted on this reader.

Two stars seemed right as there are worse books in the world. However I doubt most people would gain much from reading it.

Maybe a good layman introduction to the field........2003-06-07

I agree with other reviewers of this book who say that it doesn't deal with any of its topics deeply (as the author says in the book, it's just a summary of conversations he had with the scientists he gives all of about half a page to each, and material he found on the Internet) and that the writing is just a shade above mediocre. The author isn't a bad writer, necessarily, he's just very inconsistent. If he stuck with facts instead of pretending to be a fiction or magazine writer, he'd do well. Also, if he stuck with a British voice and didn't cater to Americans, that would be a good move. If you want to tailor your writing to an American audience, fine--do that and don't make a point of it. Otherwise, stick with your native tendencies, as it tends to make the book more readable.

This book is just ok. A few parts were downright painful, but mainly just because of the writing. The content was never painful, just boring in many places. For anybody with a background in complex adaptive systems, current computer science research, or any of the in vogue areas like network theory or chaos, this book can easily be put aside for others. If you're a layperson just looking for an introduction to the research being done connecting computers and biology, this book might be good. For serious readers, there are better books like 'At Home in the Universe' by Stuart Kauffman (excellent) and 'Complexity' by Mitchell Waldrop (also excellent). Those books are much older, but much more thought-provoking and well-written. They may not cover some of the newest research, but this book covers everything with such lack of depth you won't really get anything more out of reading it.

In short: not a bad book, but could have been much better in writing and content, and serious readers would do better elsewhere.

Fantastic duet of computer science and biology.......2002-07-31

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Since reading it, I have refocused most of my spare time into studying artificial life, microcosms, complexity, bottom-up organization, etc...
If you have a computer science or programming background you will find the first chapter boring. Everything else is golden!

Book Description

Robots, androids, and bionic people pervade popular culture, from classics like Frankenstein and R.U.R. to modern tales such as The Six Million Dollar Man, The Terminator, and A.I. Our fascination is obvious - and the technology is quickly moving from books and films to real life.

In a lab at MIT, scientists and technicians have created an artificial being named COG. To watch COG interact with the environment - to recognize that this machine has actual body language - is to experience a hair-raising, gut-level reaction. Because just as we connect to artificial people in fiction, the merest hint of human-like action or appearance invariably engages us.

Digital People examines the ways in which technology is inexorably driving us to a new and different level of humanity. As scientists draw on nanotechnology, molecular biology, artificial intelligence, and materials science, they are learning how to create beings that move, think, and look like people. Others are routinely using sophisticated surgical techniques to implant computer chips and drug-dispensing devices into our bodies, designing fully functional man-made body parts, and linking human brains with computers to make people healthier, smarter, and stronger.

In short, we are going beyond what was once only science fiction to create bionic people with fully integrated artificial components - and it will not be long before we reach the ultimate goal of constructing a completely synthetic human-like being.

It seems quintessentially human to look beyond our natural limitations. Science has long been the lens through which we squint to discern our future. Although we are rightfully fearful about manipulating the boundaries between animate and inanimate, the benefits are too great to ignore. This thoughtful and provocative book shows us just where technology is taking us, in directions both wonderful and terrible, to ponder what it means to be human.

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding Analysis of the Rise of Bionic Humans.......2004-11-15

The quest for immortality has been a persistent theme in human history. From the mythology of ancient Greece through the ages to the present we have sought limitless life. Stories of vampires, for instance, are in part predicated on the quest for eternal life. So is the story of Frankenstein. But Sidney Perkowitz, professor of physics at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, demonstrates in this important new book written for a general audience that the quest has taken the form of androids, robots, and cyborgs for millennia. For example, Talos of Greek myth was a bronze automaton created by Hephaestus. More recently, fiction has given us robots, cyborgs, and replicants that all demonstrated this quest for immortality. For the first time modern science has created the possibility that the bionic human might be possible in the twenty-first century.

After an introduction that suggests that androids are all around us, Perkowitz divides his study into two parts--"Artificial Beings: Meaning and History" and "How Far Along are We?"--and proceeds to discuss the evolution of the quest for eternal life and the possibilities that exist at the present. In the process he argues that humans have always been bionic from the point that they picked up the first stick and used it as a club to the ultimate merging of humans and machines in cyborgian symbiosis. We see this all the time with artificial body parts made for amputees or hip or knee or other replacements. We also see it with pacemakers and diabetic pumps and hearing aids and eyeglasses.

Perkowitz believes that this is just the beginning of the merging of human and machines and finds the possibilities for the future truly exciting. He does envision serious moral and ethical concerns that require concentrated and long-term consideration. He does not, however, envision any way of stopping this inexorable movement toward ever-greater symbiosis between living beings and technology.

The quest for a bionic person is well underway in laboratories around the world and Perkowitz takes us on a tour of some of the most inventive people and places, ranging from Rodney Brooks and Cynthia Breazeal at MIT to the Honda Corporation lab to the ROBODEX 2003 exposition where the latest ideas on robotics found expression. There is, in Perkowitz's thinking, a critical mass driving humanity toward a new and different level of life and consciousness. Science is exploiting fast developing knowledge of materials, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and molecular biology to move toward the creation of ever more complex machines that look and act like people. At the same time scientists are incorporating into humans more and more technology to enhance the quality and longevity of life.

As written on the dust jacket of "Digital People": "In short, we are going beyond what was once the stuff of books and films to create genuine bionic people with fully integrated artificial components--and it will not be long before we reach the ultimate goal of constructing a completely synthetic human-like being." Perkowitz asks, will this step lead to reinterpretations of the meaning of life and debase the human spirit? As text on the dustjacket indicates: "Certainly this God-like ability brings us face-to-face with a host of troubling spiritual, ethical, and legal dilemmas."

This is a stimulating book, one that educates and provokes and questions all at the same time. I highly recommend it.

Digital Image Analysis of Microbes: Imaging, Morphometry, Fluorometry and Motility Techniques and Applications

Average customer rating:

Digital Image Analysis of Microbes: Imaging, Morphometry, Fluorometry and Motility Techniques and Applications

Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0471974404

Book Description

Providing specific knowledge in the theory of image analysis, optics, fluorescence, and imaging devices in biomedical laboratories, this timely and indispensable volume focuses on the theory and applications of detection, morphometry, and motility measurement techniques applied to bacteria, fungi, yeasts and protozoa.

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