Neural and synergetic computers. Proceedings of the international symposium at Schloss Elmau, Bavaria, June 13-17, 1988 (Q1801226)

[The articles of this volume will not be indexed individually.] The proceedings comprises 17 contributions, many by well-known people in the field. It is divided into three parts. Part I brings under the title ``Synergetics, self-organization, pattern recognition'' a nice exposition of synergetics principles [H. Haken] and Adaptive resonance theory, including not so much widespread ART2 [G. A. Carpenter, S. Grossberg]. Computer simulations of synergetic system are applied to pattern recognition in the contribution, full of convincing pictures, by A. Fuchs and H. Haken. The last paper in this part by W. Güttinger and G. Dangelmayr analyses pattern formation and recognition using projection and variational principles. In Part II entitled ``Neural networks'' we also meet famous names: E. R. Caianiello introduces algebra of C-sets, suitable for description of pattern recognition processes and nets for the inverse problem. S. Amari confronts various types of associative memory models. G. Palm's idea on optimal local synaptic rules is presented by the author in form of theorems and a conjecture. In the paper by M. Weick main paradigms [Hopfield, Boltzmann, multilayered nets] are surveyed and the extensive bibliography is provided. Under the title ``Computation in cortical nets'', the authors W. von Seelen, H. A. Mallot and F. Giannakopoulos propose a neural network for visual information processing. Real electrical analogue parallel networks and their ability to contribute to pattern formation analysis are described by H. G. Purwins and Ch. Radehaus. W. Banzhaf uses parallel systems to find optimization of cost functions by diploid search strategies. Part III ``Perception and Motor control'' brings a paper by W. Reichhardt, R. W. Schlögl and M. Engelhaaf on movement detectors of the correlation type, J. A. S. Kelso and G. C. deGuzman suggest how the cooperation between the hands informs the design of the brain; an elaborate contribution by D. Bullock and S. Grossberg presents model on a self-organizing neural architectures for eye and arm movements and their coordination. The part is concluded by R. Eckmiller's paper, devoted to the management of sensory/motor trajectories in neural networks. The brief Part IV ``Optical systems'' consists of two papers with almost identical collectives of authors with the common intersection represented by L. A Lugiato, W. Kaige, L. M. Narducci, G. L. Oppo, F. Prati. The first paper [above mentioned and C. Oldano, L. Sartirana, G. Broggi] deals with spatial symmetry breaking, the second one [above listed and M. A. Pernigo, J. R. Tredicce, D. K. Bandy] treats cooperative frequency locking and spatial structures in lasers. Generally, the book represents a collection of papers of various degrees of specificity; you may find excellent surveys with many insights and local original contributions as well as particular approaches and results. The book also proves that it is not always easy to define exactly the scope of interdisciplinary topics like those in the title.