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A Concise Introduction to Computation Models and Computability Theory provides an introduction to the essential concepts in computability, using several models of computation, from the standard Turing Machines and Recursive Functions, to the modern computation models inspired by quantum physics. An in-depth analysis of the basic concepts underlying each model of computation is provided.

Divided into two parts, the first highlights the traditional computation models used in the first studies on computability: - Automata and Turing Machines; - Recursive functions and the Lambda-Calculus; - Logic-based computation models.

and the second part covers object-oriented and interaction-based models. There is also a chapter on concurrency, and a final chapter on emergent computation models inspired by quantum mechanics.

At the end of each chapter there is a discussion on the use of computation models in the design of programming languages.

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As Josh argues with his eccentric co-worker Travis about the prospects of artificial intelligence, he never dreams he will soon get drawn into a battle between a secret society of hackers and a covert government organization for the control of a conscious machine, code-named Janus, that can dominate mankind. He enters into this struggle with the help of Travis' mysterious ex-girlfriend Alex, and quickly finds himself falling for her as they are chased through a hidden world of rebellious programmers determined to change the world for the better. Unknown to them, their moves are meticulously orchestrated by Travis, who is bent on dominating their future and the future of all mankind, forcing Alex to make a choice between her new love and dreams of a new world. Unleashing Janus is a modern tale of mankind's struggle to bring hope back into existence. ... Read more

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Automata and Languages presents a step-by-step development of the theory of automata, languages and computation. Intended to be used as the basis of an introductory course to this theory at both junior and senior levels, the text is organized in such a wa y as to allow the design of various courses based on selected material. Areas featured in the book include:- basic models of computation formal languages and their properties computability, decidability and complexity a discussion of the modern trends in the theory of automata and formal languages design of programming languages, including the development of a new programming language compiler design, including the construction of a complete compiler Alexander Meduna uses clear definitions, easy-to-follow proofs and helpful examples to make formerly obscure concepts easy to understand. He also includes challenging exercises and programming projects to enhance the readers comprehension. To put the t heory firmly into a real world'context, he also presents lots of realistic illustrations and applications in practical computer science. ... Read more

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Computability theory originated with the seminal work of Gödel, Church, Turing, Kleene and Post in the 1930s. This theory includes a wide spectrum of topics, such as the theory of reducibilities and their degree structures, computably enumerable sets and their automorphisms, and subrecursive hierarchy classifications. Recent work in computability theory has focused on Turing definability and promises to have far-reaching mathematical, scientific, and philosophical consequences. Written by a leading researcher, Computability Theory provides a concise, comprehensive, and authoritative introduction to contemporary computability theory, techniques, and results. The basic concepts and techniques of computability theory are placed in their historical, philosophical and logical context. This presentation is characterized by an unusual breadth of coverage and the inclusion of advanced topics not to be found elsewhere in the literature at this level.The book includes both the standard material for a first course in computability and more advanced looks at degree structures, forcing, priority methods, and determinacy. The final chapter explores a variety of computability applications to mathematics and science.Computability Theory is an invaluable text, reference, and guide to the direction of current research in the field. Nowhere else will you find the techniques and results of this beautiful and basic subject brought alive in such an approachable and lively way. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Clear explanations and fresh approach that enables real understanding
This is a lovely book, which gives a fresh and invigorating account of current developments in computability theory. Personally, I don't feel it can helpfully be compared to Cutland's computability text, as though that book supplies enough background for some undergraduate introductory courses in computability theory, it doesn't reach beyond that level. Cooper sensibly avoids using the same approach as Cutland for the area of over-lap -there would be little point duplicating an existing, in-print work- instead, he has in the early chapters given an intuitive approach to those topics which helps the reader understand what is going on under the morass of symbols which so often obscure rather than promote comprehension. Nor can much useful comparison be drawn with Hartley Roger's classic text, as the main bulk of Cooper's book is concerned with material which post-dates Hartley Rogers.

Computability theory has a fearsome reputation for incomprehensibility and difficulty, even amongst logicians. When, many years ago, I attended my first logic conference and was asked my area of study by a senior logician, I was a little disconcerted by his response of, `Good luck - you'll need it,' to my reply of `computability theory'. Conversations with Cooper proved invaluable, in that his understanding is holistic: he understands what is going on, he understands the big picture. Better, he can draw pictures, both literal and figurative, to explain to others how particular proofs work.

That is what you get with this book: a minimum of technical jargon and deceptively clear explanations of many modern developments in computability theory. It's a great book for anyone beginning research in the area, or for an undergraduate who wants a deeper understanding to underpin their coursework, or, indeed, for researchers in other areas wanting to find out more about modern computability theory and its relevance to their work.

Not recommended as a starting point
The book is divided into roughly three parts: an introduction to computability theory, followed by a more advanced introduction to the theory of degrees of unsolvability and decidable theories, and finally some newer material on computation and structure.

As for the introduction to computability, let me just say that I'm thankful to have already been introduced to computability via Nigel Cutland's excellent and concise text "Computability : An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory". Unlike this book, Cutland does not skip any of the important details (or have the reader fill them in with exercises). For example, Cutland acutally provides rigorous but intuitive proofs of the s-m-n Theorem and the existence of universal computers. Contrast this with how this book leaves the general theorem as an exercise, follwed by the sentence "But let us get back to more important matters". What I found remarkable when reading Cutland is that because of the s-m-n (which is trivialized in this book), Cutland rarely invoked "Church's Thesis" when proving the computability of a function or relation, where as Church's Thesis gets invoked in this book for matters as trivial as showing that computable relations are closed under the various logical operations. In short, by reading Chapters 1-11 of Cutland, the reader can easily (and thankfully) skip the first 8 or 9 Chapters of this book, while receiving a more complete thoughtful treatment. Yet another reason to read Cutland is his excellent introductions to both recursion theorems, where as in this book the fixed-point theorem receives one page in an awkward location in the book.

As for the remaining parts, I made an honest attempt to read them in hope that the author's informal style of writing might shed light on some of the more complex results about degrees of unsolvability. And to his credit, I found the Chapter on priority and immunity more understandable than say what is presented in Hartley Rogers's classic "Theory of Recursive Functions and Effective Computability".

The following editorial note originally enticed me to buy the book: "The final chapter explores a variety of computability applications to mathematics and science". Unfortunately this chapter seemed overly brief, and left me looking for better references. In short, reading this book did little to enhance my viewpoint towards computability theory. I'm glad the author is excited about the subject and wants to make the materialseem more appealing by trying to provide more intuition about the subject matter, but the way that it was carried out simply did not work for me. For the casual reader I recommend Dewdney's "Turing Omnibus", and for the serious reader, the books by Cutland, Oddifredi, and Rogers in that order. I often hear or read the claim that Rogers's book is "outdated", but it still makes for an amazing read, and is in my opinion still the best graduate text on the subject. Note that most of the results in this book can be found in Rogers. And for the programming oriented reader, the book by Neil Jones "Computability and Complexity" ought not to be missed.

A Unique Introduction to Computability
This book is an introduction to computability theory. It is organized in three parts, starting with basic computability theory and moving up to advanced topics, some of which cannot be found in textbooks today.

In the first part the reader is introduced to basic concepts and results of computability like models of computation, coding, universal machines, enumerability, fixed point theorem. The author also discusses the historical context in which various notions appeared (not only in this part but throughout the book) like Hilbert's programme and makes connections with logic (language, theories, Peano Arithmetic, Godel incompleteness theorem). Computability and Unsolvability in the real world is also discussed, along with the search for natural examples of incomputable sets, a topic which is currently more interesting than ever. Most of the content of Part I can be found in other good text books (like Odiffreddi's or Roger's) but the way it is presented is unique: the arguments and proofs are given in an informal yet accurate way (according to the modern mode for doing computability) and the whole arrangement is very schematic, often assisted by diagrams, figures, tables and boxes. This is especially helpful in a text book in computability theory, a subject that makes understanding rely so much on intuition and visual images.

The second part is concerned with oracle computation (a core part of computability), Turing degrees, Enumeration degrees, and many other related and complementary topics like polynomial bounds, P=?NP, the Scott model for Lamda calculus and others. The author here tries to give a general idea of the subject by discussing interesting topics (like the ones mentioned above) which don¡¯t necessarily lie on the core of computability theory. This is pretty much the spirit of the whole book: to give the non-expert reader access to the most exciting (and sometimes apparently inaccessible at this level) topics in the subject and motivate him/her to further study towards the direction that looks and feels more appealing.

The third and last part discusses advanced topics like approximation constructions, priority injury, Sack¡¯s theorems, maximal sets, even the 0¡¯¡¯¡¯-priority method. This is the longest part of the book and the choice its contents (along with the approachable and attractive way they are presented despite their advanced nature) is just another feature which makes this book unique. The construction of maximal sets is remarkable since it uses a tree argument (with infinitary activity of the nodes but without injury) thus making it more intuitive and understandable, in contrast to the usual e-maximal state method which was introduced by the original paper (with the first proof that maximal sets exist) and followed by most text books I am aware of, without many changes. The proof of the existence of a noncuppable c.e. noncomputable degree also deserves to be mentioned as it is not something that one finds in text books. Also, it is different than the original pinball argument one finds in papers (with the restraints tending to infinity, often mentioned as an example of this bizarre feature) as it is done on a tree. Finally, computability in mathematics (structures, combinatorics, Analysis) and science is discussed along with randomness and computable models.

In the end of the book there is a bibliography for further reading. This is very personal (and, of course, by no means complete) but very helpful as it ranges over a wide range of computability related topics and it matches the spirit of the book very well.

To sum up, this introduction achieves the aims set by the author (a leading specialist in computability) in the preface and the epilogue: it deals with the subject in a very wide context, discusses it from its most hardcore features (priority, forcing) to its most distant echoes (incomputability in science) and most importantly it relates these two, showing how technical work is motivated and inspired by more general concerns. It is intended as a text book for undergraduate and early postgraduate students but is also suitable for any non-specialist. The features discussed above along with the modern style of presentation make the subject look as attractive as it really is and the book unique over the other computability text books available today. I wish this book had been in my library when I first started reading computability. ... Read more

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Chapters: Alan Turing, Herbert Simon, Seymour Papert, Lisp Machine, Eliza, Warren Sturgis Mcculloch, Shrdlu, Gerald Jay Sussman, Planner, Turing Test, Timeline of Artificial Intelligence, Ai Winter, Ray Solomonoff, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, History of Artificial Life, History of Machine Translation, Fifth Generation Computer, Dendral, John Mccarthy, Mit Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Ai@50, Logic Theorist, William Grey Walter, Allen Newell, Information Processing Language, Roger Schank, Freddy Ii, David Marr, Strips, Mycin, Donald Michie, Walter Pitts, Arthur Samuel, William James Lectures, Lawrence J. Fogel, Frank Rosenblatt, Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, David Rumelhart, Strategic Computing Initiative, Knowledge Sharing Effort, Darwin Among the Machines, John Joseph Hopfield, Edward Feigenbaum, Dartmouth Conferences, Xcon, Parry, Darwin Machine, Ratio Club, Oliver Selfridge, Shakey the Robot, Freehal, General Problem Solver, Patrick Winston, Lighthill Report, Ai Memo, Advice Taker, Pandemonium Architecture, Daniel G. Bobrow, Scripts, Alpac, Alvey, Frame, Blocks World, Paul Werbos, Cliff Shaw, Student, Snarc. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 361. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The history of artificial intelligence began in antiquity, with myths, stories and rumors of artificial beings endowed with intelligence or consciousness by master craftsmen; as Pamela McCorduck writes, AI began with "an ancient wish to forge the gods." The seeds of modern AI were planted by classical philosophers who attempted to describe the process of human thinking as the mechanical manipulation of symbols. This work culminated in the invention of the programmable digital computer in the 1940s, a machine based on the abstract essence of mat...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=2894560 ... Read more

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This is the first book to collect essays from philosophers, mathematicians and computer scientists working at the exciting interface of algorithmic learning theory and the epistemology of science and inductive inference. Readable, introductory essays provide engaging surveys of different, complementary, and mutually inspiring approaches to the topic, both from a philosophical and a mathematical viewpoint.

Building upon this base, subsequent papers present novel extensions of algorithmic learning theory as well as bold, new applications to traditional issues in epistemology and the philosophy of science.

The volume is vital reading for students and researchers seeking a fresh, truth-directed approach to the philosophy of science and induction, epistemology, logic, and statistics.

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This digital document is a journal article from Decision Support Systems, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Workflow research is commonly concerned with optimization, modeling, and dependency. In this research, we however address a more fundamental issue. By modeling humans and machines as agents and making use of a theoretical computer and statecharts, we prove that many workflow problems do not have computer-based solutions. We also demonstrate a sufficient condition under which computers are able to solve these problems. We end by discussing the relationships between our research and Petri Nets, the multi-agent framework in the literature, linear programming and workflow verification. ... Read more

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This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Genetic Programming, EuroGP 2009, held in Tübingen, Germany, in April 2009 colocated with the Evo* 2009 events.

The 21 revised plenary papers and 9 revised poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 57 submissions. A great variety of topics are presented reflecting the current state of research in the field of genetic programming, including the latest work on representations, theory, operators and analysis, feature selection, generalisation, coevolution and numerous applications.

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This book constitutes the proceedings of the 5th International Computer Science Symposium in Russia, CSR 2010, held in Kazan, Russia, in June 2010. The 30 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 62 submissions. The scope of topics of the symposium was quite broad and covered basically all areas of the foundations of theoretical computer science. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 565 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Addresses the interactions, contradictions, and tensions between science and religion, both historically and in contemporary life. The set examines technologies like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and continuing developments in neurophysiology against the backdrop of deeply-held religious beliefs. In addition, phenomena such as the Church of Scientology are also studied, along with more traditional issues, such as the origins of life, the nature of sin, and the philosophy of science and religion. ... Read more

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During the second half of the twentieth century, the use of computers has transformed working life in the developed world. The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is one of the cradles of this revolution. This book outlines its contribution to modern computing history, covering the vital role played by Alan Turing, the Pilot ACE and ACE computers developed from his plans, and the fertile marriage of computers and communications in the 1960s. ... Read more

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Cet ouvrage présente les bases de la théorie de la complexité des algorithmes et en derive les théorèmes fondamentaux de décidabilité et d'indécidabilité pour la logique et l'arithmétique, dont le premier théorème d'incomplétude de Gödel. En faisant reposer toutes les preuves sur le codage de l'arrêt d'une machine de Turing, on a souligné l'homogénéité et l'unité profonde des résultats presentés. L'approche par les machines de Turing est très accessible grâce à la familiarité donnée aujourd'hui par l'informatique. Le livre n'est pas une encyclopédie exhaustive, mais parvient de façon rapide à démontrer un choix de résultats réprésentatifs de l'ensemble de la théorie. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Very useful reference
This is a great collection of seminal papers by Goedel, Church, Turing, Rosser, Kleene, and Post on the topic of undecidability. It is an extremely handy reference.

Just to note: this is certainly not a tutorial or guide to this topic for the beginner. Davis provides some prefatory comments, but these are concise and mostly set the context for the papers, rather than explaining the content of the papers. This book is more for someone interested in going back to first sources. ... Read more

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This book offers a comprehensive perspective to modern topics in complexity theory, which is a central field of the theoretical foundations of computer science.It addresses the looming question of what can be achieved within a limited amount of time with or without other limited natural computational resources. Can be used as an introduction for advanced undergraduate and graduate students as either a textbook or for self-study, or to experts, since it provides expositions of the various sub-areas of complexity theory such as hardness amplification, pseudorandomness and probabilistic proof systems. ... Read more