Neural Networks Books

Solaris, Unix, Aix, Linux, and other variations of *NIX systems have more in common than they do differences when it comes to system administration. The primary goal of this book is to provide a administrative resource that is as useful to the AIX administrator as it is to the Linux administrator. The book starts with a chapter on what you should do if you end up working on a *NIX system that you did not install. It provides both information and specific items to check in order to document and understand exactly how it is set up. From there the book moves to basic scripts that can be used to automate administration. The rest of the book covers such items as baselining, maintenance, backup, new system setup, test system creation, and secure systems. Chapter 5 is particularly useful as the author discusses the boot process and init states of the various flavors of *NIX. If you are used to one particular *NIX system and end up administering another one you will want this book at hand just because it spells out some of the differences as well as the similarities and this could prevent a major mistake (such as switching to init 5 on a Solaris system which shuts it down when you are trying to initiate a graphical interface which is what it would do on a Linux system). The Unix/Linux Survival Guide is highly recommended to anyone who has to work on multiple versions of *NIX or is used to one version and needs to understand how to administer another one.

At only 320 pages, this is one of the smaller Unix/Linux book you're likely to get. That's because it has left out an awful lot of the details about things that you aren't likely to use. The author, writing from a couple of decades of experience, looks at the things that you'll need to do from the beginning. Then if you have special needs, there's probably a specialized manual available on just that special feature.

The first chapter of the book includes something that I've never seen before but which is an excellent idea. This chapter tells you what do do first if you inherit a system that is running already. What is it that you want to know about the system? Are there changes you want to make? Be carefull here that you don't do something with will confuse the system, *NIX allows a lot of alternative ways to do things. And unfortunately, did the previous administrator leave it secure enough? Maybe he ignored security back when the world was a more friendly place.

After that, the discussion goes into what you need to administer a system. It talks about executables, scripts, maintenance and backups, security, log files, things like that. This book does not cover Apache, MySQL and all the other programs that come with the normal Linux distribution. This is on administration, and it does a very good job of that without having to wade through a thousand or more pages.

The CD that comes with the book contains copies of all the scripts used in the book, a handy little set of tools that will ease your administration task.

Unlike a 1000+ page Unix/Linux admin guide that will take you hours to find the most basic thing, this text is easy to follow, read and find quick relevant information about the following set of topics:
- Maintenance
- Backup
- Installation
- Security
- And most importantly, "Things to check"

The topic list is not that long and why should it be? If you are a part-time administrator, or you have a couple of Linux boxes at home, such as me, you do not need to spend hours figuring out how much disk space I have available, for example, or how you configure the Linux firewall. Don't make any mistake about it, the author explains each topic very well and thoroughly, but he has chosen a set of relevant topics to cover, rather "everything under the sun" approach like other texts.

The first chapter of this book covers the basic. Not the good old "what is Unix?" topic, but a quick chapter of "things to check". In about 20 or so pages, the authors teaches you how to find out everything you wanted to know about your system. One point that is made throughout the book is automation. Writing scripts that can save you time in the long run. If you are not a script writing person, then you are in luck. Every command, every procedure, every configuration, etc, is scripted by the author, and what's great is that all the scripts are included in the CD-ROM that comes with the text. Especially when the author is talking about Maintenance of your system, these scripts become very useful. Whether you are stuck with a number of systems that you need to administrator, or you are trying to make sense out of the Linux box you just have setup at home, system Maintenance is a big concern. Much of the text is dedicated to the topic of maintenance, and rightly so, updates, upgrades, installs, or status checks occupy most of the administrator's job. Scripting to the rescue! As I mentioned, automation is the key focus of this text, and there are scripts wherever possible to ease the task an administrator.

When was the last time you came across an administration book that did not cover the topic of Security? When was the last time that you actually read that chapter? You are in luck, since this book covers security rather quickly and to the point. Much of the guess work is taken away, and short sections cover File Security, System Security and Network Security. Network security, rightfully so, is covered more thoroughly. Right of the bat, the author suggests the use of SSH, and goes on by showing you how to turn off as many ports as possible. If you have only a couple of ports that are open, your job of securing becomes simpler. Simplicity is the key here. If your job is made simply, it does not mean that you are leaving things out, and this fact is demonstrated throughout the book.
I loved this book. In a couple of hundred pages, the author has covered 99% of what administrators do on a day to day basis. That 1% I can live without! Simple, to the point, focused and easy to read - not to mention the scripts that come with the text make this book a great buy.

This book is an excellent reference book on current approaches to some of the foundational questions in artificial intelligence, philosophy of mind, and engineering of intelligent systems. The editors as amply demonstrated by their other publications, have the rare ability to interrelate an amazing diversity of perspectives on Artificial Intelligence - from symbolic methods to neural networks and evolutionary apporaches, to uncover the shared principles and common foundations, and show how different paradigms can be brought together in synergistic ways to advance our ability to design and analyze intelligent systems. This book includes chapters written by some of the leading experts in the field. The book should be especially useful as a reference to graduate students and researchers interested in artificial intelligence, machine learning, cognitive science, software agents, and philosophy of mind. It should also be useful as supplementary reading for a graduate or upper level undergraduate course in artificial intelligence or cognitive science, or as a primary text for a seminar course. All in all, a great book!

Symbolic (e.g., logic based) and connectionist (e.g., neural network) models are often viewed as separate, and perhaps incompatible approaches to artificial intelligence and cognitive modelling. Far too many young researchers (including myself) have been swept away by the exaggerated claims of each camp. This collection of chapters is an excellent medicine for such a malaise. The chapters in this collection demonstrate, with pursuasive theoretical and philosophical arguments as well as empirical data that symbolism and connectionism can, and perhaps should, be reconciled. At the time this book came out, this was not a popular position. However, recent developments in AI and cognitive science have more than vindicated the views expressed in this book. Now (6 years later), some of the chapters are a bit dated. However, I recommend the book strongly to those who are interested in foundational issues in artificial intelligence and cognitive science.

This book laid the foundations of integrative neuroscience independent of silly metaphors and reductionistic assumptions. This in turn led to a new understanding of the functioning of the brain by showing that integration is feasible. The contents dwell on the biophysical properties of neural networks. A highly recommended book!

The contents dwell on the biophysical properties (e.g. dendritic structure, ionic channels, and synaptic transmission) of neural networks. The overall motivation is to show that biophysics of computation is an inconsistent paradigm when dealing with neural networks by showing that integration from microscopic, mesoscopic and macroscopic levels is feasible. Therefore this book laid the foundations of integrative neuroscience independent of silly metaphors. Chapters 1-2 constitute an introduction to the subject and a historical survey of neuronal modeling, respectively. Chapters 3-5 encompass the cellular level with an emphasis on nonsynaptic transmission, and computational models of single neurons from the retina and amygdala. Chapters 6-7 characterize the physico-chemical mechanisms underlying synaptic plasticity in biochemical networks and synaptic transmission in axonal networks. Chapters 8-10 form the hard core of basic theory of small-scale biophysical neural networks.Chapters 11-12 deal with mesoscopic theories of hippocampal neural networks. Chapter 15 serves as an advanced overview of the numerical methods in neural modeling of networks.A number of problems are included at the end of each chapter to give a more in-depth appraisal of the contents, and each chapter ends with some predictions in relation to future developments. A highly recommemded book!

Don't you know Cellular Neural Networks? Read this book, even if you are not a specialist. I like it a lot, it's very interesting. I had a course project on CNN for my master in electronic engineering but I never found a so clear book in describing principles, applications and circuit realizations about CNN. Don't be scared if you can find some high level theoretical contents, they are for specialist in that field only, but they are not necessary for novices to know of CNN. Excellent!

I definitely enjoyed reading this book. I found it extremely clear and interesting. I am an electrical engineer but I am certainly not a specialist of this field. However, I catched up with the subject very quickly. And it is amazing to see how many applications these CNN have. As a matter of fact some of the discrete component circuits here described can even be realized by an electronics hobbyst like me. And I plan to do my own experiments. I admit I wasn't able to follow some parts with high level theoretical contents (some math definitely goes beyond my understanding). Nevertheless I found it very appealing. In summary I would encourage even the novices to check it out. I like it a lot.

I'm taking a Linux Admin class at a Technical School. The instructor has used this book for a few years and said he sticks with this text because he hasn't found a better one. I can see why. The author has managed to introduce complex topics early but not in depth. And then, when he goes into detail later, a lot of the ground work has been laid. This technique helps make the book readable and more concise. The books seems complete, it reads well, and it's well indexed. I recommend it for people looking at Linux for the first time or for people who are looking back at *nix after many years.

This book is very well written and easy to read. I am a student, this book was chosen as the text book for the course. I find it covers the issues at hand very well. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn administration on a Linux machine.

This is deja vu again. We talked about AI and robotics in the same vein. Definitely ground breaking and recommend it. Not sure novices can handle it...

The book is one of the best I have seen in Neural and computer intelligence. Highly recommend if you are a student, academia, computer R&D or hobbyist.

Wish somebody published this before I started following Neural networks or computer intelligence

This book shows using the program how fuzzy logic works.
There is a lot in the book
and it needs to be read a few times.

Read also

FUZZY LOGIC: THE REVOLUTIONARY COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY THAT IS CHANGING OUR WORLD
by Daniel Mcneil

The ideas in both are amazing.
page 107 is great here.

It's not theoretical or programming based, rather a superb description of what fuzzy logic can DO. The software is getting a bit out of date, but you can always download the latest demo version off their web site.

reading this book, i think very interesting neural network modeling hippocampus. so GOOD

To those students, mostly at the undergraduate level, that are not applied mathematic specialists and have looked for an easy to understand, well written, introduction to Neural Networks in learning processes; this is a must-have book. "Gateway..." is an excellent read, targeted to readers from a wide scope of backgrounds, from Biologists to Computer Science Majors through Medical Sciences.

Although leaning a bit too heavily on the conceptual view of the subject, the book introduces the reader gradually to what a Neural Network is, what a computer model is and how it works.

Two basic tools are of special interest to the reader. First, the beginning half of the book gives a general, yet very complete, introduction of the concepts, history and theory to be used. Second, for those with a little more interest in the mathematics there's a good number of "Math Boxes" delving into the details of the subject(s).

The effect of these tools is that, by the time you reach into the core matter of how neural networks models are constructed and worked in the field of Hippocampal memory, the reader suddenly finds his/herself well-familiarized with the theory. A comfortable, gradual, learning process has taken place without any discomfort (and in less time than you would think!).

My choice textbook for the courses that I am teaching in college. This is truly better book and yet very easy-to-read for any ordinary people preparing for CWNA or CISCO wireless products (than "Cisco Networking Academy Program Fundamentals of Wireless LANs Companion Guide" for many chapters). I am looking forward to seeing "CWNA Guide to Wireless LANs" (Second Edition) by the same author, Mark Ciampa, with many updates since first edition.

I've just finished reading Mark's book and have found it to be thorough and accurate. It takes the reader from the beginnings of wireless LAN technology through as much detail as the reader can stand. It has many sections on practical installation and configuration of WLAN hardware and software, and leaves little to the imagination. This book makes a great resource for studying to become a Certified Wireless Network Administrator (CWNA) - I'm impressed and hope to see more books like this from Mark in the future!

Those involved in Neural networks especially the ones who are in to pattern recognition research MUST buy this. It explains in a rather friendly and explicit way, the areas to which neural networks should be applied, as also the areas where ANN might not be so useful.

An excellent tutorial and practical users guide - far more accessible than the competition - Prof A F Murray, University of Edinburgh, UK