Book Description
As the applicability of cellular automata broadens and technology advances, there is a need for a concise but thorough resource that lays the foundation of key cellular automata rules and applications. In recent years, Stephen Wolfram's, A New Kind of Science, has brought to the attention of the scientific world the modeling power inherent in the medium of cellular automata. Now, Cellular Automata: A Discrete View of the World presents the thrust of the classic Wolfram text in a straightforward, introductory manner. Utilizing at times, novel material, this book provides an introduction to cellular automata as a constructive method for modeling the behavior of a wide range of complex systems (from bacteria to perhaps the universe itself), where patterns of self-organization arising from simple rules are revealed. Some of the material is presented for the first time in book form.

The highly visual nature of the subject is accented with over 200 illustrations (8 pages of which are in color), that provide vivid representations of the cellular automata under discussion. Readers can create their own cellular automata using Java(tm) applets and simple computer code, which are available via the book's FTP site. This book serves as a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate students and would be of interest to any reader with a scientific background. ... Read more

Product Description
The Quantum Cellular Automaton (QCA) concept represents an attempt to break away from the traditional three-terminal device paradigm that has dominated digital computation. Since its early formulation in 1993 at Notre Dame University, the QCA idea has received significant attention and several physical implementations have been proposed.This book provides a comprehensive discussion of the simulation approaches and the experimental work that have been undertaken on the fabrication of devices capable of demonstrating the fundamentals of QCA action. Complementary views of future perspectives for QCA technology are presented, highlighting a process of realistic simulation and of targeted experiments that can be assumed as a model for the evaluation of future device proposals. ... Read more

Book Description
As urban planning moves from a centralized, top-down approach to a decentralized, bottom-up perspective, our conception of urban systems is changing. In Cities and Complexity, Michael Batty offers a comprehensive view of urban dynamics in the context of complexity theory, presenting models that demonstrate how complexity theory can embrace a myriad of processes and elements that combine into organic wholes. He argues that bottom-up processes -- in which the outcomes are always uncertain -- can combine with new forms of geometry associated with fractal patterns and chaotic dynamics to provide theories that are applicable to highly complex systems such as cities.

Batty begins with models based on cellular automata (CA), simulating urban dynamics through the local actions of automata. He then introduces agent-based models (ABM), in which agents are mobile and move between locations. These models relate to many scales, from the scale of the street to patterns and structure at the scale of the urban region. Finally, Batty develops applications of all these models to specific urban situations, discussing concepts of criticality, threshold, surprise, novelty, and phase transition in the context of spatial developments. Every theory and model presented in the book is developed through examples that range from the simplified and hypothetical to the actual. Deploying extensive visual, mathematical, and textual material, Cities and Complexity will be read both by urban researchers and by complexity theorists with an interest in new kinds of computational models.

Sample chapters and examples from the book, and other related material, can be found at http://www.complexcity.info. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Tremendous resource
This book is an immense collection of research on the application of complex systems to urban spatial analysis. While this book is not extensive and is probably not meant as a textbook on complex systems in its entirety, I highly recommend it for those interested in urban spatial analysis. The applications of the techniques go beyond geography and are useful in sociology, economics, or urban planning. A caveat that I should add is that the book is quite dense with methods and formulas and is probably not best to approach this book without some knowledge of advanced statistics. However, the theoretical overviews provided more than allow for those without this background to get something out of it. In short, if you are a graduate student, professor, or researcher I'd recommend this book for an insightful and important take on the nature of cities and urban analysis. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Nice coverage of Wolframs published work
This is a nice collection of wolframs work on cellular automata (whichfirst appeared as a number of papers in various physics journals).It is anice coverage of cellular automata, but it would have been nice to givemore credit to von Neuman for his pioneering work in cellular automatatheory.

There is also an annoying habit for all of his work toconcentrate on deterministic cellular automata, and the mathematics isconstrained to this.Recent work has indicated that the origin ofcomplexity in our universe is from random sources that are preserved.. notthat the complexity all came from the initial conditions.

It isespecially interesting to note in his book how the different rules ofcellular automata play out to create varying degrees of complexity.Ittakes a very specific rule set indeed to allow for interesting complexbehaviors to show up, as evinced by the long search Conway undertook todiscover "life".

Hopefully Wolfram will comment on the recentresearch that indicates that complexity is introduced into our universethrough nondeterministic phenomena.He also should have presented Fredkinsideas about reversible computation to more fully flush out the relationshipbetween cellular automata, computability and reversibility. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A well-written, comprehensive introduction to the field
Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe is a fascinating overview of the wide variety of discrete systems researchers have developed in the past quarter-century, and how these might be used to model a range of natural phenomena, including (in the book's most speculative section) the universe itself.Illustrations are supplied in all the right places--serving to enlighten, rather than overwhelm, the reader.The list of references is superb, making the book not only a great introduction and an important reference, but also a valuable guide to the field of complexity.

disappointing
This book is clearly a labor of love and contains a great wealth of material. However, it sorely lacks focus, the presentation is unclear and the results are often out of date. Here is a selection of more particular criticisms. Many rules remain undefined and the reader has to guess their details. The writer seems to be unfamiliar with the last five years worth of research, so particularly the chapter on probabilistic CA is not worth much. Far too many parts of the book are outlines of original papers (or books) with details omitted. Many claims in the said papers are accepted without scrutiny. (Two examples: (1) There is absolutely no evidence that any cellular automaton studied by Packard and Wolfram has a shape that is close to circular. (2) It has been discovered as far back as 1989 that the famous FHP lattice gas does NOT approach the two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equation, due to the fact that viscosity increases to infinity with increasing size of a finite system.) World Scientific editors need to do a much better job. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of the American Planning Association, published by American Planning Association on March 22, 1997. The length of the article is 4073 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. 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.

From the author: Artificial processes for locating urban activities based on simple rules pertaining to local circumstances give rise to complex global patterns that mirror the spatial organization of cities. These systems are called Cellular Automata (CA). They provide a useful means of articulating the way highly decentralized decision-making can be employed in simulating and designing robust urban forms. CA can be easily programmed in a variety of software, and as such provide a suggestive way of exploring actual as well as optimal patterns and plans. This primer provides a pedagogic guide to these ideas and to potential computer applications.

Citation Details
Title: Cellular Automata and urban form: a primer.
Author: Michael Batty
Publication: Journal of the American Planning Association (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 1997
Publisher: American Planning Association
Volume: v63Issue: n2Page: p266(9)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

technical problems overwhelm content
The article was not, as promised, immediately available.

When it finally did become available, none of the illustrations was included, which makes the article difficult or impossible to understand.

This is probably an interesting article, but get it out of the library or from the American Planning Association, if you want the illustrations. ... Read more

Book Description
Recently, cellular automata machines with the size, speed, and flexibility for general experimentation at a moderate cost have become available to the scientific community. These machines provide a laboratory in which the ideas presented in this book can be tested and applied to the synthesis of a great variety of systems. Computer scientists and researchers interested in modeling and simulation as well as other scientists who do mathematical modeling will find this introduction to cellular automata and cellular automata machines (CAM) both useful and timely.

Cellular automata are the computer scientist's counterpart to the physicist's concept of 'field' They provide natural models for many investigations in physics, combinatorial mathematics, and computer science that deal with systems extended in space and evolving in time according to local laws. A cellular automata machine is a computer optimized for the simulation of cellular automata. Its dedicated architecture allows it to run thousands of times faster than a general-purpose computer of comparable cost programmed to do the same task. In practical terms this permits intensive interactive experimentation and opens up new fields of research in distributed dynamics, including practical applications involving parallel computation and image processing.

Contents: Introduction. Cellular Automata. The CAM Environment. A Live Demo. The Rules of the Game. Our First rules. Second-order Dynamics. The Laboratory. Neighbors and Neighborhood. Running. Particle Motion. The Margolus Neighborhood. Noisy Neighbors. Display and Analysis. Physical Modeling. Reversibility. Computing Machinery. Hydrodynamics. Statistical Mechanics. Other Applications. Imaging Processing. Rotations. Pattern Recognition. Multiple CAMS. Perspectives and Conclusions.

Tommaso Toffoli and Norman Margolus are researchers at the Laboratory for Computer Science at MIT. Cellular Automata Machines is included in the Scientific Computation Series, edited by Dennis Cannon. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

The best I've found on the subject - with a few caveats
Of all of the books that delve into the details of cellular automata, the algorithms, and the kinds of problems you can solve with them, this is probably the best I've found. However, there are two major problems you will have to work around. First, there is the specialized and long defunct CAM computing environment. You simply have to not read the portions of the book that talk about it to get around this, and I found this a minor problem. A more major problem is that this old 1987 book is using Forth as a programming language for the algorithms. Outside of the boot proms on Sun computers and vintage early 80's home-brew computing magazines, I haven't seen this language used. However, C had not yet come to the forefront in 1987, so it's a forgivable, if annoying problem to have to learn enough about the language to truly "get" what the algorithms are doing. All in all, reading this book is like attending a fascinating and close sporting event with two guys - CAM and Forth - continually walking in front of you carrying a long pane of glass between them. The payoff is worthwhile, you just have to put up with something that the authors thought was a plus when they wrote the book that has now become an annoyance.

If you're brand new to cellular automata, I recommend "A New Kind of Science" by Wolfram. Although that book seems to have disappointed many of its readers, I think it does a good job of discussing cellular automata at a high level and discussing the kinds of problems that can be solved using it. Then come back to this book for details and algorithms.

How to reuse some older ideas
Acquired this book many years ago (early 199x). It was inspiring to read about efforts to produce dedicated hardware for cellular automata. Recently Stephen Wolfram's a new kind of science made me read this older book again. Then it was interesting to write a cellular automata program in C++ and afterwards in a mixed Python/C version. The rules to use were taken from this particular book. The general hardware nowadays has enough power to even program in a higher level language and still show adequate performance. In short: the book is inspiring and the presented rules can be used to investigate cellular automata.

Avoid
I came to this book after having seen it referenced in a number of more general books with chapters on cellular automata. The book describes numerous experiments in varying levels of detail that are suitable for running on cellular automata. The example experiments are both abstract (`Life' or `Parity' rules) and concrete (simulation of physical systems). Little attention is paid to simulating either social or biological processes. There is a lot here but the level of detail is poor. Many explanations of the simulations assume considerable knowledge of the physical systems being simulated or the weaknesses of other approaches that may used. The greatest weakness of this book is that it relies on a specific hardware implementation of a CA machine. All examples require this machine (a PC card) to be installed in your PC in order to run. This card appears to no longer be available (no supplier details are given in the book). The use of Forth (a language using reverse polish notation) to describe rules and the reliance on specific hardware makes the rules discussed difficult to implement on a software CA. The rules presented in the second half of the book are so tied to the hardware implementation of the unavailable PC card as to be impossible to translate directly into English-like rules. This is a definite dud.

buy for the ideas, not the implementation
This is a terrific book that takes a step-by-step approach to cellular automata, especially for modelling. Within the first two chapters I had already found several interesting ideas for improving my own general-purpose automata program.

The part of the book that is most dated is the discussion of a specific hardware card and software designed for IBM PCs and ATs, and a specific dialect of Forth that can be used to program automata that will run on this card. Obviously this is no longer the mainstream approach to programming automata - even massively parallel systems programming has moved away from Forth. For me, I think of it as pseudo-code instead of a program example, and the book is still very very useful.

So on the whole, I would say this is a valuable addition to the bookshelf of any automata enthusiast.

Oh my god, what a book!
This book is absolutely stunning. It's a little dated, but the classes of problems that Toffoli and Margolus attack with dirt-simple machines is completely astonishing.I guarantee that you will not be able to put itdown -- which is odd to say about a computer book.Read it! ... Read more

Book Description
This book not only discusses cellular automata (CA) as accouterment for simulation, but also the actual building of devices within cellular automata. CA are widely used tools for simulation in physics, ecology, mathematics, and other fields. But they are also digital "toy universes" worthy of study in their own right, with their own laws of physics and behavior. In studying CA for their own sake, we must look at constructive methods, that is the practice of actually building devices in a given CA that store and process in formation, replicate, and propagate themselves, and interact with other devices in complex ways. By building such machines, we learn what the CA's dynamics are capable of, and build an intuition about how to "engineer" the machine we want. We can also address fundamental questions, such as whether universal computation or even "living" things that reproduce and evolve can exist in the CA's digital world, and perhaps, how these things came to be in out own universe. ... Read more

Book Description
Cellular automata, dynamic systems in which space and time are discrete, are yielding interesting applications in both the physical and natural sciences. The thirty four contributions in this book cover many aspects of contemporary studies on cellular automata and include reviews, research reports, and guides to recent literature and available software. Chapters cover mathematical analysis, the structure of the space of cellular automata, learning rules with specified properties: cellular automata in biology, physics, chemistry, and computation theory; and generalizations of cellular automata in neural nets, Boolean nets, and coupled map lattices.

Current work on cellular automata may be viewed as revolving around two central and closely related problems: the forward problem and the inverse problem. The forward problem concerns the description of properties of given cellular automata. Properties considered include reversibility, invariants, criticality, fractal dimension, and computational power. The role of cellular automata in computation theory is seen as a particularly exciting venue for exploring parallel computers as theoretical and practical tools in mathematical physics.

The inverse problem, an area of study gaining prominence particularly in the natural sciences, involves designing rules that possess specified properties or perform specified task. A long-term goal is to develop a set of techniques that can find a rule or set of rules that can reproduce quantitative observations of a physical system. Studies of the inverse problem take up the organization and structure of the set of automata, in particular the parameterization of the space of cellular automata. Optimization and learning techniques, like the genetic algorithm and adaptive stochastic cellular automata are applied to find cellular automaton rules that model such physical phenomena as crystal growth or perform such adaptive-learning tasks as balancing an inverted pole.

Howard Gutowitz is Collaborateur in the Service de Physique du Solide et Résonance Magnetique, Commissariat a I'Energie Atomique, Saclay, France. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

comment by the editor of the book
This book is 10 years old, but in this
slow-moving field where results are hard won,
most of it is still worthwhile. Just the
fact that you are contemplating buying this
book puts you in a very rare class IV of
individuals. Confirm your status and buy
a copy! 2000 were printed, looks like a few
still left. get 'em while they're hot. ... Read more

Book Description
This is the first volume in a suite of short, inexpensive, paperbound volumes intended for student usage as textbooks, or course supplements, and for purchase as single-copy reference works for professionals in specific disciplines, and, in some cases, for interdisciplinary use. This title focuses on cellular automata simulations while using Mathematica, thus its audience is a generally broad one, although physicists, life scientists and engineers will find this title to be of particular interest.
Those familiar with Gaylord's previous book, coauthored with Paul Wellin, "Computer Simulations with Mathematica - Explorations in Complex Biological and Physical Systems", also published by TELOS, will find this new title to be an in-depth extension of some topics dealt with in that book. Modeling Nature: Cellular Automata Simulations with Mathematica, however, contains simulations not found in the Gaylord-Wellin volume. This book will have a DOS-diskette packaged with it, enabling cross-platform access to the code. These data files will also be made accessible online via the Internet at telospub.com FTP and WWW sites. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Interesting, useful, concise
I have got several ideas from this book. I have never used Mathematica, but one of the most important features of the book, is the fact that is enough clear, and its code can be translated to oher languages veary easy.I recomend this book for every person interested in cellular automataapplications and implementations rather that pure theory. ... Read more

Book Description
This book provides a self-contained introduction to cellular automata and lattice Boltzmann techniques. Beginning with a chapter introducing the basic concepts of this developing field, a second chapter describes methods used in cellular automata modeling. Following chapters discuss the statistical mechanics of lattice gases, diffusion phenomena, reaction-diffusion processes and non-equilibrium phase transitions. A final chapter looks at other models and applications, such as wave propagation and multiparticle fluids. With a pedagogic approach, the volume focuses on the use of cellular automata in the framework of equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical physics. It also emphasises application-oriented problems such as fluid dynamics and pattern formation. The book contains many examples and problems. A glossary and a detailed bibliography are also included. This will be a valuable book for graduate students and researchers working in statistical physics, solid state physics, chemical physics and computer science. ... Read more

Book Description
THE BOOK BRINGS TOGETHER WORK FROM A MULTIDISCIPLINARY CORE OF SCIENTISTS WHO ARE WORKING IN THE FIELD OF UNCONVENTIONAL COMPUTING. THE GOAL WAS TO PROVIDE A COMMON GROUND FOR DIALOG AND INTERACTION, TO HIGHLIGHT THE LATEST ADVANCES, AND TO DISCUSS THE MAIN DIRECTIONS FOR THE FUTURE. TOPICS INCLUDE PROGRAMMING OF CHEMICAL SYSTEMS, EVOLVING LOGICAL GATES IN LIQUID CRYSTAL, IMAGE PROCESSING IN CHEMICAL MEDIA, REACTION-DIFFUSION ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS FOR COMPUTATION AND PATTERN GENERATION, RULE MIGRATION IN CELLULAR AUTOMATA, MULTI-STATE QUANTUM AUTOMATA, DNA COMPUTING OF SHORTEST PATH PROBLEMS, AND ARTIFICIAL CHEMISTRIES. THE PAPERS COLLECTED IN THIS BOOK PROVIDE A GOOD OVERVIEW OF HOT RESEARCH TOPICS IN THE VIBRANT FIELD OF UNCONVENTIONAL COMPUTING. ... Read more

Book Description
Lattice-gas cellular automata (LGCA) and lattice Boltzmann models (LBM) are relatively new and promising methods for the numerical solution of nonlinear partial differential equations. The book provides an introduction for graduate students and researchers. Working knowledge of calculus is required and experience in PDEs and fluid dynamics is recommended. Some peculiarities of cellular automata are outlined in Chapter 2. The properties of various LGCA and special coding techniques are discussed in Chapter 3. Concepts from statistical mechanics (Chapter 4) provide the necessary theoretical background for LGCA and LBM. The properties of lattice Boltzmann models and a method for their construction are presented in Chapter 5. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Computational Models of Physical Processes
This is an outstanding book for anyone concerned with computational models of real physical processes (digital mechanics or digital physics).It is accessible to anyone with a bachelor's degree in computer science,mathematics, engineering, or physics.It is also accessible to others witha few years of math courses.Lattice gasses and lattice boltzmann machinesare the natural extensions of cellular automata such as the game of life. ... Read more

Book Description
The completion of the first draft of the human genome has led to an explosion of interest in genetics and molecular biology.The view of the genome as a network of interacting computational components is well-established, but researchers are now trying to reverse the analogy, by using living organisms to construct logic circuits.The potential applications for such technologies is huge, ranging from bio-sensors, through industrial applications to drug delivery and diagnostics.This book would be the first to deal with the implementation of this technology, describing several working experimental demonstrations using cells as components of logic circuits, building toward computers incorporating biological components in their functioning. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Table of contents for this book
Table of contents

Part I: Theoretical and Engineering Principles

1.An Introduction to Cellular Computing
Martyn Amos and Gerald Owenson

2.Proteins and Information Processing
Ray Paton, Michael Fisher, Grant Malcolm and Koichiro Matsuno

3.Enzyme Genetic Programming
Michael Lones and Andy Tyrell

4.Genetic Process Engineering
Ron Weiss, Thomas F. Knight Jr. and Gerald Sussman

5.The Device Science of Whole Cells as Components in Microscaleand Nanoscale Systems
Michael L. Simpson, Gary S. Sayler, et al.

Part II: Laboratory Experiments

6.The Enterococcus faecilis Information Gate
Kenichi Wakabayashi and Masayuki Yamamura

7.Cellular Computation and Communication Using Engineered Genetic Regulatory Networks
Ron Weiss, Thomas F. Knight Jr. and Gerald Sussman

8.The Biology of Integration of Cells in Microscale and Nanoscale Systems
Michael L. Simpson, Timothy E. McKnight, et al.

Part III: Computation in Ciliates

9.Encrypted Genes and Their Assembly in Ciliates
David M. Prescott and Grzegorz Rozenberg

10. Biocomputation in Ciliates
Lila Kari and Laura F. Landweber ... Read more

Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Cellular Automata for Research and Industry, ACRI 2004, held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in October 2004.

Book Description
This digital document is a journal article from Applied Geography, 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.

Description:
Spatially explicit urban expansion models that can trace urban development in the past and predict the expansion scenarios in the future are indispensable for examining urban planning policies. This paper demonstrates a new urban expansion scenario (UES) model by coupling one ''bottom-up'' cellular automata (CA)-based model and one ''top-down'' system dynamics (SD)-based model. By implementing the UES model in Beijing, the urban evolution from 1991 to 2004 was simulated and the UESs from 2004 to 2020 were predicted. The results suggest that a dilemma of urban expansion versus limited water resource and environment deterioration exists. Dealing with such a dilemma remains a challenge for the local government. ... Read more