Download or read book The Perfect Swarm written by Len Fisher and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2011-03-08 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The IgNobel Prize-winner and author of Rock, Paper, Scissors applies science-based solutions to seemingly complex problems in life.
Download or read book Swarm Intelligence written by Eric Bonabeau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999-09-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social insects--ants, bees, termites, and wasps--can be viewed as powerful problem-solving systems with sophisticated collective intelligence. Composed of simple interacting agents, this intelligence lies in the networks of interactions among individuals and between individuals and the environment. A fascinating subject, social insects are also a powerful metaphor for artificial intelligence, and the problems they solve--finding food, dividing labor among nestmates, building nests, responding to external challenges--have important counterparts in engineering and computer science. This book provides a detailed look at models of social insect behavior and how to apply these models in the design of complex systems. The book shows how these models replace an emphasis on control, preprogramming, and centralization with designs featuring autonomy, emergence, and distributed functioning. These designs are proving immensely flexible and robust, able to adapt quickly to changing environments and to continue functioning even when individual elements fail. In particular, these designs are an exciting approach to the tremendous growth of complexity in software and information. Swarm Intelligence draws on up-to-date research from biology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, robotics, operations research, and computer graphics, and each chapter is organized around a particular biological example, which is then used to develop an algorithm, a multiagent system, or a group of robots. The book will be an invaluable resource for a broad range of disciplines.
Download or read book Swarm written by Scott Westerfeld and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As they celebrate the opening of their underground nightclub, the Zeroes, six teenagers with unique abilities, learn about the sinister power of Swarm, who uses a crowd's rage to kill--and who loves killing Zeroes.
Download or read book Rock Paper Scissors written by Len Fisher and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-11-04 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praised by Entertainment Weekly as “the man who put the fizz into physics,” Dr. Len Fisher turns his attention to the science of cooperation in his lively and thought-provoking book. Fisher shows how the modern science of game theory has helped biologists to understand the evolution of cooperation in nature, and investigates how we might apply those lessons to our own society. In a series of experiments that take him from the polite confines of an English dinner party to crowded supermarkets, congested Indian roads, and the wilds of outback Australia, not to mention baseball strategies and the intricacies of quantum mechanics, Fisher sheds light on the problem of global cooperation. The outcomes are sometimes hilarious, sometimes alarming, but always revealing. A witty romp through a serious science, Rock, Paper, Scissors will both teach and delight anyone interested in what it what it takes to get people to work together.
Download or read book Swarm written by B.V. Larson and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel of military science fiction telling the story of Earth's annexation by an alien empire. Long considered a primitive people on a backwater planet, humanity finds itself in the middle of a war, and faced with extinction.
Download or read book Electrigirl and the Deadly Swarm written by Jo Cotterill and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After honing her superpowers, rescuing her best friend, and defeating the evil Professor Macavity, Holly needs a vacation. But when a mysterious and deadly swarm attacks the beach, there's only one person that can save the day . . . ELECTRIGIRL!
Download or read book Boombustology written by Vikram Mansharamani and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new, fully-updated edition of the respected guide to understanding financial extremes, evaluating investment opportunities, and identifying future bubbles Now in its second edition, Boombustology is an authoritative, up-to-date guide on the history of booms, busts, and financial cycles. Engaging and accessible, this popular book helps investors, policymakers, and analysts navigate the radical uncertainty that plagues today’s uncertain investing and economic environment. Author Vikram Mansharamani, an experienced global equity investor and prominent Harvard University lecturer, presents his multi-disciplinary framework for identifying financial bubbles before they burst. Moving beyond the typical view of booms and busts as primarily economic occurrences, this innovative book offers a multidisciplinary approach that utilizes microeconomic, macroeconomic, psychological, political, and biological lenses to spot unsustainable dynamics. It gives the reader insights into the dynamics that cause soaring financial markets to crash. Cases studies range from the 17th Century Dutch tulip mania to the more recent US housing collapse. The numerous cross-currents driving today’s markets—trade wars, inverted yield curves, currency wars, economic slowdowns, dangerous debt dynamics, populism, nationalism, as well as the general uncertainties in the global economy—demand that investors, policymakers, and analysts be on the lookout for a forthcoming recession, market correction, or worse. An essential resource for anyone interested in financial markets, the second edition of Boombustology: Adopts multiple lenses to understand the dynamics of booms, busts, bubbles, manias, crashes Utilizes the common characteristics of past bubbles to assist in identifying future financial extremes Presents a set of practical indicators that point to a financial bubble, enabling readers to gauge the likelihood of an unsustainable boom Offers two new chapters that analyze the long-term prospects for Indian markets and the distortions being caused by the passive investing boom Includes a new foreword by James Grant, legendary editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer A comprehensive exploration of how bubbles form and why they burst, Boombustology, 2nd Edition is packed with a wealth of new and updated information for individual and institutional investors, academics, students, policymakers, risk-managers, and corporate managers alike.
Download or read book Fundamentals of Computational Swarm Intelligence written by Andries P. Engelbrecht and published by Wiley. This book was released on 2005-12-16 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fundamentals of Computational Swarm Intelligence provides a comprehensive introduction to the new computational paradigm of Swarm Intelligence (SI), a field that emerged from biological research, and is now picking up momentum within the computational research community. Bio-inspired systems are becoming increasingly important research areas for computer scientists, engineers, economists, bioinformaticians, operational researchers, and many other disciplines. This book introduces the reader to the mathematical models of social insects collective behaviour, and shows how they can be used in solving optimization problems. Focusing on the algorithmic implementation of models of swarm behavior, this book: Examines how social network structures are used to exchange information among individuals, and how the aggregate behaviour of these individuals forms a powerful organism. Introduces a compact summary of the formal theory of optimisation. Outlines paradigms with relations to SI, including genetic algorithms, evolutionary programming, evolutionary strategies, cultural algorithms and co-evolution. Looks at the choreographic movements of birds in a flock as a basis for the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) models, and provides an extensive treatment of different classes of PSO models. Shows how the behaviour of ants can be used to implement Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithms to solve real-world problems including routing optimization, structure optimization, data mining and data clustering. Considers different classes of optimization problems, including multi-objective optimization, dynamic environments, discrete and continuous search spaces, constrained optimization, and niching. Includes an accompanying website containing Java classes and implementations of the different algorithms that can be used to test PSO and ACO algorithms: http://si.cs.up.ac.za The interdisciplinary nature of this field will make Fundamentals of Computational Swarm Intelligence an essential resource for readers with diverse backgrounds. In addition, it will be an excellent reference for computer scientists, practitioners in business or industry and researchers involved in the analysis, design and simulation of multibody systems. Advanced undergraduates and graduate students in artificial intelligence, collective intelligence and engineering will also find this book an invaluable tool.
Download or read book Susan Wiggs Lakeshore Chronicles Christmas Collection written by Susan Wiggs and published by MIRA. This book was released on 2016-11-16 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Escape to the tranquil shores of Willow Lake with #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs in this collection of unforgettable Christmas tales from her beloved Lakeshore Chronicles series. LAKESHORE CHRISTMAS Maureen Davenport is finally getting her shot to direct Avalon’s annual holiday pageant, but her storybook notion of Christmas is disrupted when Eddie Haven is assigned to assist her. As they spar over every detail of the pageant, their passion for the perfect performance begins to blossom into something more. CANDLELIGHT CHRISTMAS Logan O’Donnell is determined to create the perfect Christmas for his son, Charlie, and Willow Lake newcomer Darcy Fitzgerald is the last person he can see himself falling for. Yet between the snowy silence of the winter woods and the toasty moments by a crackling fire, their two lonely hearts collide. The magic of the season brings them each a gift neither ever expected—a love to last a lifetime. Previously published in 2009 and 2013.
Download or read book Gleanings in Bee Culture written by and published by . This book was released on 1873 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Human Swarm written by Mark W. Moffett and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The epic story and ultimate big history of how human society evolved from intimate chimp communities into the sprawling civilizations of a world-dominating species If a chimpanzee ventures into the territory of a different group, it will almost certainly be killed. But a New Yorker can fly to Los Angeles--or Borneo--with very little fear. Psychologists have done little to explain this: for years, they have held that our biology puts a hard upper limit--about 150 people--on the size of our social groups. But human societies are in fact vastly larger. How do we manage--by and large--to get along with each other? In this paradigm-shattering book, biologist Mark W. Moffett draws on findings in psychology, sociology and anthropology to explain the social adaptations that bind societies. He explores how the tension between identity and anonymity defines how societies develop, function, and fail. Surpassing Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, The Human Swarm reveals how mankind created sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity--and what it will take to sustain them.
Download or read book Swarm Theory written by Christine Rice and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2021-03-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was a time of hippies, heroin, and All in the Family. It was a time, in the small town of New Canaan—a fictional town in mid-Michigan—when developers gobbled up farmland and spit out subdivisions. Against this backdrop, Swarm Theory’s interlocking narratives reveal the troubled lives of Astrid (a young woman trying to hold her family together), Caroline (Astrid’s best friend who has lost her mother to heroin), Will (a soldier struggling to make sense of life after being discharged from the Marines), and Father Maurice Silver (a priest caring for a young man dying of AIDS). Nothing in New Canaan is quite what it seems. Swarm Theory is a book that reveals life’s amazing contradictions—the wonderful and the profane, devotion and infidelity, understanding and revenge—through stories told from different perspectives. These stories investigate what happens when people come together—whether to do admirable or horrific things. Here, intimates and strangers alike can’t help but be intertwined; their unpredictable journeys providing a backdrop for characters complex, honorable, and not. Swarm Theory reveals our often misguided, dark, and life-sustaining dependency on each other.
Download or read book Zeroes written by Scott Westerfeld and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-09-29 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: X-Men meets Marissa Meyer’s Renegades when New York Times bestselling author of the Uglies series Scott Westerfeld teams up with award-winning authors Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti for this explosive trilogy filled with “cinematic nonstop action,” (Booklist) about six teens with unique abilities. Don’t call them heroes. But these six California teens have powers that set them apart. Take Ethan, a.k.a. Scam. He’s got a voice inside him that’ll say whatever you want to hear, whether it’s true or not. Which is handy, except when it isn’t—like when the voice starts gabbing in the middle of a bank robbery. The only people who can help are the other Zeroes, who aren’t exactly best friends these days. Enter Nate, a.k.a. Bellwether, the group’s “glorious leader.” After Scam’s SOS, he pulls the scattered Zeroes back together. But when the rescue blows up in their faces, the Zeroes find themselves propelled into whirlwind encounters with ever more dangerous criminals. At the heart of the chaos they find Kelsie, who can take a crowd in the palm of her hand and tame it or let it loose as she pleases. Filled with high-stakes action and drama, Zeroes unites three powerhouse authors for the opening installment of a thrilling new series.
Download or read book Swarm of Bees written by Lemony Snicket and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of The Dark comes another brilliantly illustrated picture book that takes on an intense childhood emotion--this time, anger--in a rollicking, kid-friendly way. Whether you're a kid or a bee, sometimes you feel so mad, you buzz around looking for people to sting and trouble to make. See how one boy, a swarm of bees, and a whole town can get riled up and then find a way to feel better through the comfort of unconditional love and community. Printed in a brilliant palette of primary colors, brimming with beautiful dots and stripes, Rilla Alexander's art sings. Not since David Shannon's No, David! have readers been given the pleasure of witnessing such uproariously terrible behavior, unbridled emotion, and ultimately, such comfort.
Download or read book The Beekeeper s Ball written by Susan Wiggs and published by MIRA. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes excerpt from Starlight on Willow Lake.
Download or read book Buzz Books 2014 Spring Summer written by and published by Publishers Lunch. This book was released on 2014-01-08 with total page 983 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There’s nothing like the excitement of being one of the first people to discover a great new read. Now in its fourth edition, Buzz Books has proven itself as the place where book publishing insiders and passionate book lovers alike can get their first taste of some of the year’s most extraordinary new books. The overwhelming majority of our selections go on to win awards and appear on booksellers’ monthly lists of “best books” as well as “best books of the year” from many sources—while topping bestseller lists and reading group selections as well. Some people think of the spring and summer publishing seasons as a quieter time, but last year’s Buzz Books collection provided early looks at such books as Philipp Meyer’s The Son, Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, and Anthony Marra’s debut A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, all hailed as among the year’s very best novels. Inside the book business, this volume also coincides with one of the most important industry events, the American Booksellers Association’s “Winter Institute.” This is an annual gathering of 500 independent booksellers, now a major launch pad for the spring and summer seasons, where dozens of authors—including ten of those whose work is included here—sign pre-publication galleys and discuss their forthcoming books informally with bookstore owners. Instead of keeping that industry “buzz” closed off in the room with that small group of lucky booksellers, we’re giving everyone the same kind of access to checking out the newest voices the publishing industry is building for the next season. Samples of novelists you may already know and love include new books from British authors Jojo Moyes (One Plus One) and Edward St. Aubyn (Lost for Words), alongside bestselling writers Robyn Carr (Four Friends) and Greg Iles, now with a new publisher for his latest thriller Natchez Burning. We preview Giller Prize winner Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda, already lavishly honored in Canada, plus praised novelists Jean Kwok (known for Girl in Translation) and Maggie Shipstead (author of Seating Arrangements) return with their anticipated second novels. This edition’s collection of highly-anticipated debuts includes everything from screenwriter Laline Paull’s The Bees and Marie-Helene Bertino’s 2 A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas to a posthumous roman-à-clef from magazine journalist Michael Hastings to bestselling narrative nonfiction author of Burning Down the House (the basis for the movie The Social Network) Ben Mezrich’s Seven Wonders. Our selection of nonfiction is modest in quantity but broad in range, from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone to author of bestselling Nickel and Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich’s memoir. We also include memoir with recipes (from Leah Eskin) and in letters (from Nina Stibbe), plus the latest from bestselling science journalist Sam Kean. Our biggest-ever section of young adult literature mirrors the growing popularity of these works among readers young and not-so-young. Sally Green’s Half Bad is already an international publishing sensation ahead of its release, with sales in dozens of territories. We sample new works from well-known authors such as Ann Brashares and Lemony Snicket alongside Twilight: New Moon director Chris Weitz’s The Young World—the first in a new series—and Scholastic editor Amanda Maciel’s Tease. There is something here for every reader’s taste, and the selections are roughly organized by genre and then publication date. For a broader picture of new books on the horizon, fill your to-be-read lists with the extensive preview of the publishing seasons that starts off Buzz Books. We love providing these exciting excerpts ahead of publication, and you can share this free ebook with friends and spread your enthusiasm for any of these selections online. Buzz Books can be downloaded for free from any major ebookstore, and we have included direct links to pre-order the full book after each excerpt.
Download or read book Every Life Is on Fire written by Jeremy England and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A preeminent physicist unveils a field-defining theory of the origins and purpose of life. Why are we alive? Most things in the universe aren't. And everything that is alive traces back to things that, puzzlingly, weren't. For centuries, the scientific question of life's origins has confounded us. But in Every Life Is on Fire, physicist Jeremy England argues that the answer has been under our noses the whole time, deep within the laws of thermodynamics. England explains how, counterintuitively, the very same forces that tend to tear things apart assembled the first living systems. But how life began isn't just a scientific question. We ask it because we want to know what it really means to be alive. So England, an ordained rabbi, uses his theory to examine how, if at all, science helps us find purpose in a vast and mysterious universe. In the tradition of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Every Life Is on Fire is a profound testament to how something can come from nothing.
