Oræcle (Timing Fate, #1)


K.C. King - 2012
    And that’s when it happens – the moment I’m blindsided by the imminent collision of time and fate.  For one, surreal moment my sense of self bleeds away, and I become all that I’ve seen, and all that will come to be at my choosing. *** It’s been two years since Paige Prescott discovered the gift that nearly got her committed.  But now she knows better than to tell anyone about the visions that plague her: futures for which she’s fated, unless she can change them first. But when a tragic event unfolds on the last day of senior year, Paige’s carefully crafted façade shatters, plunging her into a dangerous new reality where her gift is a coveted weapon – and she learns she's not the only one with a secret. Now, torn between a world she thought she knew and one she wished she didn’t, Paige must rely on her gift – and the guidance of a veiled enigma – to outmaneuver a formidable kind.  But if she wants to reclaim her future, she’ll have to make a stunning choice: one bound by love, loyalty, and lies – And the power of timing fate.

Mindware: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Science


Andy Clark - 2000
    In eight short chapters it tells a story and invites the reader to join in some up-to-the-minute conceptual discussion of the key issues, problems, and opportunities in cognitive science. The story is about the search for a cognitive scientific understanding of mind. It is presented as a no-holds-barred journey from early work in Artificial Intelligence, through connectionist (artificial neural network) counter-visions, and onto neuroscience artificial life, dynamics and robotics. The journey ends with some wide-ranging and provacative speculation about the role of technology and the changing nature of the human mind itself.Each chapter is organized as an initial sketch of a research program or theme, followed by a substantial discussion section in which specific problems and issues (both familiear and cutting-edge) are raised and pursued. Discussion topics include mental causation, the hardware/software distinction, the relations between life and mind, the nature of perception, cognition and action, and the continuity (or otherwise) of high-level human intelligence with other forms of adaptive response. Classic topics are treated alongside the newer ones in an integrated treatment of the various discussions. The sketches and discussions are accompanied by numerous figures and boxed sections, and followed by suggestions for futher reading.

Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain


Mark F. Bear - 1995
    This edition provides increased coverage of taste and smell, circadian rhythms, brain development, and developmental disorders and includes new information on molecular mechanisms and functional brain imaging. Path of Discovery boxes, written by leading researchers, highlight major current discoveries. In addition, readers will be able to assess their knowledge of neuroanatomy with the Illustrated Guide to Human Neuroanatomy, which includes a perforated self-testing workbook.This edition's robust ancillary package includes a bound-in student CD-ROM, an Instructor's Resource CD-ROM, and resources online.

Networks of the Brain


Olaf Sporns - 2010
    Increasingly, science is concerned with the structure, behavior, and evolution of complex systems ranging from cells to ecosystems. In Networks of the Brain, Olaf Sporns describes how the integrative nature of brain function can be illuminated from a complex network perspective.Highlighting the many emerging points of contact between neuroscience and network science, the book serves to introduce network theory to neuroscientists and neuroscience to those working on theoretical network models. Sporns emphasizes how networks connect levels of organization in the brain and how they link structure to function, offering an informal and nonmathematical treatment of the subject. Networks of the Brain provides a synthesis of the sciences of complex networks and the brain that will be an essential foundation for future research.

Fractured Minds: A Case-Study Approach to Clinical Neuropsychology


Jenni Ogden - 1996
    At one level, this is a book about the courage, humor, and determination to triumph over illness and disability that many "ordinary people" demonstrate when coping with the extraordinary stress of a brain disorder. At another level, it is a well-referenced and up-to-date textbook that provides a holistic view of the practice of clinical neuropsychology. Included are reader-friendly descriptions and explanations of a wide range of neurological disorders and neuroscientific concepts. Two introductory chapters are followed by 17 chapters that each focus on a specific disorder and include research, clinical assessment, rehabilitation, and a detailed case study. Disorders range across the full spectrum from common ones such as traumatic brain injury and dementia, to rare disorder such as autotopagnosia. Each of the 16 chapters retained from the first edition has been revised to reflect current research and clinical advances. Three new chapters on multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and Huntington's disease incorporate discussion of important current topics such as genetically-transmitted diseases, genetic counseling, gene transplantation, functional neurosurgery, and the complex ethical issues that go hand-in-hand with these new techniques. This informative and engaging book will be of interest to students of clinical psychology, neuropsychology, and neurology, health professionals who work with neurological patients, neurological patients and their families, and lay readers who are simply fascinated by the mind and brain.

Understanding Emotions


Keith Oatley - 1996
    It ranges across a broad range of disciplines, covering the entire lifespan from infancy to adulthood. Its main theme is that emotions have functions: they set priorities among our concerns and they provide the underlying structure of human friendships, to the excitements of sexuality. Understanding Emotions is designed as a textbook for second- and third-year university courses, and the text itself is fully supported by introductions and summaries, suggestions for further reading, plus a comprehensive bibliography and a glossary.

Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind


José Luis Bermúdez - 2010
    Cognitive Science draws upon many academic disciplines, including Psychology, Computer Science, Philosophy, Linguistics and Neuroscience. This is the first textbook to present a unified view of Cognitive Science as a discipline in its own right, with a distinctive approach to studying the mind. Students are introduced to the cognitive scientist's 'toolkit' - the vast range of techniques and tools that cognitive scientists can use to study the mind. The book presents the main theoretical models that cognitive scientists are currently using, and shows how those models are being applied to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. Cognitive Science is replete with examples, illustrations, and applications, and draws on cutting-edge research and new developments to explore both the achievements that cognitive scientists have made, and the challenges that lie ahead.

Cognitive Therapy: Basics and Beyond


Judith S. Beck - 1995
    The author uses a single case example to demonstrate how to conceptualize patients according to the cognitive model, plan treatment, conduct an initial session, structure therapy within and across sessions, incorporate homework, and use cognitive and behavioral techniques. Instructors will appreciate the book's emphasis on formulating cases, making decisions within therapy sessions, diagnosing problems in therapy, and using advanced techniques to modify core beliefs and underlying assumptions. Transcripts in every chapter richly illustrate the narrative.

Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See


Donald D. Hoffman - 1998
    Hoffman aptly demonstrates the mysterious constructive powers of our eye-brain machines using lots of simple drawings and diagrams to illustrate basic rules of the visual road. Many of the examples are familiar optical illusions--perspective-confounding cubes, a few lines that add up to a more complex shape than seems right. Hoffman also takes a cue from Oliver Sacks, employing anecdotes about people with various specific visual malfunctions to both further his mechanical explanation of visual intelligence and drive home how important this little-understood aspect of cognition can be in our lives. An especially intriguing example involves a boy, blind from birth, who is surgically given the power to see. At first, he is completely unable to visually distinguish objects familiar by touch, such as the cat and the dog. Other poignant examples show clearly how image construction is normally linked to our emotional well-being and sense of place. Visual Intelligence is a fascinating, confounding look (as it were) at an aspect of human physiology and psychology that very few of us think about much at all. --Therese Littleton

The Computer and the Brain


John von Neumann - 1958
    This work represents the views of a mathematician on the analogies between computing machines and the living human brain.

Matter and Consciousness: A Contemporary Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind


Paul M. Churchland - 1984
    This new edition incorporates the striking developments that have taken place in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence and notes their expanding relevance to philosophical issues.Churchland organizes and clarifies the new theoretical and experimental results of the natural sciences for a wider philosophical audience, observing that this research bears directly on questions concerning the basic elements of cognitive activity and their implementation in real physical systems. (How is it, he asks, that living creatures perform some cognitive tasks so swiftly and easily, where computers do them only badly or not at all?) Most significant for philosophy, Churchland asserts, is the support these results tend to give to the reductive and the eliminative versions of materialism."A Bradford Book"

Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy


Patricia S. Churchland - 2002
    Contrary to time-honored intuition, the mind turns out to be a complex of brain functions. And contrary to the wishful thinking of some philosophers, there is no stemming the revolutionary impact that brain research will have on our understanding of how the mind works.Brain-Wise is the sequel to Patricia Smith Churchland's Neurophilosophy, the book that launched a subfield. In a clear, conversational manner, this book examines old questions about the nature of the mind within the new framework of the brain sciences. What, it asks, is the neurobiological basis of consciousness, the self, and free choice? How does the brain learn about the external world and about its own introspective world? What can neurophilosophy tell us about the basis and significance of religious and moral experiences?Drawing on results from research at the neuronal, neurochemical, system, and whole-brain levels, the book gives an up-to-date perspective on the state of neurophilosophy--what we know, what we do not know, and where things may go from here.

Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition


Christopher M. Bishop - 1996
    After introducing the basic concepts, the book examines techniques for modeling probability density functions and the properties and merits of the multi-layerperceptron and radial basis function network models. Also covered are various forms of error functions, principal algorithms for error function minimalization, learning and generalization in neural networks, and Bayesian techniques and their applications. Designed as a text, with over 100exercises, this fully up-to-date work will benefit anyone involved in the fields of neural computation and pattern recognition.

Cognitive Neuroscience


Michael S. Gazzaniga - 1998
    This volume also features increased coverage of computational modelling, discussions of prominent methodological advances and an enhanced art programme.

Onboard Hindi - Learn a language before you land


Eton Institute - 2014
    Learn the Alphabet and pronunciation as well as useful phrases in 8 categories, such as greetings, travel and directions, making friends to business and emergencies. Download, read and enjoy your vacation like never before.