Amazon.com
Some love it, some hate it, but The Emperor's New Mind, physicist Roger Penrose's 1989 treatise attacking the foundations of strong artificial intelligence, is crucial for anyone interested in the history of thinking about AI and consciousness. Part survey of modern physics, part exploration of the philosophy of mind, the book is not for casual readers--though it's not overly technical, it rarely pauses to let the reader catch a breath. The overview of relativity and quantum theory, written by a master, is priceless and uncontroversial. The exploration of consciousness and AI, though, is generally considered as resting on shakier ground.
Penrose claims that there is an intimate, perhaps unknowable relation between quantum effects and our thinking, and ultimately derives his anti-AI stance from his proposition that some, if not all, of our thinking is non-algorithmic. Of course, these days we believe that there are other avenues to AI than traditional algorithmic programming; while he has been accused of setting up straw robots to knock down, this accusation is unfair. Little was then known about the power of neural networks and behavior-based robotics to simulate (and, some would say, produce) intelligent problem-solving behavior. Whether these tools will lead to strong AI is ultimately a question of belief, not proof, and The Emperor's New Mind offers powerful arguments useful to believer and nonbeliever alike. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
For many decades, the proponents of `artificial intelligence' have maintained that computers will soon be able to do everything that a human can do. In his bestselling work of popular science, Sir Roger Penrose takes us on a fascinating roller-coaster ride through the basic principles of physics, cosmology, mathematics, and philosophy to show that human thinking can never be emulated by a machine.
Customer Reviews:
A great, great book........2007-09-12
I was compelled to write as I came by on the way to buying Dr. Penrose's more recent book ("Road to Reality") and was appalled that Amazon features 2 out of 3 negative views on the first page, including one which dismisses the "Emperor's new mind" as "rubbish". Surely the book is controversial in certain quarters, but the vehemence of much of the criticism can only make me wonder why some people are so defensive about it.
I have to admit I have not reread this book since my original reading around 1990, so take my remarks at some discount on that basis. But I will tell you that this book remains influential in my choice of what I read and how I evaluate things even to this day. It has indeed changed my life.
Dr. Penrose's premise is that a computer simulation of a brain will not achieve the equivalent of human consciousness. I don't wish to enter the fray of arguing points. Dr. Penrose is a mathematical and scientific genius, a deep thinker on the nature of reality, and he can do his own counterpoint. Read this book with an open mind, and even if you disagree with some of his arguments, you will take much away with you.
Here's my take. "Consciousness" is pretty central to the whole enterprise of scientific endeavor, as well as how each of us understands our place in the world. Consciousness, as modeled by psychological and AI researchers, has a lot to say about the biological/physical systems that underpin what is happening in our heads, but one has to wonder about claims that consciousness is now completely understood. To this end, Dr. Penrose takes us on a fascinating journey to the frontiers of scientific knowledge, at scales both large and small. This is entirely relevant to the central theme. Science can only talk about what we can measure, and there are limits to what we can now measure. Our current picture of reality is not as complete as some people would have us believe.
So read Penrose. Read Stephen Jay Gould. Read Raymond Smullyan. Read about the Banach-Tarski theorem. Read about Fermat's last theorem. Read great literature. Keep an open mind. Peace!
A mess.......2007-09-07
This book is a real mess, and although I am giving it five stars, I don't really recommend anyone read anything like all of it. In fact, most of it isn't about the problems with strong AI at all. Mostly, it's a general, populist book about modern physics and mathematics. That can be an interesting read too, but probably Penrose isn't the person to be writing such a thing. He uses way too many exclamation points and I suspect he also tends to think he knows more than he really does. For example, it is clear by his one use of the word "ergodic" that he thinks it means something like "single orbits of a measurable set spread out and fill the whole space". That's mixing, not ergodicity. Lots of ergodic transformations do nothing of the kind, like for example irrational rotations of the circle. I only know this because I'm an ergodic theorist; I do tend to wonder how many other things I would catch Penrose speaking as if he knew more about them than he does, if only I knew more about them than I do.
So why does this book get five stars? Mostly because it has no good competitors. Daniel Dennett, for example, wrote a book called "Consciousness Explained." In it, he didn't even try to explain consciousness. Which is not to say he didn't write a terrific book. He did. It's wonderful. But when it comes to consciousness, Dennett just punts and doesn't seem to realize this is what he is doing (hence the ludicrously inappropriate title). This is why Searle thinks cognitive scientists come out, on analysis, "too stupid for words" (Dennett's phrase, speculating on what Searle thinks--if you haven't read these two guys' reviews of each others books, you really are missing some top-flight entertainment). As scientists, that's not really fair, but as philosophers of consciousness, it's probably pretty apt. Unfortunately Searle, marvelously adept at diagnosing the deficiencies of others, is ill-equipped to give a positive account. Penrose on the other hand at least gives us an inkling of what a positive account might look like. He does this mostly in the last chapter of the book, which is all I think anybody really needs to read (read the chapter on quantum theory too, if you don't know any).
Is Penrose right? I think, in broad outline, probably so. I do think consciousness has some power to choose at quantum branching points. I think this because I believe in the causal closure of the physical, I believe in the efficacy of consciousness, I don't believe that consciousness is physical, and I don't believe in overdetermination. You can only rectify these beliefs (as far as I can tell), by booting causal closure upstairs into the many-worlds arena and letting consciousness slide around in this ultra-high-dimensional plane with some measure of latitude. It's also the only way I can imagine that consciousness could have evolved in the first place (given that the strong AI premise that consciousness is automatically, miraculously generated by the execution of an algorithm really is too stupid for words).
I'm sure I'm one of hundreds of people who took quantum mechanics as an undergraduate and immediately formed these opinions; I am happy to defer to Penrose as to the details of how it might work. Are these details worked out in full, or even correctable in principle? Probably not. But almost surely it's not for being too crazy; the truth of the matter about consciousness is probably much, much crazier than even Penrose can imagine. Indeed, probably too crazy to be of any practical use to congnitive science now (maybe ever). So you're still going to have good reason to read your Daniel Dennett.
Oh, right. Penrose thinks the quagmire of consciousness has a lot to do with computability, tilings, entropy and Godel incompleteness. It doesn't. Those are just things Penrose knows a lot about, and paranoids think that all the things they know about are related.
Do yourself a favor and read this book!.......2007-03-19
Jeez, twelve bucks and one hell of a good read! Stick your neck out and find out for YOURSELF if the book is any good. I'm suspicious that Penrose is being persecuted for theist tendencies.
Walking past one another..........2006-11-21
I skimmed over the equations, and still found the exposition clear enough, with one significant exception. At one point, Penrose describes how an event in the Andromeda galaxy would already have occurred for a person on Earth walking toward the galaxy and not for another at the same spot walking away. the implication is that information would arrive at the same place at significantly different times for people walking in different directions. Penrose is assuming simultaneity of the events on our planet and in the Andromeda galaxy -- after several pages of discussion of how relativity excludes it!
Penrose soon returns to form though, stating that neither person would perceive the event until information about it arrived at the speed of light, millions of years later. Even if people could live that long, they would have to keep walking away from one another to perceive the event at very different times. That would be not be possible on our little round planet.
This is the one place where Penrose's discussion of modern physics lost me for a little while. Otherwise, I found it compelling. In particular, his explanation that Newtonian physics is deterministic stuck with me.
The discussion of mind at the end of the book is inconclusive and speculative, as it must yet be. The mechanical structure of living beings reflects Newtonian physics -- for example, the leg must be strong enough to support the body. Digestion can be explained in terms of chemistry, the nervous system uses electrical conduction, the reception of light by the eye is a quantum phenomenon. But then, there is the mind. Though the uncertainty in quantum physics allows of free will, it does not explain that, or consciousness. Evolution takes advantage of physical phenomena not yet understood -- after all, none were understood until very recently. The question of consciousness and that of the structure of the universe converge. Thought-provoking, indeed!
Will you answer "no" to this question ?.......2006-04-19
For those people who didn't make it through the book, here is a (perhaps oversimplified) summary.
Assumption 1 : Machines function algorithmically. The human brain functions at least partly non-algorithmically
Assumption 2 : There are some mathematical problems that can not be solved by algorithms f.i. proving the correctness of a self-referring statement.
Conclusion from 1 and 2 : Humans are able to solve problems that machines will never be able to solve.
Assumption 3 : Intelligence means being able to solve every possible problem.
Conclusion : Humans are intelligent, machines will never be intelligent.
My thoughts on this :
assumption 1 : Non-algorithmically ? There is not a shred of evidence of non-algorithmic thinking in humans. There are on the other hand plenty of mechanisms taking place in the brain that are clearly algorithmic (like vision, pattern recognition etc.)
assumption 2 : Apparently Penrose believes that humans are able to solve these problems. I am not so sure. I challenge you to answer the next question correctly : Will you answer "no" to this question ? It cannot be answered correctly. It is in the nature of the problem itself. The problems Penrose mentions are of the same nature.
assumption 3 : We don't know the nature of consciousness. We have no understanding of what intelligence implies. Penrose believes it implies that an intelligent creature is able to solve EVERY problem. Therefore, if there is one problem a machine can not solve, the machine is not intelligent.
So the only thing Penrose has to do to prove his point is ask a question that has no correct answers : ask the machine to overcome the incompleteness theorem of G?del, or to answer the above question correctly. (and ignore the fact that people cannot answer it correctly either).
I have enjoyed the book in a way ... while seeking arguments to demolish Penrose's theory.
Book Description
If you've held back from developing open source or free software projects because you don't understand the implications of the various licenses, you're not alone. Many developers believe in releasing their software freely, but have hesitated to do so because they're concerned about losing control over their software. Licensing issues are complicated, and both the facts and fallacies you hear word-of-mouth can add to the confusion. Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing helps you make sense of the different options available to you. This concise guide focuses on annotated licenses, offering an in-depth explanation of how they compare and interoperate, and how license choices affect project possibilities. Written in clear language that you don't have to be a lawyer to understand, the book answers such questions as: What rights am I giving up? How will my use of OS/FS licensing affect future users or future developers? Does a particular use of this software--such as combining it with proprietary software--leave me vulnerable to lawsuits? Following a quick look at copyright law, contracts, and the definition of "open source," the book tackles the spectrum of licensing, including:
- The MIT (or X), BSD, Apache and Academic Free licenses
- The GPL, LGPL, and Mozilla licenses
- The QT, Artistic, and Creative Commons licenses
- Classic Proprietary licenses
- Sun Community Source license and Microsoft Shared Source project
The book wraps up with a look at the legal effects--both positive and negative--of open source/free software licensing. Licensing is a major part of what open source and free software are all about, but it's still one of the most complicated areas of law. Even the very simple licenses are tricky. Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing bridges the gap between the open source vision and the practical implications of its legal underpinnings. If open source and free software licenses interest you, this book will help you understand them. If you're an open source/free software developer, this book is an absolute necessity.
Customer Reviews:
Important and timely.......2005-03-30
People don't realize how important licensing is with open source, but there is a lot.
Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing is a very needed book and well written.
A Worthwhile Introduction to Open Source Licensing.......2005-01-30
Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing
Andrew M. St. Laurent
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/osfreesoft/
When sharing with others that I was reviewing an O'Reilly book through their User Group & Professional Association Program, the first question was always the same: "What book are you reviewing?" After saying the title was "Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing", responses ranged from "What's that?" to "Well, you won't have any trouble sleeping!" One might think that this list of people included relatives and coworkers who were not attuned to the open source community and its issues. On the contrary, the responses came from those within my circle of acquaintances that include software developers, system administrators, and even an intellectual property lawyer. Licensing is not exactly the sort of topic where people slide forward in their seats and ask to be told more. Such is the appeal of software licensing; however, the importance of understanding licensing, particularly within the context of open source development, cannot be overstated.
Those familiar with the O'Reilly product offerings have no doubt seen or purchased one or more their Pocket Reference series (http://pocketrefs.oreilly.com/). They are not comprehensive references, but rather convenient guides for a specific topic to provide the sort of information one is not likely to have committed to memory, particularly as the trend of having cross-disciplined technologists continues. This book could be considered the analog of pocket guides for open source and free software licensing. Open source licenses and their legal interpretation are subject matter that easily warrant a "pocket reference" that is a full-sized book of nearly 200 pages.
Frankly, reading through a software license and maintaining a reasonable level of comprehension is a rather tough job. The author manages to make the task far more bearable and fruitful at the same time; a difficult balance to strike. The pace of the annotation works well to break up the various licenses (twelve in total) into bite-sized chunks. Chapters 2 and 3, which address the BSD/MIT family of licenses and the GPL/LGPL/MPL family of licenses respectively, each end with a section titled "Application and Philosophy" that serves as a sort of reward for making it through the license and establishes a touchstone to summarize and provide meaningful context for what has been covered.
The annotations of the different licenses are a great introduction, but the book should not be considered as a complete reference for open source licensing issues. The book seems to affirm this at points where the author indicates that particular topics fall outside the book's scope, even to the point of recommending experienced legal counsel for certain issues. It also has a wonderful collection of footnotes and reference to other resources to allow the reader to flesh out topics of interest beyond the focus of this work.
One subtlety of the book that should not be missed is how the history of the open source movement is woven throughout the book to provide the context in which these licenses came into being and were modified to accommodate the vibrant, emerging world of open development models. The book's last two chapters bring that context to the foreground, fully developing the consequence of the licenses in daily development activity. It is far too easy to view these licenses and as mere legal documents that exist in and of themselves; the author reminds us that these licenses are the manifestations of a spirit of selfless contribution and work toward social good made possible by the considerable sacrifice of quite gifted individuals. For those passionate about the open source and free software movements, the section of chapter 7 titled "Models of Open Source and Free Software Development" is a poignant and stirring encapsulation of the first years of the GNU and Linux projects and the work that brought them into being. The cliché rings true; we do indeed "stand on the shoulders of giants."
The number of editorial errors involving misspelled and/or missing words seemed relatively high; this is a trend that seems to have developed in technical books in recent years, to a point that the technical community has come to accept it as some sort of side effect of the rapid pace with which books must be produced in order to keep pace with the rate of change. Given that this is an issue present in other works as well as this one, it should not particularly count as a mark against the work, but rather serve to underscore an issue publishers should consider improving.
"Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing" is a book which strikes a balance between completeness of subject matter coverage and manageability of size. Given the amount of attention the average open source user or developer has given to licensing, reading this book would be a considerable improvement. This book is recommended for a couple of audiences. First, it serves as a great foundation for developers either active in or contemplating participation in open source development. Searching most any open source mailing list for the term "license" can usually turn up some of its hottest flame wars. If most developers had this introductory level of understanding about the main open source licenses, hundreds of message threads arguing about licensing could be avoided.
A second audience for this book is the project manager and/or CTO in most corporate IT shops. Most corporate projects are making use of numerous open source libraries and frameworks. This is particularly true with J2EE, but also with .Net as a number of .Net counterparts to popular J2EE resources arise, e.g. NAnt, NUnit, etc. This book can dispel unnecessary apprehension regarding the use of these libraries that often arises from fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) propagated in much of the mainstream technology media. It can also equip managers to make informed decisions about team members' potential contributions to open source projects and the potential legal implications.
good quick reference.......2005-01-13
I am an attorney who does open source software license work for a living. When this book came along, I picked it up, mostly because I was interested in seeing how O'Reilly does branching out well beyond its usual technical subjects. As you are probably aware, 2004 was the year of open source, according to some publications. Well, it was also the year of open source books. I have seen at least five that deal with the topic directly.
Getting to the merits of St. Laurent's book, I struggled with whether to give it three or four stars. You see, even as a lawyer I found it lacking in clarity and flow. Overall, I am opposed to the route he took in excerpting almost every term of each license and then providing exposition of his own that was a lot of times hardly more helpful than the original license language. A better approach to explaining the licenses can be found in Larry Rosen's wonderful book "Open Source Licensing." However, this downside becomes an upside when using the book as a reference, instead of an educational guide (justifying the fourth star). St. Laurent's approach here is useful for going into more depth on a particular license. Perhaps that was the goal all along.
Another advantage this book has over Rosen's is its broader treatment of the growing array of licenses and license types. St. Laurent covers more licenses and for that I am thankful. In the end, I would recommend having a copy of both Rosen's and St. Laurent's book handy. And whatever you do, skip Rod Dixon's "Open Source Software Law."
Clearly defines licensing standards - great reference.......2004-12-28
Software licensing can be one of the most confusing issues of software installation and development. Most people assume that there are few if any issues with Open Source and Free Software Licensing but that often is not the case. While it may be free to install you wade into murky waters when you change the code, make a new program that uses some of the coding of the open source program, make a derivative program, or a host of other situations. Part of the confusion is that all Open Source or Free Software licensing is not the same. For example there are the MIT, BSD, Apache, and Academic Free Licenses. Or what about the GNU license? Most people don't realize that there are two different versions of GNU licenses, the GNU General Public License (GPL) and the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)? Then there is the Mozilla Public License, Q Public License, Artistic License, and Creative Commons License.
Author Andrew M. St. Laurent does an excellent job explaining all these various licenses, what you can do and can't do, the various benefits and shortcomings of the licenses and pitfalls to watch for. If you are doing development in this arena, have made an improvement to one of the programs, or have written a program for internal use that might have resell value you can't afford to not understand the nuances of the various licensing agreements. Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing is highly recommended and required reading for anyone in this situation.
Not at all as dry as I thought it would be.......2004-10-14
I honestly didn't think I'd find this as interesting as I did. As important as licenses are, an annotated listing of them didn't sound like anything I wanted to flop back on the couch with. However, the author has managed to make this both interesting and educational.
It covers all the common open source licenses, explaining what each section means, and digging into problems that might come up for the licensor or licensee. Open Source isn't all that it covers: standard shrink-wrap licenses are examined, as is Sun's Community Source License and Microsoft's "Shared Source Initiative".
Finally, the book itself is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license. It is interesting that O'Reilly is willing to publish works like this, but I'm glad they are.
Book Description
The challenge of a fully automatic fingerprint-recognition system continues to motivate many researchers to address fingerprints and related problems. In addition to fingerprint analysis in law enforcement, civilian applications are now being planned because of unique benefits that fingerprint technology offers.
Automatic Fingerprint Recognition Systems assesses the challenges for achieving fully automatic operation. In addition, it examines advances in the various aspects of fingerprint recognition: newer models of individuality analysis, new technologies for inkless sensors, empirical evaluation of fingerprint recognition performance, synthetic generation of fingerprint images, fingerprint videos, and new large-scale systems for fingerprint identification. The book offers a history of fingerprint research and also confronts its future -- in particular, how research in the allied fields of computer vision, image processing, pattern recognition, and empirical performance evaluation will advance the science and technology of fingerprint identification.
Customer Reviews:
In depth state of the art book for serious researchers.......2006-11-06
This book is a collection of essays that manages to cohere and give a very readable in-depth review of the state of the art. I would recommend purchasing this book with the "Handbook of Fingerprint Recognition" by Maltoni et. al. The quality of the writing is remarkably good, but a little bit more technical than in the handbook. I found the first chapter on history especially interesting, but you would probably not spend all that money on this book for leisure reading.
Book Description
The story of the persecuted genius who helped create the modern computer.
To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary programmable calculating machine. But the idea of actually producing a "Turing machine" did not crystallize until he and his brilliant Bletchley Park colleagues built devices to crack the Nazis' Enigma code, thus ensuring the Allies' victory in World War II. In so doing, Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, formulating the famous (and still unbeaten) Turing Test that challenges our ideas of human consciousness. But Turing's postwar computer-building was cut short when, as an openly gay man in a time when homosexuality was officially illegal in England, he was apprehended by the authorities and sentenced to a "treatment" that amounted to chemical castration, leading to his suicide.
With a novelist's sensitivity, David Leavitt portrays Turing in all his humanity—his eccentricities, his brilliance, his fatal candor—while elegantly explaining his work and its implications.
Customer Reviews:
Somewhere in Here is a Biography.......2007-07-13
Leavitt spent a lot of time teaching himself mathematics and learning the early science of how computers worked. The problem is that he spends half the book going over the theorems of Turning and some of his contemporaries. This is all fine and good, if math is your thing. Zeta probabilities and the function of (prime numbers at n-1 or something like that) have no interest for the average laymen; and especially for those of us who never got past algebra and think calculus is hard skin on the bottom of your foot.
This makes the title sort of a double entendre, leaving all of us at the short end of the stick because if he learned it, he told it to us. Some of the explanations run eight or ten pages. This of course makes reading this short book (under 300 pages) even shorter, though it's like hitting yourself in the head, it only feels great when it's over. If your a good skimmer and know where to look it's probably an enjoyable book. In my case I kept hoping that it would get more interesting but it never did.
More on Turing's life (or maybe there just wasn't any more) would have been preferable to more on his mathematical findings.
not a bad airplane read.......2007-07-12
Not bad over all, at times goes on a bit to much about his homosexuality. Main reason for 3 and not 4 stars is the title, nothing in the book deals how he "knew too much".
The Essential Turing Reading.......2007-06-11
All students studying computer science are introduced to Alan Turing at one time or another. For most, this introduction takes the form of Turing as the inventor of the Turing Machine, a machine unbounded by time and memory that can solve any problem. Once the students perform some perfunctory exercises involving the use of a Turing machine to construct say, the solution to the dining philosophers problem, they promptly forget about Turing and his machine. Which is so sad. Turing can be rightly considered the father of the modern computer where data and memory are mapped to the same address space. This invention is typically attributed to John von Neumann, but the author of the book makes a point that behind von Neumann's contribution was Turing's hand. Turing went on, in his brief life spanning only 42 years, to work on cryptography (credited with decoding the German Enigma machines in World War II, albeit using the groundwork laid down by a Polish cryptographer, Martin Rejewski; see Simon Singh's Code Book reviewed in 2006), artificial intelligence (the Turing Test), and mathematics. The state saw to it that his genius would be, unfortunately, eclipsed by his sexuality. In 1952, Turing was convicted of "acts of gross indecency" after admitting sexual relations with a man. He was forced to undergo hormone therapy in the vain hope of "curing" him. Instead, what these pogroms did was to rob the scientific world of one of the greatest researchers of all times. Turing elected to end his life by biting into an apple laced with cyanide. It was apropos; his favorite fairy tale was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
A decent study of Turing.......2007-05-17
This is a decent study of Turing with an essay about how he created in computer form a floorplan perspective. The author was able to provice an analytical study of his machine and a social study of the man's life.
Indepth and concise.......2007-03-19
I think this a good book for anyone who is interested in Technology and how Computer-Tech took off.It gives you a brief understanding of the person behind such an incredible invention,proving how useful it was during the War.Due to Mr Turing's extraordinary story,this book goes into detail about his struggle of homosexuality,which was an obstacle in his strive for the answer to the 'decidability problem'.It's a must have for the Computer enthusiast!
Book Description
With their proven individuality and stability over time, fingerprints continue to be the most widely used physiological characteristic in systems that automatically recognize a person's identity. This handbook on automatic fingerprint recognition provides in-depth coverage of the most recent advances and practices. Readers will find comprehensive and authoritative coverage of all the major concepts, topics, and security methods associated with fingerprint recognition systems. Coverage includes: sensing, feature extraction and matching, synthetic fingerprint image generation, indexing, and multimodal systems.
Features & Benefits:
* Covers the latest research in fingerprint-based recognition algorithms and techniques
* Provides introductory material on all components and modules of a fingerprint recognition system *Examines design of secure fingerprint systems
* Contains helpful chapter overviews and summaries and consistent notation, for ease of use and accessibility
* Includes a DVD containing both the FVC2002 and FVC2000 fingerprint databases (full versions) and a demo version of SFinGe software (for synthetic fingerprint image generation)
* Integrates numerous supporting graphs, tables, charts, and performance data
* Supplies an extensive annotated bibliography of citations and literature sources.
This comprehensive and authoritative reference, written by leading international researchers, covers all critical aspects of fingerprint security systems and technology. It is an absolutely essential resource for all biometric security professionals, researchers, practitioners, developers, and systems administrators.
About the Authors
Davide Maltoni is associate professor in the Dept. of Electronics, Informatics and Systems (DEIS) at the University of Bologna, where he also co-directs the Biometrics Systems Laboratory (BioLab).
Dario Maio is professor in the University of Bologna¿s DEIS, chair of Cesena campus and director of the BioLab.
Anil K. Jain is university-distinguished professor in the department of computer science and engineering at Michigan State University. He is a fellow of the IEEE and IAPR and holds six patents on algorithms for fingerprint recognition.
Salil Prabhakar leads the algorithms research group at DigitalPersona Inc., where he works on fingerprint-based biometric solutions.
Customer Reviews:
Definitive in-depth state of the art book.......2006-11-06
"This book is intended for researchers, practicing engineers, and students who wish to understand and / or develop fingerprint-based recognition systems." So the introduction, and right they are. The authors have chosen a more informal style, but still give some of the Mathematics necessary. The references are extensive and ultimately the reader will have to go to them to make a contribution.
I would recommend buying this book with "Automatic Fingerprint Recognition Systems" by Ratha and Bolle (ed.) It would be hard for me to make a decision between these two books.
Revision.......2006-03-11
Lo recomiendo si desean implementar nuevos algoritmos para reconocimiento de huellas dactilares y/o una revision a profundidad de como funcionan los metodos existentes.
Imprescindible concimiento de gradientes y algoritmos digitales en el tratamiento de imagenes.. para comprender el contenido.
Truly Outstanding.......2004-02-27
The applications of Biometrics technology range from federated identity management to digital rights management, time and attendance, background checking, and homeland security. None of the biometric characteristics has received more attention till date than fingerprints. Fingerprint recognition is the most cost effective and accurate biometrics, which is evident from its rapid deployment in the widest range of security applications.
This book contains a plethora of information on every aspect of fingerprint recognition technology - introduction to biometrics and fingerprints, fingerprint sensing devices, feature extraction, matching, classification, synthetic fingerprint generation, multimodal systems, secure design, fingerprint individuality - you name it. The DVD accompanying this book will save you a lot of money and trouble of collecting your own data to test your algorithms.
The authors of this book - Davide Maltoni, Dario Maio, Salil Prabhakar, and Anil K. Jain - are undoubtedly some of the most well known and respected experts in the world on the topic of fingerprint recognition. It is no surprise that such extraordinary researchers have produced such an exceptional masterpiece.
Whether you are an inventor, developer, practitioner, forensic specialist, or system manager in this field looking for an excellent reference or just a novice looking for basic information on biometrics and fingerprint recognition technology, you must read this outstanding book.
A "must" for all interested in Biometrics.......2004-02-17
This book is a "must". Very useful for my research on Biometrics and Multibiometrics Systems. No wonder this book received the 2003 PSP Award (Computer Science) from the Association of American Publishers.
Excellent state-of-the-art overview of methods.......2003-09-10
This book first describes the different biometric systems that exist. It describes different methods of acquiring the fingerprints and the advantages and drawbacks from each method. Then it handles the different analysis methods for fingerprints in depth. The matching algorithms that are known with their evaluation is handled throughly with their indexing and classification methods. It discusses methods for fingerprint evaluation with the databases of NIST on DVD and the software sfinge for artificially making the fingerprints.
The part that is really new is the multimodal biometric system and performance measures of these systems. It also handles the individuality of fingerprints themselves and finally it gives an overview of methods for attacking fingerprints systems (denial of service, fake fingers, trojan horses, replay but also the electronic storage systems behind them). If you are in biometrics and also in forensic science, you certainly should consider reading this book.
Average customer rating:
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The Dynamics of Judicial Proof: Computation, Logic, and Common Sense (Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing)
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ASIN: 3790814598 |
Book Description
Fact finding in judicial proceedings is a dynamic process. This collection of papers considers whether computational methods or other formal logical methods developed in disciplines such as artificial intelligence, decision theory, and probability theory can facilitate the study and management of dynamic evidentiary and inferential processes in litigation. The papers gathered here have several epicenters, including (i) the dynamics of judicial proof, (ii) the relationship between artificial intelligence or formal analysis and "common sense," (iii) the logic of factual inference, including (a) the relationship between causality and inference and (b) the relationship between language and factual inference, (iv) the logic of discovery, including the role of abduction and serendipity in the process of investigation and proof of factual matters, and (v) the relationship between decision and inference.
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Law and the Semantic Web: Legal Ontologies, Methodologies, Legal Information Retrieval, and Applications (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)
Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 3540250638 |
Book Description
The revised papers presented in this book are drawn from two meetings devoted to the Semantic Web and the legal domain: The International Workshop on Legal Ontologies and Web-Based Legal Information Management held in Edinburgh, UK in June 2003, and the International Seminar on Law and the Semantic Web, held in Barcelona, Spain in November 2003.
This book presents 15 thoroughly refereed revised papers on topics relevant for law and the Semantic Web. The book is structured into three parts. Part I sets the scene by introducing the relevant concepts, describing some of the users (legal professionals), and putting into historical context how legal professionals think about the use and application of law. Part II presents theoretical aspects related to the construction of legal ontologies, both from a legal and a methodological point of view. Part III collects descriptions of various applications of Semantic Web technology to the legal domain.
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Information Technology and Lawyers: Advanced Technology in the Legal Domain, from Challenges to Daily Routine
Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1402041454 |
Book Description
The area of Information Technology and Lawyers is a fascinating one. Both from a practical and an academic perspective the opportunities of applying Information Technology to law are tremendous. At the same time, however, lawyers are amongst the most conservative professionals, and traditional late adapters of technology. Nowadays the gap between Information Technology and Lawyers is closing more and more, in particular due to the Internet and the richness of legal sources that can be found online. This book provides material to further bridge the gap by showing people with a legal background what is possible with Information Technology now and in the near future, as well as by showing people with an IT background what opportunities exist in the domain of law.
Any lawyer should read this book about the current practice of IT in the legal domain, and what is to be expected in the near future.
The book is meant for both practitioners and academics, and can serve in any (post)graduate courses on computer science, law, business, etc.
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Finite Model Theory and Its Applications (Texts in Theoretical Computer Science. An EATCS Series)
Erich Grädel ,
Phokion G. Kolaitis ,
Leonid Libkin ,
Maarten Marx ,
Joel Spencer ,
Moshe Y. Vardi ,
Yde Venema , and
Scott Weinstein
Manufacturer: Springer
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Automata, Logics, and Infinite Games: A Guide to Current Research (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)
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Mathematical Logic for Computer Science
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Transactions on Rough Sets VI: Commemorating Life and Work of Zdislaw Pawlak, Part I (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)
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ASIN: 3540004289 |
Book Description
This book gives a comprehensive overview of central themes of finite model theory – expressive power, descriptive complexity, and zero-one laws – together with selected applications relating to database theory and artificial intelligence, especially constraint databases and constraint satisfaction problems. The final chapter provides a concise modern introduction to modal logic, emphasizing the continuity in spirit and technique with finite model theory. This underlying spirit involves the use of various fragments of and hierarchies within first-order, second-order, fixed-point, and infinitary logics to gain insight into phenomena in complexity theory and combinatorics.
The book emphasizes the use of combinatorial games, such as extensions and refinements of the Ehrenfeucht-Fraissé pebble game, as a powerful way to analyze the expressive power of such logics, and illustrates how deep notions from model theory and combinatorics, such as o-minimality and treewidth, arise naturally in the application of finite model theory to database theory and AI.
Students of logic and computer science will find here the tools necessary to embark on research into finite model theory, and all readers will experience the excitement of a vibrant area of the application of logic to computer science.
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Security, Rights, & Liabilities in E-Commerce
Jeffrey, H. Matsuura , and
Jeffrey H. Matsuura
Manufacturer: Artech House Publishers
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ASIN: 1580532985 |
Customer Reviews:
Excellent review.......2006-09-11
My first thought is to call this a classic, but perhaps that is too strong. The text is extremely lucid and well organized. Matsurra does an excellent job at making interesting otherwise dry legal dangers facing any ecommerce organization. Get every member of your staff to read this. It will be a well rewarded investment.
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