Synergetics may be considered as an interdisciplinary effort dealing with the gene ral problem of how science can cope with complex systems. The preceding symposia on synergetics were devoted to systems of physics, chemistry and partly also biolo gy and sociology. It was possible to develop adequate concepts to describe and even to calculate evolving macroscopic spatial, temporal, and functional structures which emerge through self-organization of the individual parts of the systems under con sideration. This book contains the invited papers presented at the Symposium on the Synerge tics of the brain, Schloss Elmau, Bavaria, May 2 to 7, 1983. The inclusion of this topic in the synergetics enterprise represents a big step towards a treatment of complex systems. Most probably the human brain is the most complex system we know of. As the organizers believe, this symposium provides the reader with a good cross section of experimental results and theoretical approaches to cope with the complex problems of structure and function of the brain. It was generally felt that such a joint meeting between experimentalists and theoreticians is of great importance for future development of this field. Modern experimental methods, e. g. multielectrode derivations allow or will allow us, in short, to collect huge amounts of data. Simi larly high-speed computers will flood us with an enormous number of outputs once the basic model equations have been chosen."

The first journalist to herald the New Economy of the 1990s now predicts a stunning, sharp downturn: why it will happen, when it's coming, and what will happen afterward. The economist most renowned for predicting the New Economy of the 1990s now returns - just as books like The Long Boom and Dow 36,000 are turning the idea of perpetual prosperity into conventional wisdom - to say that the dominating economic event of the next few years is likely to be a deep recession, perhaps even a depression. Michael J. Mandel begins The Coming Internet Depression by explaining why just such a depression is not only possible but increasingly likely. His explanation is based in a comparison of the present period with the 1920s: both saw tremendous growth in GDP that was largely centered on the hypergrowth of a single industry - automobiles in the 1920s, information technology today. When this hypergrowth reverts to a normal growth pattern, as the automobile industry did in 1929, the resulting overcapacity will slow down the entire economy.