This volume is about "Structure." The search for "structure," always the pursuit of sciences within their specific areas and perspectives, is witnessing these days a dra matic revolution. The coexistence and interaction of so many structures (atoms, hu mans, cosmos and all that there is in between) would be unconceivable according to many experts, if there were not, behind it all, some gen eral organizational principle. s that (at least in some asymptotic way) make possible so many equilibria among species and natural objects, fan tastically tuned to an extremely high degree of precision. The evidence accumulates to an increasingly impressive degree; a concrete example comes from physics, whose constant aim always was and is that of searching for "ultimate laws," out of which everything should follow, from quarks to the cosmos. Our notions and philosophy have un dergone major revolutions, whenever the "unthinkable" has been changed by its wonderful endeavours into "fact." Well, it is just from physics that evidence comes: even if the "ultimate" could be reached, it would not in any way be a terminal point. When "complexity" comes into the game, entirely new notions have to be invented; they all have to do with "structure," though this time in a much wider sense than would have been understood a decade or so ago."

Sciences may be nowadays grouped into three classes, having as their subjects of study respectively Matter, Life and Intelligence. That "Intelligence" may be studied in a quantitative manner is a discovery of our age, not less significant in many ways than the 17th ceiltury realization that celestial phenomena are of one and the same nature as terrestrial and all other physical accidents. As the latter was accomplished through and accompanied by a major revolution in philosophy and method, so is now the scientific investigation of intelligent phenomena - although harely begun - already causing an unprecedented revolution in all our previous conceptions as mind and machine, society and organization. What electronic com puters have already accomplished in disclosing perspectives to sciences and imposing new approached to management is but a negligible change, if compared to those yet in store, which will closely follow the understanding of the many as yet unknown functional principles which make nervous systems act and react the way they do. The study of Neural Networks is the key point in the systematic quantitative investigation of such phenomena. With patience and humility, neuroanatomists and physiologists try to connect structure with function in systems of neurons which are "simple" enough to be studied with the extant techniques, either because of the paucity of their elements or because of the high degree of symmetry these possess (e. g.

This volume is about "Structure". The search for "structure", always the pursuit of sciences within their specific areas and perspectives, is witnessing these days a dra matic revolution. The coexistence and interaction of so many structures (atoms, hu mans, cosmos and all that there is in between) would be unconceivable according to many experts, if there were not, behind it all, some gen eral organizational principle. s that (at least in some asymptotic way) make possible so many equilibria among species and natural objects, fan tastically tuned to an extremely high degree of precision. The evidence accumulates to an increasingly impressive degree; a concrete example comes from physics, whose constant aim always was and is that of searching for "ultimate laws", out of which everything should follow, from quarks to the cosmos. Our notions and philosophy have un dergone major revolutions, whenever the "unthinkable" has been changed by its wonderful endeavours into "fact". Well, it is just from physics that evidence comes: even if the "ultimate" could be reached, it would not in any way be a terminal point. When "complexity" comes into the game, entirely new notions have to be invented; they all have to do with "structure", though this time in a much wider sense than would have been understood a decade or so ago.

Neural Network Dynamics is the latest volume in the "Perspectives in Neural Computing" series. It contains papers presented at the 1991 Workshop on Complex Dynamics in Neural Networks, held at IIASS in Vietri, Italy. The workshop encompassed a wide range of topics in which neural networks play a fundamental role, and aimed to bridge the gap between neural computation and computational neuroscience. The papers - which have been updated where necessary to include new results - are divided into four sections, covering the foundations of neural network dynamics, oscillatory neural networks, as well as scientific and biological applications of neural networks. Among the topics discussed are: A general analysis of neural network activity; Descriptions of various network architectures and nodes; Correlated neuronal firing; A theoretical framework for analyzing the behaviour of real and simulated neuronal networks; The structural properties of proteins; Nuclear phenomenology; Resonance searches in high energy physics; The investigation of information storage; Visual cortical architecture; Visual processing. Neural Network Dynamics is the first volume to cover neural networks and computational neuroscience in such detail. Although it is primarily aimed at researchers and postgraduate students in the above disciplines, it will also be of interest to researchers in electrical engineering, medicine, psychology and philosophy.