The Demon in the Machine

The Demon in the Machine PDF Author: Paul Davies
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241309603
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
'A gripping new drama in science ... if you want to understand how the concept of life is changing, read this' Professor Andrew Briggs, University of Oxford When Darwin set out to explain the origin of species, he made no attempt to answer the deeper question: what is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question. Life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. And yet, huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. So can life be explained by known physics and chemistry, or do we need something fundamentally new? In this penetrating and wide-ranging new analysis, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name, a domain where computing, chemistry, quantum physics and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity with the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and even to illuminate the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. From life's murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine is a breath-taking journey across the landscape of physics, biology, logic and computing. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window on the secret of life itself.

The Demon in the Machine

The Demon in the Machine PDF Author: Paul Davies
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241309603
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
'A gripping new drama in science ... if you want to understand how the concept of life is changing, read this' Professor Andrew Briggs, University of Oxford When Darwin set out to explain the origin of species, he made no attempt to answer the deeper question: what is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question. Life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. And yet, huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. So can life be explained by known physics and chemistry, or do we need something fundamentally new? In this penetrating and wide-ranging new analysis, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name, a domain where computing, chemistry, quantum physics and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity with the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and even to illuminate the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. From life's murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine is a breath-taking journey across the landscape of physics, biology, logic and computing. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window on the secret of life itself.

Through the Daemon's Gate

Through the Daemon's Gate PDF Author: Dean Swinford
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135515603
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This book tells the story of the early modern astronomer Johannes Kepler’s Somnium, which has been regarded by science historians and literary critics alike as the first true example of science fiction. Kepler began writing his complex and heavily-footnoted tale of a fictional Icelandic astronomer as an undergraduate and added to it throughout his life. The Somnium fuses supernatural and scientific models of the cosmos through a satirical defense of Copernicanism that features witches, lunar inhabitants, and a daemon who speaks in the empirical language of modern science. Swinford’s looks at the ways that Kepler’s Somnium is influenced by the cosmic dream, a literary genre that enjoyed considerable popularity among medieval authors, including Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante, John of Salisbury, Macrobius, and Alan of Lille. He examines the generic conventions of the cosmic dream, also studying the poetic and theological sensibilities underlying the categories of dreams formulated by Macrobius and Artemidorus that were widely used to interpret specific symbols in dreams and to assess their overall reliability. Swinford develops a key claim about the form of the Somnium as it relates to early science: Kepler relies on a genre that is closely connected to a Ptolemaic, or earth-centered, model of the cosmos as a way of explaining and justifying a model of the cosmos that does not posit the same connections between the individual and the divine that are so important for the Ptolemaic model. In effect, Kepler uses the cosmic dream to describe a universe that cannot lay claim to the same correspondences between an individual’s dream and the order of the cosmos understood within the rules of the genre itself. To that end, Kepler’s Somnium is the first example of science fiction, but the last example of Neoplatonic allegory.

Daemon

Daemon PDF Author: Daniel Suarez
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101007516
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
Daniel Suarez’s New York Times bestselling debut high-tech thriller is “so frightening even the government has taken note” (Entertainment Weekly). Daemons: computer programs that silently run in the background, waiting for a specific event or time to execute. They power almost every service. They make our networked world possible. But they also make it vulnerable... When the obituary of legendary computer game architect Matthew Sobol appears online, a previously dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events that begins to unravel our interconnected world. This daemon reads news headlines, recruits human followers, and orders assassinations. With Sobol’s secrets buried with him, and as new layers of his daemon are unleashed, it’s up to Detective Peter Sebeck to stop a self-replicating virtual killer before it achieves its ultimate purpose—one that goes far beyond anything Sebeck could have imagined...

The Armour of Contempt

The Armour of Contempt PDF Author: Dan Abnett
Publisher: Games Workshop
ISBN: 9781844164028
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Fantasy-roman.

A Guide to Kernel Exploitation

A Guide to Kernel Exploitation PDF Author: Enrico Perla
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 1597494879
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
A Guide to Kernel Exploitation: Attacking the Core discusses the theoretical techniques and approaches needed to develop reliable and effective kernel-level exploits, and applies them to different operating systems, namely, UNIX derivatives, Mac OS X, and Windows. Concepts and tactics are presented categorically so that even when a specifically detailed vulnerability has been patched, the foundational information provided will help hackers in writing a newer, better attack; or help pen testers, auditors, and the like develop a more concrete design and defensive structure.The book is organized into four parts. Part I introduces the kernel and sets out the theoretical basis on which to build the rest of the book. Part II focuses on different operating systems and describes exploits for them that target various bug classes. Part III on remote kernel exploitation analyzes the effects of the remote scenario and presents new techniques to target remote issues. It includes a step-by-step analysis of the development of a reliable, one-shot, remote exploit for a real vulnerabilitya bug affecting the SCTP subsystem found in the Linux kernel. Finally, Part IV wraps up the analysis on kernel exploitation and looks at what the future may hold. - Covers a range of operating system families — UNIX derivatives, Mac OS X, Windows - Details common scenarios such as generic memory corruption (stack overflow, heap overflow, etc.) issues, logical bugs and race conditions - Delivers the reader from user-land exploitation to the world of kernel-land (OS) exploits/attacks, with a particular focus on the steps that lead to the creation of successful techniques, in order to give to the reader something more than just a set of tricks

Implementing an InfoSphere Optim Data Growth Solution

Implementing an InfoSphere Optim Data Growth Solution PDF Author: Whei-Jen Chen
Publisher: IBM Redbooks
ISBN: 0738436135
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 548

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Book Description
Today, organizations face tremendous challenges with data explosion and information governance. InfoSphereTM OptimTM solutions solve the data growth problem at the source by managing the enterprise application data. The Optim Data Growth solutions are consistent, scalable solutions that include comprehensive capabilities for managing enterprise application data across applications, databases, operating systems, and hardware platforms. You can align the management of your enterprise application data with your business objectives to improve application service levels, lower costs, and mitigate risk. In this IBM® Redbooks® publication, we describe the IBM InfoSphere Optim Data Growth solutions and a methodology that provides implementation guidance from requirements analysis through deployment and administration planning. We also discuss various implementation topics including system architecture design, sizing, scalability, security, performance, and automation. This book is intended to provide various systems development professionals, Data Solution Architects, Data Administrators, Modelers, Data Analysts, Data Integrators, or anyone who has to analyze or integrate data structures, a broad understanding about IBM InfoSphere Optim Data Growth solutions. By being used in conjunction with the product manuals and online help, this book provides guidance about implementing an optimal solution for managing your enterprise application data.

Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office

Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Patents
Languages : en
Pages : 970

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Book Description


Recent Advances in Parallel Virtual Machine and Message Passing Interface

Recent Advances in Parallel Virtual Machine and Message Passing Interface PDF Author: Yiannis Cotronis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3540454179
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 451

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Book Description
Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) and Message Passing Interface (MPI) are the most frequently used tools for programming according to the message passing paradigm, which is considered one of the best ways to develop parallel appli- tions. This volume comprises 50 revised contributions presented at the Eighth - ropean PVM/MPI Users’ Group Meeting, which was held on Santorini (Thera), Greece,23–26September2001.TheconferencewasorganizedbytheDepartment of Informatics and Telecommunications, University of Athens, Greece. This conference has been previously held in Balatofured, ̈ Hungary (2000), Barcelona, Spain (1999), Liverpool, UK (1998), and Krakow, Poland (1997). The ?rst three conferences were devoted to PVM and were held at the TU Munich, Germany (1996), the ENS Lyon, France (1995), and the University of Rome (1994). This conference has become a forum for users and developers of PVM, MPI, and other message passing environments. Interaction between these groups has proved to be very useful for developing new ideas in parallel computing and for applying some of those already existent to new practical ?elds. The main topics of the meeting were evaluation and performance of PVM and MPI, extensions and improvements to PVM and MPI, algorithms using the message passing paradigm,andapplicationsinscienceandengineeringbasedonmessagepassing. The conference included one tutorial on MPI and 9 invited talks on advances in MPI, cluster computing, network computing, Grid computing, and parallel programming and programming systems. These proceedings contain papers on the 46 oral presentations together with 4 poster presentations.

Hadoop: The Definitive Guide

Hadoop: The Definitive Guide PDF Author: Tom White
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 0596551363
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Hadoop: The Definitive Guide helps you harness the power of your data. Ideal for processing large datasets, the Apache Hadoop framework is an open source implementation of the MapReduce algorithm on which Google built its empire. This comprehensive resource demonstrates how to use Hadoop to build reliable, scalable, distributed systems: programmers will find details for analyzing large datasets, and administrators will learn how to set up and run Hadoop clusters. Complete with case studies that illustrate how Hadoop solves specific problems, this book helps you: Use the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) for storing large datasets, and run distributed computations over those datasets using MapReduce Become familiar with Hadoop's data and I/O building blocks for compression, data integrity, serialization, and persistence Discover common pitfalls and advanced features for writing real-world MapReduce programs Design, build, and administer a dedicated Hadoop cluster, or run Hadoop in the cloud Use Pig, a high-level query language for large-scale data processing Take advantage of HBase, Hadoop's database for structured and semi-structured data Learn ZooKeeper, a toolkit of coordination primitives for building distributed systems If you have lots of data -- whether it's gigabytes or petabytes -- Hadoop is the perfect solution. Hadoop: The Definitive Guide is the most thorough book available on the subject. "Now you have the opportunity to learn about Hadoop from a master-not only of the technology, but also of common sense and plain talk."-- Doug Cutting, Hadoop Founder, Yahoo!

Real-Time and Multi-Agent Systems

Real-Time and Multi-Agent Systems PDF Author: Ammar Attoui
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1447104633
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
A detailed account of real-time systems, including program structures for real-time, phases development analysis, and formal specification and verification methods of reactive systems. The book brings together the 3 key fields of current and future data-processing: distributed systems and applications, parallel scientific computing, and real-time and manufacturing systems. It covers the basic concepts and theories, methods, techniques and tools currently used in the specification and implementation of applications and contains many examples plus complete case studies.