The Limits of the Self PDF Download

Author: Thomas Pradeu
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199775281
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Immunology asserts that an individual can be defined through self and nonself. Thomas Pradeu argues that this theory is inadequate, because immune responses to self constituents and immune tolerance of foreign entities are the rule, not the exception.

Author: Daisuke Kitamura
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 4431738843
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
How do you discriminate yourself from other people? This question must sound odd to you since you easily recognize others at a glance and, without any effort, would not mistake them for yourself. However, it is not always easy for some people to discriminate themselves from others. For example, patients with schi- phrenia often talk with “others” living inside themselves. Thus it is likely that n- mally your brain actively recognizes and remembers the information belonging to yourself and discriminates it from the information provided by others, although you are not conscious of it. This brain function must have been particularly important for most animals to protect their lives from enemies and for species to survive through evolution. Similarly, higher organisms have also acquired their immune system through evolution that discriminates nonself pathogens and self-body to protect their lives from pathogens such as bacteria or viruses. The brain system may distinguish integrated images of self and nonself created from many inputs, such as vision, sound, smell, and others. The immune system recognizes and distinguishes a variety of structural features of self and nonself components. The latter actually include almost everything but self: for example, bacteria, viruses, toxins, pollens, chemicals, transplanted organs, and even tumor cells derived from self-tissue. To this end the immune system recruits different kinds of immune cells, such as B and T lymphocytes, natural killer (NK) cells, dendritic cells, and macrophages.

Author: Martin P. J. Edwardes
Publisher: UCL Press
ISBN: 1787356302
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
The Origins of Self explores the role that selfhood plays in defining human society, and each human individual in that society. It considers the genetic and cultural origins of self, the role that self plays in socialisation and language, and the types of self we generate in our individual journeys to and through adulthood. Edwardes argues that other awareness is a relatively early evolutionary development, present throughout the primate clade and perhaps beyond, but self-awareness is a product of the sharing of social models, something only humans appear to do. The self of which we are aware is not something innate within us, it is a model of our self produced as a response to the models of us offered to us by other people. Edwardes proposes that human construction of selfhood involves seven different types of self. All but one of them are internally generated models, and the only non-model, the actual self, is completely hidden from conscious awareness. We rely on others to tell us about our self, and even to let us know we are a self.

Author: WenJun Zhang
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814699500
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This invaluable book is the first of its kind on "selforganizology", the science of self-organization. It covers a wide range of topics, such as the theory, principle and methodology of selforganizology, agent-based modelling, intelligence basis, ant colony optimization, fish/particle swarm optimization, cellular automata, spatial diffusion models, evolutionary algorithms, self-adaptation and control systems, self-organizing neural networks, catastrophe theory and methods, and self-organization of biological communities, etc. Readers will have an in-depth and comprehensive understanding of selforganizology, with detailed background information provided for those who wish to delve deeper into the subject and explore research literature. This book is a valuable reference for research scientists, university teachers, graduate students and high-level undergraduates in the areas of computational science, artificial intelligence, applied mathematics, engineering science, social science and life sciences. Contents:Organization and Organizational TheorySelforganizology: The Science of Self-organizationAgent-based ModelingIntelligence PrinciplesCatastrophe Theory and MethodsSelf-adaptation and Control SystemsCellular Automata and Spatial Diffusion ModelsArtificial Neural NetworksAnt Colony OptimizationFish and Particle Swarm OptimizationSynergy, Coevolution, and Evolutionary AlgorithmsSynergy: Correlation AnalysisCommunity Succession and AssemblyMathematical Foundations Readership: Research scientists, university teachers, graduate students and high-level undergraduates in the areas of computational science, artificial intelligence, applied mathematics, engineering science, social science and life sciences. Key Features:This book is the first monograph on "selforganizology" in the world, with no competing titlesThe author is a prominent scientist, who is the editor-in-chief of six international journals, including SelforganizologyKeywords:Selforganizology;Self-organization;Agent-based Modeling;Algorithms;Computational Intelligence;Ant Colony Optimization;Evolutionary Algorithms;Cellular Automata;Particle Swarm Optimization;Catastrophe Theory

Author: Chris Abel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429683669
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 495

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Book Description
In this incisive study of the biological and cultural origins of the human self, the author challenges readers to re-think ideas about the self and consciousness as being exclusive to humans. In their place, he expounds a metatheoretical approach to the self as a purposeful system of extended cognition common to animal life: the invisible medium maintaining mind, body and environment as an integrated ‘field of being’. Supported by recent research in evolutionary and developmental studies together with related discoveries in animal behaviour and the neurosciences, the author examines the factors that have shaped the evolution of the animal self across widely different species and times, through to the modern, technologically enmeshed human self; the differences between which, he contends, are relations of degree rather than absolute differences. We are, he concludes, instinctive and ‘fuzzy individuals’ clinging to fragile identities in an artificial and volatile world of humanity’s own making, but which we now struggle to control. This book, which restores the self to its fundamental place in identity formation, will be of great interest for students and academics in the fields of social, developmental and environmental psychology, together with readers from other disciplines in the humanities, especially philosophy, cultural theory and architecture.

Author: JeeLoo Liu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107000750
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
New essays connecting recent scientific studies with traditional issues about the self explored by Descartes, Locke and Hume. Leading philosophers offer contrasting perspectives on the relation between consciousness and self-awareness, and the notion of personhood. Essential reading for philosophers, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists and psychologists.

Author: Taner Demirer
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 9535100130
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 598

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Book Description
This book documents the increased number of stem cell-related research, clinical applications, and views for the future. The book covers a wide range of issues in cell-based therapy and regenerative medicine, and includes clinical and preclinical chapters from the respected authors involved with stem cell studies and research from around the world. It complements and extends the basics of stem cell physiology, hematopoietic stem cells, issues related to clinical problems, tissue typing, cryopreservation, dendritic cells, mesenchymal cells, neuroscience, endovascular cells and other tissues. In addition, tissue engineering that employs novel methods with stem cells is explored. Clearly, the continued use of biomedical engineering will depend heavily on stem cells, and this book is well positioned to provide comprehensive coverage of these developments.

Author: Peter Robin Hiesinger
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691241694
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
"In this book, Peter Robin Hiesinger explores historical and contemporary attempts to understand the information needed to make biological and artificial neural networks. Developmental neurobiologists and computer scientists with an interest in artificial intelligence - driven by the promise and resources of biomedical research on the one hand, and by the promise and advances of computer technology on the other - are trying to understand the fundamental principles that guide the generation of an intelligent system. Yet, though researchers in these disciplines share a common interest, their perspectives and approaches are often quite different. The book makes the case that "the information problem" underlies both fields, driving the questions that are driving forward the frontiers, and aims to encourage cross-disciplinary communication and understanding, to help both fields make progress. The questions that challenge researchers in these fields include the following. How does genetic information unfold during the years-long process of human brain development, and can this be a short-cut to create human-level artificial intelligence? Is the biological brain just messy hardware that can be improved upon by running learning algorithms in computers? Can artificial intelligence bypass evolutionary programming of "grown" networks? These questions are tightly linked, and answering them requires an understanding of how information unfolds algorithmically to generate functional neural networks. Via a series of closely linked "discussions" (fictional dialogues between researchers in different disciplines) and pedagogical "seminars," the author explores the different challenges facing researchers working on neural networks, their different perspectives and approaches, as well as the common ground and understanding to be found amongst those sharing an interest in the development of biological brains and artificial intelligent systems"--

Author: Rupert Glasgow
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3958260527
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
'Self' is a term that is much used but often poorly understood or over-hastily dismissed. In The Minimal Self R.D.V. Glasgow seeks to unearth the underlying nature of selfhood. Glasgow's approach is based upon the notion of 'intrinsic reflexivity', which manifests itself in three fundamental forms: self-maintenance, self-reproduction and self-containment. Through a conceptual analysis of selfhood, Glasgow aims to ascertain what distinguishes full forms of minimal selfhood from entities such as genes and viruses that are merely selfish or self-like. The idea is to establish the logical prerequisites for the transition from a world bereft of selfhood to one populated by selves like us. Minimal selfhood thus provides a bridge linking philosophy, biology and other disciplines that have previously failed to coincide in their understanding of what a self is.

Author: Richard Coico
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119551579
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Immunology: A Short Course provides an overview of the physiology of the immune system and the pathophysiology of a broad range of immune-mediated diseases, offering accessible and comprehensive guidance to the basic concepts and clinical approaches in the discipline. Now in its eighth edition, this bestselling textbook has been fully updated to reflect our expanded knowledge of how the immune system develops and functions, and the ways in which these physiological phenomena can fail or be compromised. New chapters examine cells and organs of the immune system, organization and expression of lymphocyte antigen receptor genes, experimental systems and methods, and B- and T-cell development activation. Helping students gain an integrated understanding of immunology, this textbook: Offers substantial new and revised material, expanded clinical coverage, enhanced pedagogical features, and updated figures, tables, and references Features recent research advances and therapeutic successes in the field of immunology Includes a companion website containing multiple choice questions, electronic flashcards, downloadable figures, PowerPoint slides, and sample cases Can be supplemented with the Clinical Cases in Immunology companion book The eighth edition of Immunology: A Short Course is an ideal resource for life and health science students, dental and nursing students seeking a short course text, and basic scientists and clinical researchers looking to refresh their knowledge in the subject.