Books published by Luniver Press

Orchestrated Biocomputation documents studies on the design, fabrication and testing of prototype unconventional computing devices which utilise a live organism - the plasmodium of slime mould Physarum polycephalum - as their key constituent element.

EXPLORING DISCRETE DYNAMICS (second edition) is a comprehensive guide to studying cellular automata and discrete dynamical networks with the classic software Discrete Dynamics Laboratory (DDLab), widely used in research and education. These collective networks are at the core of complexity and emergent self-organisation. With interactive graphics, DDLab is able to explore a huge diversity of behaviour, mostly terra incognita -- space-time patterns, and basins of attraction -- mathematical objects representing the convergent flow in state-space. Applications range within physics, mathematics, biology, cognition, society, economics and computation, and more specifically in neural and genetic networks, artificial life, and theories of memory. This second edition covers many new features. Advance Praise by Stuart Kauffman The great John von Neumann invented cellular automata. These discrete state finite automata have become a mainstay in the study of complex systems, exhibiting order, criticality, and chaos. Andy Wuensche's "Exploring Discrete Dynamics" 2016, is by far the most advanced tool for simulating such systems and has become widely important in the field of complexity. FIRST EDITION REVIEWS Andrew Wuensche has, in an important sense, done more than anyone to enable the study of discrete dynamical systems such as cellular automata and random Boolean nets. Wuensche derived the mathematical means to compute the "predecessor" states that flow to a successor state. Thereby he opened the door to study the entire state space flow of discrete dynamical systems. DDLab is a marvellous and useful tool for all of us fascinated by discrete dynamical systems and what they may tell us of mathematics and the world. STUART KAUFFMAN, author of "The Origins of Order" Tampere University of Technology, Finland. There is a whole universe of complexity that is captured by discrete dynamical systems, which have been widely used as a powerful framework to understand reality from different perspectives. Exploring Discrete Dynamics is a great example of how to dive in this neverending universe. A careful, compelling and detailed presentation of examples and methods will help both beginners and scholars to get into this fascinating field." RICARD SOLE, Author of "Signs of Life" Complex Systems Lab, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.

World leading experts give their accounts of the modern mathematical models in the field: Markov Decision Processes, Controlled Diffusions, etc, with a wide range of performance functionals. One of the aims is to give a general view on the state-of-the-art. The authors use Dynamic Programming, Convex Analytic Approach, several Approximate and Numerical Methods, Index-Based Approach and so on. Most chapters either contain well developed examples, or are entirely devoted to the application of the mathematical control theory to real life problems from such fields as Insurance, Portfolio Optimization, Control of Water Resources, Information Transmission, Quality Control, Pollution Control and so on. The book will enable researchers, academics and research students to get a sense of novel results, concepts, models, methods, and applications of controlled stochastic processes.

Famous Russian writer Igor Adamatsky recounts years of his personal growth in the authoritarian world and resistence to Soviet regime. He gives an original account of underground cultural development in 1960-1980s in USSR. The mosaic of events discussed in the book interwove with philosophical excursions into the meanings of loneliness and humanity.

This is a collection of Russian author Igor Adamatsky's philosophical snapshots, novels and stories, on intellectual survival in the Soviet Empire. Heroes of the book defy sever circumstances and pressure of temptation to preserve the truth. The works included in the collection are "Ekivoka" (on the people who never capitulate under insistence of society), "Sokraschenije" (on those how chosen other realities), "Virus Frajberga" (on those who never fails), "Pravo Svobodnogo Poliota" (t's that one freedom that nothing can take away from you), "Uteshitel'" (on sources of emphatic intelligence), "Cherdak" (on social lunacy of the State), "I byl vecher, i bylo utro" (fantasies of creative contemplations), "Provincialy" (on suppression of individualism), "Ishod" (on space-time network of events and acccidents), "Kanikuly v Avguste" (recollections of early days), "PriTchudy" (ultra-short stories, quanta of apprehension). The author belongs to the generation of the Russian writers, who were born in the pre-war years and whose spiritual attitude, aesthetical position, and ethical ideals form an essential constituent of the Russian intelligentsia. They were always in internal and external opposition to ideology and social order of the existed Soviet regime. The characters of the novels symbolise non-acceptance and resistance. Very flesh of the works resides in classical culture and philosophy, hence the complexity of language, which requires reader's sufficient preparation for the perception of Russian culture. All heroes of the novels --- whatever tests and twist of their fate emerged in their lives --- search for humaneness of this reckless and idiotic world. All personages of the book not only survived in the dramatic and surrealistic world but also contributed to the crash of the Soviet empire. The novels are timeless: time barely plays any role in these narratives, and therefore they are received as unquestionably contemporary.

The book deals with analytical and computational studies of spatially-extended discrete dynamical systems: one-dimensional cellular automata. The topics included are non-constructible configurations, reversibility, probabilistic analysis and De Bruijn diagrams. Techniques discussed are based on topology, matrix theory, formal languages and probability theory. The book is an excellent reading for anybody interested in non-linearity, emergency, complexity and self-organization.

Unconventional computing is the quest for groundbreaking new algorithms and computing architectures based on and inspired by the principles of information processing in physical, chemical and biological systems. The timely scientific contributions in this book include cutting-edge theoretical work on quantum and kinematic Turing machines, computational complexity of physical systems, molecular and chemical computation, processing incomplete information, physical hypercomputation, automata networks and swarms. They are nicely complemented by recent results on experimental implementations of logical and arithmetical circuits in a domino substrate, DNA computers, and self-assembly. The book supports interdisciplinary research in the field of future computing and contributes toward developing a common interface between computer science, biology, mathematics, chemistry, electronics engineering, and physics.