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Insect Media
An Archaeology of Animals and Technology
Jussi Parikka
University of Minnesota Press, 2010
Since the early nineteenth century, when entomologists first popularized the unique biological and behavioral characteristics of insects, technological innovators and theorists have proposed insects as templates for a wide range of technologies. In Insect Media, Jussi Parikka analyzes how insect forms of social organization-swarms, hives, webs, and distributed intelligence-have been used to structure modern media technologies and the network society, providing a radical new perspective on the interconnection of biology and technology.

Through close engagement with the pioneering work of insect ethologists, including Jakob von Uexküll and Karl von Frisch, posthumanist philosophers, media theorists, and contemporary filmmakers and artists, Parikka develops an insect theory of media, one that conceptualizes modern media as more than the products of individual human actors, social interests, or technological determinants. They are, rather, profoundly nonhuman phenomena that both draw on and mimic the alien lifeworlds of insects.
 
Deftly moving from the life sciences to digital technology, from popular culture to avant-garde art and architecture, and from philosophy to cybernetics and game theory, Parikka provides innovative conceptual tools for exploring the phenomena of network society and culture. Challenging anthropocentric approaches to contemporary science and culture, Insect Media reveals the possibilities that insects and other nonhuman animals offer for rethinking media, the conflation of biology and technology, and our understanding of, and interaction with, contemporary digital culture.
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front cover of Swarm Intelligence
Swarm Intelligence
Applications, Volume 3
Ying Tan
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2018
Swarm Intelligence (SI) is one of the most important and challenging paradigms under the umbrella of computational intelligence. It focuses on the research of collective behaviours of a swarm in nature and/or social phenomenon to solve complicated and difficult problems which cannot be handled by traditional approaches. Thousands of papers are published each year presenting new algorithms, new improvements and numerous real world applications. This makes it hard for researchers and students to share their ideas with other colleagues; follow up the works from other researchers with common interests; and to follow new developments and innovative approaches. This complete and timely collection fills this gap by presenting the latest research systematically and thoroughly to provide readers with a full view of the field of swarm. Students will learn the principles and theories of typical swarm intelligence algorithms; scholars will be inspired with promising research directions; and practitioners will find suitable methods for their applications of interest along with useful instructions.
[more]
front cover of Swarm Intelligence
Swarm Intelligence
Innovation, new algorithms and methods, Volume 2
Ying Tan
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2018
Swarm Intelligence (SI) is one of the most important and challenging paradigms under the umbrella of computational intelligence. It focuses on the research of collective behaviours of a swarm in nature and/or social phenomenon to solve complicated and difficult problems which cannot be handled by traditional approaches. Thousands of papers are published each year presenting new algorithms, new improvements and numerous real world applications. This makes it hard for researchers and students to share their ideas with other colleagues; follow up the works from other researchers with common interests; and to follow new developments and innovative approaches. This complete and timely collection fills this gap by presenting the latest research systematically and thoroughly to provide readers with a full view of the field of swarm. Students will learn the principles and theories of typical swarm intelligence algorithms; scholars will be inspired with promising research directions; and practitioners will find suitable methods for their applications of interest along with useful instructions.
[more]
front cover of Swarm Intelligence
Swarm Intelligence
Principles, current algorithms and methods, Volume 1
Ying Tan
The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2018
Swarm Intelligence (SI) is one of the most important and challenging paradigms under the umbrella of computational intelligence. It focuses on the research of collective behaviours of a swarm in nature and/or social phenomenon to solve complicated and difficult problems which cannot be handled by traditional approaches. Thousands of papers are published each year presenting new algorithms, new improvements and numerous real world applications. This makes it hard for researchers and students to share their ideas with other colleagues; follow up the works from other researchers with common interests; and to follow new developments and innovative approaches. This complete and timely collection fills this gap by presenting the latest research systematically and thoroughly to provide readers with a full view of the field of swarm. Students will learn the principles and theories of typical swarm intelligence algorithms; scholars will be inspired with promising research directions; and practitioners will find suitable methods for their applications of interest along with useful instructions.
[more]

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