machines that can interact with them as they interact with each other. Science fiction writers have given us these goals in the form of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Commander Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, at present, our computers are deaf, dumb, and blind, almost unaware of the environment they are in and of the user who interacts with them. In this article, I present th...

With the ongoing expansion of indications for endoscopic pediatric surgery and increasing experience with intracorporeal suturing, laparoscopic repair of duodenal atresia or stenosis is the challenge of the new century. In 2001 the first laparoscopic repair of a duodenal atresia was described by Bax et al. (2001), shortly followed by Rothenberg (2002) describing a series of four patients. There...

The pH on the frustule of individual cells of the marine centric diatoms Coscinodiscus granii and Coscinodiscus wailesii (Bacillariophyceae) was measured with pH microsensors in culture media with increasing pH values of 8.04, 8.14, and 8.22, respectively. In 85-96% of the C.granii cells the pH on the frustule was up to 0.4 units higher than that of the medium, reaching a maximum pH 8.95. Only ...

Why do computers need emotional intelligence? Science fiction often portrays emotional computers as dangerous and frightening, and as a serious threat to human life. One of the most famous examples is HAL, the supercomputer onboard the spaceship Discovery, in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL could express, recognize and respond to human emotion, and generally had strong emotional skills – t...

Abstract Climate change impacts are of a particular concern in small mountain ranges, where cold-adapted plant species have their optimum zone the upper bioclimatic belts. This is commonly case Mediterranean mountains, which often harbour high numbers endemic species, enhancing risk biodiversity losses. study deals with shifts vascular diversity zones Sierra Nevada, Spain, relation climatic par...

BACKGROUND Cancer mortality peaked in the European Union (EU) in the late 1980s and declined thereafter. MATERIALS AND METHODS We analyzed EU cancer mortality data provided by the World Health Organization in 1970-2003, using join point analysis. RESULTS Overall, cancer mortality levelled off in men since 1988 and declined in 1993-2003 (annual percent change, APC = -1.3%). In women, a stead...

Vagueness is not undecidability, but undecidability does enter into an explanation of why there is vagueness. My theory, called the Undecidability Theory of Vagueness, explains vagueness largely as a result of the fact that we are computationally bound.1 Vagueness is not due to any particularly human weakness, but due to a weakness that any computationally bound agent possesses; even HAL from 2...

When measured over decades in countries that have been relatively stable, returns from stocks have been substantially better than returns from bonds. This is often attributed to investors’ risk aversion: stocks are thought to be riskier than bonds, and so investors will pay less for an expected return from stocks than for the same expected return from bonds. The game-theoretic probability-free ...