Any study on the historical evolution of nations and countries points out the decisive importance of productivity trends. We are all very familiar with the main evolution which started with a hunting society at the dawn of civilization, then moved to an agricultural society, and quickly to craftsmanship and com merce. The beginning of the industrial society dates back to the end of the eighteenth century in England, with the introduction of the assembly line in the textile and smelting industries. However, in the last few decades, we are becoming more and more acutely aware of the paramount importance of the production of "information". Indeed, according to a few economists today, we should be classified as living in an information society which has superseded the industrial society. At this point it simply becomes necessary to talk about the computer informa tion industry, which is more and more pervading our lives, from the personal computer, to the workstation, to information networks and electronic mail, to the blueprint executed by robots, to the supercomputer necessary in any major scientific and engineering task. The computer has already brought about a momentous change in the production line - less and less man-size, more and more robot-size. But this rush to tech nical innovation has not stopped at this point. Artificial intelligence and expert systems are becoming a more and more important factor for production by many enterprises and activities.

InhaltsangabeI. Biological Systems: Proteins.- Approaches to the Multiple-Minima Problem in Conformational Energy Calculations on Polypeptides and Proteins.- Protein Dynamics and Function.- Brownian Motions in Molecular Networks.- Fluorescence of Tryptophan and Protein Dynamics.- Structural Studies of Unfolded and Partly Folded Proteins Using NMR Spectroscopy.- Protonic Percolation in Biomaterials.- II. Biological Systems: DNA.- DNA Conformational Studies by IR and Raman Spectroscopies.- Minihairpin Loops in DNA: Experimental and Theoretical Studies.- Imaging Biopolymers Under Water by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy.- Structural Information in Deterministic Fluctuations of Base Sequences in DNAs. Theoretical Prediction of DNA Superstructures.- Conformational Behavior and Water Shells of Different DNA Duplexes. Computer Simulation and Biological Significance.- III. Bridge from Biological to Artificial Intelligence Systems.- Electronic Devices from Molecules: Overview, Prospects and Theoretical Chemistry.- A Theoretical Approach to Highly Conducting and Non-linear Optically Active Polymers.- Towards Unified Natural Science.- Evolutionary Adaptation to a Real and an Artificial World.- IV. Artificial Intelligence Systems: Parallel Computers.- Programming Generality and Parallel Computers.- The Warp Computer: A Cost-Effective Solution to Supercomputing.- Supercomputing and Super Computers: for Science and Engineering in General and for Chemistry and Biosciences in Particular.- Experiences with Computers of Highly Parallel Architectures.- Machines, Languages and Compilers for Parallel Symbolic Computing.- V. Artificial Intelligence Systems: Pattern Recognition.- Computer Vision.- Pattern Recognition by Statistically-Coupled Processors with Hierarchy.- A Single-chip Image Sensor and Processor: A Strategic Project.- Integrated Vision Project on the Computer Network.- VI. Artificial Intelligence Systems: Voice Recognition.- Associative Coding and The Perception of Speech.- Experiments With the Acoustic Processor of A Hidden Markov Model-Based, Large Vocabulary Speech Recognition System.- A Statistical Approach to French/English Translation.- VII. Artificial Intelligence Systems: Robotics.- Theoretical and Experimental Perspectives on Arm Trajectory Formation: A Distributed Model of Motor Redundancy.