The complexity of the brain and the protean nature of behavior remain the most elusive area of science, but also the most important. van Hemmen and Sejnowski invited 23 experts from the many areas--from evolution to qualia--of systems neuroscience to formulate one problem each. Although each chapter was written independently and can be read separately, together they provide a useful roadmap to the field of systems neuroscience and will serve as a source of inspirations for future explorers of the brain.

Theoretical neuroscience provides a quantitative basis for describing what nervous systems do, determining how they function, and uncovering the general principles by which they operate. This text introduces the basic mathematical and computational methods of theoretical neuroscience and presents applications in a variety of areas including vision, sensory-motor integration, development, learning, and memory.The book is divided into three parts. Part I discusses the relationship between sensory stimuli and neural responses, focusing on the representation of information by the spiking activity of neurons. Part II discusses the modeling of neurons and neural circuits on the basis of cellular and synaptic biophysics. Part III analyzes the role of plasticity in development and learning. An appendix covers the mathematical methods used, and exercises are available on the book's Web site.

权威性的内容、清晰的照片以及系统的论述方法，使本书成为关于岩石与矿物的颇具欣赏价值和使用价值的工具书。本书收录了500多种岩石与矿物，配有600多幅彩色图片，在作者的精心编纂下，使读者能轻松地掌握识别各类岩石与矿物的知识和技巧。
本书对收录的每一种岩石与矿物均有准确的论述和说明，使其特征和特性跃然纸上。
本书向岩石与矿物的爱好者介绍了岩石与矿物的概念以及如何分类和收集的方法，还用图表清楚地列出了火成岩、变质岩和沉积岩的区别，并详细记录了书中所收录的各种矿物的特征。书后还附有简明扼要的专有名词解释。