J.G. Taylor’s research while affiliated with King's College London and other places

We cope with the key step of bootstrap methods of generating a possibly infinite sequence of random data preserving properties of the distribution law, starting from a primary sample actually drawn from this distribution. We solve this task in a cooperative way within a community of generators where each improves its performance from the analysis of the other partners’ production. Since the analysis is based on an a priori distrust of the other partners’ production, we denote the partner ensemble as a gossip community and denote the statistical procedure learning by gossip. We prove that this procedure is highly efficient when applied to the elementary problem of reproducing a Bernoulli distribution, with a properly moderated distrust rate when the absence of a long-term memory requires an online estimation of the bootstrap generator parameters. This fact makes the procedure viable as a basic template of an efficient interaction scheme within social network agents.

Functional methods are used to give a complete closure of the second-quantized field theory nonlinear realization of the ten-dimensional super-Poincaré algebra for the heterotic superstring in the Green-Schwarz formalism. New terms in the fundamental generators JI−, J+− are constructed at quartic order in the fields so as to close the Poincare algebra; a quartic term in the Hamiltonian is also derived. No higher order terms are needed for any generators of the full algebra.

The closed bosonic string compactified on a torus is decomposed into two open strings corresponding to left and right movers respectively. Multiloop amplitudes are expressed as a product of a holomorphic and an anti-holomorphic function of the moduli of the world-sheet Riemann surface. Such a product is obtained by analytically continuing left and right open string amplitudes such that one is the complex conjugate of the other. A justification for this analytic continuation is provided using a second quantized field theory of strings. The extra parameters needed for complexification are shown to arise from the constraint expressing invariance under choice of origin for string parametrization. The chiral string is discussed.

Closure of the [10] SUSY algebra is attempted for heterotic and type II superstrings by explicit construction of the quartic supersymmetry and Hamiltonian generators. These are shown to possess only contact interactions. Other related nonlinearly realized generators are also constructed at the quartic level, and a substantial part of the [10]-SUSY algebra shown to close with only these generators, for any regularization scheme for the heterotic, and by using phase integration for the type II. Type I superstrings are also considered.

After a brief discussion about the purposes that might be followed in the creation of an artificial brain, we describe an approach using guidance of the human brain in the project GNOSYS, an EU project to construct a reasoning robot. This is extended to develop the underlying principles of an autonomous artificial brain. How this might be created so as to include consciousness is considered briefly through the CODAM model, and constraints arising from the attempt to provide phenomenological experience to the artificial brain outlined. The most important, conjectured to be that of the brain containing active neurons, leads to the problem of restricted neuronal fan-in and fan-out. The paper concludes on the importance of solving this problem.

In order to achieve 'affective computing' it is necessary to know what is being computed. That is, in order to compute with what would pass for human emotions, it is necessary to have a computational basis for the emotions themselves. What does it mean quantitatively if a human is sad or angry? How is this affective state computed in their brain? It is this question, on the very core of the computational nature of the human emotions, which is addressed in this chapter. A proposal will be made as to this computational basis based on the well established approach to emotions as arising from an appraisal of a given situation or event by a specific human being.

We present tentative answers to three questions: firstly, what is to be assumed about the structure of the brain in attacking the problem of modeling consciousness; secondly, what is it about consciousness that is attempting to be modeled; and finally, what is taken on board the modeling enterprise, if anything, from the vast works by philosophers about the nature of mind.

We present a proposal as to how to create a Cognitive Machine. We start by raising a set of basic questions relevant to the creation of such a machine. These include the nature of human cognition and how it might be modelled, is consciousness crucial for cognition, and how might an autonomous cognitive agent impute the internal mental state of another such agent. In the following sections we propose a set of possible answers to these questions. The paper finishes with conclusions as to the most viable and interesting directions to be pursued to create cognitive machines.

We present a first draft for a Road Map towards the creation of Cognitive Machines. We start by raising a set of basic questions relevant to the creation of such machines. In the following sections we propose a set of answers to the most crucial of them. The paper finishes with conclusions as to the most viable and interesting directions to be pursued to create cognitive machines.