This volume contains the invited lectures, invited symposia, symposia, papers and posters presented at the 2nd European Cognitive Science Conference held in Greece in May 2007. The papers presented in this volume range from empirical psychological studies and computational models to philosophical arguments, meta-analyses and even to neuroscientific experimentation. The quality of the work shows that the Cognitive Science Society in Europe is an exciting and vibrant one. There are 210 contributions by cognitive scientists from 27 different countries, including USA, France, UK, Germany, Greece, Italy, Belgium, Japan, Spain, the Netherlands, and Australia. This book will be of interest to anyone concerned with current research in Cognitive Science.

This volume offers an overview of the philosophy of cognitive science that balances breadth and depth, with chapters covering every aspect of the psychology and cognitive anthropology.

While laboratory research is the backbone of collecting experimental data in cognitive science, a rapidly increasing amount of research is now capitalizing on large-scale and real-world digital data. Each piece of data is a trace of human behavior and offers us a potential clue to understanding basic cognitive principles. However, we have to be able to put the pieces together in a reasonable way, which necessitates both advances in our theoretical models and development of new methodological techniques. The primary goal of this volume is to present cutting-edge examples of mining large-scale and naturalistic data to discover important principles of cognition and evaluate theories that would not be possible without such a scale. This book also has a mission to stimulate cognitive scientists to consider new ways to harness big data in order to enhance our understanding of fundamental cognitive processes. Finally, this book aims to warn of the potential pitfalls of using, or being over-reliant on, big data and to show how big data can work alongside traditional, rigorously gathered experimental data rather than simply supersede it. In sum, this groundbreaking volume presents cognitive scientists and those in related fields with an exciting, detailed, stimulating, and realistic introduction to big data – and to show how it may greatly advance our understanding of the principles of human memory, perception, categorization, decision-making, language, problem-solving, and representation.

The final part deals with the social semantic web. Aspects covered include a broad survey of this emerging area; a description of a number of projects and experiences exploring semantic web technologies in social learning contexts; and a new approach to collaborative filtering.

Every year at the U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, 100 of this country's best and brightest engineers, ages 30 to 45, have an opportunity to learn from their peers about pioneering work being done in many areas of engineering. The symposium gives early career engineers working in academia, industry, and government in many different engineering disciplines an opportunity to make contacts with and learn from individuals they would not meet in the usual round of professional meetings. This networking may lead to collaborative work and facilitate the transfer of new techniques and approaches. It is hoped that the exchange of information on current developments in many fields of engineering will lead to insights that may be applicable in specific disciplines and thereby build U.S. innovative capacity. Different topics are covered each year, and, with a few exceptions, different individuals participate. The four general topics covered at the 2008 meeting were: drug delivery systems, emerging nanoelectronic devices, cognitive engineering, and countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The intent of this book is to convey the excitement of this unique meeting and to highlight cutting-edge developments in engineering research and technical work.

In this special issue, the most recent advances in the domain of numerical cognition will be presented. During the last decades, our understanding of how numbers are processed increased dramatically with the arrival of different imaging techniques and neurophysiological experiments in humans and monkeys. We are now starting to build up a clearer picture of how numbers are represented in the brain, how this representation develops in the course of a lifetime, how numbers are embedded in other cognitive features like attention, spatial memory, etc., and how this eventually leads to our capability to perform complex mathematics. Ultimately, this accumulation of knowledge might provide us with an understanding of why numbers are problematic for some people. This special issue deals with all aspects of numerical cognition: findings on the basic neural responses to magnitudes, the link between numbers, space, time, attention, action, etc., mathematical processing, numerical development, in healthy and clinical populations. This special issue solicits contributions from the field of neurobiology, neuropsychology, and behavioral and computational neuroscience that will increase our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying numerical cognition

This edited volume with selected expanded papers from CELDA (Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age) 2009 (http://www.celda-conf.org/) addresses the main issues concerned with problem solving, evolving learning processes, innovative pedagogies, and technology-based educational applications in the digital age. There have been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a fast pace and affecting academia and professional practice in many ways. Paradigms such as just-in-time learning, constructivism, student-centered learning and collaborative approaches have emerged and are being supported by technological advancements such as simulations, virtual reality and multi-agents systems. These developments have created both opportunities and areas of serious concerns. This volume aims to cover both technological as well as pedagogical issues related to these developments.

Ontology was once understood to be the philosophical inquiry into the structure of reality: the analysis and categorization of ‘what there is’. Recently, however, a field called ‘ontology’ has become part of the rapidly growing research industry in information technology. The two fields have more in common than just their name. Theory and Applications of Ontology is a two-volume anthology that aims to further an informed discussion about the relationship between ontology in philosophy and ontology in information technology. It fills an important lacuna in cutting-edge research on ontology in both fields, supplying stage-setting overview articles on history and method, presenting directions of current research in either field, and highlighting areas of productive interdisciplinary contact. Theory and Applications of Ontology: Computer Applications presents ontology in ways that philosophers are not likely to find elsewhere. The volume offers an overview of current research in ontology, distinguishing basic conceptual issues, domain applications, general frameworks, and mathematical formalisms. It introduces the reader to current research on frameworks and applications in information technology in ways that are sure to invite reflection and constructive responses from ontologists in philosophy.

A major contribution to the study of language acquisition and language development inspired by theoretical linguistics has been made by research on the acquisition of Italian syntax. This book offers an updated overview of results from theory-driven experimental and corpus-based research on the acquisition of Italian in different modes (monolingual, early and late L2, SLI, etc.), as well as exploring possible developments for future research. The book focuses on experimental studies which address research questions generated by linguistic theory, providing a detailed illustration of the fruitful interaction between linguistic theorizing and developmental studies. The authors are leading figures in theoretical linguistics and language acquisition; their own work is featured in the research presented here. Students and advanced researchers will benefit from the systematic review offered by this book and the critical assessment of the field that it provides.

8.6 Issues Raised by the Algorithms Proposed