Agent-based simulation as a tool for the built environment.

There is a growing need to increase the performance of the built environment through a combination of improved design, retrofitting of existing structures, and behavioral and policy change. Increased performance includes decreasing construction and operational costs, improving efficiency, reducing energy consumption and overall carbon footprint, and increasing the health, safety, and comfort of building occupants. Data collection and analysis are central to ongoing efforts in performance improvement.

Basic difference between brain and computer: integration of asynchronous processes implemented as hardware model of the retina.

There exists a common view that the brain acts like a Turing machine: The machine reads information from an infinite tape (sensory data) and, on the basis of the machine's state and information from the tape, an action (decision) is made. The main problem with this model lies in how to synchronize a large number of tapes in an adaptive way so that the machine is able to accomplish tasks such as object classification. We propose that such mechanisms exist already in the eye.