Summary

This book discusses neural computation, a network or circuit of biological neurons and relatedly, particle accelerators, a scientific instrument which accelerates charged particles such as protons, electrons and deuterons. Accelerators have a very broad range of applications in many industrial fields, from high energy physics to medical isotope production. Nuclear technology is one of the fields discussed in this book. The development that has been reached by particle accelerators in energy and particle intensity has opened the possibility to a wide number of new applications in nuclear technology. This book reviews the applications in the nuclear energy field and the design features of high power neutron sources are explained. Surface treatments of niobium flat samples and superconducting radio frequency cavities by a new technique called gas cluster ion beam are also studied in detail, as well as the process of electropolishing. Furthermore, magnetic devises such as solenoids, dipoles and undulators, which are essential components for beam orbit control in charged particle accelerators, are also examined in this book, and the important role magnetic fringe fields play in particle dynamics is explored as well. Recent development of modern ion-therapy beam delivery systems are also summarised based on the combination of the pencil-beam scanning techniques with rotating gantries. Other chapters in this book include a discussion of the dynamics of subdural EEG, a general theoretical treatment of frictional cooling and an outline of a novel laser-driven high-energy charged-particle accelerator. Also discussed are a generalised pattern search (GPS) method applied to the topological optimization of artificial neural networks (ANNs) and different applications of the Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP), a neural algorithm which operates on inter-spike intervals rate rather than firing rate. Surface treatments of niobium flat samples and superconducting radio frequency cavities by a new technique called gas cluster ion beam are studied in detail and by electropolishing are discussed briefly.