Demanding Results

This volume contains the papers selected for presentation at The 2009 Inter- tional Conference on Brain Informatics (BI 2009) held at Beijing University of Technology, China, on October 22–24, 2009. It was organized by the Web Int- ligence Consortium (WIC) and IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Task Force on Brain Informatics (IEEE TF-BI). The conference was held jointly with The 2009 International Conference on Active Media Technology (AMT 2009). Brain informatics (BI) has emergedas an interdisciplinaryresearch?eld that focuses on studying the mechanisms underlying the human information proce- ing system (HIPS). It investigates the essential functions of the brain, ranging from perception to thinking, and encompassing such areas as multi-perception, attention,memory,language,computation,heuristicsearch,reasoning,planning, decision-making, problem-solving, learning, discovery, and creativity. The goal of BI is to develop and demonstrate a systematic approach to achieving an integrated understanding of both macroscopic and microscopic level working principles of the brain, by means of experimental, computational, and cognitive neuroscience studies, as well as utilizing advanced Web Intelligence (WI) centric information technologies. BI represents a potentially revolutionary shift in the way that research is undertaken. It attempts to capture new forms of c- laborative and interdisciplinary work. Following this vision, new kinds of BI methods and global research communities will emerge, through infrastructure on the wisdom Web and knowledge grids that enables high speed and d- tributed, large-scale analysis and computations, and radically new ways of sh- ing data/knowledge.

As the world's population lives longer, it will become increasingly important for plan sponsors, retirement advisors, regulators, and financial firms to focus closely on how older persons fare in the face of rising difficulties with cognition and financial management. This book offers state-of-the-art research and recommendations on how to evaluate when older persons need financial advice, help them make better financial decisions, and to identify policy options for handling these individual and social challenges efficiently and fairly. This latest volume in the Pension Research Council series, draws lessons from theory and practice, and will be of interest to employees and retirees, consumers and researchers, and financial institutions working to design better retirement plan offerings.