Although I concentrate mainly on networks with feedback and their dynamical behavior, one chapter is devoted to backpropagation, a popular technique in feedforward networks. Important parts of this book are the projects at the end of each chapter. Theory cannot be understood without practice, and practice for today's designing engineer or scientist means computer simulations. I have added eight challenging projects, one to each chapter. They are not straightforward applications of the material in the other sections, but they help the student develop an integrated knowledge of the theory, placing it within an application domain.
All projects have ample introductions, and the reader' s hand is held during the first part.
Towards the end there are questions that could be developed into research. The projects require about two week's work in their basic form. This book can be used for a one-semester course. This book is not about applications, but about techniques that can be used in applications. Giving examples of applications, as many books do, does not mean that one will be able to generalize the solution to a similar application.