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In this 2013 winner of the prestigious R.R. Hawkins Award from the Association of American Publishers, as well as the 2013 PROSE Awards for Mathematics and Best in Physical Sciences & Mathematics, also from the AAP, readers will find many of the most significant contributions from the four-volume set of the Collected Works of A. M. Turing. These contributions, together with commentaries from current experts in a wide spectrum of fields and backgrounds, provide insight on the significance and contemporary impact of Alan Turing's work. Offering a more modern perspective than anything currently available, Alan Turing: His Work and Impact gives wide coverage of the many ways in which Turing's scientific endeavors have impacted current research and understanding of the world. His pivotal writings on subjects including computing, artificial intelligence, cryptography, morphogenesis, and more display continued relevance and insight into today's scientific and technological landscape. This collection provides a great service to researchers, but is also an approachable entry point for readers with limited training in the science, but an urge to learn more about the details of Turing's work. 2013 winner of the prestigious R.R. Hawkins Award from the Association of American Publishers, as well as the 2013 PROSE Awards for Mathematics and Best in Physical Sciences & Mathematics, also from the AAPNamed a 2013 Notable Computer Book in Computing Milieux by Computing ReviewsAffordable, key collection of the most significant papers by A.M. TuringCommentary explaining the significance of each seminal paper by preeminent leaders in the fieldAdditional resources available online

Turing's (Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society 42:230–265, 1936) paper on computable numbers has played its role in underpinning different perspectives on the world of information. On the one hand, it encourages a digital ontology, with a perceived flatness of computational structure comprehensively hosting causality at the physical level and beyond. On the other (the main point of Turing's paper), it can give an insight into the way in which higher order information arises and leads to loss of computational control—while demonstrating how the control can be re-established, in special circumstances, via suitable type reductions. We examine the classical computational framework more closely than is usual, drawing out lessons for the wider application of information–theoretical approaches to characterizing the real world. The problem which arises across a range of contexts is the characterizing of the balance of power between the complexity of informational structure (with emergence, chaos, randomness and 'big data' prominently on the scene) and the means available (simulation, codes, statistical sampling, human intuition, semantic constructs) to bring this information back into the computational fold. We proceed via appropriate mathematical modelling to a more coherent view of the computational structure of information, relevant to a wide spectrum of areas of investigation.

Assessments of both fitness to stand trial and criminal responsibility are common, complex forensic evaluations with substantial societal implications. Currently in Canada, medical practitioners, in particular psychiatrists, conduct the vast majority of assessments of fitness to stand trial and criminal responsibility. Although the Criminal Code of Canada (CCC) allows these evaluations to be completed \"by a medical practitioner or any other person who has been designated by the Attorney General,\" in practice, qualified clinical-forensic psychologists generally have been excluded from performing these types of assessments. This article reviews the historical and contemporary evidence-based and advocacy-driven efforts to change the CCC to allow qualified professionals such as clinical-forensic psychologists to conduct assessments of criminal responsibility and fitness to stand trial. We argue that the training and experience of clinical-forensic psychologists places them in a unique and qualified position to conduct these challenging types of forensic evaluations. We therefore recommend that the Canadian federal government consider changing section 672 of the CCC to allow assessments of fitness to stand trial and criminal responsibility to be conducted by a qualified mental health professional. The change would be consistent with other sections of the CCC and would improve access of accused persons and the courts to qualified assessors. Regardless of discipline, we propose that standardized training and monitoring programs be developed and implemented to promote reliable evaluations and best practices. Les évaluations de l'aptitude à subir un procès et de la responsabilité pénale sont des évaluations médico-légales courantes et complexes qui ont des conséquences sociétales importantes. À l'heure actuelle, au Canada, les médecins, plus particulièrement les psychiatres, mènent la grande majorité des évaluations de l'aptitude à subir un procès et de la responsabilité pénale. Bien que le Code criminel du Canada (CCC) permette à ces évaluations d'être pratiquées « par un médecin ou toute autre personne ayant été désignée par le procureur général », dans la pratique, des psychologues médico-légaux qualifiés ont été privés du droit d'exercer ces types d'évaluations. Le présent article examine les initiatives de plaidoyer historiques et contemporaines, fondées sur des faits probants, visant à changer le CCC afin de permettre à des professionnels qualifiés tels les psychologues médico-légaux d'exercer des évaluations de l'aptitude à subir un procès et de la responsabilité pénale. Nous prétendons que la formation et l'expérience clinique de psychologues médico-légaux les placent dans une position unique et qualifiée pour effectuer ces types d'évaluations médico-légales. Nous recommandons, par les présentes, que le gouvernement fédéral canadien considère modifier l'article 672 du CCC afin de permettre que les évaluations de l'aptitude à subir un procès et de la responsabilité pénale soient exercées par des professionnels de la santé mentale qualifiés. Ce changement serait cohérent avec les autres articles du CCC et permettrait d'améliorer l'accès aux personnes accusées et des tribunaux aux évaluateurs qualifiés. Quelle que soit la discipline, nous proposons que des formations normalisées et des programmes de surveillance soient mis sur pied et mis en œuvre pour promouvoir les meilleures pratiques et des évaluations fiables. Public Significance Statement (a) We are advocating for qualified clinical-forensic psychologists to be designated under the Criminal Code of Canada (CCC) to perform assessments of fitness to stand trial and criminal responsibility. b) Designating qualified clinical-forensic psychologists in Canada to undertake independent assessments of criminal responsibility and fitness to stand trial would serve the public good by improving access to qualified professionals by the courts and accused persons. (c) This article outlines the rationale for change as well as the specific proposed amendments to the wording of the CCC to require that professionals conducting these assessments have specialized qualifications to ensure that courts and accused persons will receive standardized and evidence-based services.

Computability has played a crucial role in mathematics and computer science, leading to the discovery, understanding and classification of decidable/undecidable problems, paving the way for the modern computer era, and affecting deeply our view of the world. Recent new paradigms of computation, based on biological and physical models, address in a radically new way questions of efficiency and challenge assumptions about the so-called Turing barrier.

The scope of computation has expanded dramatically beyond the rubric of discrete, deterministic sequential computation under which it has been studied for many decades. That focus, of course, led to a great deal of deep and beautiful theory, but our focus in this special issue of Mathematical Structures in Computer Science is on new directions that have emerged from the study of computational phenomena in other settings, and thus on a celebration of the diversity of ideas, methods, new applications and novel sources of inspiration that have marked the modern era. The papers in this issue come from sources extending far beyond the core of computer science, yet using many of the central ideas that have evolved within computer science and mathematics. The nexus of all this activity has been, on the one hand, the boundary between logic and computation, and, on the other hand, the natural sciences, particularly physics and biology. The papers in this collection are expanded versions of selected papers from the DCM 2010 workshop, which was held in Edinburgh in July 2010. The theme of the workshop was Causality, Computation and Physics.

The ten papers in this special issue arose from the conference CiE 2005: New Computational Paradigms, held at the University of Amsterdam in June, 2005. CiE 2005 was the first of a new series of conferences associated with the interdisciplinary network Computability in Europe focused on computability in theoretical computer science and mathematical logic, and ranging over a broad spectrum of research areas from the application of novel approaches to computation, through computability-theoretic aspects of physical systems to set-theoretic analyses of infinitary computing models.

Albert Einstein encapsulated a commonly held view within the scientific community when he wrote in his book Out of My Later Years (Einstein 1950, page 54) ‘When we say that we understand a group of natural phenomena, we mean that we have found a constructive theory which embraces them.’ This represents a dual challenge to the scientist: on the one hand, to explain the real world in a very basic, and if possible, mathematical, way; but on the other, to characterise the extent to which this is even possible. Recent years have seen the mathematics of computability play an increasingly vital role in pushing forward basic science and in illuminating its limitations within a creative coming together of researchers from different disciplines. This special issue of Mathematical Structures in Computer Science is based on the special session ‘Computability of the Physical’ at the International Conference Computability in Europe 2010, held at Ponta Delgada, Portugal, in June 2010, and it, together with the individual papers it contains, forms what we believe to be a special contribution to this exciting and developing process.