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Here is a more recent paper [1] from Pentti Kanerva that gives a great introduction: http://www.rctn.org/vs265/kanerva09-hyperdimensional.pdf. More papers can be found with the query "vector symbolic architecture". I find it utterly fascinating.

[1] Kanerva, Pentti. “Hyperdimensional Computing: An Introduction to Computing in Distributed Representation with High-Dimensional Random Vectors.” Cognitive Computation 1 (2009): 139-159.