Complexity Digest 2003.39

29-Sep-2003

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Content

  1. Is Life The Key To New Tech?, CNN
    1. Can Chromosomes Be The Elixir Of Youth?, news.elegraph.co.uk
  2. Gamma Rays May Have Devastated Life On Earth, New Scientist
  3. Evolutionary Policies for Sustainable Development: Adaptive Flexibility and Risk Minimising, Ecological Economics
  4. Physics/Computer Science: Passing Messages Between Disciplines, Science
    1. New Sun Microsystems Chip May Unseat the Circuit Board, NYTimes
    2. Patchwork Design May Give Speedier Chips, NewScientist
  5. The Underground Internet, Business Week
    1. Internationalizing The Internet, IEEE Compu. Intell. Bull.
  6. Cerebellar LTD and Learning-Dependent Timing of Conditioned Eyelid Responses, Science
    1. From Molecules to Memory in the Cerebellum, Science
  7. A Fitness Cost Of Learning Ability In Drosophila Melanogaster, Alphagalileo & Proc. Biol. Sc.
    1. Being Smart Not Always Fruitful: Study, Newsindpress.com
    2. Study Of Bees Provides Insight Into Evolution Of Bee Communication, ScienceDaily
  8. Traumatic Insemination: Female Bedbugs Evolve A Unique Organ, Alphagalileo & Proc. Biol. Sc.
  9. The Emergent Properties of a Dolphin Social Network, arXiv
    1. Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay, Nature
  10. Contest Duration: Sizing Up The Opposition?, Trends in Ecol. & Evol.
  11. Gene Regulation: Switched On To RNA, Nature
    1. Cancer: Cues For Migration, Nature
  12. Climate Forecasting: Possible Or Probable?, Nature
  13. Kinematics: Wide Shear Zones In Granular Bulk Flow, Nature
    1. Materials Science: Polymers Go With The Flow, Science
  14. Targeted Reduction Of Complex Models With Time Scale Hierarchy - A Case Study, Math. Biosci.
  15. Curvy Aircrafts Could Silence Sonic Booms, NewScientist
  16. Generation of Megawatt Optical Solitons in Hollow-Core Photonic Band-Gap Fibers, Science
  17. One-Atom Laser: Trapped Atom Shoots Steady Light Beam, Science News
    1. Quantum Optics: Single Atom Lases Orderly Light, Nature
  18. World Trade Center: Chemical Studies Of 9/11 Disaster Tell Complex Tale Of 'Bad Stuff', Science
  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
    1. Connect the Dots, NYTimes
    2. Secretary-General's Remarks at Conference on "Fighting Terrorism for Humanity ", Secretary-General Office of the Spokesman
      1. Root Causes of Terrorism, www.end-terror.org
      2. World Leaders Seek UN Role In Fight Against Terror, Daily Times Pakistan
    3. Malaria, the Terrorist's Friend, NYTimes
  20. Links & Snippets
    1. Other Publications
    2. Webcast Announcements
    3. Conference & Call for Papers Announcements
    4. ComDig Announcement: New ComDig Archive in Beta Test
    5. Special Announcement: Artists Explore Complex Systems, Federal Reserve Board

  1. Is Life The Key To New Tech?, CNN Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: "Life is massively more powerful, and able to compute far more than anything we have created," (...) In the future there may also be a market for biologically-inspired computers. Although the science involved sounds similar to bio-molecular computing, they do not rely on real live DNA (...) to perform calculations. Instead the technology analyzes how biology computes, and makes computers think in the same way. By studying biological phenomena such as brains, swarming insects, evolution and immune systems, scientists are able to make computers do the same sorts of things.

    1. Can Chromosomes Be The Elixir Of Youth?, news.elegraph.co.uk Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: "Telomere engineering" offers a way to produce tissues and cells to treat age-related conditions, (...). In the longer term, it may be possible to mimic the superstar of natural regeneration, the salamander, to help accident victims regrow lost limbs and patients regenerate diseased organs: salamanders can grow back limbs, tails, jaws, parts of their hearts and their retinas and lenses. Prof Jeremy Brockes of University College London, believes that natural regeneration, which might be promoted with drugs or genes, would be easier than transplanting.

  2. Gamma Rays May Have Devastated Life On Earth, New Scientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: A devastating burst of gamma rays may have caused one of Earth's worst mass extinctions, 443 million years ago. (...) pattern of trilobite extinctions at that time resembles the expected effects of a nearby gamma-ray burst (GRB). (...) The Earth's atmosphere would soak up most of the gamma rays, (...), but their energy would rip apart nitrogen and oxygen molecules, creating a witch's brew of nitrogen oxides, (...). (...) GRBs close enough to affect life in some way might occur once every five million years or so - around a thousand times since life began.

  3. Evolutionary Policies for Sustainable Development: Adaptive Flexibility and Risk Minimising, Ecological Economics Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: An evolutionary perspective on policies to foster sustainable development is presented. It is argued that policies suggested by the traditional economic theory of environmental policy can stimulate unsustainable socio-economic structures and patterns. In addition, they are unable to remove undesired locked-in systems and technologies. Drawing on evolutionary thinking, characterised by diversity, selection, innovation, path-dependence and bounded rationality, an alternative, partly complementary theory of environmental policy is suggested. Specific attention is given to the role of strategies that are aimed at increasing diversity and adaptive flexibility, and at reducing risk.

  4. Physics/Computer Science: Passing Messages Between Disciplines, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Complex behaviors can emerge in systems in which many "atoms"--such as real atoms, economic agents, logical variables, or neurons--locally exchange messages. Recent independent studies of such systems in different subject areas have shown that message passing is extremely powerful as an algorithmic framework, as well as a conceptual one. Three archetypal problems illustrate this utility: error correction in information theory, satisfiability in discrete optimization, and spin glasses in statistical physics. (...) Message passing is likely to play a central role in many complex systems.

    1. New Sun Microsystems Chip May Unseat the Circuit Board, NYTimes Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: (...) transmit data inside a computer much more quickly than current techniques allow. By placing the edge of one chip directly in contact with its neighbor, it may be possible to move data 60 to 100 times as fast as the present top speeds. (...) It would make obsolete the traditional circuit board constructed of tiny bits of soldered wires between chips,(...). (...) able to send data at a speed of 21.6 billion bits a second between chips in a scaled-down version of the new technology.

    2. Patchwork Design May Give Speedier Chips, NewScientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Microprocessors could exchange data hundreds of times more efficiently using an electrical effect known as capacitance coupling. (...) Changing the electrical properties of one component has a corresponding effect on another a few millionths of a metre away - a phenomenon that could be used to transfer bits of information extremely quickly. The Sun prototype is unique in the way it proposes harnessing this effect for many chips at once. The system consists of a "checkerboard" of chips facing up or down and overlapping at the edges.

  5. The Underground Internet, Business Week Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Typically, people who want to build a darknet will start by installing on their computers specialized software, (...). Then individuals who want to form their own group swap passwords or digital keys so their computers can communicate with each other. (...) Anyone tracking the private networks could monitor the traffic, but wouldn't know what information was inside the encrypted packets. And gaining entry to a group of, say, college kids swapping music is no easy feat: Prospective members often need recommendations from friends to join.

    1. Internationalizing The Internet, IEEE Compu. Intell. Bull. Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Abstract: The Internet, by its very nature, is a global medium that touches billions of individuals whose vocabulary does not derive from the Anglo-Saxon tradition, and whose alphabet is not that of the ancient Romans. How then do we make the thing work across cultural and linguistic boundaries? How do we craft Internet-based applications that can be adapted effortlessly for use in any locale?

  6. Cerebellar LTD and Learning-Dependent Timing of Conditioned Eyelid Responses, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: Mammals can be trained to make a conditioned movement at a precise time, which is correlated to the interval between the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus during the learning. This learning-dependent timing has been shown to depend on an intact cerebellar cortex, but which cellular process is responsible for this form of learning remains to be demonstrated. Here, we show that protein kinase C-dependent long-term depression in Purkinje cells is necessary for learning-dependent timing of Pavlovian-conditioned eyeblink responses.

    1. From Molecules to Memory in the Cerebellum, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The "holy grail" of memory researchers is to produce a comprehensive model of memory storage that flows from molecules to behavior with all of the intermediate steps defined. This level of understanding does not yet exist for any form of memory in any model organism. (...) step closer to a model for a simple form of motor memory required for a task known as associative eyelid conditioning. The authors analyzed learning in a transgenic mouse that lacks a form of persistent synaptic modification called cerebellar long-term depression.

  7. A Fitness Cost Of Learning Ability In Drosophila Melanogaster, Alphagalileo & Proc. Biol. Sc. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: Learning has obvious benefits, and most animals show some ability to learn. However, experiments with bees, flies and rats indicate that these animals have the genetic potential to evolve to be even smarter. In this paper we show that experimental fruit fly populations which evolved improved learning ability became less competitive at larval stage. If food is limiting the larvae of smart flies survive less well than larvae of unselected control populations. This indicates that evolution of improved learning ability is costly. Such costs are likely to explain why natural selection has not always favoured maximum learning abilities.

    1. Being Smart Not Always Fruitful: Study, Newsindpress.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Smart souls take heed. A new research conducted by Swiss scientists observes that being smart is not always a good thing in the evolutionary race. A report in the journal New Scientist said that if intelligence were always a positive attribute, it would always be selected by natural selection. But since it is not, people and animals therefore have their share of genius streaks and dumb ones. Evolutionary biologists conducting research in fruit flies opine that it doesn't always pay to be clever and display smart streaks. Frederic Mery and colleagues at the University of Fribourg, pitted fast-learning fruit fly larvae against their more dimwitted cousins in scarce food conditions and found that the slower fruit flies came out on top. "This shows that just having a better ability to learn involves a cost, even when you aren't using it," Mery said.

    2. Study Of Bees Provides Insight Into Evolution Of Bee Communication, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: A team of biologists working in Brazil may have found the clues to resolving the longstanding mystery of why some species of bees, such as honey bees, communicate the location of food with dances in their hives and why other bees simply leave scent trails from the food source to the nest. (...) report that one species of Brazilian stingless bee uses a slightly different form of communication (...). "We have discovered an intermediate strategy, in which bees leave an odor trail extending a short distance from the food source. This abbreviated trail may be less conspicuous to foraging competitors."

  8. Traumatic Insemination: Female Bedbugs Evolve A Unique Organ, Alphagalileo & Proc. Biol. Sc. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: The coevolution between males and females often proceeds in an antagonistic way. In this evolutionary conflict between the sexes, male reproductive traits can become so exaggerated that females are harmed during copulation. One prime example is the traumatic insemination of the bedbug (Cimex lectularius) where males pierce the body wall of the female during copulation, thus lowering her lifespan. A unique organ found only in female bedbugs, called the spermalege, is here demonstrated to function in the immune defence against pathogens introduced during the pierce-copulation.

  9. The Emergent Properties of a Dolphin Social Network, arXiv Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: Many complex networks, including human societies, the Internet, the World Wide Web and power grids, have surprising properties that allow vertices (individuals, nodes, Web pages, etc.) to be in close contact and information to be transferred quickly between them. Nothing is known of the emerging properties of animal societies, but it would be expected that similar trends would emerge from the topology of animal social networks. Despite its small size (64 individuals), the Doubtful Sound community of bottlenose dolphins has the same characteristics. The connectivity of individuals follows a complex distribution that has a scale-free power-law distribution for large k. In addition, the ability for two individuals to be in contact is unaffected by the random removal of individuals. The removal of individuals with many links to others does affect the length of the information path between two individuals, but, unlike other scale-free networks, it does not fragment the cohesion of the social network. These self-organizing phenomena allow the network to remain united, even in the case of catastrophic death events.

    1. Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: During the evolution of cooperation it may have become critical for individuals to compare their own efforts and pay-offs with those of others. Negative reactions may occur when expectations are violated. (...) Although there exists substantial cultural variation in its particulars, this 'sense of fairness' is probably a human universal that has been shown to prevail in a wide variety of circumstances. (...) Here we demonstrate that a nonhuman primate, the brown capuchin monkey (Cebus apella), responds negatively to unequal reward distribution in exchanges with a human experimenter.
      • Source: Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay, Sarah F. Brosnan And Frans B. M. De Waal, DOI: 10.1038/nature01963, Nature 425, 297 - 299, 18 September 2003

  10. Contest Duration: Sizing Up The Opposition?, Trends in Ecol. & Evol. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: Over 2000 years ago, Sun Tzu advised military strategists to know their own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of their enemies. Similarly, animals engaging in pairwise contests are often thought to employ mutual assessment as a means of conflict resolution, with contests being resolved more quickly the more the strengths and weaknesses of the rivals differ. In an important new paper, Taylor and Elwood argue that available evidence could be misleading and that many contests might in fact be resolved by self-assessment alone.

  11. Gene Regulation: Switched On To RNA, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Breaker's team, (...), was crafting molecular sensors out of RNA that changes shape when it binds to a specific molecule. (...) Similar sensors, it turned out, had been staring biologists in the face for nearly 30 years. In an eye-opening series of experiments, Breaker's team has revealed that these RNA sensors, dubbed 'riboswitches', represent a previously overlooked mechanism of gene regulation. "We can explain a lot of the unexplained findings that have appeared in the literature over the years," Breaker says.

    1. Cancer: Cues For Migration, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Lack of oxygen causes the cells of certain tumors to spread to new locations. It also activates a homing mechanism that enables the migrating cells to target specific organs. The ability of tumor cells to metastasize - to spread to other parts of the body - is perhaps the main reason that certain types of cancer are often fatal. But how do tumors acquire this characteristic? Starving tumor cells of oxygen seems to be one trigger for metastasis, and researchers are beginning to uncover the molecular pathways that underlie this phenomenon.

  12. Climate Forecasting: Possible Or Probable?, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Mapping the response manifold of a full-scale, non-linear climate model is a truly formidable challenge, well beyond the capabilities of conventional supercomputing resources. The only way to access sufficient resources is to use idle processing capacity on home and desktop personal computers. This is the climateprediction.net approach, proposed on these pages almost four years ago, following the successful launch of the SETI@home project (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu), which is now by far the largest single computation ever performed.

  13. Kinematics: Wide Shear Zones In Granular Bulk Flow, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Granular matter does not flow homogeneously like a fluid when submitted to external stress, but usually forms rigid regions that are separated by narrow shear bands where the material yields and flows (examples include geological faults, avalanches and silo discharges). (...) Here we show that the shear zones created in the bulk of the material are wider than those near the walls, and that their bulk velocity profiles lie on a universal curve. This finding challenges the accepted picture of shear banding in granular media.

    1. Materials Science: Polymers Go With The Flow, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The flow of polymers, either as melts or in solution, shows some intriguing features. Polymeric liquids climb stirrer rods (the Weissenberg effect), swell up at the exit of an extruder or capillary, and can even sustain tubeless siphons. These phenomena cannot be explained by classical hydrodynamics. Yet they are typical of most polymeric substances, independent of their chemical composition. (...) theoretical understanding of this "universal" behavior has advanced so far that it can quantitatively reproduce the properties of a complex flow similar to those encountered in applications.

  14. Targeted Reduction Of Complex Models With Time Scale Hierarchy - A Case Study, Math. Biosci. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: Avian egg colour has been explained as mainly serving crypsis or mimetism, although the function of certain colours (e.g. blue and green) has not yet been demonstrated. We interpret egg colour as a sexually selected signal of the laying female's genetic quality to its mate in order to induce a higher allocation of paternal care. The blue-green pigment biliverdin is an antioxidant, the deposition of which may signal antioxidant capacity whereas the deposition of the brown pigment protoporphyrin, a pro-oxidant, may signal tolerance of oxidative stress. Egg ground colour is presumably heritable and phylogenetically labile.

  15. Curvy Aircrafts Could Silence Sonic Booms, NewScientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: A softer shape could dampen the thunderclaps which accompany supersonic flight, reveal preliminary tests This could be achieved by replacing a plane's sharp nose with a blunter shape and redesigning parts of the wings, for example where the base of the wing meets the fuselage, so that the angles between surfaces do not change so abruptly. The idea was to force the shock waves to fan out more rapidly as they move away from these curves, spreading out their energy.

  16. Generation of Megawatt Optical Solitons in Hollow-Core Photonic Band-Gap Fibers, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: For an air-filled fiber, femtosecond self-frequency-shifted fundamental solitons with peak powers greater than 2megawatts can be supported. For Xe-filled fibers, nonfrequency-shifted temporal solitons with peak powers greater than 5.5 megawatts can be generated, representing an increase in the power that can be propagated in an optical fiber of two orders of magnitude. The results demonstrate a unique capability to deliver high-power pulses in a single spatial mode over distances exceeding 200 meters.

  17. One-Atom Laser: Trapped Atom Shoots Steady Light Beam, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: For brief intervals, the itsy emitter produces the steadiest stream of laser light ever, (...). Laser emissions with particularly stable intensities and well-spaced photons may prove essential for future computing and communications technologies that exploit the bizarre rules of quantum mechanics (SN: 12/8/01,p. 364), Orozco told Science News. That's where single-atom lasers might come in. Even a beam lasting only one-tenth of a second might be sufficient for some quantum applications.

    1. Quantum Optics: Single Atom Lases Orderly Light, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: A laser that operates through repeated emission from a single atom is very different from the lasers we know. The beam of light produced has a more orderly photon stream than even the quietest laser. (...) In quantum systems of practical use (such as lasers and transistors), the intrinsic fluctuations are small enough not to interfere with the function of the device. (...) Surprisingly, the emergence of the quantum fluctuations can bring with it a paradox: as the intrinsic fluctuations become dominant, some device characteristics may fluctuate less.

  18. World Trade Center: Chemical Studies Of 9/11 Disaster Tell Complex Tale Of 'Bad Stuff', Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers 2 years ago spewed toxic gases into the air like a "chemical factory," says a new analysis of the environmental effects of the 11 September terrorist attacks. But the good news is that Manhattanites largely escaped serious exposure to most of the toxic substances, as heat from the fires quickly carried most of the material far above the city. The data, (...) buttress a new internal report that criticizes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for being too reassuring to the public (...).

  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Connect the Dots, NYTimes Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The U.S. war on terrorism suffered a huge blow last week - not in Baghdad or Kabul, but on the beaches of Canc. (...) U.S., the E.U. and Japan refused to give up the lavish subsidies they bestow on their farmers, (...). This is a disaster because exporting food and textiles is the only way for most developing countries to grow. (...) could have raised global income by $500 billion a year by 2015 - over 60 percent of which would go to poor countries and pull 144 million people out of poverty.

    2. Secretary-General's Remarks at Conference on "Fighting Terrorism for Humanity ", Secretary-General Office of the Spokesman Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: If we are to fight terrorism effectively, and avoid mistakes in doing so, we need more debate, not less, regarding possible policy responses.(...) While terrorism is an evil with which there can be no compromise, we must use our heads, not our hearts, in deciding our response. (...) We also delude ourselves if we think that military force alone can defeat terrorism. It may sometimes be necessary to use force to counter terrorist groups. But we need to do much more than that if terrorism is to be stopped.

      1. Root Causes of Terrorism, www.end-terror.org Next Article Bookmark and Share


        Summaries

        * There is only a weak and indirect relationship between poverty and terrorism (...)
        * State sponsorship is not a root cause of terrorism. (...)
        * Suicide terrorism is not caused by religion (or more specifically Islam) as such. (...)
        * Terrorists are not insane or irrational actors. (...)
        What causes terrorism?
        * Lack of democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law(...)
        * Failed or weak states(...)
        * Rapid modernization (...)
        * Extremist ideologies of a secular or religious nature (...)
        * Historical antecedents of political violence, (...)
        * Hegemony and inequality of power. (...)
        * Illegitimate or corrupt governments (...)
        * Powerful external actors upholding illegitimate governments (...)
        * Repression by foreign occupation or by colonial powers (...)
        * The experience of discrimination on the basis of ethnic or religious origin (...)
        * Failure or unwillingness by the state to integrate dissident groups or emerging social classes (...)
        * The experience of social injustice (...)
        * The presence of charismatic ideological leaders (...)
        * Triggering events (...)

      2. World Leaders Seek UN Role In Fight Against Terror, Daily Times Pakistan Next Article Bookmark and Share

        Excerpts: The US response to the September 11, 2001 attacks has been primarily martial with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many nations opposed the war in Iraq, seeing scant evidence for the key US charge that Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction. "I hope that they will not just think in military terms about how to fight terrorism," Bondevik said of the United States. He said education and social reforms could help defuse the causes of terrorism.

    3. Malaria, the Terrorist's Friend, NYTimes Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: (...) Department of Defense allocates it only $8 million a year. (...) These sums are woefully inadequate. If a terrorist group had a weapon that would hospitalize 25 percent of American soldiers within weeks, wouldn't the Pentagon spend more than $8 million a year to defend against it? (...) The choice is to spend a few million out of a Pentagon budget measured in the hundreds of billions, or to cede a huge swath of the tropics to terrorists proliferating under the protection of mosquitoes and microbes mightier than American troops.

  20. Links & Snippets Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Other Publications Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Unfair Trade: Monkeys Demand Equitable Exchanges, Science News, Vol. 164, No. 12, 03/09/20. Also available in Audible format. Researchers say they have shown for the first time that a nonhuman species-the brown capuchin monkey-has a sense of what's fair and what's not.
      2. The Anatomy of the World's Largest Extinct Rodent, Marcelo R. S&, Science Sep 19 2003: 1708-1710
      3. Soliton Self-Frequency Shift Cancellation in Photonic Crystal Fibers, D. V. Skryabin, F. Luan, J. C. Knight, P. St. J. Russell, Science Sep 19 2003: 1705-1708
      4. Neandertals Got Game, Bountiful bones suggest poor hunting skills didn't do them in
      5. Who Showed the Incas the Silver?, A Bolivian silver mine was active centuries before the Incas
      6. Molecular Memory: Carbon-Nanotube Device Stores Data In Molecules, Scientists have created a memory device in which data are encoded in switching molecules called catenanes that are attached to a carbon nanotube. Also available in Audible format. Science News, Vol. 164, No. 12, 03/09/20
      7. Children Flourish Academically & Personally in Learning Community, Sandra Seagal, PhD, Human Dynamics International,, 03/08
      8. The Genetically Modified Bomb , Imagine a bomb that only kills Caucasians with red hair. Or short people. Or Arabs. Or Chinese. , Thom Hartmann, 03/09/10, CommonDreams.org
      9. Camera Specs Take Candid Snaps , 03/09/18, BBC NEWS
      10. The Body Electric, An electric field inside an embryo may tell it whether to place an internal organ on its left or right side. Science News, Vol. 164, No. 12, 03/09/20
      11. Dream Machines From Beans: Legume Proteins Provide Motion, Plant proteins swell and shrink in response to calcium, sparking new ideas for micromachines. Also available in Audible format. Science News, Vol. 164, No. 12,, 03/09/20
      12. Chatbot Bids To Fool Humans, Jo Twist, 03/09/22, BBC News Online
      13. Kurzweil 'Teleports' In 3D To World Economic Forum, 03/09/23, KurzweilAI.net
      14. An Open Invitation To Election Fraud, Not only is the country's leading touch-screen voting system so badly designed that votes can be easily changed, but its manufacturer is run by a die-hard GOP donor who vowed to deliver his state for Bush next year. Farhad Manjoo, Salon,, 03/09/23
      15. Neanderthal Hunters Rivalled Human Skills, A new study challenges the theory that Neanderthals died out because they were greatly inferior hunters, Will Knight, 03/09/23, New Scientist
      16. Aberrant Signaling, Overlapping and interacting, the pathways that control the cell cycle can resemble a plate of spaghetti, and when dysfunctional, can lead to cancer, 03/09/27, The Scientist
      17. Science Education: Spare Me The Lecture , Kendall Powell, 18 September 2003, Nature 425, 234 - 236 , DOI: 10.1038/425234a
      18. Defining and Identifying Communities in Networks, Filippo Radicchi, Claudio Castellano, Federico Cecconi, Vittorio Loreto, Domenico Parisi, 2003-09-21, arXiv, DOI: cond-mat/0309488
      19. On the Structure of Proten-protein Interaction Networks, Alun Thomas, Rob Cannings, Nicholas A.M. Monk, Chris Cannings, 2003-09-23, arXiv, DOI: q-bio.MN/0309012
      20. Whip Waves, T. McMillen - mcmillenamath.arizona.edu & a. goriely, 2003/08/29, DOI: 10.1016/S0167-2789(03)00221-5
      21. HelpfulMed: Intelligent Searching For Medical Information Over The Internet, H. Chen - hchenaeller.arizona.edu, a. m. lally, b. zhu, & m. chau, 2003/09/22, (See also: Time-scales, Meaning, and Availability of Information in a Global Brain at http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.AI/0305012, G. Mayer-Kress, et. al , 2003-07-11, DOI: cs.AI/0305012), arXiv DOI:10.1002/asi.10260 , DOI: 10.1002/asi.10260
      22. Handedness Frequency Over More Than Ten Thousand Years, C. Faurie & M. Raymond, 2003/09/22
      23. Resistance Exercise Resets The Body Clock, G. Bradley - pressabiomedcentral.com, 2003/09/24
      24. Hormonal Changes In Satisfied And Dissatisfied Shift Workers Across A Shift Cycle, 2003/09/24, ScienceDaily & Amer. Physiol. Soc.
      25. Can Heart Failure Impair Thinking?, 2003/09/25, ScienceDaily & Amer. Physiol. Soc.
      26. Smart Distance For Information Systems: The Concept, Y. Ye, P. Nandi & S. Kumaran, Jun. 2003
      27. Mercure: Towards An Automatic E-Mail Follow-Up System, G. Lapalme & L. Kosseim, Jun. 2003
      28. USC/ISI Polymorphic Robotics Laboratory: Self-Configurable And Adaptable Robots, W. M. Shen - shenaisi.edu, Jun. 2003
      29. A Simple Estimator For Nonlinear Error In Variable Models, H. Hong & E. Tamer - tameraprinceton.edu, Nov. 2003, DOI: 10.1016/S0304-4076(03)00116-7
      30. Fighting A Virus With A Virus: A Dynamic Model For HIV-1 Therapy, T. Revilla & G. G. Ramos - ggarc0auky.edu, online 2003/07/30, DOI: 10.1016/S0025-5564(03)00091-9
      31. Lost Along The Way: The Significance Of Evolution In Reverse, M. L. Porter - mlp65aemail.byu.edu & k. a. crandall, online 2003/08/09, DOI: 10.1016/S0169-5347(03)00244-1
      32. Almost Necessary And Sufficient Conditions For Survival Of Species, S. Ahmad - sahmadautsa.edu & i. m. stamov, online 2003/08/09, DOI: 10.1016/S1468-1218(03)00037-3
      33. On The Design Of Correct And Optimal Dynamical Systems And Games, M. Sintzoff - msainfo.ucl.ac.be, online 2003/08/26, DOI: 10.1016/S0020-0190(03)00387-9
      34. Hardware/Software Co-Design Then And Now, N. Wirth - wirthainf.ethz.ch, online 2003/08/27, DOI: 10.1016/S0020-0190(03)00385-5
      35. Broad Scaling Region In A Spatial Ecological System, M. Roy, M. Pascual - pascualaumich.edu & a. franc, online 2003/09/24, DOI: 10.1002/cplx.10096

    2. Webcast Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Fair Value; The Good, The Bad, and The Unknown, Financial Executives International (FEI), 03/08/26, 5:00-6:00 p.m. GMT
      2. 13th Ann Intl Conf, Soc f Chaos Theory in Psych & Life Sciences, Boston, MA, USA, 2003/08/08-10
      3. IMA International Conference Bifurcation 2003, Univ. Southampton, UK, 27-30 July, 2003
      4. New Santa Fe Institute President About His Vision for SFI's Future Role, (Video, Santa Fe, NM, 03/06/04)
      5. Edge Videos
      6. SPIE's 1st Intl Symp on Fluctuations and Noise, Santa Fe, NM, 2003/06/01-04
      7. NAS Sackler Colloquium on Mapping Knowledge Domains, Video/Audio Report, 03/05/11
      8. Uncertainty and Surprise: Questions on Working with the Unexpected and Unknowable, The University of Texas Austin, Texas USA, 2003/04/10-12
      9. New Trends In Industrial Partnership And Innovation Management At European Research Laboratories, CERN, Geneva, 2003/03/19 (with webcast)

        1. CERN Webcast Service, Streamed videos of Archived Lectures and Live Events

      10. Dean LeBaron's Archive of Daily Video Commentary, Ongoing Since February 1998
      11. ECAL 2003, 7th European Conference on Artificial Life, Dortmund, Germany, 03/09/14-17
      12. The Semantic Web and Language Technology - Its Potential and Practicalities, Bucharest, Romania, 03/07/28-08/08

    3. Conference & Call for Papers Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Executive Leadership in a Changing Environment, Washington, DC, 03/09/07-12, 03/10/05-10
      2. Exystence Thematic Institute - Algorithms And Challenges In Hard Combinatorial Problems, Turin, Italy, 03/10/01-30
      3. Intl School Mathematical Aspects of Quantum Chaos II Quantum Chaos on Hyperbolic Manifolds, Schloss Reisensburg (Gunzburg, Germany), 03/10/04-11
      4. European Workshop on The Analysis of Microfabrics in Geomaterials, Munchen, Germany, 03/10/06-11
      5. 2003 IEEE/WIC Intl Joint Conf. Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, Halifax, Canada, 2003/10/13-17

        1. Workshop on Collaboration Agents: Autonomous Agents for Collaborative Environments, Halifax, Canada, 03/10/13

      6. Intl Congress on Computational Intelligence, Medellin, Colombia, 03/11/06-08,(Mirror)
      7. American Society for Cybernetics (ASC) 2003 Conference (H.v.Foerster), Vienna, Austria, 2003/11/10-15
      8. Trends And Perspectives In Extensive And Non-Extensive Statistical Mechanics, In Honour Of The 60th Birthday Of Constantino Tsallis, Angra Dos Reis, Brazil, 2003/11/19-21
      9. ICDM '03: The Third IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, Melbourne, Florida, USA, 2003/11/19-22
      10. 4th Intl Conf on Systems Science and Systems Engineering, Hong Kong, 03/11/25-28
      11. 3rd International Workshop on Meta-Synthesis and Complex System, Guangzhou, China, 2003/11/29-30
      12. 2nd International Workshop on the Mathematics and Algorithms of Social Insects, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; 2003/12/15-17
      13. 2nd Biennial Seminar on the Philosophical, Epistemological, and Methodological Implications of Complexity Theory, Havana, Cuba, 04/01/07-10
      14. 1st International Workshop on Biologically Inspired Approaches to Advanced Information Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland, 04/01/29-30
      15. 4th Intl ICSC Symposium Engineering Of Intelligent Systems (EIS 2004), Island of Madeira, Portugal, 04/02/29-03/02
      16. Fractal 2004, "Complexity and Fractals in Nature", 8th Intl Multidisciplinary Conf, Vancouver, Canada, 2004/04/04-07
      17. Urban Vulnerability and Network Failure: Constructions and Experiences of Emergencies, Crises and Collapse, Manchester, UK, 04/04/29-30
      18. Fifth International Conference on Complex Systems (ICCS2004), Boston, MA, USA, 2004/05/16-21
      19. 3rd Intl Conf on Systems Thinking in Management (ICSTM 2004) "Transforming Organizations to Achieve Sustainable Success", Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, 04/05/19-21
      20. 9th Annual Workshop on Economics and Heterogeneous Interaction Agents (WEHIA04),, Kyoto, Japan, 2004/05/27-29
      21. 13th International Symposium on HIV & Emerging Infectious Diseases, Toulon, France, 04/06/03-05
      22. From Animals To Animats 8, 8th Intl Conf On The Simulation Of Adaptive Behavior (SAB'04), Los Angeles, USA, 04/07/13-17
      23. Evolutionary Substrates of Communication, Signaling, and Perception in the Dynamics of Social Complexity, London, England, 03/10/08-10
      24. Art & Artificial Life International Competition, Deadline: 03/10/31
      25. Plexusinstitute Organizational Management Conference With Ralph Stacey, Washington, DC, 03/12/02-04
      26. XVII Brazilian Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Sao Luis, Maranhao - Brazil, 04/09/22-24

    4. ComDig Announcement: New ComDig Archive in Beta Test Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. We are in the process of upgrading the Complexity Digest archives to a format with improved search capabilities. Also, we will finally be able to adequately publish the valuable feedback and comments from our knowledgable readers. You are cordially invited to become a beta tester of our new ComDig2 archive.

    5. Special Announcement: Artists Explore Complex Systems, Federal Reserve Board Bookmark and Share

      COMPLEXITY, the first major museum exhibition about complex systems, is on display at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC, ongoing - 03/11/28. The Washington exhibition is being co-sponsored by the Washington Center for Complexity and Public Policy and the Fine Arts Program of the Federal Reserve Board.

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