Sustainable Developments: The Challenge of Sustainable Water, Scientific American 
Excerpts: While oil shortages grab the headlines, water scarcity is creating at least as many headaches around the world. The most dramatic conditions are in Asia, where the world's two megacountries, China and India, are grappling with deepening and unsolved water challenges. China's great northern plain, home to more than 200 million people, is generally subhumid or arid and depends on unsustainable pumping of underground aquifers for irrigation. The Yellow River has been diverted to the point that it no longer flows to the sea.
Dirty Water Kills 5,000 Children A Day, The Guardian
Excerpts: Many countries spend less than 1% of national income on water. (...)
In the world's worst slums, people often pay five to 10 times more than wealthy people in the same cities or in London. This is because they often have to buy water from standpipes and pay a middle man by the bucket. (...)
Poor people also waste much time walking miles to collect small amounts of water. The report estimates that 40bn hours are spent collecting water each year in sub-Saharan Africa - an entire working year for all the people in France.
Study Hopeful For World's Forests, BBC News
Excerpts:  Forests cover 30% of the world's total land area - Deforestation rate: 13m hectares per year Iceland has three native tree species, Brazil has 7,780 - The world's trees store 283 gigatonnes of carbon, 50% more than there is in the atmosphere - (Source: FAO) |
A new technique for measuring the state of the world's forests shows the future may not be as bad as previously feared. An international team of researchers say its Forest Identity study suggests the world could be approaching a "turning point" from deforestation. (...) Professor Kauppi said no nation intentionally destroyed forests, people did it out of necessity.
"Rural populations, which are poor and growing, have to convert new land to agriculture and subsistence farming," he observed.
Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense, NY Times
Excerpts: Referred to as Web 3.0, the effort is in its infancy, and the very idea has given rise to skeptics who have called it an unobtainable vision. But the underlying technologies are rapidly gaining adherents, at big companies like I.B.M. and Google as well as small ones. Their projects often center on simple, practical uses, from producing vacation recommendations to predicting the next hit song.
Group Decisions: From Compromise To Leadership In Pigeon Homing, ScienceDaily
Excerpt: By studying how homing pigeons decide between two attractive options--following a habitual route home and flying in the company of another homing pigeon--researchers have deepened our understanding of the forces that underlie decision-making by social animals. (...) make decisions that affect not just themselves, but everyone in the group. For example, when embarking on a journey together, individuals must agree on the route--a difficult task if group members cannot assess who are the best navigators or who is best informed about possible routes. Is a "democratic" average of everyone's opinion best? Or is it better to trust a leader? (...)
Autonomous Choices And Patriotic Professionalism: On Governmentality In Late-Socialist China, Econ. & Soc.
Excerpts: This paper argues that choice and autonomy constitute important new techniques of governing in late-socialist China. College students no longer receive direct state job assignments upon graduation, going instead to job fairs where they experience a degree of autonomy from state planning organs that was not available under high socialism's central planning. Yet even as post-Mao governmental rationalities have promoted autonomous decisions, young professionals' experiences of choice have remained framed within notions of social responsibility and patriotism. This paper examines how (...) achieved today through reform-era economic competitiveness, are intertwined in the emergence of what is called 'patriotic professionalism'.
Cultural Differences and Economic Incentives: an Agent-Based Study of Their Impact on the Emergence of Regional Autonomy Movements, JASSS
Abstract: Explanations of the emergence of regional autonomy movements - political organizations seeking to express sub-state affinities and interests - often highlight cultural differences and economic incentives as important reasons driving regional elites and local politicians to form such organization and explain the support regional autonomy movements receive. In this paper I employ a specialized agent-based computer simulation as a laboratory for 'thought experiments' to evaluate alternative theoretical expectations of the independent and combined consequences of regional economic and cultural circumstances on the likelihood of regional mobilization. The simulations suggest that pronounced cultural differences and strong economic incentives contribute to the emergence of three independent yet related aspects of autonomy mobilization: the emergence of political boundaries, minority support, and minority clustering. Furthermore, these experiment indicate that the impact of cultural differences on the emergence of political boundaries may be contingent on the strength of the economic incentives, and visa versa.
Agent-Based Participatory Simulations: Merging Multi-Agent Systems and Role-Playing Games, JASSS
Abstract: In 2001, Olivier Barreteau proposed to jointly use multi-agent systems and role-playing games for purposes of research, training and negotiation support in the field of renewable resource management. This joint use was later labeled the "MAS/RPG methodology" and this approach is one of the foundation stones of the ComMod movement. In this article, we present an alternative method called "agent-based participatory simulations". These simulations are multi-agent systems where human participants control some of the agents. The experiments we conducted prove that it is possible to successfully merge multi-agent systems and role-playing games. We argue that agent-based participatory simulations are also a significant improvement over the MAS/RPG approach, opening new perspectives and solving some of the problems generated by the joint use of role-playing games and multi-agent systems. The advantages are at least threefold. Because all interactions are computer mediated, they can be recorded and this record can be processed and used to improve the understanding of participants and organizers alike. Because of the merge, agent-based participatory simulations decrease the distance between the agent-based model and the behavior of participants. Agent-based participatory simulations allow for computer-based improvements such as the introduction of eliciting assistant agents with learning capabilities.
Strange Circulations: The Blood Economy In Rural China, Econ. & Soc.
Excerpt: The commodification of blood in the Chinese countryside in the 1990s led to the rapid spread of HIV infection among rural villages in Henan Province where the sale of blood had became an important source of household revenue. The unsanitary practices in semi-official and illegal blood collection stations that led to the spread of HIV have now been revealed in the domestic and international media. But what needs to be dramatized more fully is what this strange new circulatory system can tell us about the transformed terms of exchange between the agricultural economy and schemes of 'national development' (...).
Self-Organizing Traffic at a Malfunctioning Intersection, JASSS
Abstract: Traffic signals and traffic flow models have been studied extensively in the past and have provided valuable insights on the design of signalling systems, congestion control, and punitive policies. This paper takes a slightly different tack and describes what happens at an intersection where the traffic signals are malfunctioning and stuck in some configuration. By modelling individual vehicles as agents, we were able to replicate the surprisingly organized traffic flow that we observed at a real malfunctioning intersection in urban India. Counter-intuitively, the very lawlessness that normally causes jams was causing traffic to flow smoothly at this intersection. We situate this research in the context of other research on emergent complex phenomena in traffic, and suggest further lines of research that could benefit from the analysis and modelling of rule-breaking behaviour.
See Also: NetLogo simulation
Cell Biology: A Clean Energy Programme, Nature
Excerpts: Mitochondria supply cells with energy, but in the process produce potentially damaging oxidants. It seems that a protein required to produce new mitochondria also protects against the resulting oxidative damage. Climate scientists have taught us that the planet is getting warmer because of the intimate relationship between the production and consumption of energy and the consequent generation of toxic by-products. Cell biologists have long known that a similar struggle between product and by-product occurs continuously inside every cell.
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Excerpts: To test the strategy, they took advantage of a feature in The New England Journal of Medicine. Every week, the journal offers doctors the chance to hone their diagnostic skills by presenting a puzzling case history.
So Tang and Ng gave Google a chance to solve 26 of the puzzles.
The two doctors selected three to five search terms for each case history. They then typed them into Google and looked over the first five pages of search results for a diagnosis.
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Excerpts: Deficiency in vitamin D may predispose people to infection.
His group had been administering various natural signaling agents to white blood cells, which the immune system sends out to vanquish germs.
In these cells, "nothing turned on the cathelicidin gene to any degree except vitamin D. And it really turned that gene on¡Xjust cranked it up," Gombart says. "I was completely surprised."
Independently, dermatologist Mona St?hle of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm reached a similar conclusion when she realized that both vitamin D and several antimicrobials, including cathelicidin, are produced in the skin.
Malaria Reversal: Drug Regains Potency In African Nation, Science News
Excerpts: An inexpensive drug that has lost much of its punch against malaria over the past 20 years is showing signs of regaining its strength in the African nation of Malawi. But researchers warn that the entire continent would have to coordinate its fight against the disease in order for the drug to regain a prominent place among malaria fighters. (...) The Malawi experience establishes that P. falciparum can become susceptible again to chloroquine after the drug has been absent, (...).
Study Reveals That Odor Discrimination Is Linked To The Timing At Which Neurons Fire, Innovations-report
Excerpts: Timing is everything. For a mouse trying to discriminate between the scent of a tasty treat and the scent of the neighborhood cat, timing could mean life or death. In a striking discovery, Carnegie Mellon University scientists have linked the timing of inhibitory neuron activity to the generation of odor-specific patterns in the brain's olfactory bulb, the area of the brain responsible for distinguishing odors. Their work, (...) describes for the first time a cellular mechanism linking a specific stimulus to the timing at which inhibitory neurons fire. (...).
How The Brain Weaves A Memory, ScienceDaily
Excerpts: Memories of events comprise many components--including sights, sounds, smells, and tastes. Somehow the many features of an episodic memory are woven together into a coherent whole, and researchers have had little understanding of how this binding takes place as the memories are processed by the brain's memory center, the hippocampus. A central question has been whether the hippocampus receives an "episodic packet," or a collection of perceptual strands that it must integrate into a memory. (...) report experiments with human volunteers that shed important light on this process. (...)
Neurobiology: Right Timing For Retina Repair, Nature
Excerpts: Transplants of photoreceptor cells offer hope for treating retinal disease. But getting the cells to make the right connections with the brain has been problematic. It seems the developmental stage of the cells may be the key. (...)
(...) prospect for the restoration of vision through cell-replacement therapy. Despite many attempts, such transplants have yet to produce better vision in mammals because the transplanted cells do not wire up to the brain properly. (...) use cells at a particular stage in their development.
Natural-Born Painkiller Found In Human Saliva, New Scientist
Excerpts: Saliva from humans has yielded a natural painkiller up to six times more powerful than morphine, researchers say. The substance, dubbed opiorphin, may spawn a new generation of natural painkillers that relieve pain as well as morphine but without the addictive and psychological side effects of the traditional drug.
When the researchers injected a pain-inducing chemical into rats' paws, 1 gram of opiorphin per kilogram of body weight achieved the same painkilling effect as 3 grams of morphine.
Selecting Life: Scientists Find New Way To Search For Origin Of Life, ScienceDaily
Excerpts: Over the last half century, researchers have found that mineral surfaces may have played critical roles organizing, or activating, molecules that would become essential ingredients to all life--such as amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and nucleic acids (the essence of DNA). But which of the countless possible combinations of biomolecules and mineral surfaces were key to this evolution? This vexing question has stumped scientists for years because of the sheer volume of possibilities. Now an interdisciplinary team of researchers (...), has developed new protocols and procedures for adapting DNA microarray technology to rapidly identify promising molecule/mineral pairs. (...)
Was Life On Earth Inevitable, Nature News
Excerpts:  What do lightning and life have in common? Getty |
They argue that life was the necessary consequence of available energy built up by geological processes on the early Earth. Life sprang from this environment, they say, in the same way that lightning relieves the accumulation of electrical charge in thunderclouds.
In other words, say biologist Harold Morowitz of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and physicist Eric Smith of New Mexico's Santa Fe Institute, the geological environment "forced life into existence".
This view implies not only that life had to emerge on the Earth, (...).
It's The Junk That Makes Us Human, Nature
Excerpts: 'Non-coding' DNA may organize brain cell connections. (...) The findings seem to bolster a 30-year-old hypothesis that gene regulation - not the creation of new genes - has moulded the traits that make us unique.
The latest work looks for regions of the genome that have changed rapidly in human evolution, based on the theory that they are most likely to have shaped our differences from other animals. But instead of hunting for rapidly evolving DNA in genes, researchers are starting to look at non-coding DNA - stretches of DNA that don't encode proteins.
Could Our Big Brains Come From Neanderthals?, Reuters
Excerpts: Lahn's team found a brain gene that appears to have entered the human lineage about 1.1 million years ago, and that has a modern form, or allele, that appeared about 37,000 years ago -- right before Neanderthals became extinct. "The gene microcephalin (MCPH1) regulates brain size during development and has experienced positive selection in the lineage leading to Homo sapiens," the researchers wrote.
Positive selection means the gene conferred some sort of advantage, so that people who had it were more likely to have descendants than people who did not.
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Excerpts: Scientists are tracing the steps through which evolution forged its successes. They're finding that the same genetic tool kit can build structures both simple and complex. (...) Today biologists are beginning to understand the origins of life's complexityâ€"the exquisite optical mechanism of the eye, the masterly engineering of the arm, the architecture of a flower or a feather, the choreography that allows trillions of cells to cooperate in a single organism.
- Source: From Fins to Wings, Carl Zimmer, National Geographic Magazine 210(5):110-135, 2006/11
An Exceptional Devonian Fish From Australia Sheds Light On Tetrapod Origins, Nature
Editor's Summary: The evolutionary transition from water to land exerts a continuing fascination, heightened by recent discoveries of transitional fossils in Canada and the reinterpretation as tetrapods (or near-tetrapods) of fossils once classified as fishes. But signs of land life are detectable even further back. A spectacularly preserved 380-million-year old fossil of the fish Gogonasus from the Devonian of Australia is fish-like in many respects, yet features of its ear and limbs are unexpectedly advanced.
Comprehensive Model Is First To Map Protein Folding At Atomic Level, Physorg.com
Excerpts: Scientists at Harvard University have developed a computer model that, for the first time, can fully map and predict how small proteins fold into three-dimensional, biologically active shapes. The work could help researchers better understand the abnormal protein aggregation underlying some devastating diseases, as well as how natural proteins evolved and how proteins recognize correct biochemical partners within living cells.
Up Your Memory Bank, Nature
Excerpts: A stimulating night's sleep improves recall.(...) The treatment didn't work for all tasks, however. Slowly oscillating waves seem to improve recall of words and facts, but the volunteers were no better at remembering a finger-tapping task. Born suspects that this type of memory is consolidated during REM sleep.
So how does it work? The team suggests that the slow oscillations help the brain replay newly formed memories during sleep, by triggering intracellular signals in nerve cells that strengthen the connections between them.
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Excerpts: Despite its name, gravitomagnetism has nothing to do with magnetic fields as we think of them. According to Einstein's general theory of relativity, a rotating mass such as a planet should twist the fabric of space-time, and any object nearby should be dragged around by the vortex. It is really just another case of matter telling space-time how to curve and space-time telling matter how to move. Just as a stationary mass creates a "dip" in space-time that we perceive as gravity, a rotating mass creates a twist in space-time. (...)
Quantum Physics: Information On Heat, Nature
Excerpts: There is a fundamental quantum limit to heat flow, just as there is to electric current. This limit is independent of what carries the heat, and could also have a role in an unexpected quarter: information theory. (...) The authors show that the rate of heat exchange between the two resistors in this case is given simply by GQ ["quantum of thermal conductance", Ed.].
Thus, like the quantum of electrical conductance, GQ is very general, and independent of the nature of the material connection between two heat reservoirs.
Single-Mode Heat Conduction By Photons, Nature
Excerpts: Our experiment demonstrates what was proposed recently: it is not justified to assume that an electron system like the one discussed here would be efficiently decoupled from the environment once the electron-phonon coupling is suppressed at low temperatures. (...) The radiation of heat could also help to remove excessive heat¡X(...). Furthermore, the photonic coupling could act as a mediator of decoherence: for example, in solid-state quantum coherent devices. The strength of this harmful effect depends (...) critically on the matching between the noise source and the system that it affects.
Electron Beams Shrink Carbon Nanotubes To Order, New Scientist
Excerpts:  When hooked up to a current, the nanotubes shrink in diameter, from 16 nanometres in diameter, to 11nm, to 4nm and finally 3nm (Image: ACS) |
The shrinking begins when the wafer carrying this tube is loaded into a transmission electron microscope. An electron beam is fired at the tube, knocking carbon atoms out of their honeycomb arrangement within its walls and causing them to either crowd into other parts of the arrangement, disturbing the shape, or fall out altogether. At the same time, a current is run through the tube, via the gold contacts, and this reshuffles the remaining carbon atoms back into a regular, albeit narrower, nanotube structure. The current also causes some atoms to form new bonds with others.
Physics Promises Wireless Power, BBC News
Excerpts:  Plugs and wires could soon become a thing of the past |
To overcome this problem, the team investigated a special class of "non-radiative" objects with so-called "long-lived resonances". When energy is applied to these objects it remains bound to them, rather than escaping to space. "Tails" of energy, which can be many metres long, flicker over the surface.
"If you bring another resonant object with the same frequency close enough to these tails then it turns out that the energy can tunnel from one object to another," (...).
Any energy not diverted into a gadget or appliance is simply reabsorbed.
Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
Administration: Detainees Have No Rights, AP/Forbes
Excerpts: The Bush administration said Monday that Guantanamo Bay prisoners have no right to challenge their detentions in civilian courts and that lawsuits by hundreds of detainees should be dismissed. In court documents filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Justice Department defended the military's authority to arrest people overseas and detain them indefinitely without access to courts. (...)
Links & Snippets
Other Publications
- Cascades of Failure and Extinction in Evolving Complex Systems, Paul Ormerod, Rich Colbaugh, 2006/10/31, JASSS 9(4)
- Is Your Model Susceptible to Floating-Point Errors?, Luis R. Izquierdo, J. Gary Polhill, 2006/10/31, JASSS 9(4)
- Enhancing the Supply Chain Performance by Integrating Simulated and Physical Agents into Organizational Information Systems, Fu-ren Lin, Shyh-ming Lin, 2006/10/31, JASSS 9(4)
- Expectation-Driven Interaction: a Model Based on Luhmann's Contingency Approach, Michael Barber, Philippe Blanchard, Eva Buchinger, Bruno Cessac, Ludwig Streit, 2006/10/31, JASSS 9(4)
- Book Review: "Weak Links: Stabilizers of Complex Systems from Proteins to Social Networks" by Csermely, Peter, Makany Tamas, 2006/10/31, JASSS 9(4)
- Smells Like New Revenue: Nirvana Front Man Kurt Cobain's Legacy Lives On, L. Hau, 2006/11/03, vnunet.com & Forbes.com
- Genomic Imprinting And The Social Brain, A. R. Isles, W. Davies, L. S. Wilkinson, 2006/11/03, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2006.1942
- Genetic Influences On The Neural Basis Of Social Cognition, D. Skuse, 2006/11/03, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2006.1935
- Voice Processing In Human And Non-Human Primates, P. Belin, 2006/11/03, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2006.1933
- Social Buffering: Relief From Stress And Anxiety, T. Kikusui, J. T. Winslow, Y. Mori, 2006/11/06, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2006.1941
- An Individual-based Predator-prey Model for Biological Coevolution: Fluctuations, Stability, and Community Structure, Per Arne Rikvold, 2006/11/07, arXiv, DOI: q-bio.PE/0611023
- Windows, Not Walls: Just A Decade Ago, Techno-Utopians Promised An Open-Source, Free-Trade, Wall-Free World. What Went Wrong?, E. Eaves, 2006/11/09, vnunet.com & Forbes.com
- Would You See 'James Bond 21'? How About 'Die Another Day'? Study Finds That Movies Sequels Should Be Named, Not Numbered, 2006/11/09, Innovations-report
- Memories: It's All In The Packaging, Scientists Say, 2006/11/10, ScienceDaily & University of California - Irvine
- Traversing More Than Speed Bumps: Green Politics Under Authoritarian Regimes In Burma And Iran, T. Doyle, A. Simpson, Nov. 2006, Environmental Politics, DOI: 10.1080/09644010600937199
- Bad, Mad Or Sad: Constructions Of Young People In Trouble And Implications For Interventions, G. Macleod, Sep. 2006, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, DOI: 10.1080/13632750600833791
Webcast Announcements
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Talking Robots: The PodCast on Robotics and AI, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland, 06/11/03
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Potentials of Complexity Science for Business, Governments, and the Media 2006, Budapest, Hungary, 06/08/03-05
- 6th Intl Conf on Complex Systems (ICCS), Boston, MA, 06/06/25-30
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Artificial Life X,
10th Intl Conf on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, Bloomington, IN, USA. 2006/06/03-07
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6th Understanding Complex Systems Symposium, Urbana-Champaign, Il, 06/05/15-18
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Ralph Abraham on Complexity Digest, , Calcutta, India, 05/12/27
- An Afternoon with Michael Crichton, Washington, 05/11/06
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Illuminating the Shadow of the Future, Ann Arbor, Mi 05/09/23-25
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Open Network of Centres of Excellence in Complex Systems - Brainstorming Meeting, Paris, France 05/09/19-23
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Complexity, Science & Society Conference 2005, U. Liverpool, UK 2005/09/11-14
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ECAL 2005 - VIIIth European Conference on Artificial Life,
Canterbury, Kent, UK 2005/09/5-9
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T. Irene Sanders, Executive Director and Founder, The Washington Center for Complexity & Public Policy, 05/08/27, QuickTime video (10:38 min), Podcast
- North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity 2005 Conference, Virtual Conference Network, St. Pete's Beach, Florida, 05/06/09-11
- Understanding Complex Systems - Computational Complexity and Bioinformatics, Virtual Conference Network, Urbana-Champaign, Il, UIUC, 05/05/16-19
- Nonlinearity, Fluctuations, and Complexity, with a celebration of the 65th birthday of Gregoire Nicolis. , Complexity Session, Universite' Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, 05/03/16
- World Economic Forum , Davos, Switzerland, 05/01/26-30
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1st European Conference on Complex Systems, Torino, Italy, 04/12/5-7
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From Autopoiesis to Neurophenomenology: A Tribute to Francisco Varela (1946-2001), Paris, France, 2004/06/18-20
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Evolutionary Epistemology, Language, and Culture, Brussels, Belgium, 04/05/26-28
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International Conference on Complex Systems 2004, Boston, 04/05/16-21
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Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: Lab Demonstrations, Strogatz, Steven H., Internet-First University Press, 1994
- CERN Webcast Service, Streamed videos of Archived Lectures and Live Events
- Dean LeBaron's Archive of Daily Video Commentary, Ongoing Since February 1998
- Edge Videos
Conference Announcements
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Creating Interdisciplinary Cultures: Insights from Complexity Science and Relationship Centered Care, Indiana USA, 06/11/17-19
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Self-Organization And Morphogenesis In Biological Systems ,
Schloss Ringberg, Germany. 06/12/03-06
- Japan Mathematica Conference 2006, Tokyo, Japan, 06/12/12
- 2006 IEEE/WIC/ACM Intl Workshop on
Interaction between Agents and Data Mining (IADM-06), Hongkong, China, 06/12/18
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NECSI Winter School 2007, Cambridge, MA, 07/01/08-19
- Logic, Computability and Randomness 2007 , Buenos Aires, Argentina, 07/01/10-13
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The Atlas of Ideas, London,
United Kingdom, 07/01/17-18
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Managing Complex Organizations in a Complex World, Cambridge, MA, 07/01/25-26
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2007 Complexity and Educational Research Conference, Vancouver, BC, 07/02/18-20
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3rd International Workshop on Complexity and Philisophy, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 07/02/22-23
Unconventional Computation: Quo Vadis?, Santa Fe, NM, 07/03/20-23
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Complex Social Systems Course
at the London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom, 07/03/20-28
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4th Lake Arrowhead Conference on Human Complex Systems,
Lake Arrowhead, CA, 07/04/25-29
- Complexity and Organizational Resilience
The Village, Pohnpei, Micronesia, 07/05
- 2nd Intl Conf on Built Environment Complexity - Embracing complexity thinking in built environments, Cape Town South Africa, 07/05/21-25
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ECO 2007 Summit: Ecological Complexity and Sustainability: Challenges and Opportunities for 21st-Century Ecology, Beijing, China, 07/05/22-27
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2007 IEEE/ICME Intl Conf on Complex Medical Engineering-CME2007, Beijing, China, 07/05/23-27
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The 7th Intl Workshop on Meta-Synthesis and Complex Systems, Beijing, 07/05/27-30
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7th conf
SYMMETRY IN NONLINEAR MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS, Kiev, Ukraine, 07/06/24-30
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Summer School In Complexity Science, London, UK, 07/07/08-17
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ECAL 2oo7 - 9th European Conference on Artificial Life
, Lisbon, Portugal, 07/09/10-14
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European Conference on Complex Systems 2007 (ECCS'07) , Dresden, Germany, 07/10/01-05
Call for Papers - Course/Book Announcements
- The publishing consortium of
The European Physical Journal (EPJ), and the Editors-in-Chief are pleased to announce that The European Physical Journal B - Condensed Matter and Complex Systems - has substantially extended its existing publishing activities in the fields of Statistical Physics and Nonlinear Dynamics to encompass all aspects of the emerging field of Complex Systems.
- Call for Submissions:
The Journal of Developmental Processes will publish its first issue in fall 2006. , The JDP recognizes that complex developmental processes characterize the growth of living organisms. In humans, this complexity is highly elaborated, so that developmental change is affected by many interrelated factors of the body, the mind, family, society and the environment. New discoveries continually add to our understanding of these processes and demonstrate the inadequacy of reductionist approaches.
- Call for Papers:
Special Issue of the Artificial Life journal on the Evolution of Complexity,
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Digital Graphics for Quantitative Finance,
Lineplot Productions, 2006
Why create movies of financial models? Because key stakeholders often don't understand them. The mathematical, data-intensive sphere of quantitative financial analysis can be a black box even for many in the industry. It is vital for users of this analysis to appreciate, understand and buy into, often literally, these difficult and important concepts.
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Life: An Introduction to Complex Systems Biology, Kunihiko Kaneko, Springer Series: Understanding Complex Systems, 2006
What is life? Has molecular biology given us a satisfactory answer to this question? And if not, why, and how to carry on from there? This book examines life not from the reductionist point of view, but rather asks the question: what are the universal properties of living systems and how can one construct from there a phenomenological theory of life that leads naturally to complex processes such as reproductive cellular systems, evolution and differentiation? The presentation has been deliberately kept fairly non-technical so as to address a broad spectrum of students and researchers from the natural sciences and informatics.
- Chaos and Complexity
Resources for Students and Teachers, 06/03/01
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