Complexity Digest 2007.43

08-Nov-2007

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Content

  1. Why Google Turned Into a Social Butterfly, NY Times
  2. Model Behaviour, Nature
  3. Neural Mechanisms Mediating Optimism Bias, Nature
    1. Mutual Optimism And War, Ameri.J. Poli. Sc.
  4. Mathematical Physics: First Encounters, Nature
    1. First-Passage Times In Complex Scale-Invariant Media, Nature
    2. Ecology: Do Wandering Albatrosses Care About Math?, Science
  5. What Makes Cultural Heredity Unique? On Action-Types, Intentionality And Cooperation In Imitation, Mind & Lang.
  6. Ecological Intervention: Prospects And Limits, Ethics & Int. Affairs
  7. Adaptive Coevolutionary Networks: A Review, Interface
    1. Robustness And Evolvability: A Paradox Resolved, Proc. Biol. Sc.
    2. Sony's Folding@Home Project Gets Guinness Record, n-net News.com
  8. Hearing: A Fantasia On Koelliker's Organ, Nature
    1. The Origin Of Spontaneous Activity In The Developing Auditory System, Nature
    2. New Brain Cells Listen Before They Talk, ScienceDaily
  9. Molecular Basis for the Nerve Dependence of Limb Regeneration in an Adult Vertebrate, Science
  10. A High-Resolution Root Spatiotemporal Map Reveals Dominant Expression Patterns, Science
    1. Smell: The Worm Turns, Nature
  11. The PIN Codes Of The Immune System Can Be Hacked, Innovations-report
    1. Systems Biology: A Clock with a Flip Switch, Science
  12. Genetically Engineered 'Mighty Mouse' Can Run 6 Kilometers Without Stopping, Science Daily
  13. Crops That Shut Down Pests' Genes, MIT Technology Review
  14. Fossil Sparks - New Finds Ignite Controversy Over Ape And Human Evolution, Science News
  15. Molecular And Genomic Data Identify The Closest Living Relative Of Primates, Science
  16. Engineers Teach Nature to 'Grow' Computer Components, PhysOrg.com
    1. Nano-assembly Mimics Origin Of Life? Molecules Organize Themselves Into Patterns, ScienceDaily
    2. Self-Organizing Nanoparticles: A Model For Tomorrow's Nanofactories, Innovations-report
    3. The Charge of the Ultra - Capacitors, IEEE Spectrum
  17. Crashes and Traffic Jams in Military Test of Robotic Vehicles, NY Times
    1. 'Aggressive But Safe' SUV Wins Robotic Street Race, New Scientist
  18. It All Began with an End - New Theory on Origin and Future of the Universe, New Wise
  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
    1. Analysis: Young, British And Part Of Terror Plot, Telegraph.co.uk
  20. Links & Snippets
    1. Other Publications
    2. Webcast Announcements
    3. Conference Announcements
    4. Other Announcements
  1. Why Google Turned Into a Social Butterfly, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    James Yang
    Suppose, however, that you could leave the island compound of a social networking site and take your network of friends, and friends of friends, anywhere on the Web? This is what makes Google's announcement last week of a new alliance of companies so enticing - the possibility that social networking will become ubiquitous.

    Google's vision - "Social Will Be Everywhere" - is more compelling than anything Facebook could possibly devise. Who wouldn't prefer the unlimited freedom to take one's own trusted circle anywhere on the Web, as opposed to the cramped confines of island life?

  2. Model Behaviour, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The brain is no longer the black box it used to be, and neuroscientists are starting to put new knowledge to good use, developing better animal models for psychiatric disorders.
    • Source: Model Behaviour, Alison Abbott, DOI: 10.1038/450006a, Nature 450, 6-7 (2007)
  3. Neural Mechanisms Mediating Optimism Bias, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Humans expect positive events in the future even when there is no evidence to support such expectations. For example, people expect to live longer and be healthier than average1, they underestimate their likelihood of getting a divorce, and overestimate their prospects for success on the job market. We examined how the brain generates this pervasive optimism bias. Here we report that this tendency was related specifically to enhanced activation in the amygdala and in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex when imagining positive future events relative to negative ones, suggesting a key role for areas involved in monitoring emotional salience in mediating the optimism bias.
    1. Mutual Optimism And War, Ameri.J. Poli. Sc. Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: Working with the definition of mutual optimism as war due to inconsistent beliefs, we formalize the mutual optimism argument to test the theory's logical validity. We find that in the class of strategic situations where mutual optimism is a necessary condition for war-i.e., where war is known to be inefficient, war only occurs if both sides prefer it to a negotiated settlement, and on the eve of conflict war is self-evident-then there is no Bayesian-Nash equilibrium where wars are fought because of mutual optimism. (...)
      • Source: Mutual Optimism And War, M. Fey - mark.feyarochester.edu, K. W. Ramsay - kramsayaprinceton.edu, DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00278.x, American Journal of Political Science, Oct. 2007, online 2007/10/02
      • Contributed by Pritha Das - prithadas01ayahoo.com
  4. Mathematical Physics: First Encounters, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The idea of 'random walks' pops up in areas from biochemical reaction pathways to animals' foraging strategies. A central question - how likely is it that a walker is somewhere for the first time? - now has a simpler answer.
    1. First-Passage Times In Complex Scale-Invariant Media, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: How long does it take a random walker to reach a given target point? This quantity, known as a first-passage time (FPT), has led to a growing number of theoretical investigations over the past decade. The importance of FPTs originates from the crucial role played by first encounter properties in various real situations, including transport in disordered media, neuron firing dynamics, spreading of diseases or target search processes. Most methods of determining FPT properties in confining domains have been limited to effectively one-dimensional geometries, or to higher spatial dimensions only in homogeneous media.
    2. Ecology: Do Wandering Albatrosses Care About Math?, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: One of the first studies in which recording devices tracked animal movements, the work also brought a little-known mathematical tool to bear on the study of animal foraging. It showed ecologists that a model of random motion called a Levy flight described the way albatrosses searched for food. Inspired by the work of French mathematician Paul Levy, Levy flights are characterized by many short hops, with much longer jumps on rare occasions. Physicists have long used the mathematics behind Levy flights to predict how particles move in liquids and how matter spreads in the universe, for example.
  5. What Makes Cultural Heredity Unique? On Action-Types, Intentionality And Cooperation In Imitation, Mind & Lang. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: The exploration of the mechanisms of cultural heredity has often been regarded as the key to explicating human uniqueness. Particularly early imitative learning, which is explained as a kind of simulation that rests on the infant's identification with other persons as intentional agents, has been stressed as the foundation of cumulative cultural transmission. But the question of what are the objects of this mechanism has not been given much attention. Although this is a pivotal point, it still remains obscure. I will characterize the notion of action-types and show why they are the genuine objects of cultural heredity. (...)
  6. Ecological Intervention: Prospects And Limits, Ethics & Int. Affairs Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: This essay seeks to extend the already controversial debate about humanitarian intervention by exploring the morality, legality, and legitimacy of ecological intervention and its corollary, ecological defense. If the legacy of the Holocaust was acceptance of a new category of "crimes against humanity" and an emerging norm of humanitarian intervention, then should the willful or reckless perpetration of mass extinctions and massive ecosystem destruction be regarded as "crimes against nature" or "ecocide" such as to ground a new norm of ecological intervention or ecological defense? The essay shows that the minimalist argument for ecological intervention (...).
  7. Adaptive Coevolutionary Networks: A Review, Interface Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: Adaptive networks appear in many biological applications. They combine topological evolution of the network with dynamics in the network nodes. Recently, the dynamics of adaptive networks has been investigated in a number of parallel studies from different fields, ranging from genomics to game theory. Here we review these recent developments and show that they can be viewed from a unique angle. We demonstrate that all these studies are characterized by common themes, most prominently: complex dynamics and robust topological self-organization based on simple local rules.
    1. Robustness And Evolvability: A Paradox Resolved, Proc. Biol. Sc. Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: Understanding the relationship between robustness and evolvability is key to understand how living things can withstand mutations, while producing ample variation that leads to evolutionary innovations. Mutational robustness and evolvability, a system's ability to produce heritable variation, harbour a paradoxical tension. On one hand, high robustness implies low production of heritable phenotypic variation. On the other hand, both experimental and computational analyses of neutral networks indicate that robustness enhances evolvability. I here resolve this tension using RNA genotypes and their secondary structure phenotypes as a study system. (...)
    2. Sony's Folding@Home Project Gets Guinness Record, n-net News.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      PlayStation 3 users have been able to connect their consoles online to Stanford University's Folding@home project, allowing researchers to tap into the machines' substantial processing power as they study the effects of a process called protein folding on a series of serious diseases. (Credit: Folding@home)
      The record was set by Stanford University's Folding@home project, a distributed computing system utilizing PS3s among other computers, to help scientists study the effects of a process called "protein folding" on a series of serious diseases.

      Well, Guinness has apparently certified the project as the world's most powerful distributed computing system. According to a release from Sony, Folding@home topped 1 petaflop last month, meaning that it surpassed a thousand trillion floating point operations per second. By comparison, the well-known SETI@home project has topped out, according to Wikipedia, at around 265 teraflops, or 265 trillion floating point operations a second.

  8. Hearing: A Fantasia On Koelliker's Organ, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: In the silence that precedes the onset of hearing in the developing auditory system, it seems that the cells of a transient structure known as Koelliker's organ are capable of generating their own 'virtual' music.

    From a physiological perspective, a developing organ requires a programme that allows it to grow and adapt to internal and environmental constraints. In sensory systems such as those involved in sight and hearing, the adaptable growth of afferent (incoming) nerve fibres is involved in connecting the peripheral sensory organ to the neurons of the central nervous system.

    1. The Origin Of Spontaneous Activity In The Developing Auditory System, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Spontaneous activity in the developing auditory system is required for neuronal survival as well as the refinement and maintenance of tonotopic maps in the brain. However, the mechanisms responsible for initiating auditory nerve firing in the absence of sound have not been determined. Here we show that supporting cells in the developing rat cochlea spontaneously release ATP, which causes nearby inner hair cells to depolarize and release glutamate, triggering discrete bursts of action potentials in primary auditory neurons.
    2. New Brain Cells Listen Before They Talk, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Newly created neurons in adults rely on signals from distant brain regions to regulate their maturation and survival before they can communicate with existing neighboring cells--a finding that has important implications for the use of adult neural stem cells (...). In fact, certain important synaptic connections--the circuitry that allows the brain cells to talk to each other--do not appear until 21 days after the birth of the new cells, according (...). In the meantime, other areas of the brain provide information to the new cells, preventing them from disturbing ongoing functions until the cells are mature. (...)
  9. Molecular Basis for the Nerve Dependence of Limb Regeneration in an Adult Vertebrate, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Forelimb regeneration in newts requires concomitant regeneration of the nerve, a necessity that can be circumvented by application of a single protein, nAG.

    The limb blastemal cells of an adult salamander regenerate the structures distal to the level of amputation, and the surface protein Prod 1 is a critical determinant of their proximodistal identity. The anterior gradient protein family member nAG is a secreted ligand for Prod 1 and a growth factor for cultured newt blastemal cells. nAG is sequentially expressed after amputation in the regenerating nerve and the wound epidermis¡Xthe key tissues of the stem cell niche - and its expression in both locations is abrogated by denervation.

  10. A High-Resolution Root Spatiotemporal Map Reveals Dominant Expression Patterns, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Transcriptional programs that regulate development are exquisitely controlled in space and time. Elucidating these programs that underlie development is essential to understanding the acquisition of cell and tissue identity. We present microarray expression profiles of a high-resolution set of developmental time points within a single Arabidopsis root and a comprehensive map of nearly all root cell types. These cell type-specific transcriptional signatures often predict previously unknown cellular functions.
    1. Smell: The Worm Turns, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The worm Caenorhabditis elegans has many advantages as an experimental organism. These have been exploited to investigate how, at a single-neuron level, neural circuits transform sensory signals into behaviour.
  11. The PIN Codes Of The Immune System Can Be Hacked, Innovations-report Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: There are several reasons why the world is still plagued by diseases we cannot treat or vaccinate against, one of them being the vast complexity of the human immune system. Danish researchers have now developed a method, which can help expose a complicated but crucial part of the immune system's defence mechanisms. This method can lead to entirely new vaccines and treatments. Researchers (...) have combined the fields of Bioinformatics and ImmunoChemistry and created models of neural networks, which can do what has thus far been impossibe: Simulate how the immune system defends itsel from disease. (...)
    1. Systems Biology: A Clock with a Flip Switch, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The big remaining challenge was to determine how this clock works. Two studies, reported by the Kondo group (2) and by Rust et al. on page 809 of this issue (3), now provide a satisfying answer to this question. The oscillations arise from the slow, orderly addition and then subtraction of two phosphates from the KaiC protein. This provides a fascinating example of reductionistic systems biology, where the ability to pick apart a complex system has yielded an understanding of how the whole system works.
  12. Genetically Engineered 'Mighty Mouse' Can Run 6 Kilometers Without Stopping, Science Daily Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Researchers have bred a line of "mighty mice" (PEPCK-Cmus mice) that have the capability of running five to six kilometers at a speed of 20 meters per minute on a treadmill for up to six hours before stopping. (Credit: Courtesy of Richard Hanson's Research Lab)
    The transgenic mice, which now number nearly 500, were derived from six founder lines that contain a chimeric gene in which a copy of the cDNA for PEPCK-C was linked to the skeletal actin gene promoter, containing the 3'-end of the bovine growth hormone gene. The skeletal actin gene promoter directs expression of PEPCK-C exclusively to skeletal muscle. Various lines of PEPCK-Cmus mice expressed PEPCK-C at different levels, but one very active line of PEPCK-Cmus mice had levels of PEPCK-C activity of 9 units/gram skeletal muscle, compared to only 0.08 units/gram in the muscles of control animals.
  13. Crops That Shut Down Pests' Genes, MIT Technology Review Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Corn that bites back: Genetically modified corn made by Monsanto silences genes in the insects that eat its roots, slowing and eventually killing them. The normal corn root system on the left has been nibbled by corn rootworm; the hardy root system on the right is from a genetically modified corn plant. Credit: Monsanto
    Monsanto is developing genetically modified plants that use RNA interference to kill the insects that eat them. (...)

    Because the new crops target particular genes in particular insects, some researchers suggest that they will be safer and less likely to have unintended effects than other genetically modified plants. Others warn that it is too early to make such predictions and that the plants should be carefully tested to ensure that they do not pose environmental problems. But most researchers agree that it's unlikely that eating these plants would have adverse effects on humans.

  14. Fossil Sparks - New Finds Ignite Controversy Over Ape And Human Evolution, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    DENTAL PLAN. Three Chororapithecus teeth (top) are shown aligned with the corresponding teeth of a female gorilla. Suwa
    Scientific reactions to the latest fossil finds and analyses underscore Le Gros Clark's point. Consider a handful of 10-million-year-old teeth recently unearthed in Ethiopia and attributed by their discoverers to a direct ancestor or close relative of the gorilla. If the scientists are right, ancient gorillas initially diverged from human ancestors more than 10 million years ago, several million years before DNA-based analyses date the split. However, some researchers regard the ancient teeth as remnants of an extinct ape that probably bore no relation at all to gorillas.
  15. Molecular And Genomic Data Identify The Closest Living Relative Of Primates, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: A full understanding of primate morphological and genomic evolution requires the identification of their closest living relative. In order to resolve the ancestral relationships among primates and their closest relatives, we searched multispecies genome alignments for phylogenetically informative rare genomic changes within the superordinal group Euarchonta, which includes the orders Primates, Dermoptera (colugos), and Scandentia (treeshrews). We also constructed phylogenetic trees from 14 kilobases of nuclear genes for representatives from most major primate lineages, both extant colugos, and multiple treeshrews, including the pentail treeshrew, Ptilocercus lowii, the only living member of the family Ptilocercidae.
  16. Engineers Teach Nature to 'Grow' Computer Components, PhysOrg.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: At the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering, Ray Phaneuf, associate professor of materials science and engineering, has developed a template that nature can follow to produce "self-assembling" structures. The template causes atoms to be arranged in a defined pattern that can serve a variety of purposes - a semiconductor in a laptop, a component in a cell phone or a sensor in a wearable device.
    Credit: Clark School of Engineering Computers don't grow on trees, but with a little prodding from engineers, nature can produce computer components.

    1. Nano-assembly Mimics Origin Of Life? Molecules Organize Themselves Into Patterns, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: The automatic molecular assembly and selection steps exhibited by the molecules, which start as random mixtures, demonstrates a fundamental step in the evolution of life. The organization is activated by instructions which are built-in to the molecules. During assembly, molecules exhibit active selection: those in incorrect positions move to make room for others which fit properly. The molecular-level observation of such self-selection gives, for the first time, direct insight into fundamental steps of the biological evolution from inanimate molecules to living entities. The resulting nanostructures also hold great promise as an efficient avenue to new catalysts, nanotechnologies, and surface applications. (...)
    2. Self-Organizing Nanoparticles: A Model For Tomorrow's Nanofactories, Innovations-report Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: With inspiration from bacteria and butterflies, researchers at Stockholm University have developed a new method that shows how nanomaterials can be produced in the future.(...) shows how a glass bottle and a simple hobby magnet can be used to produce and arrange extremely small cubes of iron oxide in a perfectly checkered pattern. The new method can give magnetic films with superior information storage capacity," says Lennart Bergström. To produce nanoparticles with a defined form and size and at the same time organize them in well-ordered structures is one of the few realistic ways of producing tomorrow's nanomaterials on an industrial scale. (...)
    3. The Charge of the Ultra - Capacitors, IEEE Spectrum Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      ILLUSTRATION: BRYAN CHRISTIE DESIGN
      The innovation that my colleagues John Kassakian and Riccardo Signorelli and I have pursued at MIT is to replace the activated carbon with a dense, microscopic forest of carbon nanotubes that is grown directly on the surface of the current collector. We think - and our work so far supports our theory - that by doing so, we can create a device that can hold up to 50 percent as much electrical energy as a comparably sized battery. This feat would allow ultracapacitors to supplant batteries in a number of mainstream applications.
  17. Crashes and Traffic Jams in Military Test of Robotic Vehicles, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: A Pentagon-sponsored robot race at a former Air Force base here on Saturday revealed that computer-controlled vehicles, at least to date, have failings that are all too human.

    The contest, called the Grand Challenge and sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, featured both robot collisions and robot traffic jams. Yet the event also demonstrated that the state of the art in robotics has reached the point where the most sophisticated autonomous vehicles can now drive comfortably and safely on a city course while surrounded by traffic and other obstacles.

    1. 'Aggressive But Safe' SUV Wins Robotic Street Race, New Scientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The race's objective - for the vehicles to finish without a dent, following California traffic rules precisely, within six hours - was daunting. A minor fender bender, the worst accident on Saturday, drew a collective gasp from hundreds of fans drawn to the abandoned base, situated about 80 miles (130 km) northeast of Los Angeles.

      Each robot vehicle appeared to have its own personality. The Carnegie Mellon/General Motors SUV rushed out of the starting gate, while Stanford's Volkswagen, named Junior, was more conservative.

  18. It All Began with an End - New Theory on Origin and Future of the Universe, New Wise Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The universe's clock has neither a start nor finish, yet time is finite according to a New Zealand theorist. The theory, which tackles the age-old mystery of the origin of the universe, along with several other problems and paradoxes in cosmology, calls for a new take on our concept of time - one that has more in common with the "cyclic¡"views of time held by ancient thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle and Leonardo da Vinci, than the Christian Calender and Bible-influenced belief in "linear" time now so deeply imbedded in modern western thinking.
  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Analysis: Young, British And Part Of Terror Plot, Telegraph.co.uk Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: They are probably bright, politically interested and easily susceptible to the ideology of victimhood and receive a daily diet of anti-Western propaganda through TV stations and websites.

      Many will be of Pakistani background, able to travel with ease, claiming to be visiting relatives in the country where al-Qa'eda is based.

      Those who have signed up are taken to training camps in the border areas where the Pakistani government's writ does not run. Almost every terrorist convicted in Britain has been through the same process.

  20. Links & Snippets Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Other Publications Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Simple Quasispecies Models for the Survival-of-the-Flattest Effect: The Role of Space, Josep Sardanyés, Santiago F. Elena, and Ricard V. Solé, SFI Working Papers, DOI: SFI-WP 07-11-041
      2. Robustness of the European Power Grids under Intentional Attack, Ricard V. Sole, Marti Rosas-Casals, Bernat Corominas-Murtra, and Sergi Valverde, SFI Working Papers, DOI: SFI-WP 07-11-040
      3. Correlations and Clustering in the Trading of Members of the London Stock Exchange, Ilija I. Zovko and J. Doyne Farmer, SFI Working Papers, DOI: SFI-WP 07-10-039
      4. Evolution Of Direct And Indirect Reciprocity, G. Roberts, 2007/10/30, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2007.1134
      5. Boffins Build Radio From Carbon Nanotube: Good Vibrations, R. Jaques, 2007/11/01, vnunet.com
      6. An Inverse Way For Engineering, 2007/11/01, Innovations-report
      7. Human Decision-making Takes Multiple Brain Regions Performing Individual Functions, 2007/11/01, ScienceDaily
      8. Neurons In Primate Cortex Associate Numerical Meaning With Visual Signs, 2007/11/02, ScienceDaily
      9. Evidence Of 'Memory' In Cells And Molecules, 2007/11/03, ScienceDaily
      10. Economic Modeling For Disaster Impact Analysis: Past, Present, And Future, Y. Okuyama, Jun. 2007, Economic Systems Research, DOI: 10.1080/09535310701328435
    2. Webcast Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. 7th Intl Conf on Complex Systems (ICCS), Boston, MA, 07/10/28-11/02
      2. Reseau Nationale des Systemes Complexes , (in French), 2007
      3. World Economic Forum , Davos, Switzerland, 07/01/24-28
      4. TED Talks, TED Conferences LLC , since 2006
      5. Talking Robots: The PodCast on Robotics and AI, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland, 06/11/03
      6. Potentials of Complexity Science for Business, Governments, and the Media 2006, Budapest, Hungary, 06/08/03-05
      7. 6th Intl Conf on Complex Systems (ICCS), Boston, MA, 06/06/25-30
      8. Artificial Life X, 10th Intl Conf on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, Bloomington, IN, USA. 2006/06/03-07
      9. 6th Understanding Complex Systems Symposium, Urbana-Champaign, Il, 06/05/15-18
      10. Ralph Abraham on Complexity Digest, , Calcutta, India, 05/12/27
      11. An Afternoon with Michael Crichton, Washington, 05/11/06
      12. Illuminating the Shadow of the Future, Ann Arbor, Mi 05/09/23-25
      13. Open Network of Centres of Excellence in Complex Systems - Brainstorming Meeting, Paris, France 05/09/19-23
      14. Complexity, Science & Society Conference 2005, U. Liverpool, UK 2005/09/11-14
      15. ECAL 2005 - VIIIth European Conference on Artificial Life, Canterbury, Kent, UK 2005/09/5-9
      16. T. Irene Sanders, Executive Director and Founder, The Washington Center for Complexity & Public Policy, 05/08/27, QuickTime video (10:38 min), Podcast
      17. 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
      18. Understanding Complex Systems - Computational Complexity and Bioinformatics, Virtual Conference Network, Urbana-Champaign, Il, UIUC, 05/05/16-19
      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
      20. 1st European Conference on Complex Systems, Torino, Italy, 04/12/5-7
      21. From Autopoiesis to Neurophenomenology: A Tribute to Francisco Varela (1946-2001), Paris, France, 2004/06/18-20
      22. Evolutionary Epistemology, Language, and Culture, Brussels, Belgium, 04/05/26-28
      23. International Conference on Complex Systems 2004, Boston, 04/05/16-21
      24. Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: Lab Demonstrations, Strogatz, Steven H., Internet-First University Press, 1994
      25. CERN Webcast Service, Streamed videos of Archived Lectures and Live Events
      26. Dean LeBaron's Archive of Daily Video Commentary, Ongoing Since February 1998
      27. Edge Videos

    3. Conference Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. NetLogo Workshop at Agent 2007 Conference, Evanston, IL, USA, 07/11/12-14
      2. Australia New Zealand Systems Conference 2007 "Systemic development: Local solutions in a global environment", Auckland, New Zealand, 07/12/02-05
      3. Expanding Secondary Use of Health Data: An NSF Biomedical Informatics Workshop, Corbett, Oregon, 07/12/04-05
      4. The 3rd Indian Intl Conf on Artificial Intelligence (IICAI-07), Pune, INDIA, 07/12/17-19
      5. The 1st Conf on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI-08), Memphis, Tennessee, USA, 08/03/01-03
      6. The 3rd International Nonlinear Sciences Conference (INSC), Tokyo, Japan, 08/03/13-15
      7. 19th European Meeting On Cybernetics And Systems Research, (EMCSR 2008), Vienna, Austria, 08/03/25-28
      8. 2nd KES Intl Symp on Agent and Multi-Agent Systems : Technologies and Applications, Incheon, Korea, 08/03/26-28
      9. 1st Intl Conf on Social Entrepreneurship & Complexity, Garden City, NY, USA, 08/04/10-12
      10. The 12th World Multi-Conf on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics: WMSCI 2008, Orlando, Florida, USA, 08/06/29-07/02
      11. From Animals To Animats 10 - The 10th Intl Conf on the Simulation Of Adaptive Behavior (SAB'08), Osaka, Japan, 08/07/07-12
      12. Stochastic Resonance 2008, Perugia, Italy, 08/08/17-21

    4. Other Announcements Bookmark and Share

      1. " Wolfram Research is Now the Official Math Brain Trust for the Hit CBS Series NUMB3RS. 07/10/05
      2. A short notice from Dean LeBaron

        Dear ComDig Readers,

        Our editor, Dr. Gottfried Mayer, is affectionately esteemed by many of you -- as readers, you know he devotes himself unselfishly to widening our knowledge of complexity science. He was recently diagnosed with advanced colon cancer and given a timetable of a very few years. Knowing Gottfried, you can imagine that, in addition to the customary processes of chemotherapy, he would explore other frontier therapies, especially those arising out of interdisciplinary applications of complexity. These are expensive ... if he can find them.

        Many of you have sent your good wishes and indicated your desire to assist. With Gottfried's permission, I am posting this note with information, below, about how to send contributions to him. Please indicate the source since Gottfried will want to express his warm gratitude.

        I know that Gottfried, the good scientist that he is, will explain from time to time what he is doing and what the results are ... and we will follow his progress with great interest and hope.

        Dean LeBaron
        Publisher, Complexity Digest

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      3. Intl Master of Science in Methods For Management Of Complex Systems - Academic Year 2007-2008, Institute for Advanced Study, Pavia, Italy, 08/01/01
      4. News notes on Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) for July 2007 are now available on-line, 07/08/04
      5. National Humanities Center Launches Humanities/Sciences Website, 07/04, As part of its ongoing "Autonomy, Singularity, Creativity: The Human & The Humanities" project (ASC), the National Humanities Center makes public a new website for the initiative which significantly expands the potential pool of humanists and scientists engaged in the exploration and examination of topics surrounding the question of human being.

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