Complexity Digest 2008.33

14-Aug-2008

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Content

  1. Interdisciplinary Science: Harvard Under Review, Nature
  2. Psychology: Trust Me on This, Science
  3. Handle With Care, NY Times
  4. Never Bet Against A Pro, Science News
  5. Robots Learn To Move Themselves, BBC News
  6. Dogs Catch Human Yawns, Biol. Lett.
  7. Learning By Embryos And The Ghost Of Predation Future, Proc. Biol. Sc.
  8. Moving AHEAD With An International Human Epigenome Project, Nature
  9. Complex Decision? Don't Sleep On It, ScienceDaily
    1. Connections Between Genetics, Brain Activity And Preference Discovered, ScienceDaily
  10. Correlations And Population Dynamics In Cortical Networks, Neural Compu.
    1. Trigger For Brain Plasticity Identified: Signal Comes, Surprisingly, From Outside The Brain, ScienceDaily
  11. Evolutionary Biology: Deciphering the Genetics of Evolution, Science
    1. DNA Defense - Immune Cell Expels Its Mitochondrial DNA To Keep Invaders At Bay, Science News
  12. Tuberculosis: Shrewd Survival Strategy, Nature
  13. The Social Dynamics Of Mathematics Coursetaking In High School, Ameri. J. Socio.
  14. Agent-Based Simulation of the Trust and Tracing Game for Supply Chains and Networks, JASSS
    1. Modelling Socio-Technical Transition Patterns and Pathways, JASSS
    2. Evolution of Evolvability in Gene Regulatory Networks, PLoS Comput Biol
  15. Emergence and Collapse of Peace with Friend Selection Strategies, JASSS
  16. Large-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Self-Assembling Systems, Science
    1. Problem Solved* (*sort of), Science
  17. Invisible Hand, And A Quick One At That, Science News
  18. Astronomy: Planetary System Formation, Science
  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
    1. Al-Qaeda Said to Use Regional Strife to Tighten Grip in Pakistan, Washington Post
  20. Links & Snippets
    1. Other Publications
    2. Webcast Announcements
    3. Conference Announcements
    4. Other Announcements

  1. Interdisciplinary Science: Harvard Under Review, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Harvard is embarking on an experiment to foster collaboration and interdisciplinary research. (...)

    Another key part of the effort is the Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee (HUSEC), which encompasses Harvard's provost and other top leaders of science and aims to improve the coordination of science planning across the university and to provide funding to start up new initiatives.

    (...) how to strengthen ties across the medical school and research hospitals in areas such as human genetics, neuroscience, technology development and therapeutics and chemical biology.

  2. Psychology: Trust Me on This, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Unstable interpersonal relationships, reduced impulse control, and difficulty regulating emotions characterize borderline personality disorder, a severe mental illness that accounts for up to 20% of psychiatric inpatients and exerts a tremendous toll on those afflicted, their social network, and the health-care system. Close relationships of patients are often tumultuous, spiraling out of control through highly emotional and unpredictable behavior that can leave others baffled, angry, and frightened.

  3. Handle With Care, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: "The complexity of newly engineered systems coupled with their potential impact on lives, the environment, etc., raise a set of ethical issues that engineers had not been thinking about," (...).

    And researchers working in geoengineering say they worry that if people realize there are possible technical fixes for global warming, they will feel less urgency about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. (...) On the other hand, some climate scientists argue that if people realized such drastic measures were on the horizon, they would be frightened enough to reduce their collective carbon footprint.

  4. Never Bet Against A Pro, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Elite basketball players most adept at predicting a shot's fate. (...)

    These results put another win on the board for one side in a scientific debate about how people understand action and infer what others are thinking. One side of the debate holds that, with experience, people amass a checklist of criteria to tell what other people think and what they are likely to do next. The other school of thought is that people simulate the actions of others in their own minds to predict what happens next.

    While scientists will probably continue to debate, the new study is further evidence that learning by doing beats couch-potato learning.

  5. Robots Learn To Move Themselves, BBC News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    The simulated human learnt to do back flips
    The only input to the network is the types of motion that the robot can achieve; in the case of a humanoid, there are 15 joints and the angles through which they can move. No information about the robot's environment is given. The network then sends out signals to move in a particular way, and predicts where it should end up, based on that movement. If it encounters an obstacle such as itself, a wall or the floor, the prediction is wrong, and the robot tries different moves, learning about itself and its environment as it does so.
    Editor's Note: Karl Sims' "Blockies" - using genetic algorithms - evolved more elegant and efficient looking movement patterns back in the '90s..

  6. Dogs Catch Human Yawns, Biol. Lett. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: This study is the first to demonstrate that human yawns are possibly contagious to domestic dogs (Canis familiaris). Twenty-nine dogs observed a human yawning or making control mouth movements. Twenty-one dogs yawned when they observed a human yawning, but control mouth movements did not elicit yawning from any of them. The presence of contagious yawning in dogs suggests that this phenomenon is not specific to primate species and may indicate that dogs possess the capacity for a rudimentary form of empathy. Since yawning is known to modulate the levels of arousal, yawn contagion may help coordinate dog-human interaction and communication. (...)
    • Source: Dogs Catch Human Yawns, R. M. J.-Mascheroni, A.Senju, A. J. Shepherd, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0333, Biological Letters, 2008/08/05
    • Contributed by Atin Das - dasatinayahoo.co.in

  7. Learning By Embryos And The Ghost Of Predation Future, Proc. Biol. Sc. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Most research on the effects of exposure to stressful stimuli during embryonic development has focused on post-embryonic behaviour that appears to be abnormal or maladaptive. Here, we tested whether exposure to some stressful stimuli (predatory cues) can lead to post-embryonic behaviour that is adaptive. When eggs of ringed salamanders (Ambystoma annulatum) were exposed to chemical cues from predators, post-hatching larvae showed reduced activity and greater shelter-seeking behaviour; larvae that had been exposed to control cues did not show these behaviours. (...) Therefore, if embryonic experience is a good predictor of future risk, learning associated with exposure to negative stimuli during development may be adaptive.

  8. Moving AHEAD With An International Human Epigenome Project, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: A plan to 'genomicize' epigenomics research and pave the way for breakthroughs in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human disease.

    It is now possible to define whole epigenomes, representing the totality of epigenetic marks in a given cell type. Epigenetic processes are essential for packaging and interpreting the genome, are fundamental to normal development and are increasingly recognized as being involved in human disease.

  9. Complex Decision? Don't Sleep On It, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Neither snap judgements nor sleeping on a problem are any better than conscious thinking for making complex decisions, according to new research. The finding debunks a controversial 2006 research result asserting that unconscious thought is superior for complex decisions, such as buying a house or car. If anything, the new study suggests that conscious thought leads to better choices. (...) scientists ran four experiments in which participants were presented with complex decisions and asked to choose the best option immediately ("blink"), after a period of conscious deliberation ("think"), or after a period of distraction ("sleep on it"), which is claimed to encourage "unconscious thought processes". (...)

    1. Connections Between Genetics, Brain Activity And Preference Discovered, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: A team of researchers (...) identify a connection between brain reward circuitry, a behavioral measurement of preference and a gene variant that appears to influence both. The report(...) describes how variations in a gene involved with the brain's reward function are associated with the activity of a key brain structure and, in parallel, with the effort study participants 'invest' in viewing emotion-laden facial images. The findings have implications for how genes may influence healthy or dysfunctional behavior involving choices in many different areas. (...)

  10. Correlations And Population Dynamics In Cortical Networks, Neural Compu. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: The function of cortical networks depends on the collective interplay between neurons and neuronal populations, which is reflected in the correlation of signals that can be recorded at different levels. To correctly interpret these observations it is important to understand the origin of neuronal correlations. Here we study how cells in large recurrent networks of excitatory and inhibitory neurons interact and how the associated correlations affect stationary states of idle network activity. We demonstrate that the structure of the connectivity matrix of such networks induces considerable correlations between synaptic currents as well as between subthreshold membrane potentials, (...).
    • Source: Correlations And Population Dynamics In Cortical Networks, B. Kriener - krienerabiologie.uni-freiburg.de, T. Tetzlaff - tom.tetzlaffaumb.no, A. Aertsen - aertsenabiologie.uni-freiburg.de, M. Diesmann - diesmannabrain.riken.jp, S. Rotter - stefan.rotterabiologie.uni-freiburg.de, DOI: 10.1162/neco.2008.02-07-474, Neural Computation, Sep. 2008, Online 2008/07/14
    • Contributed by Pritha Das - prithadas01ayahoo.com

    1. Trigger For Brain Plasticity Identified: Signal Comes, Surprisingly, From Outside The Brain, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Researchers have long sought a factor that can trigger the brain's ability to learn - and perhaps recapture the "sponge-like" quality of childhood. (...) report that they've identified such a factor, a protein called Otx 2. Otx2 helps a key type of cell in the cortex to mature, initiating a critical period -- a window of heightened brain plasticity, when the brain can readily make new connections. The work was done in a mouse model of the visual system, a classic model for understanding how the brain sets up its wiring in response to input from the outside world. (...)

  11. Evolutionary Biology: Deciphering the Genetics of Evolution, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Powerful personalities in evolutionary biology have been tussling over how the genome changes to set the stage for evolution. (...)

    Early suggestions that gene regulation could be important to evolution came in the 1970s from work by bacterial geneticists showing a link between gene expression and enzyme activity in bacteria. About the same time, Allan Wilson and Mary-Claire King of the University of California, Berkeley, concluded that genes and proteins of chimps and humans are so similar that our bipedal, hairless existence must be the product of changes in when, where, and to what degree those genes and proteins come into play. (...).

    1. DNA Defense - Immune Cell Expels Its Mitochondrial DNA To Keep Invaders At Bay, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      Immune system cells known as eosinophils (in green with red nucleus) catapult their mitochondrial DNA out of the cell, forming tangled traps (red) that ensnare foreign bacteria.
      Credit: Hans-Uwe Simon, Institute of Pharmacology, University of Bern, Switzerland.
      Scientists already knew that the DNA-flinging cells, called eosinophils, secrete toxic protein granules during battles with foreign invaders. (The red dye eosin binds to these granules, hence the name.) Eosinophils make up only 1 to 3 percent of the body's white blood cells and are found only in certain places, such as the digestive tract. The cells' precise role in the immune system cavalry has puzzled researchers for a long time. (...)

      "The med school paradigm is that eosinophils are a host defense against big parasites that can't be gobbled up by smaller immune system cells. Instead you bring in these eosinophils that secrete a bunch of nasty things that kill them," (...).

  12. Tuberculosis: Shrewd Survival Strategy, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The bacterium that causes tuberculosis is one of the most successful pathogens. Its spread among humans has been so efficient that as much as one-third of the world's population is now believed to be infected. In most cases, these infections cause clinically silent disease, which is likely to remain permanently dormant unless the host's immunity is substantially compromised. The extraordinary stealth and opportunism that Mycobacterium tuberculosis exhibits results from the complex and delicately coordinated way in which it interacts with its host ¡X a process controlled in part by a specialized bacterial protein-secretion system called ESX-1.

  13. The Social Dynamics Of Mathematics Coursetaking In High School, Ameri. J. Socio. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: This study examines how high school boys' and girls' academic effort, in the form of math coursetaking, is influenced by members of their social contexts. The authors argue that adolescents' social contexts are defined, in part, by clusters of students (termed "local positions") who take courses that differentiate them from others. (...) Incorporating the local positions into multilevel models of math coursetaking, the authors find that girls are highly responsive to the social norms in their local positions, which contributes to homogeneity within and heterogeneity between local positions.

  14. Agent-Based Simulation of the Trust and Tracing Game for Supply Chains and Networks, JASSS Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: This paper describes a multi-agent simulation model of the Trust And Tracing game. The Trust And Tracing game is a gaming simulation for human players, developed as a research tool for data collection on human behaviour in food supply chains with asymmetric information about food quality and food safety. Important issues in the game are opportunistic behaviour (deceit), trust and institutional arrangements for enforcing compliance. The goal is to improve the understanding of human decision making with respect to these issues. To this end multi-agent simulation can be applied to simulate the effect of models of individual decision making in partner selection, negotiation, deceit and trust on system behaviour. The combination of human gaming simulation and multi-agent simulation offers a basis for model refinement in a cycle of validation, experimentation, and formulation of new hypotheses. This paper describes a first round of model formulation and validation. The models presented are validated by a series of experiments performed by the implemented simulation system, of which the outcomes are compared on aggregated level to the outcomes of games played by humans. The experiments cover in a systematic way the important variations in parameter settings possible in the game and in the characteristics of the agents. The simulation results show the same tendencies of behaviour as the observed human games.

    1. Modelling Socio-Technical Transition Patterns and Pathways, JASSS Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: We report on research that is developing a simulation model for assessing systemic innovations, or 'transitions', of societal systems towards a more sustainable development. Our overall aim is to outline design principles for models that can offer new insights into tackling persistent problems in large-scale systems, such as the European road transport system or the regional management of water resources.

    2. Evolution of Evolvability in Gene Regulatory Networks, PLoS Comput Biol Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: A cell receives signals both from its internal and external environment and responds by changing the expression of genes. In this manner the cell adjusts to heat, osmotic pressures and other circumstances during its lifetime. Over long timescales, the network of interacting genes and its regulatory actions also undergo evolutionary adaptation. Yet how do such networks evolve and become adapted?
      In this paper we describe the study of a simple model of gene regulatory networks, focusing solely on evolutionary adaptation most fit.

  15. Emergence and Collapse of Peace with Friend Selection Strategies, JASSS Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: A society consisting of agents who can freely choose to attack or not to attack others inevitably evolves into a battling society (a 'war of all against all'). We investigated whether strategies based on C. Schmitt's concept of the political, the distinction of a friend and an enemy, lead to the emergence and collapse of social order. Especially, we propose 'friend selection strategies' (FSSs), one of which we called the 'us-TFT' (tit for tat) strategy, which requires an agent to regard one who did not attack him or his 'friends' as a 'friend'. We carried out evolutionary simulations on an artificial society consisting of FSS agents. As a result, we found that the us-TFT results in a peaceful society with the emergence of an us-TFT community. In addition, we found that the collapse of a peaceful society is triggered by another FSS strategy called a 'coward'.

  16. Large-Scale Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Self-Assembling Systems, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Relentless increases in the size and performance of multiprocessor computers, coupled with new algorithms and methods, have led to novel applications of simulations across chemistry. This Perspective focuses on the use of classical molecular dynamics and so-called coarse-grain (CG) models to explore phenomena involving self-assembly in complex fluids and biological systems. (...)

    These massive calculations are indeed successes for high-performance computing, notwithstanding the fact that the time scale of the molecular dynamics (MD) trajectories on million-atom systems is typically less than 100 ns.

    1. Problem Solved* (*sort of), Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Researchers have toiled for decades to understand how floppy chains of amino acids fold into functional proteins. Learning many of those rules has brought them to the verge of being able to make predictions about proteins they haven't even discovered. (...)

      Today, the protein-folding challenge boils down to two separate but related questions. First, what general rules govern how, and how quickly, proteins fold? Second, can researchers predict the 3D shape that an unknown protein will adopt?


      • Source: Problem Solved* (*sort of), Robert F. Service, DOI: 10.1126/science.321.5890.784, Science: Vol. 321. no. 5890, pp. 784 - 786, 08/08/08

  17. Invisible Hand, And A Quick One At That, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: But, to a quantum mechanics skeptic, it's as if one photon let the other know what value to pick. For one photon's choice to affect the other's, information would have to travel the 18 kilometers separating the two towns in virtually no time. The team couldn't prove that information traveled instantaneously. But because their experimental errors were limited to time differences of less than one-third of a billionth of a second, they could prove that - if one photon influenced the other - the information must have traveled at least 10,000 times faster than light.

  18. Astronomy: Planetary System Formation, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: To date, 307 extrasolar planets have been discovered and 29 multipleplanet systems have been identified (1, 2). The masses of the planets range from a few Earth masses up to several Jupiter masses, with orbital periods ranging from slightly over 1 day to several years. Unlike in our solar system, the orbital eccentricities of the extrasolar gas giant-sized planets may be large.

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

    1. Al-Qaeda Said to Use Regional Strife to Tighten Grip in Pakistan, Washington Post Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Al-Qaeda has exploited recent political turmoil in Pakistan to strengthen its foothold along the country's border with Afghanistan, a top U.S. counterterrorism official said yesterday in an assessment that also warned of a heightened risk of attack during the upcoming U.S. election season.

      Despite the loss of key leaders to U.S. strikes, Osama bin Laden continues to enjoy a haven in the border region and has managed to deepen alliances with a wide range of Islamist groups from South Asia to the Middle East, (...).

  20. Links & Snippets Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Other Publications Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Astronomy: Planetary System Formation, J. C. B. Papaloizou, 08/08/08, Science: 777-778. The diversity of extrasolar planets and planetary systems challenges present theories of planetary system formation.
      2. The Ascent of the Abundant: How Mutational Networks Constrain Evolution, Cowperthwaite MC, Economo EP, Harcombe WR, Miller EL, Meyers LA, 2008/07/18, PLoS Comput Biol 4(7): e1000110, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000110
      3. The Look Of Royalty: Visual And Odour Signals Of Reproductive Status In A Paper Wasp, I. C. T.-Nascimento, F. S. Nascimento, R. Zucchi, 2008/08/05, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0589
      4. Dynamic Mechanical Oscillations During Metamorphosis Of The Monarch Butterfly, A. E. Pelling, P. R. Wilkinson, R. Stringer, J. K. Gimzewski, 2008/08/05, Interface, DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2008.0224
      5. iPhone 'Blacklist' Reported: Handset Could Be Able To Phone Home, Delete Bad Apps, S. Nichols, 2008/08/07, vnunet.com
      6. Computing Squared, 2008/08/07, Innovations-report
      7. Neurobiologists Discover Individuals Who 'Hear' Movement, 2008/08/07, ScienceDaily & California Institute of Technology
      8. Cracking The Question Of Extraterrestrial Life, 2008/08/08, Innovations-report
      9. "Edible Optics" Could Make Food Safer, 2008/08/08, Innovations-report
      10. Simple Heuristics in Complex Networks: Models of Social Influence, Gero Schwenk and Torsten Reimer, 2008/6/30, JASSS 11(3)
      11. Agent-Based Emergency Evacuation Simulation with Individuals with Disabilities in the Population, Keith Christensen and Yuya Sasaki, 2008/6/30, JASSS 11(3)
      12. Book Review: The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You, David Hales, 2008/6/30, JASSS 11(3)
      13. Computational Intelligence Approaches For Pattern Discovery In Biological Systems, G. B. Fogel - gfogelanatural-selection.com, Jul. 2008, online 2008/05/05, Briefings in Bioinformatics, DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbn021
      14. A New Similarity Computing Method Based On Concept Similarity In Chinese Text Processing, J. Peng - pjapku.edu.cn, D. Q. Yang, S. W. Tang, T. J. Wang, J. Gao, Sep. 2008, online 2008/08/07, Journal Science in China Series F: Information Sciences, DOI: 10.1007/s11432-008-0103-4

    2. Webcast Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Can Ants Solve Traffic Jams?, Danielle Parsons, Slatev.com, 08/07/22

        As roads and highways become ever more clogged, Danielle Parsons tells us how researchers are studying ways to learn from nature's own traffic-flow experts: ants.

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

    3. Conference Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Stochastic Resonance 2008, Perugia, Italy, 08/08/17-21
      2. 4th Intl Conf on Natural Computation (ICNC'08) - 5th Intl Conf on Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD'08), Jinan, China, 08/08/25-27
      3. Intl Conf DEscribing COmplex Systems (DECOS), Zadar, Croatia, 08/09/03-07
      4. BICS Conference - Emergence in Complex Systems, Bath, UK, 08/09/09-11
      5. 5th European Conference on Complex Systems, Jerusalem, Israel, 08/09/14-19
      6. EPOS 2008, III Edition of Epistemological Perspectives on Simulation, Lisbon, Portugal, 08/10/02-03
      7. 1st Intl Conf on the Evolution and Development of the Universe, Paris, France, 08/10/08-09
      8. International Congress on Complex Thought, Hermosillo , Sonora , Mexico, 08/10/21-24
      9. What Is Computation? (How) Does Nature Compute? - 2008 Midwest NKS Conference, Bloomington, IN, 08/10/30-11/02
      10. 2nd Intl Congress of Complex Systems in Sport (2nd ICCSS) and 10th European Workshop of Ecological Psychology. (10th EWEP), Funchal, in Madeira Island, Portugal, 08/11/05-08
      11. 2008 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence (WI-08), Sydney, Australia, 08/12/09-12
      12. COMPLEX'2009, First Intl Conf on Complex Systems: Theory and Applications, Shanghai, China, 09/02/23-25
      13. Models and Simulations 3 Conference, Charlottesville, USA 09/03/05-07
      14. 2009 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence, Nashville, Tennessee, USA,09/03/30-04/02

    4. Other Announcements Bookmark and Share

      1. PhD Studentship in Unconventional Computing or Cellular Automata, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK, Deadline: 08/10/01
      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

        Bank Information:

        If your contribution is made by check:
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