Complexity Digest 2009.12

2009/06/05

Editor-in-Chief: Carlos Gershenson
Founding Editor: Gottfried Mayer

New Section: Book Announcements
An idea of Anton Joha, one of our new contributing editors, we will now have a section with recent book announcements.
Segismundo Izquierdo is another new contributing editor. Welcome to the team!

For individual e-mail subscriptions go to Subscriptions.
Previous issue 2009.11 | Next issue 2009.13

Content

  1. The Origin of Life, American Scientist
    1. On the Origin of Sexual Reproduction, Science
  2. Towards the evolution of social structure, Journal Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory
  3. Complexity and Industrial Ecology, Journal of Industrial Ecology
  4. New Details on Virus's Promiscuous Past, Science
  5. Muhammad Yunus: Lifting People Worldwide out of Poverty, Knowledge@Wharton
  6. On Becoming Modern, Science
    1. Did Warfare Among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution of Human Social Behaviors?, Science
    2. Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior, Science
  7. Evolution of cooperation on dynamical graphs, Biosystems
    1. The evolution of cooperation on structured population, Physica A
    2. Evolving learning rules and emergence of cooperation in spatial prisoner's dilemma, Journal of Theoretical Biology
  8. Microscopic marvels: Magnifying power, Nature
  9. Getting in Touch with Your Friends, Science
  10. Hypergraphs and Cellular Networks, PLoS Comput Biol
  11. A Look Back: The Top Article from Each of the Past 10 Years, Knowledge@Wharton
  12. The Computation of Social Behavior, Science
  13. Prediction, Retrodiction, and the Amount of Information Stored in the Present, SFI Working Papers
    1. Information Accessibility and Cryptic Processes, SFI Working Papers
  14. Entangled mechanical oscillators, Nature
  15. Evolving networks and their application to synaptic pruning, arXiv
  16. Dynamical Clustering of Exchange Rates, arXiv
  17. The survival of the weakest in networks, Journal Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory
    1. The norm game: punishing enemies and not friends, Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination
  18. Symmetry in world trade network, Journal of Systems Science and Complexity
    1. Global recessions as a cascade phenomenon with interacting agents, Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination
    2. Business fluctuations and bankruptcy avalanches in an evolving network economy, Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination
  19. Book Announcements
    1. Dynamical Processes on Complex Networks (Book), Cambridge University Press
    2. Complex Systems and Self-organization Modelling (Book), Springer
    3. Mathematical Ecology of Populations and Ecosystems (Book), Wiley-Blackwell
    4. One Dimensional Cellular Automata, Luniver Press
  20. Links & Snippets
    1. Other Publications
    2. Conference Announcements
    3. Webcast Announcements
    4. Other Announcements

  1. The Origin of Life, American Scientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: As the frontiers of knowledge have advanced, scientists have resolved one creation question after another. We now have a pretty good understanding of the origin of the Sun and the Earth, and cosmologists can take us to within a fraction of a second of the beginning of the universe itself. We know how life, once it began, was able to proliferate and diversify until it filled (and in many cases created) every niche on the planet. Yet one of the most obvious big questions---how did life arise from inorganic matter?---remains a great unknown.
    • Source: The Origin of Life, James Trefil, Harold Morowitz, Eric Smith, DOI: 10.1511/2009.78.206, American Scientist, Volume 97, Issue 3, 2009/06/01
    • Contributed by Anton Joha - antonjohaagmail.com

    1. On the Origin of Sexual Reproduction, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Summary: Why sex? Why should so many species take such a labyrinthine path to reproduction, when straightforward routes are available? In the sixth essay in Science's series in honor of the Year of Darwin, Carl Zimmer describes new hints about how sex first emerged some 2 billion years ago and about the forces that have made it so widespread. The studies bolster a handful of hypotheses: Sex may speed up evolution, for example, or it may provide a better defense against parasites. In the past, scientists have focused on just one of these hypotheses at a time, but today many argue that several forces may be at work at once.

  2. Towards the evolution of social structure, Journal Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: To what extent can social structure result from evolutionary processes as opposed to being deliberately organised? To begin to answer this questions five different but related social simulations are reviewed, and a map of which mechanisms might results in what structures under what conditions being started. These show that different structures can be brought about by evolutionary processes based on the abilities and propensities of the individuals. The article ends with some challenges---to construct credible simulations of more sophisticated structures: social group selection and self-organised value chains.
    • Source: Towards the evolution of social structure, Bruce Edmonds, Emma Norling, David Hales, DOI: 10.1007/s10588-008-9052-0, Journal Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory, vol. 15, issue 2, 2009/06/01
    • Contributed by Anton Joha - antonjohaagmail.com

  3. Complexity and Industrial Ecology, Journal of Industrial Ecology Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: Industrial ecology focuses on the sustainability of anthropogenic systems. As researchers have explored the ecology metaphor, the industrial ecology body of knowledge and tools---life cycle assessment (LCA), material flow analysis (MFA), and substance flow analysis (SFA), among others---have enabled a thorough analysis of industrial systems and anthropogenic metabolism at various scales. The field has allowed identification of causes of unsustainability and barriers to sustainability and continues to provide recommendations for more sustainable configurations, albeit principally on a case-by-case basis. A crucial contribution of these studies, however, is that the results are fed back to the multiple stakeholders who are involved in and responsible for the systems that bring into being a particular product or service. (...)
    See Also: Special Issue on Complexity and Industrial Ecology

  4. New Details on Virus's Promiscuous Past, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: An international team of scientists working at breakneck speed has provided the most detailed description yet of the origins of the novel H1N1 swine flu virus now causing a global outbreak. The study, published online by Science on 22 May (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1176225), has good news about the prospects for making a vaccine against the virus. It also raises the intriguing possibility that a species other than pigs might have harbored a precursor to the virus.

  5. Muhammad Yunus: Lifting People Worldwide out of Poverty, Knowledge@Wharton Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Summary: What began with a loan of $27 to 42 women in a small village 33 years ago has grown into a global microcredit movement that has changed the lives of millions of poor people around the world. Muhammad Yunus, founder and managing director of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank, was the guest speaker at Wharton's MBA commencement on May 17 and the recipient of an honorary doctor of laws degree during the University of Pennsylvania's commencement on May 18. Yunus spoke with Knowledge@Wharton about his successes, challenges and upcoming initiatives.

  6. On Becoming Modern, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: Unlike other animals, humans cooperate with nonrelatives in coordinated actions, decorate their bodies, build complex artefacts (useful or otherwise), talk, and divide themselves into linguistic groups. To understand the evolutionary basis of such behaviors, anthropologists must consider not only issues connected to social evolution in animals, but also the implications of the possible coevolution of genes and culture.
    • Source: On Becoming Modern, Ruth Mace, DOI: 10.1126/science.1175383, Science Vol. 324. no. 5932, pp. 1280 - 1281, 2009/06/05

    1. Did Warfare Among Ancestral Hunter-Gatherers Affect the Evolution of Human Social Behaviors?, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Since Darwin, intergroup hostilities have figured prominently in explanations of the evolution of human social behavior. Yet whether ancestral humans were largely "peaceful" or "warlike" remains controversial. I ask a more precise question: If more cooperative groups were more likely to prevail in conflicts with other groups, was the level of intergroup violence sufficient to influence the evolution of human social behavior? (...) I find that the estimated level of mortality in intergroup conflicts would have had substantial effects, allowing the proliferation of group-beneficial behaviors that were quite costly to the individual altruist.

    2. Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The origins of modern human behavior are marked by increased symbolic and technological complexity in the archaeological record. In western Eurasia this transition, the Upper Paleolithic, occurred about 45,000 years ago, but many of its features appear transiently in southern Africa about 45,000 years earlier. We show that demography is a major determinant in the maintenance of cultural complexity and that variation in regional subpopulation density and/or migratory activity results in spatial structuring of cultural skill accumulation. (...) Demographic factors can thus explain geographic variation in the timing of the first appearance of modern behavior without invoking increased cognitive capacity.

  7. Evolution of cooperation on dynamical graphs, Biosystems Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: (...) Earlier works have shown that population structure is one of the mechanisms promoting cooperation. However, most studies had assumed that the interaction network can be described by a regular graph (homogeneous degree distribution). (...) Here we investigate the fixation probability of the cooperator strategy in the prisoner's dilemma, when interaction network is a random regular graph, a random graph or a scale-free graph and the interaction network is allowed to change. We show that the fixation probability of the cooperator strategy is lower when the interaction topology is described by a dynamical graph compared to a static graph. Even a limited network dynamics significantly decreases the fixation probability of cooperation, an effect that is mitigated stronger by (...)

    1. The evolution of cooperation on structured population, Physica A Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: (...) the theoretical analysis for the enhancement of cooperation on a heterogenous network is still short. In this work, we first model a heterogenous network by three simple networks with increasing complexity on their network structures. Then according to a master equation we develop the replication equations for the evolution of cooperation on these networks. The explicit formulations for the cooperator frequency on these networks are deduced and the relationship between the cooperator frequency and the network heterogeneity is discussed.

    2. Evolving learning rules and emergence of cooperation in spatial prisoner's dilemma, Journal of Theoretical Biology Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: In the evolutionary Prisoner's dilemma (PD) game, agents play with each other and update their strategies in every generation according to some microscopic dynamical rule. In its spatial version, agents do not play with every other but, instead, interact only with their neighbours, thus mimicking the existing of a social or contact network that defines who interacts with whom. (...) We show that in a well-mixed population the evolutionary outcome is always full defection. (...) the results are also very different if update rules are fixed or evolve with the strategies. (...) We describe the new and rich variety of final outcomes that arise from this co-evolutionary dynamics.

  8. Microscopic marvels: Magnifying power, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: All these developments share one thing in common: computers. As tools for the construction, manipulation and distribution of images, whether moving or still, in two-dimensions or three, computers are almost as central to the microscope now as the lens. The startled eye at the eyepiece, as rendered on our cover, may be increasingly a thing of the past, as all that microscopes show comes to be seen on screen. The shock of new discovery, though, will remain " and perhaps, even, intensify " for as long as the workings of life become ever more variously and acutely examined.

  9. Getting in Touch with Your Friends, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Summary: Microbes use a broad palette of chemical transformations to harvest energy and nutrients, but they do not always accomplish these conversions on their own. Particularly in anaerobic environments, various metabolisms are stimulated by, or depend upon, partnerships (1). In this form of interaction"termed syntrophy"one organism typically converts the primary resource to an intermediate that can be used by a partner (which perhaps passes it along to the next, and so on). In other cases, one partner may use a resource and provide a different type of service in return, such as a trace vitamin or motility. Recent studies are beginning to shed light on the mechanisms by which such partners communicate and interact and on how such interactions emerge in the first place.

  10. Hypergraphs and Cellular Networks, PLoS Comput Biol Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Summary: (...) hypergraphs generalize graphs by allowing for multilateral relationships between the nodes, which often results in a more precise description of biological processes. Hypergraphs thus provide an important approach for representing biological networks, whose potential has not been fully exploited yet. We therefore expect that applications of hypergraph theory in computational biology will increase in the near future.

  11. A Look Back: The Top Article from Each of the Past 10 Years, Knowledge@Wharton Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Summary: Knowledge@Wharton started out 10 years ago today in the middle of the dot.com boom. Since then, the world has experienced the dot.com bust; the rise of India and China as economic powers; significant developments in technology, including Napster, the iPhone and Facebook; the reshuffling of industries and companies, such as Toyota's rise over GM as the world's largest automaker; the changeover in leadership in both developed and developing countries, including the election of the first African-American president in the U.S.; and, most recently, the global financial crisis that many observers predict will reshape how the world conducts business.

  12. The Computation of Social Behavior, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: Neuroscientists are beginning to advance explanations of social behavior in terms of underlying brain mechanisms. Two distinct networks of brain regions have come to the fore. The first involves brain regions that are concerned with learning about reward and reinforcement. These same reward-related brain areas also mediate preferences that are social in nature even when no direct reward is expected. The second network focuses on regions active when a person must make estimates of another person’s intentions.
    • Source: The Computation of Social Behavior, Timothy E. J. Behrens, Laurence T. Hunt, Matthew F. S. Rushworth, DOI: 10.1126/science.1169694, Science Vol. 324. no. 5931, pp. 1160 - 1164, 2009/05/29

  13. Prediction, Retrodiction, and the Amount of Information Stored in the Present, SFI Working Papers Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: We introduce an ambidextrous view of stochastic dynamical systems, comparing their forwardtime and reverse-time representations and then integrating them into a single time-symmetric representation. The perspective is useful theoretically, computationally, and conceptually. Mathematically, we prove that the excess entropy"a familiar measure of organization in complex systems"is the mutual information not only between the past and future, but also between the predictive and retrodictive causal states. (...) The resulting compression offers a new conception of the amount of information stored in the present.

    1. Information Accessibility and Cryptic Processes, SFI Working Papers Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Abstract: We give a systematic expansion of the crypticity"a recently introduced measure of the inaccessibility of a stationary process’s internal state information. This leads to a hierarchy of k-cryptic processes and allows us to identify finite-state processes that have infinite crypticity"the internal state information is present across arbitrarily long, observed sequences. The crypticity expansion is exact in both the finite- and infinite-order cases. It turns out that k-crypticity is complementary to the Markovian finite-order property that describes state information in processes. One application of these results is an efficient expansion of the excess entropy"the mutual information between a process’s infinite past and infinite future"that is finite and exact for finite-order cryptic processes.

  14. Entangled mechanical oscillators, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Summary: Superposition and entanglement are hallmarks of quantum mechanics. One system ubiquitous to nature where entanglement has not previously been shown is distinct mechanical oscillators, such as springs or pendula. Here, deterministic entanglement of separated mechanical oscillators"consisting of the vibrational states of two pairs of atomic ions held in different locations"is demonstrated.
    • Source: Entangled mechanical oscillators, J. D. Jost, J. P. Home, J. M. Amini, D. Hanneke, R. Ozeri, C. Langer, J. J. Bollinger, D. Leibfried & D. J. Wineland, DOI: 10.1038/nature08006, Nature 459, 683-685, 2009/06/03

  15. Evolving networks and their application to synaptic pruning, arXiv Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: We study how networks with a fixed number of nodes but variable density of edges evolve under very general conditions of nonlinear attachment and detachment. Considering the probabilities each node has of gaining or losing edges to have two components -- a local dependence on degree and a global one on density -- the degree distribution relaxes towards stationary states which can be either quite homogeneous or highly heterogeneous, with scale-free solutions at a critical point. As an illustration, we show how choices of functions based on biological considerations give rise to network evolution which is in good agreement with data on brain development. In particular, the phenomenon known as synaptic pruning and the emergence of highly heterogeneous, small--world topologies are features well described, while the critical point exhibits a peak in unsynchronizability.

  16. Dynamical Clustering of Exchange Rates, arXiv Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: We use techniques from network science to study correlations in the foreign exchange (FX) market over the period 1991--2008. We consider an FX market network in which each node represents an exchange rate and each weighted edge represents a time-dependent correlation between the rates. To provide insights into the clustering of the exchange rate time series, we investigate dynamic communities in the network. We show that there is a relationship between an exchange rate's functional role within the market and its position within its community and use a node-centric community analysis to track the time dynamics of this role.

  17. The survival of the weakest in networks, Journal Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory Next Article Bookmark and Share

    We study here dynamic antagonism in a fixed network, represented as a graph G of n vertices. In particular, we consider the case of k=n particles walking randomly independently around the network. Each particle belongs to exactly one of two antagonistic species, none of which can give birth to children. When two particles meet, they are engaged in a (sometimes mortal) local fight. The outcome of the fight depends on the species to which the particles belong. Our problem is to predict the eventual chances of species survival. We prove that this can indeed be done in expected polynomial time.
    • Source: The survival of the weakest in networks, S. Nikoletseas, C. Raptopoulos, P. Spirakis, DOI: 10.1007/s10588-008-9050-2, Journal Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory, vol. 15, issue 2, 2009/06/01
    • Contributed by Anton Joha - antonjohaagmail.com

    1. The norm game: punishing enemies and not friends, Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Three mean field models of the norm game are explored analytically. The strategies are: to obey the norm or not and to punish those who break it or not. The punishment, the temptation, the anger and the punishment cost are modeled by four parameters; for the fixed points, only two ratios of these parameters are relevant. For each model, we consider its variant with two mutually punishing groups. We show that all solutions are the same as for the case in one group. This means in particular, that in both groups the amount of defectors is the same.

  18. Symmetry in world trade network, Journal of Systems Science and Complexity Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Symmetry of the world trade network provides a novel perspective to understand the world-wide trading system. However, symmetry in the world trade network (WTN) has been rarely studied so far. In this paper, the authors systematically explore the symmetry in WTN. The authors explore the size and structure of its automorphism group, through which the authors find that WTN is symmetric, particularly, locally symmetric to a certain degree. Furthermore, the authors investigate the structure and function of the symmetric motifs, coming to the conclusion that local symmetry will have great effect on the stability of the WTN.
    • Source: Symmetry in world trade network, Hui Wang, Guangle Yan, Yanghua Xiao, DOI: 10.1007/s11424-009-9163-9, Journal of Systems Science and Complexity , Volume 22, Issue 2, 2009/06/01
    • Contributed by Anton Joha - antonjohaagmail.com

    1. Global recessions as a cascade phenomenon with interacting agents, Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination Next Article Bookmark and Share

      This paper examines global recessions as a cascade phenomenon. In other words, how recessions arising within one or more countries might percolate across a network of connected economies. An agent based model is set up in which the agents are Western economies. A country has a probability of entering recession in any given year and one of emerging from it the next. In addition, the agents have a threshold propensity, which varies across time, to import a recession from the agents most closely connected to them.

    2. Business fluctuations and bankruptcy avalanches in an evolving network economy, Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination Next Article Bookmark and Share

      We analyze the properties of a three-sector network economy characterized by credit relationships connecting downstream and upstream firms and credit relationships connecting firms and banks. The network topology changes over time and the output of simulations shows that a business cycle at the macroeconomic level can develop as a consequence of the complex interaction of the heterogeneous financial conditions of the agents involved. The bankruptcy of one agent can bring about the bankruptcy of one or more other agents in a snowball effect, depending on the network structure and the incidence of non-performing loans on balance sheets of agents involved.

  19. Book Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Dynamical Processes on Complex Networks (Book), Cambridge University Press Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Cover
      The availability of large data sets have allowed researchers to uncover complex properties such as large-scale fluctuations and heterogeneities in many networks which have lead to the breakdown of standard theoretical frameworks and models. Until recently these systems were considered as haphazard sets of points and connections. Recent advances have generated a vigorous research effort in understanding the effect of complex connectivity patterns on dynamical phenomena. E.g. a vast number of everyday systems, from the brain to ecosystems and the Internet, can be represented as large complex networks. This new, recent account presents a comprehensive explanation of these effects.

    2. Complex Systems and Self-organization Modelling (Book), Springer Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Cover
      The concern of this book is the use of emergent computing and self-organization modelling within various applications of complex systems. The authors focus their attention both on the innovative concepts and implementations in order to model self-organizations, but also on the relevant applicative domains in which they can be used efficiently. This book is the outcome of a workshop meeting within ESM 2006 (Eurosis), held in Toulouse, France in October 2006.

    3. Mathematical Ecology of Populations and Ecosystems (Book), Wiley-Blackwell Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Cover
      Population ecologists study how births and deaths affect the dynamics of populations and communities while ecosystem ecologists study how species control the flux of energy and materials through food webs and ecosystems. Although all these processes occur simultaneously in nature, the mathematical frameworks bridging the two disciplines have developed independently. Consequently, this independent development of theory has impeded the cross-fertilization of population and ecosystem ecology. Using recent developments from dynamical systems theory, this textbook shows how to bridge the two disciplines seamlessly.

    4. One Dimensional Cellular Automata, Luniver Press Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Description:
      The book deals with analytical and computational studies of spatially-extended discrete dynamical systems: one-dimensional cellular automata. The topics included are non-constructible configurations, reversibility, probabilistic analysis and De Bruijn diagrams. Techniques discussed are based on topology, matrix theory, formal languages and probability theory. The book is an excellent reading for anybody interested in non-linearity, emergency, complexity and self-organization.

  20. Links & Snippets Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Other Publications Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Promotion of cooperation through co-evolution of networks and strategy in a 2 � 2 game, Jun Tanimoto, 15 March 2009, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Volume 388, Issue 6, Pages 953-960, DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2008.11.023
      2. Asymmetric Expectation Effects of Regime Shifts in Monetary Policy, Zheng Liu, Daniel Waggoner, Tao Zha, 2009/04/30, Review of Economic Dynamics, Volume 12, Issue 2, April 2009, Pages 284-303, DOI: 10.1016/j.red.2008.10.001
      3. Time Varying U.S. Inflation Dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve, Kevin Lansing, 2009/04/30, Review of Economic Dynamics, Volume 12, Issue 2, April 2009, Pages 304-326, DOI: 10.1016/j.red.2008.07.002
      4. Dynamics of city formation, Vernon Henderson, Anthony Venables, 2009/04/30, Review of Economic Dynamics, Volume 12, Issue 2, April 2009, Pages 233-254, DOI: 10.1016/j.red.2008.06.003
      5. A differential game model for a developing and a developed country, Rong Zhang, Xuexiang Huang, 2009/06/01, Journal of Systems Science and Complexity, Volume 22, Issue 2, DOI: 10.1007/s11424-009-9155-9
      6. Dynamics of Decision Making in Animal Group Motion, Benjamin Nabet et al, 2009/06/01, Journal of Nonlinear Science, 0938-8974 (Print) 1432-1467 (Online), DOI: 10.1007/s00332-008-9038-6
      7. Complex Dynamics of an Impulsive Control System in which Predator Species Share a Common Prey, Yongzhen Pei, Shaoying Liu, Changguo Li, 2009/06/01, Journal Journal of Nonlinear Science, Volume , Issue 3, DOI: 10.1007/s00332-008-9034-x
      8. Discovering Hidden Structures Using Mixture Models: Application to Nonlinear Time Series Processes, Babak Shahbaba, 2009/06/01, Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, vol. 13, issue 2
      9. Nonlinearity between Inequality and Growth, Shu-Chin Lin, Ho-Chuan Huang, Dong-Hyeon Kim, Chih-Chuan Yeh, 2009/06/01, Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, vol. 13, issue 2
      10. The co-evolution of cooperation and defection under local interaction and endogenous network formation, Ennio Bilancini, Leonardo Boncinelli, May 2009, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 70, Issues 1-2, Pages 186-195, DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2009.01.002

    2. Conference Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. International Workshop on Coping with Crises in Complex Socio-Economic Systems, Zurich, Switzerland, 09/06/8-13
      2. NECSI Summer School, Cambridge, MA, USA, 09/06/08-26
      3. 20th Intl Conf on Noise and Fluctuations, Pisa, Italy, 09/06/14-19
      4. First International Workshop on Morphogenetic Engineering, Paris, France, 09/06/19
      5. 17th Intl Workshop on Nonlinear Dynamics of Electronic Systems (NDES 2009), Rapperswil, Switzerland, 09/06/21-24
      6. First Latin American Conference on Computing and Philosophy, Mexico City, Mexico, June 22-23, 2009
      7. Emergence in Chemical Systems, , Anchorage, Alaska, 09/06/22-26
      8. From Systemic Thinking to Systems Design and Systems Practice, Xanthi, Greece, 09/06/24-27
      9. International Conference on Computational Aspects of Social Networks - CASoN 2009, Fontainebleau, France, 09/06/24-27
      10. CCSA 2009 The 3rd International Conference on Complex Systems and Applications, University of Le Havre, France. 09/06/29-07/02
      11. ICALP 2009: 36th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming , Rhodes, Greece, 09/07/05-12
      12. 7th Intl Conf on Computing, Communications and Control Technologies: CCCT 2009, Orlando, Florida, USA. 09/07/10-13
      13. Complex Systems and Social Simulations, Budapest, Hungary, 09/07/13-24
      14. Second International Workshop on Nonlinear Dynamics and Synchronization (INDS'09), Klagenfurt, Austria, 09/07/20-21
      15. Third Annual French Complex Systems Summer School, Lyon and Paris, France, 09/07/20-08/14.
      16. The 19th Annual Intl Conf Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences , Milwaukee, WI USA, 09/07/23-25
      17. 2009 Intl Conf of the System Dynamics Society, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 09/07/26-30
      18. Swarm Cognition Workshop, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 09/07/29
      19. 5th Intl Conf on Fractals and Dynamic Systems in Geoscience, Townsville, Australia, 09/08/13-14
      20. EULAKS Summer School, Mexico City, Mexico, 09/08/17-30
      21. 2nd International Workshop on Guided Self-Organisation (GSO-2009), Leipzig, Germany, 09/08/18-20
      22. Darwin Meets von Neumann: European Conference on Artificial Life 2009, Budapest, Hungary, 09/09/13-16
      23. IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems , San Francisco, California, 09/09/14-18
      24. 6th Conference of the European Social Simulation Association, Guilford, UK, 09/09/14-18
      25. European Conference on Complex Systems 2009 (ECCS'09), University of Warwick, UK, 09/09/21-25
        1. Statistical Mechanics of Molecular and Cell Biology, 09/09/23
      26. International Workshop on Natural Computing, Himeji, Japan, 09/09/23-25
      27. The 2009 International Conference on Adaptive & Intelligent Systems (ICAIS'09), Klagenfurt, Austria, 09/09/24-26
      28. Complexity Theories of Cities have come of Age, Delft Netherlands, 09/09/24-27
      29. IC3K 2009 - Int'l Joint Conf. on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management, Madeira, Portugal, 09/10/6-8
      30. Natural and Biomimetic Mechanosensing, Dresden, Germany, 09/10/26-28
      31. The 11th International Symposium on Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems (SSS 2009) , Lyon, France, 09/11/03-06
      32. the 9th Asia-Pacific Complex Systems Conference Complex'09 How to Manage Complexity? , Tokyo, Japan, 09/11/4-7
      33. CAS in the Natural and Social Sciences, AAAI Fall Symposium Arlington, VA, USA, 09/11/5-7
      34. Ninth International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems, Venice, Italy, 09/11/12-14
      35. 1st Global Peter F. Drucker Forum, ‘Managing the Future’, Vienna, Austria, 09/11/19-20
      36. 9th International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications, Pisa, Italy, 09/11/30-12/02
      37. World Congress on Nature & Biologically Inspired Computing (NaBIC 2009), Coimbatore, India, 09/12/9-11
      38. 5th Biennial Convention about the philosophical, epistemological, and methodological implications of the Theory of Complexity, Havana, Cuba, 10/01/6-8
      39. 2nd International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence (ICAART 2010), Valencia, Spain, 10/01/22-24

    3. Webcast Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Memorial Service for Dr Gottfried Mayer, Founding Editor Complexity Digest, Taipei, Taiwan (1954-2009). Video [RM], 09/02/13

      2. Making Connections: In Memory and Celebration of the Life of Dr. Gottfried Mayer (1954-2009). Video [RM] [MPG], 09/02/13

      3. Eulogy for Gottfried Mayer by Dean LeBaron [WMV, 25 Mb], [RM, 10 Mb], 09/02/10

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

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

    4. Other Announcements Bookmark and Share

      • Postdoc positions: The New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) has openings for postdoctoral appointments in the study of complex systems. In addition to general projects, there will be openings in research fields such as: Social and global systems, biological systems, cognitive systems, evolution, non-equilibrium dynamics, agent based modeling, multiscale analysis, complex systems engineering, management/organization science, and education of complex systems concepts.
        Postdocs should have experience with modeling techniques and computer simulation, data analysis, and/or analytic skills. The ideal candidate will also have strong writing abilities and a desire to work in diverse fields. A commitment to larger social concerns is highly desirable, as NECSI research informs policy in areas such as the national and global economy, health care, the environment and ecology.
        NECSI Postdoctoral fellows may also receive joint appointments at MIT, Harvard, or other Boston-area academic institutions.
        For more information and directions on submitting applications, please visit:
        http://necsi.edu/education/postdoc.html
      • Postdoc positions: The C3 - Centro de Ciencias de la Complejidad, a new interdisciplinary, inter-institutional research center based at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) plans to have several openings for postdoctoral candidates in the coming months. The center currently has affiliated to it more than 50 researchers and 40 students from all the major scientific disciplines. The main research topics at the moment are: Genetic networks and Systems Biology, Ecological Complexity, Social Complexity and Computational Intelligence. Salary will be in the region of 20-25,000 pesos per month.
        Interested candidates are asked to send a CV, a statement of research interests and the names of at least three potential referees to:
        Dr. Chris Stephens (Ecological Complexity and Computational Intelligence) stephens@nucleares.unam.mx
        Dra. Elena Alvarez-Buylla (Systems Biology) eabuylla@gmail.com
        Dr. Gustavo Martinez-Mekler (Social Complexity and other areas) mekler@ce.fis.unam.mx


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