Economic Incentives for Rain Forest Conservation, Science 
Most of us would agree that a clean air and a healthy
environment are valuable goods that we all share. Because of the
global impact on the climate most nations have agreed in the Kyoto
Protocol (a treaty of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change) that a reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the
atmosphere is of global value. There was an agreement to put
ceilings on GHG emissions for each country. Most industrial
nations already exceed these ceilings whereas many developing
nations have the option to increase their own GHG emissions or
under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) trade their emission
rights with developed nations if it leads to a "certified
emissions reductions". The hope was that putting an economic
market value on reduction of GHG emissions would create incentive
to reduce emissions or even sequester some of the greenhouse gases
(e.g. by converting CO2 into biomass) from the atmosphere. The
difficult question is how preventing deforestation could indeed
lead to a reduction of GHGs in the atmosphere:
"Kremen et al. (3) demonstrate that the formal
adoption of forest carbon markets (as proposed under the Kyoto
Protocol) by the international community could dramatically
increase incentives for developing nations to protect forests.
(…) From the standpoint of the local inhabitants and the
global community, the financial benefits from designation of
the park outweigh those provided by logging. In contrast, at
the national level, the state would benefit more by offering
logging concessions. (…) However, Kremen and co-workers
demonstrate that establishing the Masaola National Park would
still be financially preferable for the state provided it
received compensation for the reduction in GHG emissions
associated with this forest conservation project."
The researchers estimated that for less than $4.34 per metric
ton of carbon the Masaola National Park could be used as an
installation for sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere. This is an
important pilot example that shows other countries with tropical
rainforests that it might indeed be more profitable for them to
invest in their rainforests as atmospheric cleaning centers
instead of burning and cutting them down for dubious agricultural
projects. This strategy could work if the preservation of
rainforests is indeed internationally accepted as one of the Clean
Development Mechanism.
- Counting
the Cost of Deforestation,
R. Bonnie, S. Schwartzman, M. Oppenheimer, J.
Bloomfield,
Science, Volume 288, Number 5472 Issue of 9 Jun 2000, pp.
1763 - 1764
- Economic
Incentives for Rain Forest Conservation Across
Scales. C. Kremen, J. O.
Niles, M. G. Dalton, G. C. Daily, P. R. Ehrlich, J. P.
Fay, D. Grewal, and R. P. Guillery, Science 2000 288:
1828-1832
-
Excerpt: "The U.S. Global Change Research Program
today released for public comment a draft report analyzing the
potential impacts of global climate change on the United States.
The report, to be presented to the President and Congress
following final review, was prepared by a team of scientists from
government, academia and the private sector.
The report, Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The
Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, provides
the most detailed look ever at the possible impacts of global
warming on the United States over the next 100 years.
Among its key findings, the draft report indicates that
continued growth in worldwide emissions is likely to increase
average temperatures across the United States by 5-10 degrees
Fahrenheit by 2100; impacts such as heavier precipitation and
increased drought will vary widely from region to region; some
natural ecosystems are likely to disappear entirely and others may
be severely disrupted; changes in rain and snowfall patterns could
affect the availability of fresh water; and crop productivity is
likely to rise nationally, although regional cropping patterns may
change significantly.
"Our work clearly indicates that climate change is a serious
issue for the United States," said ecologist Anthony Janetos of
the World Resources Institute, a co-chair of the scientific team
that led the analysis. "One of the things that makes this
assessment unique is the extensive public participation in
defining issues of concern. We hope that many more people will
take advantage of the review period to take a close look at our
findings and conclusions."
-
Excerpts: (...) Their photographs are
providing important new insights into how nature and humans are
changing planet Earth.
Some of these photographs will be published this month as
part of a new book of the results of imagery analysis in such
areas as urban growth, El Niño impacts, and changes in sea
levels, coastal vegetation and land use. A collaborative effort
between NASA and Russian Aviation and Space Agency Earth
observation experts, Dynamic Earth Environments: New Observations
from Shuttle-Mir Missions will include 16 pages of color
photographs taken by astronauts and cosmonauts on Mir between
March 1996 and June 1998. (...)
By observing and documenting surface dynamics and processes
over time, scientists can gain a better understanding of the
forces – both natural and human-induced – that change
the Earth. Some of the 22,000 photographs taken by the Mir
astronauts capture natural phenomena for the first time, such as
lakes in the Andes Mountains drying up. (...)
“This imagery provides us with a global perspective on
the rhythms and spatial scale of important natural and
human-induced events taking place on the Earth’s
surface,” Lulla said. “If the experiences of the
Shuttle-Mir crews are typical, Earth observations by crewmembers
on the International Space Station will greatly improve both our
database and our understanding of processes and changes on the
Earth,” he added. (...)
A Complex Systems Approach to Knowledge Management, L.M. Rocha
Abstract: We discuss how distributed designs that draw
from biological network metaphors can largely improve the current
state of information retrieval and knowledge management of
distributed information systems. In particular, an adaptive
recommendation systems named TalkMine was discussed in more
detail.
TalkMine operates at the semantic level of keywords. It
leads different databases to learn new and adapt existing keywords
to the categories recognized by its communities of users using
distributed algorithms. It explores the collective behavior of
agents to re-combine the knowledge stored in information
resources, thus producing novel associations.
TalkMine was developed to introduce a linguistic,
interactive layer to purely associative designs of distributed
information systems. This way, TalkMine adds a conversational
layer to an associative network of keywords associated with
documents stored in a database. This conversational layer allows
users to simultaneously search different sub-networks, creating
linguistic categories that represent the present, temporary,
interests of an user. The system uses an interactive
(conversational) process that directs the spread of activation
according to the specific interests of the user, rather than an
undirected spreading activation process typically employed in
associative models. The interactive process is based on reducing
the uncertainty content of constructed categories.
The final (low uncertainty) categories reached from
interaction with a community of users, are utilized as an
adaptation signal. With Hebbian learning rules, the associations
between keywords adapt to the semantic expectations of the
community of users. Because several sub-networks are searched
simultaneously, creativity in the form of new associations across
contexts can occur.
TalkMine is currently being implemented for the research
library of the Los Alamos National Laboratory under the
Active
Recommendation Project, where it is being integrated
with a similar system for adaptation of citation and hyperlink
structure developed by Bollen (@ApWeb). Both systems constitute a
biologically motivated information retrieval system, recommending
simultaneously at the level of user knowledge categories expressed
in keywords, and at the level of individual documents and their
associations to other documents. Rather than passive information
retrieval, with this system, users obtain an active, evolving
interaction with information resources.
- A Complex Systems Approach to
Knowledge Management, L.M. Rocha,
talk given at the 3rd
International Conference on Complex
Systems, Nashua,
NH, May 21-26,2000 , contributed by the
author.
- The details of TalkMine can be
consulted on-line at: Rocha, Luis M.
[2000]."Adaptive
Recommendation and Open-Ended
Semiosis ."
International Journal of Human -Computer Studies. In
Press.
- Rocha, Luis M.
[1999]."Evidence
sets: modeling subjective
categories."
International Journal of General Systems. Vol. 27, pp.
457-494.
- The details of the project can be
found at the Active
Recommendation Project
website as well as in a recent article describing how
TalkMine and @ApWeb are being integrated to produce
collective, adaptive organization of
knowledge:
- Rocha, L.M. and J. Bollen
[2000] "Biologically
Motivated Distributed Designs for Adaptive Knowledge
Management". In: Cohen
I. and L. Segel (Eds.) .Design Principles for the Immune
System and Other Distributed Autonomous Systems. Santa Fe
Institute Series in the Sciences of Complexity. Oxford
University Press, 2000. In Press.)
Complex Systems and Education Meeting, J. Kaput
Excerpts: Folks were able to identify instances
where major changes in the education patterns in particular
professions were triggered by high profile exemplars promoted by
prestigious institutions, e.g., Harvard Med in medical ed. (A
similar thing happened with the use of cases in business ed as
well, if I recall correctly.) Such new directions also seemed to
follow a period of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Steve
Small pointed out that there is a new initiative, responding to
the recent alarming study on medical safety, to introduce systems
thinking to doctors and the medical profession. At this point
there is no parallel disaster report in public education,
(although there have been generic calls for action in the past -
Sputnik, Crisis-reports of the early 80's, and the more recent
Goals 2K stuff based in international comparisons. The latest has
transmogrified into the accountability/high stakes testing wave
that may, in fact, lead to the next big disaster and point of
departure.
It was pointed out that institutions seem to have "tipping
points" where a strong specific example seems to make a big
difference in larger practice - again, Steve pointed to examples
in medicine. We also discussed the many huge, pervasive changes
that simply seem to happen - cars determining the structure of the
20th century US landscape, TV determining how people spend time,
are entertained & are sold-to, and most recently, the
internet. What would it mean for such a multifaceted, multileveled
and wide-reaching institution as Education to "tip?" (...)
The two highly successful recent NECSI conferences, one
Seattle and the other in NH, have generated a body of material and
accumulated additional serious credibility among serious
scientists that is ready to be exploited. As an example of an
example, we discussed the Alan Perelson / David Ho "early HIV/AIDS
treatment" Complex Systems success based on the discovery of the
HIV - immune system battle during the "latent phase." It has the
features of being immediately understandable in a qualitative way,
can be back-filled with curriculum material that is already
available (e.g., predator prey models), it can be scaled upward in
the direction of the multicomponent models that were used in more
careful modeling, can be rendered interactive via reusable
software technology that can likely take the form of accessible
applets, can be extended horizontally to be used in
teacher-education activities and in informal education contexts,
and can be generalized for use in every field (dynamic response).
In addition, transcripts of Perelson's conference session are
being made and, with his help, other resources from his and
closely related work can be drawn. (...)
Do Cockroaches 'Know' About Fluid Dynamics?, Science
For scientists cockroaches are a kind of super-insect:
Their adaptability is a nightmare if they are considered pests,
but on evolutionary scales it is a fascinating achievement from
which we can learn about survival in hostile environments.
Cockroaches had to develop defenses against being swatted or eaten
by fast predators.
Besides having developed a highly specialized anatomy for
running away from danger (cockroaches have been claimed to hold
the land speed record, relative to body size) they also appear to
have developed highly sophisticated ways to sense an approaching
rolled-up newspaper. Rinberg et al. studied how the wind sensors
in the antennae of the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana)
respond to spectral wind properties. For instance natural airflow
has a very broad-band, noisy spectrum that the cockroach learned
to ignor. But if narrowband, low-frequency components in the
spectrum build up, the cockroach interprets that change as a
signal for an approaching predator. The researchers conclude:
" It is evident (…) that the average firing
rate of the cockroach interneurons conveys information about
the spectral properties of the prevailing air movement, which
change when a predator approaches. Thus, the insect's awareness
of these properties and its ability to detect deviations from
the norm - in the form of an excess of low-frequency winds -
may help it to survive."
-
Excerpt: (...) Like weeds in a garden,
disease-causing bacteria resist our efforts to stamp them out. Now
researchers have a new tool to address the growing problem of
antibiotic resistance. The achievement is reported in the May 31
edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a
peer-reviewed journal of the world's largest scientific society.
The researchers focused on aminoglycosides, a family of
antibiotics that includes drugs such as neomycin, used in common
ointments like Neosporin®. This class of antibiotics faces
threats from its inherent high toxicity and its susceptibility to
chemical modifications that allow bacteria to resist the drug's
effects.
Bacteria, which create the proteins they need to survive,
are constantly evolving and mutating in ways that circumvent the
activity of antibiotics. To get around this problem, the
researchers found a way to bind the antibiotic to the bacteria's
protein-making machinery (called ribonucleic acid, or RNA). This
prevents the formation of proteins that allow the bacteria to
become resistant to antibiotics, according to Chi-Huey Wong, lead
author for research team at the Scripps Research Institute in
California.
The approach could yield an antibiotic approximately 1,000
times more effective than the original antibiotic, so a much
smaller dose would suffice, Wong said.
"By studying the bacterial genome, we were able to find a
way to attack antibiotic resistance," Wong said. "We used it as a
new way to find the secrets of resistance."
More than 100 antibiotics are currently on the market to
fight infections, including those suffered by cancer and AIDS
patients, people recovering from surgery and others. They work by
preventing the growth of bacteria that lead to infections.
Wong said the researchers worked with aminoglycosides
because they function differently than other antibiotics,
preventing the formation of proteins that allow bacteria to live,
instead of attacking the proteins after they are formed. The same
method might be used to develop anticancer and antiviral agents,
he added.
Although human testing is expected to begin within six
months, any solution to the problem of antibiotic resistance is
temporary, Wong said.
"The best we can do is slow down the development of
resistance," Wong said. "It's just a matter of time with bacteria.
It's simply evolution - bacteria will do anything to survive."
Resource for Complex Physiologic Signals, Circulation
Abstract—The newly inaugurated Research Resource
for Complex Physiologic Signals, which was created under the
auspices of the National Center for Research Resources of the
National Institutes of Health, is intended to stimulate current
research and new investigations in the study of cardiovascular and
other complex biomedical signals. The resource has 3
interdependent components. PhysioBank is a large and growing
archive of well-characterized digital recordings of physiological
signals and related data for use by the biomedical research
community. It currently includes databases of multiparameter
cardiopulmonary, neural, and other biomedical signals from healthy
subjects and from patients with a variety of conditions with major
public health implications, including life-threatening
arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, sleep apnea, neurological
disorders, and aging. PhysioToolkit is a library of open-source
software for physiological signal processing and analysis, the
detection of physiologically significant events using both classic
techniques and novel methods based on statistical physics and
nonlinear dynamics, the interactive display and characterization
of signals, the creation of new databases, the simulation of
physiological and other signals, the quantitative evaluation and
comparison of analysis methods, and the analysis of nonstationary
processes. PhysioNet is an on-line forum for the dissemination and
exchange of recorded biomedical signals and open-source software
for analyzing them. It provides facilities for the cooperative
analysis of data and the evaluation of proposed new algorithms. In
addition to providing free electronic access to PhysioBank data
and PhysioToolkit software via the World Wide Web, PhysioNet
offers services and training via on-line tutorials to assist users
with varying levels of expertise.
- PhysioBank,
PhysioToolkit, and PhysioNet : Components of a New
Research Resource for Complex Physiologic
Signals, A.L.
Goldberger, L.A. N. Amaral, L. Glass, J.M. Hausdorff,
P.Ch. Ivanov, R.G. Mark, J.E. Mietus, G.B. Moody, C-K
Peng, and H.E. Stanley, Circulation 2000 June 13;
101(23): p. e215-e220
-
Excerpts: New scientific testing resolves the
long-standing debate over whether the Neandertals were merely
scavengers who snatched the leftovers of nature's predators or
were themselves high-level carnivores with adept hunting skills.
(…)
Through bone-chemistry analyses, the team determined the
Neandertals must have feasted on meat. The Neandertal diet - which
may have included mammoths - was similar to other top-level
carnivores from the time period, such as wolves and lions, the
researchers said. (…)
The scientists analyzed a jawbone and skull bone from two
Neandertals recently dated to about 28,000 years old. The fossils
were recovered at the Vindija cave site, located about 34 miles
north of the Croatian capital of Zagreb. Researchers then compared
the bone composition with other central European animals of the
same time period, including wolves, wild cattle, mammoths, arctic
fox and cave bear.
Smith noted: "For several decades, archaeologists have
debated the importance of meat in the Neandertal diet, but this
question never has been answered unequivocally. Our findings
provide conclusive proof that European Neandertals were top-level
carnivores who lived on a diet of mainly hunted animal meat."
By itself, archaeological evidence - in the form of remains
of animal bones and stone tools that were used for hunting -
provides only a glimpse of Neandertal diets. Some scientists have
argued that there was little evidence that the Neandertals were
accomplished hunters.
"We've known meat clearly was a part of the diet of the
Neandertals, but it was impossible, from the archaeological
evidence alone, to see the actual proportion of meat in their
diets," Smith said. "Stable-isotope analysis yields a direct
measure of human diet, since our bones record the isotope
signatures of the foods we ate in our lifetimes. By measuring
these isotope signatures in fossil bones, we can reconstruct
aspects of the diets of humans and animals from the past."
The new evidence suggests the European Neandertals may have
eaten almost exclusively meat. "It's still hard for us to know for
certain, but it doesn't appear that they were getting much in the
way of nutrients from something other than meat," Smith said.
Trinkaus added: "The isotope data - combined with
archaeological analysis of faunal remains and tools found with the
Neandertal fossils - indicate that hunting of mammals was a major
element of their subsistence. Conversely, plant foods are almost
invisible in the archeological record, making it impossible to
estimate accurately their dietary importance." (…)
In a study last fall involving Vindija fossils, members of
the same research team documented through radiocarbon dating that
the Neandertals roamed central Europe as recently as 28,000 years
ago, representing the latest date ever recorded for Neandertal
fossils. These previous findings - combined with recent evidence
of late Neandertal survival in Iberia and of Neandertal-modern
human interbreeding in Portugal, the latter of which also was
published in PNAS - indicate that the Neandertals were able to
coexist and interact successfully with early modern humans
spreading across Europe at the time.
"The new bone-chemistry data combined with evidence of
sustained Neandertal coexistence and interbreeding with early
modern humans offer a positive picture of the Neandertals and may
make it easier for some to accept the possibility that the
Neandertals were among the ancestors of early modern humans," said
Trinkaus, professor of anthropology in Arts and Sciences.
Novelty Detection on a Mobile Robot Using Habituation, arXiv
Abstract: In this paper a novelty filter is introduced
which allows a robot operating in an unstructured environment to
produce a self-organized model of its surroundings and to detect
deviations from the learned model. The environment is perceived
using the robot's 16 sonar sensors. The algorithm produces a
novelty measure for each sensor scan relative to the model it has
learned. This means that it highlights stimuli, which have not
been previously experienced. The novelty filter proposed uses a
model of habituation. Habituation is a decrement in behavioral
response when a stimulus is presented repeatedly. Robot
experiments are presented which demonstrate the reliable operation
of the filter in a number of environments.
Links & Snippets
World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT), Synopsis
Abstract: We provide a fast algorithm to
calculate the m-dimensional distance histogram on which Brock,
Dechert, and Sheinkman's (1987) BDS-type statistics are based. The
algorithm generalizes a fast algorithm due to LeBaron by
calculating the histogram for any finite set of distances
simultaneously, and also using induction in m. By reordering the
calculation appropriately, the algorithm also requires less memory
and time. The two algorithms are compared using LeBaron's MS-DOS
implementation in C and our Delphi (Windows Pascal) program. The
generalized algorithm is faster when more than a few values of m
and M (the distance parameter) are required, and is set up to
calculate up to 255 values using short-integer arithmetic.
Abstract: Near-neighbor regression is a popular
empirical tool. In this note, we describe the general algorithm
for the technique and we identify several potential problem areas
that researchers should consider. Standard statistical packages
are generally inflexible, and hide important modeling decisions
from the researcher. We provide code for a simple but very
flexible routine that readers can customize for their own use.
2 Electronic-Signature Bill Is Passed by U.S. House, New York Times
Abstract: We provide a fast algorithm to
calculate the m-dimensional distance histogram on which Brock,
Dechert, and Sheinkman's (1987) BDS-type statistics are based. The
algorithm generalizes a fast algorithm due to LeBaron by
calculating the histogram for any finite set of distances
simultaneously, and also using induction in m. By reordering the
calculation appropriately, the algorithm also requires less memory
and time. The two algorithms are compared using LeBaron's MS-DOS
implementation in C and our Delphi (Windows Pascal) program. The
generalized algorithm is faster when more than a few values of m
and M (the distance parameter) are required, and is set up to
calculate up to 255 values using short-integer arithmetic.
3 A Generalized Fast Algorithm for BDS-Type Statistics, SNDE
Abstract: Near-neighbor regression is a popular
empirical tool. In this note, we describe the general algorithm
for the technique and we identify several potential problem areas
that researchers should consider. Standard statistical packages
are generally inflexible, and hide important modeling decisions
from the researcher. We provide code for a simple but very
flexible routine that readers can customize for their own use.
4 Time-Series Near-Neighbor Regression, SNDE
Abstract: The tectonics of Europa, one of Jupiter's
moons, are complex. This satellite probably hosts a subsurface
water ocean, but the thickness of the outer ice crust is poorly
constrained and the episodic presence of liquid water at the
surface is debated. We argue that some surface features of Europa
are formed by soft ice that is heated by viscous dissipation of
tidal motion along faults, and do not depend on a shallow ocean.
Our model suggests that transient pockets of liquid water or brine
could form at shallow depths in the crust.
5 Tectonics And Water On Europa, Nature
Excerpt: (...) The legislation, passed 426 to 4,
would give new technologies like fingerprint scans and encryption
keys the legal weight of ink-and-paper signatures, making it
easier for both companies and consumers to do business online. The
Senate is expected to pass the bill later this week and the
President said today that he would sign the law, which is a
compromise that took high-technology companies, the financial
industries lobby and consumer groups nearly a year to negotiate.
(...)
6 Genetic Analysis Yields Intimations of a Primordial Commune, New York Times
This is a good overview of the discussion on the origins
of life on earth as a background for the story about the claimed
discovery of 3 Billion year old fossils of microbes:
"The chemistry of the first life is a nightmare to explain.
No one has yet devised a plausible explanation to show how the
earliest chemicals of life -- thought to be RNA, or ribonucleic
acid, a close relative of DNA -- might have constructed themselves
from the inorganic chemicals likely to have been around on the
early earth. The spontaneous assembly of small RNA molecules on
the primitive earth "would have been a near miracle,"
(…)"
