Complexity Digest 2003.17

28-Apr-2003

For individual e-mail subscriptions go to Subscriptions.
Previous issue 2003.16 | Next issue 2003.18

Content

  1. NASA Satellite Measures Earth's Carbon Metabolism, ScienceDaily
  2. Ecological Economics At The Crossroads Between Normal And Post-Normal Science, Ecol. Economics
    1. `Full' World Versus `Empty' World Paradigm At The Time Of Globalisation, Ecol. Economics
  3. On Coalition Formation: Durable Coalition Structures, Math. Social Sc.
  4. The Power Of Power Laws, The Scientist
  5. Chaos Theory May Help Explain Patterns Of Alcohol Abuse, Studies Suggest, ScienceDaily
  6. Modelling The Dynamics Of Reasoning Processes: Reasoning By Assumption, Cognitive Sys. Res.
  7. Words Get In The Way, Talk Is Cheap, But It Can Tax Your Memory, Science News
  8. Wiring the Brain with Insulin, Science
    1. Axons Guided by Insulin Receptor in Drosophila Visual System, Science
  9. Scientists Discover Unique Source of Postnatal Stem Cells, NIDCR
    1. Baby Teeth Revealed As Source Of Stem Cells, NewScientist.com
  10. The Grid: Tomorrow's Computing Today, Nature
    1. Million-User Online Game Previewed, NewScientist.com
    2. Internet Is Losing Ground in Battle Against Spam, NYTimes
    3. Exploiting Sublanguage and Domain Characteristics in a Bootstrapping Approach to Lexicon and Ontology Creation, arXiv
  11. Wi-Fi's Broken Promise, Darwin Mag
    1. Beyond Wi-Fi, The 5 Next Big Things, A Wired Special Report
    2. Evolutionary Approach In Personal Communication Networks, Comp. Communications
  12. Pictorial Analysis: a Multi-resolution Data Visualization Approach for Monitoring and Siagnosis of Complex Systems, Information Sciences
    1. Engineers Aim To Make Average Singers Sound Like Virtuosos, Purdue News
  13. Colony Insularity Through Queen Control On Worker Social Motivation In Ants, Proc. Biol. Sc.
  14. Fruit Set Of Highland Coffee Increases With The Diversity Of Pollinating Bees, Proc. Biol. Sc.
  15. The Scent Of Age, Proc. Biol. Sc.
  16. Activity Driven Adaptive Stochastic Resonance, Phys. Rev. Lett.
  17. Military Robots To Get Swarm Intelligence, NewScientist.com
    1. Shared Grounding of Event Descriptions by Autonomous Robots, Robotics and Autonomous Systems
    2. The Unmanned Army, NYTimes
  18. Seeking Connections: H. Eugene Stanley, Nature
  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
    1. Fate of Prisoners From Afghan War Remains Uncertain
    2. U.S. Warns Iraqis Against Claiming Authority in Void, NYTimes
    3. Online, All the Time, an All-Seeing Surveillance System, NYTimes
  20. Links & Snippets
    1. Other Publications
    2. Coming and Ongoing Webcasts
    3. Conference Announcements & Call for Papers
      1. Public Conference Calls
    4. ComDig Announcement: New ComDig Archive in Beta Test

  1. NASA Satellite Measures Earth's Carbon Metabolism, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: In honor of the Earth Day celebration, NASA scientists unveiled the first consistent and continuous global measurements of Earth's "metabolism." This new measurement is called net production because it indicates how much carbon dioxide is taken in by vegetation during photosynthesis minus how much is given off during respiration. "We are literally watching the global garden grow. We now have a regular, consistent, calibrated and near-real-time measure of a major component of the global carbon cycle for the first time. This measure can also be the basis for monitoring the expansion of deserts, the effects of droughts (...)."

  2. Ecological Economics At The Crossroads Between Normal And Post-Normal Science, Ecol. Economics Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: In this paper we address some potential difficulties ecological economics (EE) might be confronted with in its further development. EE has evolved with intent to tackle the urgent problems human society faces today, in particular the ones related to environmental and ecological issues. To deal with such problems, a new concept of science different from disciplinary, normal science seems to be necessary. We will present post-normal and mode-2 science as two examples of such a concept. The importance of this new concept (...) lies in the fact that the set of values behind it can be seen as a `regulative principle' (...).

    1. `Full' World Versus `Empty' World Paradigm At The Time Of Globalisation, Ecol. Economics Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Abstract: The Mediterranean region is characterised by a high diversity mainly due to the integration between natural (land heterogeneity) and human (stewardship) processes. Cultural landscapes are the results of such coevolutive processes. Plasticity, adaptation to disturbance, and the persisting of biological refugia can be considered the most relevant factors responsible for the Mediterranean dynamics. In this commentary the full world paradigm is presented as an extension of the concept of resilience and ascendancy to propose a new grammar that incorporates self-organisation of natural and human dominated systems into a process of diffuse globalisation of economics and human behaviour.

  3. On Coalition Formation: Durable Coalition Structures, Math. Social Sc. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: We define a solution to the problem of coalition formation (...). Coalition structures satisfying our requirements are called durable, and we interpret them as much more likely to last than those coalition structures not satisfying the requirements, which we call transient. Durability results from a combination of foresight and extreme risk aversion on the part of agents, when considering to join others to disrupt an existing structure in search of higher gains. Agents' calculations are also constrained to satisfy a strong consistency requirement, which is reflected in the recursive structure of our definition.

  4. The Power Of Power Laws, The Scientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Resources enter the blood stream via surfaces--the gut lining for nutrients and water, and the alveoli of the lungs for oxygen. The key point, and source of the fourth dimension, is the fact that the terminating units through which resources pass into the blood stream, (...) The total area of resource exchange, (...), therefore scales in three dimensions. (...) The total blood volume is then a product of the terminating unit's total area, which scales in three dimensions, and the average distance between source and destination, which scales in one.
    • Source: The Power Of Power Laws, A Multidisciplinary Team Finds That When It Comes To Scales, A Fourth Dimension Is Applicable To All Living Things, Philip Hunter, The Scientist, Volume 17, Issue 8, 22, 03/04/21

  5. Chaos Theory May Help Explain Patterns Of Alcohol Abuse, Studies Suggest, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Chaos theory, which helps scientists understand complex systems such as weather patterns and the stock market, may also help shed light on the dynamics of alcohol abuse (...) used techniques of chaos theory to do a case study of the drinking patterns of an alcohol abuser over several years. (...) the results suggest that alcohol abusers may show signs of improvement that are really just part of the natural cycle of their disease and not indicative of true recovery. They analyzed the data and created various time series - including daily, weekly and monthly - to determine patterns in his drinking.

  6. Modelling The Dynamics Of Reasoning Processes: Reasoning By Assumption, Cognitive Sys. Res. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: To model the dynamics of cognitive processes, often the dynamical systems theory (DST) is advocated. However, for higher cognitive processes such as reasoning and certain forms of natural language processing the techniques adopted within DST are not very adequate. This paper shows how an analysis of the dynamics of reasoning processes can be made using (...) temporal traces consisting of sequences of reasoning states over time to describe reasoning processes. It is shown for the example reasoning pattern `reasoning by assumption', how relevant dynamic properties can be identified and expressed using a temporal trace language.

  7. Words Get In The Way, Talk Is Cheap, But It Can Tax Your Memory, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Law-enforcement officials typically solicit descriptions of criminals from eyewitnesses, often just after an offense has occurred. (...) Eyewitnesses can then pick the criminals out of a lineup. (...) A series of laboratory studies found that memories for a mock criminal's face were much poorer among eyewitnesses who had described what the perpetrator looked like shortly after seeing him, compared with those who hadn't. Psychologist Jonathan W. Schooler of the University of Pittsburgh, who directed the studies, dubbed this effect "verbal overshadowing of visual memories."

  8. Wiring the Brain with Insulin, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Insulin's most important task is to control blood glucose levels, (...). Insulin and its relatives are also produced in the brain, where they are thought to promote neuronal survival and modulate synaptic transmission. (...) insulin signaling is also essential for ensuring that the nervous system is wired correctly during development. Song et al. (1) present evidence that insulin signaling contributes to guidance of photoreceptor cell axons from the retina to the brain during development of the visual system in the fruit fly Drosophila.

    1. Axons Guided by Insulin Receptor in Drosophila Visual System, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Insulin receptors are abundant in the central nervous system, but their roles remain elusive. Here we show that the insulin receptor functions in axon guidance. (...) Insulin receptors in the central nervous system have been implicated in control of food uptake, learning, and memory, and pathophysiologies such as Alzheimer's disease . Drosophila harbor one receptor tyrosine kinase of the insulin receptor family (7-9), which avoids genetic redundancy in mammals that have three members of the insulin receptor family .

  9. Scientists Discover Unique Source of Postnatal Stem Cells, NIDCR Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Scientists report for the first time that "baby" teeth, the temporary teeth that children begin losing around their sixth birthday, contain a rich supply of stem cells in their dental pulp. The researchers say this unexpected discovery could have important implications because the stem cells remain alive inside the tooth for a short time after it falls out of a child's mouth, suggesting the cells could be readily harvested for research. According to the scientists, who published their findings online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1, the stem cells are unique compared to many "adult" stem cells in the body. They are long lived, grow rapidly in culture, and, with careful prompting in the laboratory, have the potential to induce the formation of specialized dentin, bone, and neuronal cells. If followup studies extend these initial findings, the scientists speculate they may have identified an important and easily accessible source of stem cells that possibly could be manipulated to repair damaged teeth, induce the regeneration of bone, and treat neural injury or disease.

    1. Baby Teeth Revealed As Source Of Stem Cells, NewScientist.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: (...) teeth are a source of stem cells. The cells could help repair damaged teeth and perhaps even treat neural injuries or degenerative diseases. Currently, researchers can isolate two types of stem cells. Embryonic stem cells can develop into any cell in the body, but their harvesting requires the destruction of embryos, which pro-life groups oppose. Adult stem cells avoid this problem, but have more limited abilities. Now it appears that the stem cells from children's lost teeth could provide an intermediate and easily accessible source.

  10. The Grid: Tomorrow's Computing Today, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The physics lab that gave us the World Wide Web is now gearing up to make the first practical deployment of the Internet's next big thing: the Grid. (...) From an ordinary-looking Linux PC, you submit a supercomputing job in high-energy physics. A few hours later, the Grid tells you the results are ready. To be frank, I'm underwhelmed. (...) "Grids will have succeeded when they become invisible to the user; when we stop talking about them," he says.

    1. Million-User Online Game Previewed, NewScientist.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Creating a large virtual world that does not repeat itself is very time consuming and hence expensive (...). The large multiplayer games currently online usually take one world and then repeat it. For example, the game Everquest supports 450,000 users, but is split into 32 segregated segments. In contrast, Rekonstruction will aim to provide up to a million users with a single unique world. To try to overcome the problem of creating the vast amount of unique content needed, automated programs will be employed to generate the virtual world (...).

    2. Internet Is Losing Ground in Battle Against Spam, NYTimes Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: In the cat-and-mouse game of e-mail marketers and those trying to stop them, the spammers are still winning. So far, nothing that has been tried to block spam has done much more than inconvenience mass e-mailers. Just as Ms. Sachs's company, NetGlobalMarketing, has been able to reword its e-mail to evade spam filters, others use even more aggressive tricks to disguise the content of their messages and to send them via circuitous paths so their true origin cannot be determined.

    3. Exploiting Sublanguage and Domain Characteristics in a Bootstrapping Approach to Lexicon and Ontology Creation, arXiv Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Abstract: It is very costly to build up lexical resources and domain ontologies. Especially when confronted with a new application domain lexical gaps and a poor coverage of domain concepts are a problem for the successful exploitation of natural language document analysis systems that need and exploit such knowledge sources. In this paper we report about ongoing experiments with `bootstrapping techniques' for lexicon and ontology creation.
      Contributing Editor's Note: "Ontologies" specify conceptializations, so that software agents can "understand" the semantic content of a document. Until now, most ontologies are being created manually, but this is far from practical, especially taking into consideration the aims of the Semantic Web. Algorithms for ontology creation are a necessary step in the development of the "next generation" Internet.

  11. Wi-Fi's Broken Promise, Darwin Mag Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: For now, any service provider that uses equipment certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance will earn the right to display the Wi-Fi Zone logo. Users will be able to visit http://www.wi-fizone.org to locate hot spots in their hometowns or traveling destinations, (...). The idea is to have a universally recognized logo that anyone can see and know that wireless Internet service is available at a location, similar to the way a telephone logo identifies a phone booth (...).
    • Source: Wi-Fi's Broken Promise, So far, its vision for the future has remained so-so. Tom Krazit, Darwin Mag, April 2003

    1. Beyond Wi-Fi, The 5 Next Big Things, A Wired Special Report Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: Software-defined radios can reconfigure themselves automatically to recognize and communicate with each other. This could impose order on the current Babel-like chaos of competing wireless standards (CDMA, GSM, TDMA, and countless others), transforming today's rigid networks into nimble, open systems. The big payoff: improved system performance, cheaper service cost, and seamless roaming. With instant reprogramming, you can carry a single gadget for multiple uses. A cell phone becomes a garage door opener, which morphs into a mobile gaming device, which then - presto! - turns itself into a TV remote.

    2. Evolutionary Approach In Personal Communication Networks, Comp. Communications Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Abstract: This paper proposes an evolutionary approach to solve the problem of assigning cells to switches in the planning phase of mobile cellular networks. Well-known in the literature as an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem, this problem requires the recourse to heuristic methods, which can practically lead to good feasible solutions, not necessarily optimal, the objective being rather to reduce the convergence time toward these solutions. Computational results obtained from extensive tests confirm the effectiveness of this approach to provide good solutions to problems of a certain size.

  12. Pictorial Analysis: a Multi-resolution Data Visualization Approach for Monitoring and Siagnosis of Complex Systems, Information Sciences Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: This paper aims to describe the prospective methodology (Pictorial Analysis) of a human-computer interaction capable to select and adjust visual representations for better feature and pattern selection. As an adequate tool for on-line monitoring and diagnosis of very complex systems which require human supervision in addition to the computerized one, our approach exploits human capabilities of pattern recognition in doing data analysis and selecting appropriate representations, features and class descriptions by means of interactive human-computer learning. It is based on the analysis of multidimensional relations through transforming the initial data (heterogeneous arrays, signals and fields) into artificial pictures. Practical applications of this approach prove it extremely useful in critical areas of safety, such as flight control, power plant monitoring, etc.

    1. Engineers Aim To Make Average Singers Sound Like Virtuosos, Purdue News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: Karaoke may never be the same, thanks to research being presented in Nashville detailing the latest findings in efforts to create a computerized system that makes average singers sound like professionals. (...) Far more work is needed before the system is finished, Smith said. He said the specialized programs are, however, able to alter certain important characteristics of a person's voice, such as pitch, duration, and "vibrato," or the modulation in frequency produced by professional singers. (...) using a mathematical method called the fast Fourier transform (...)

  13. Colony Insularity Through Queen Control On Worker Social Motivation In Ants, Proc. Biol. Sc. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: We investigated the relative contribution of the queen and workers to colony nestmate recognition cues (...). Workers were either individually isolated, preventing contact with both queen and workers (colonial deprived, CD), kept in queenless groups, allowing only worker-worker interactions (queen deprived, QD) or in queenright (QR) groups. Two weeks post-separation QD and QR workers were amicable towards each other but both rejected their CD nestmates, which suggests that the queen does not measurably influence the colony recognition cues. Therefore, while workers supply and blend the recognition signal, the queen affects worker-worker interaction by reducing social motivation and tolerance of alien conspecifics.

  14. Fruit Set Of Highland Coffee Increases With The Diversity Of Pollinating Bees, Proc. Biol. Sc. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: The worldwide decline of pollinators may negatively affect the fruit set of wild and cultivated plants. Here, we show that fruit set of the self-fertilizing highland coffee (Coffea arabica) is highly variable and related to bee pollination. In a comparison of 24 agroforestry systems in Indonesia, the fruit set of coffee could be predicted by the number of flower-visiting bee species, and it ranged from ca. 60% (three species) to 90% (20 species). Diversity, not abundance, explained variation in fruit set, so the collective role of a species-rich bee community was important for pollination success.

  15. The Scent Of Age, Proc. Biol. Sc. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: In many species, older males are often preferred mates because they carry 'good' genes that account for their viability. How females discern a male's age is a matter of question. However, for animals that rely heavily on chemical communication there is some indication that an animal's age can be determined by its scent. To investigate (...) mice were trained in a Y-maze to discriminate urine odours of donor mice of different ages: Adult (3-10 months old) and Aged (more than 17 months old). Trained mice could discriminate between these two age groups by odour alone.
    • Source: The Scent Of Age, K. Osada, K. Yamazaki, M. Curran, J. Bard, B. P. C. Smith, G. K. Beauchamp, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2002.2308, 2003/05/07
    • Contributed by Atin Das - dasatinayahoo.co.in

  16. Activity Driven Adaptive Stochastic Resonance, Phys. Rev. Lett. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Abstract: Cortical neurons in vivo show fluctuations in their membrane potential of the order of several millivolts. Using simple and biophysically realistic models of a single neuron we demonstrate that noise induced fluctuations can be used to adaptively optimize the sensitivity of the neuron's output to ensembles of subthreshold inputs of different average strengths. Optimal information transfer is achieved by changing the strength of the noise such that the neuron's average firing rate remains constant. Adaptation is fast, because only crude estimates of the output rate are required at any time.

  17. Military Robots To Get Swarm Intelligence, NewScientist.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: A battalion of 120 military robots is to be fitted with swarm intelligence software to enable them to mimic the organised behaviour of insects. (...) The project is run by US software company Icosystems, which specialises in creating programs that mimic behaviours found in nature. Their software will use simple rules to co-ordinate complex behaviour among the robots. (...) The 120 robots were built for the US military by I-Robot, a company co-founded by robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks. (...)unforeseen circumstance could throw the robots into chaos.

    1. Shared Grounding of Event Descriptions by Autonomous Robots, Robotics and Autonomous Systems Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Abstract: The paper describes a system for open-ended communication by autonomous robots about event descriptions anchored in reality through the robot's sensori-motor apparatus. The events are dynamic and agents must continually track changing situations at multiple levels of detail through their vision system. We are specifically concerned with the question how grounding can become shared through the use of external (symbolic) representations, such as natural language expressions.
      See Also: Robotics and Autonomous Systems Volume 43, Issues 2-3: Perceptual Anchoring: Anchoring Symbols to Sensor Data in Single and Multiple Robot Systems

    2. The Unmanned Army, NYTimes Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: For the Joint Chiefs, the fog of war was lifted to a much greater extent. The trillions of megabytes of real-time data that flowed from the front lines to mission control were an exponential increase over transmissions in the 1991 campaign, giving generals (...) as far away as the Pentagon virtually unprecedented knowledge of battle conditions, resistance, losses and enemy positions. Decisions could be made more remotely, field commanders observed more closely and middlemen effectively cut out of the chain of command for the sake of speed and efficiency.

  18. Seeking Connections: H. Eugene Stanley, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: You have the audience in your hands, but some smart-alec asks you the killer question you have no idea how to answer. What's your response? I would simply admit that I had no idea how to answer the question, throw it open to the audience and invite participants to discuss it later on. After all, the right question can lead to something new. What book currently resides on your bedside table? None. I do not read books. Especially not in bed.

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

    1. Fate of Prisoners From Afghan War Remains Uncertain Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Many international lawyers have argued that the United States is obliged under the Geneva conventions to hold tribunals to determine whether the detainees are prisoners of war. If they are, they contend, they should have been released when the fighting in Afghanistan ended. But the United States says the Guantanamo inmates are "unlawful combatants," and do not qualify for prisoner-of-war status. (...) "The U.S. has paid a huge price in international opinion," he said. "In Britain, people see Guantanamo as a symbol of American defiance of international norms."

    2. U.S. Warns Iraqis Against Claiming Authority in Void, NYTimes Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The American military moved today to strip Baghdad's self-appointed administrator of his authority and warned Iraqi factions not to take advantage of the confusion and the political void in the country by trying to grab power. Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of ground forces in Iraq, issued a proclamation putting Iraq's politicians on notice, saying, "The coalition alone retains absolute authority within Iraq." He warned that anyone challenging the American-led authority would be subject to arrest. (...) "Nobody has authority unless General McKiernan says so,"

    3. Online, All the Time, an All-Seeing Surveillance System, NYTimes Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: (...) ease with which the high-tech surveillance cameras can be set up and used worries people who are concerned about the invasion of privacy. (...) network of cameras mounted at busy intersections, in the subway system and at tourist sites like the National Mall. The system, which is activated during heightened terror alerts, allows the authorities to manipulate the cameras so they can, (...), pan and zoom in on activity they consider suspicious. The remote access also means that officers can view images on computer monitors installed in squad cars.

  20. Links & Snippets Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Other Publications Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Mosquito Bite as Suicide Mission, Deborah Hill, Science Now, 03/04/17 Half of the mosquitoes that then sampled these animals' blood died within 7 days.
      2. The Cytoskeleton, Cellular Motility And The Reductionist Agenda, Thomas D. Pollard, Nature 422, 741 - 745 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature01598
      3. Animal Behaviour: Wise Fathers, John D. Reynolds And Ben C. Sheldon, Nature 422, 669 - 670 (2003); doi:10.1038/422669a
      4. Decisions About Parental Care In Response To Perceived Paternity, Bryan D. Neff, Nature 422, 716 - 719 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature01528
      5. Medicine: Collateral Damage Repaired, Lawrence Steinman, Nature 422, 671 - 672 (2003); doi:10.1038/422671a
      6. Now Digital, Spy Camera Technology Widens Gaze, Laurie J. Flynn, NYTimes, 03/04/21, The use of surveillance cameras is surging, driven by new digital technology, falling prices and terrorism jitters.
      7. Planet Formation: Worlds Apart, Dan Falk, Nature 422, 659 - 660 (2003); doi:10.1038/422659a
      8. If a Neuron Fires in the Woods ..., Ricki Lewis, ,The Scientist, Volume 17, Issue 8, 22, 03/04/21, Jack Cowan, a University of Chicago math professor, is taking a new view of neural activity--based on forest fire dynamics.
      9. Pentagon Sending a Team of Exiles to Help Run Iraq, Douglas Jehl, Jane Perlez, The exiles are supposed to take up positions at each of 23 Iraqi ministries, where they will work with U.S. and British officials.
      10. Cleric in Iran Says Shiites Must Act, Craig S. Smith, A religious edict urged mullahs "to seize the first possible opportunity to fill the power vacuum in the administration of Iraqi cities."
      11. Unusually Long And Aligned 'Buckytubes' Grown At Duke, Duke University Release, 03/04/22
      12. Why the Mullahs Love a Revolution, Dilip Hiro, If the Bush administration truly hopes to see a "liberated" Iraq, stepping down as power broker might be the only option.
      13. Virus Cleans Up Food Poisoning Bug, New Scientist, 03/04/23
      14. Climatologists Give Waterworld Warning For Earth, NewScientist.com, 03/04/26
      15. International: France Brushes Off Powell Comments, Defends Anti-War Stance, Brian Knowlton,NYTimes, 03/04/23, French officials responded brusquely today to comments by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that France would be made to suffer for its opposition to the war in Iraq.
      16. Who Knows What When and How?, Jeremy Epstein, Darwin, April 2003
      17. Customer Metrics That Matter, Bruce Guptill, Optimize, April 2003
      18. Opinion: What Is it Good For?, Bob Herbert, NYTimes, 03/04/21, The blatant war-mongering followed immediately by profiteering raises questions about the real reasons Americans have been fighting in Iraq.
      19. Business: Creative Deal or Highflying Pork?, Leslie Wayne, NYTimes, 03/04/20, An extraordinary aircraft-leasing plan by Boeing and the Air Force proposes to employ the kind of off-the-books financing made infamous by Enron.
      20. A Nation at War: Role for U.N., or Not, Iraqi Leaders' Whereabouts, Anthony DePalma, NYTimes, 03/04/19, With mounting pressure for the United States to hand over authority to Iraqis, there were complex political struggles over who the new local leaders should be.
      21. Business: Lockheed Wins Huge Sale to Poland With Complex Deal, John Tagliabue, NYTimes, 03/04/19, Poland signed contracts to pay $3.5 billion for F-16 fighter jets in exchange for a $6.3 billion package of investments in the country.
      22. Arts: I Feel, Therefore I Am, Emily Eakin, NYTimes, 03/04/19, Scientists have begun to approach consciousness in more Spinozist terms: as a complex and indivisible mind-brain-body system.
      23. A New Account of Personalization and Effective Communication, Douglas A. Galbi, 2003-04-22, DOI: cs.HC/0304033, arXiv
      24. A Cellular Automata Model for Cell Differentiation, H. S. Silva, M. L. Martins, 2003-05-1, DOI: 10.1016/S0378-4371(02)01807-1, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 322:555-566
      25. A Hierarchy of Languages, Logics, and Mathematical Theories, Kastner, Charles W., 2003-04-15, CogPrints
      26. Small Spans in Scaled Dimension, John M. Hitchcock, 2003-04-22, arXiv
      27. "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that": Linguistics, Statistics, and Natural Language Processing circa 2001, Lillian Lee, 2003-04-21, arXiv
      28. Whitehead Method and Genetic Algorithms, Alexei D. Miasnikov, Alexei G. Myasnikov, 2003-04-20, arXiv
      29. Transforming the Structure of Network Interconnection and Transport, Douglas A. Galbi, 2003-04-22, arXiv
      30. Coinfection and Superinfection in RNA Virus Populations: a Selection–Mutation Model, Joan Saldaña, Santiago F. Elena and Ricard V. Solé, 2003-06, Mathematical Biosciences, 183(2):135-160
      31. Is Modularity Necessary for Evolvability? Remarks on the Relationship Between Pleiotropy and Evolvability, Thomas F. Hansen, 2003-05, Biosystems 69(2-3):83-94
      32. Evolution of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus, Esteban Domingo, et al., 2003-01, Virus Research, 91(1):47-63
      33. Reductions In Total Body Fat Decrease Humoral Immunity, G. E. Demas, D. L. Drazen & R. J. Nelson, Proc. Biol. Sc., Vol. 270, No 1518, pp:905-911, 2003/05/07, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2003.2341
      34. A Private Ultraviolet Channel In Visual Communication, M. E. Cummings, G. G. Rosenthal & M. J. Ryan, Proc. Biol. Sc., Vol. 270, No 1518, pp:897-904, 2003/05/07, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2003.2334
      35. Island-Finding Ability Of Marine Turtles, G. C. Hays, S. Akesson, A. C. Broderick, F. Glen, B. J. Godley, F. Papi & P. Luschi, Alphagalileo & Biol. Lett.,  2003/04/17
      36. From Wireless To Wearable Technology, M. Banerjee, Alphagalileo, 2003/04/23
      37. Missing Protein Is Double-edged Sword In Cancer Development, ScienceDaily & Ohio State University, 2003/04/22
      38. Whale Study Links Genetics And Reproductive Success; Researchers Compare Reproduction Rates In North Atlantic Whales With Genetic Variation, ScienceDaily & Wildlife Conservation Society, 2003/04/23
      39. Time-Depe ndent Random Walks And The Theory Of Complex Adaptive Systems, S. Hod, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90,128701,2003/03/25, doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.128701
      40. NSF Researchers To Help Modern Organizations Adapt And Respond In The Information Age, ScienceDaily & National Science Foundation, 2003/04/24

       


    2. Coming and Ongoing Webcasts Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Uncertainty and Surprise: Questions on Working with the Unexpected and Unknowable, The University of Texas Austin, Texas USA, 03/04/10-12
      2. Autonomous Agents, Stuart Kauffman, FRIAM Group sponsored Applied Complexity Lecture Series at the Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, 03/03/13
      3. New Trends In Industrial Partnership And Innovation Management At European Research Laboratories, CERN, Geneva, 03/03/19 (with webcast)
        1. CERN Webcast Service, Streamed videos of Archived Lectures and Live Events
      4. "New Frontiers of Neuroscience" Symposium, Taipei, Taiwan, 03/03/07
      5. Television & Children's Media Policy: Where Do We Go From Here?, Washinghton, DC, 03/02/28, c-span, (clip12657), 1:35
      6. INSC 2003, International Nonlinear Sciences Conference, Vienna, Austria, 03/02/07-09
      7. World Economic Forum Meeting "Building Trust", Davos, Switzerland, 03/01/23-28
      8. 2002 Financial Management Conference, 02/10/16-19
      9. Artificial Life Conference (A-Life 8), Sydney, Australia, 02/12/09-13
      10. Dean LeBaron's Archive of Daily Video Commentary, Ongoing Since February 1998

       


    3. Conference Announcements & Call for Papers Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Agent-Based Simulation 4, Montpellier, France, 03/04/28-30
      2. Managing Complex Organizations in a Complex World, Cambridge, MA, 03/05/01-02
      3. NAS Sackler Colloquium on Mapping Knowledge Domains, The Beckman Center, Irvine, CA, 03/05/09-11
      4. Understanding Complex Systems Symposium, UIUC, Urbana-Champaign, Il, 03/05/19-21
      5. The Opening of Systems Theory, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, DK, 03/05/23-25
      6. Innovating Strategy Processes: Concepts, Experiences And Experiments, Storrs, Connecticut U.S.A. 03/05/25-28
      7. SPIE's 1st Intl Symp on Fluctuations and Noise, Santa Fe, NM, 03/06/01-04
      8. The First International Workshop on "Socio-Cognitive Grids: The Net as a Universal Human Resource", Santorini, Greece, 03/06/01-04
      9. 21st ICDE World Conf on Open Learning and Distance Education, Hong Kong, 03/06/01-05
      10. The Co-Revolutionary Competition An Alternative War Game Inspired By The New Sciences, Newport, RI, 03/06/03-05
      11. Summer School on Nonlinear Phenomena In Computational Chemical Physics, Barcelona, Spain, 03/06/09-14
      12. 17th Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Simulation (PADS 2003), San Diego, California, 03/06/10-13
      13. One-Week Intensive Course: Complex Physical, Biological and Social Systems, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, 03/06/16-20
      14. 2003 Summer Computer Simulation Conference (SCSC '03), Montreal, Canada, 03/06/20-24
      15. 5th Intl Conf "Symmetry in Nonlinear Mathematical Physics", Kiev, Ukraine, 03/06/23-29, Mirror
      16. Workshops of Dynamical Systems with Applications to Biology, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 03/06/24-28
      17. UQÀM Summer Institute in Cognitive Sciences 2003: Categorization In Cognitive Sciences, Montreal, 03/06/30-07/11
      18. 47th Meeting of the Intl Soc for the System Sciences: Conscious Evolution Of Humanity: Using Systems Thinking To Construct Agoras Of The Global Village, Iraklion, Crete, Greec, 03/07/07-11
      19. 9th International Conference on Auditory Display, Boston, MA, 03/07/07-09, Wkshp on Assistive Technologies for the Blind, 03/07/06
      20. 2003 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2003), Chicago, IL,03/07/12-16
      21. 2nd Intl Joint Conf on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS-2003), Melbourne, Australia, 03/07/14-18
      22. 7th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (SCI 2003), Orlando, Florida, 03/07/27-30
      23. Intl Conf on Socio Political Informatics and Cybernetics: SPIC '03, Orlando, Fl, USA, 03/07/31-08/02
      24. 13th Annual International Conference, Soc f Chaos Theory in Psych & Life Sciences,Boston, MA, USA, 03/08/08-10
      25. Call for Papers on Dynamical Hierarchies, Special Issue of Artificial Life, Deadline: 03/09/05
      26. 1st German Conference on Multiagent System Technologies (MATES'03), Erfurt, Germany, 03/09/22-25
      27. 7th European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL-2003), Dortmund, Germany, 03/09/14-17
      28. 2003 IEEE/WIC Intl Joint Conf. Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, Beijing, China, 03/10/13-17
      29. ICDM '03: The Third IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, Melbourne, Florida, USA, 03/11/19-22
      30. 3rd International Workshop on Meta-Synthesis and Complex System, Guangzhou, China, 03/11/29-30
      31. 2nd International Workshop on the Mathematics and Algorithms of Social Insects, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; 03/12/15-17
      32. Fractal 2004, "Complexity and Fractals in Nature", 8th Intl Multidisciplinary Conf , Vancouver, Canada, 04/04/04-07
      33. Fifth International Conference on Complex Systems (ICCS2004), Boston, MA, USA, 04/05/16-21

       


      1. Public Conference Calls Next Article Bookmark and Share

        1. PlexusCalls: "Surprise! Surprise!", McDaniel, Reuben, Audio File Available Now, mp3
        2. Complexity And Medical Practice, Pat Rush & Bob Lindberg, PlexusCalls, 03/01/10, Audio File Available Now, mp3
        3. John Holland in Conversation, PlexusCalls, - Audio File Available Now, mp3
        4. Are Disease and Aging Information/Complexity Loss Syndromes?, PlexusCalls, 02/11/08, 1 - 2 pm EST (To learn more about Ary Goldberger’s work and HeartSongs, Music of the Heart.) Audio File Available Now, mp3
        5. Brenda Zimmerman in Conversation, PlexusCalls, Audio File Available Now, mp3
        6. The Complexity of Entrepreneurship: A Launchcyte Story, Tom Petzinger, PlexusCalls, 02/11/22, Audio File Available Now, mp3
        7. A Practical and Appreciative Approach to Complex and Chronic Challenges, Keith McCandless, PlexusCalls, Jan 2003, Audio File Available Now, mp3

         


    4. ComDig Announcement: New ComDig Archive in Beta Test Bookmark and Share

      We are in the process of upgrading the Complexity Digest archives to a format with improved search capabilities. Also, we will finally be able to adequately publish the valuable feedback and comments from our knowledgable readers. You are cordially invited to become a beta tester of our new ComDig2 archive.


Also available in: Simple HTML format | TXT format | TXT format with links | Print