Complexity Digest 2008.09

28-Feb-2008

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Content

  1. Complex Systems: Ecology For Bankers, Nature
    1. Economics: Learning with Regret, Science
    2. Predicting Human Interactive Learning by Regret-Driven Neural Networks, Science
  2. Stock Exchange For 'Grid' Computing?, PhysOrg.com
  3. Does China Have Inflationary Effects On The USA And Japan?, China & World Econ.
  4. Probing Question: Is the Electoral College an outdated system?, Penn State Live
  5. SCImago Journal Rankings, SCImago Journal & Country Rank
    1. The New Networking Nexus, Nature
    2. An Indifference To Boundaries, Nature
  6. Making Memories: Insight Into How Learning Strengthens The Ties Between Neurons, Technology Review
    1. Study Identifies New Patterns Of Brain Activation Used In Forming Long-Term Memories, Eurekalert
  7. Pentagon Report Investigated Lasers That Put Voices In Your Head, PhysOrg.com
  8. How Human Intelligence Evolved--Is It Science Or 'Paleofantasy'?, Science
    1. Big Brains, Small Worlds: Material Culture And The Evolution Of The Mind, Phil. Tran. Biol. Sc.
  9. A Mathematical Formalism for Agent-based Modeling, arXiv
    1. Set-based Complexity and Biological Information, arXiv
    2. PC Beats Doctor In Scan Tests, BBC News
  10. Google Releases Health Service Details, AP
    1. Predicting Synthetic Rescues in Metabolic Networks, Molecular Systems Biology
  11. Spanish Researchers Develop Facial Expression Recognition Software, Innovations-report
    1. Social Cognition, Phil. Tran. Biol. Sc.
  12. Worldwide Human Relationships Inferred from Genome-Wide Patterns of Variation, Science
    1. Largest Yet Survey Of Human Genetic Diversity, Nature News
  13. Human Culture Subject To Natural Selection, Study Shows, ScienceDaily
    1. No Easy Answers In Evolution Of Human Language, ScienceDaily
  14. The Future of Universal Water
  15. Epidemiology: Emerging Diseases Go Global, Nature
    1. Cancer: A Skin Cancer Virus?, Science
    2. Triggers, Targets And Treatments For Thrombosis, Nature
  16. A Fundamental Avian Wing-Stroke Provides A New Perspective On The Evolution Of Flight, Nature
    1. Jelly Propulsion - Studies Of Medusan Motion Reveal Secrets Of The Earth's First Muscle-Powered Swimmers, Science News
    2. Birds Do It. Bees Do It. Dragons Don't Need To., NY Times
  17. Electron Stroboscope, Physical Review Focus
    1. Directed Self-Ordering Of Organic Molecules For Electronic Devices, Innovations-report
    2. Materials Science: The Gift Of Healing, Nature
  18. 'Exaflop' Supercomputer Planning Begins, InformationWeek
  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
    1. STOP Terrorism Software: Technology For Analysis And Forecasting Of Terrorism, Science Daily
    2. Getting Serious About 'Virtual' Terror, Threats Watch
  20. Links & Snippets
    1. Other Publications
    2. Webcast Announcements
    3. Conference Announcements
    4. Other Announcements

  1. Complex Systems: Ecology For Bankers, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: There is common ground in analysing financial systems and ecosystems, especially in the need to identify conditions that dispose a system to be knocked from seeming stability into another, less happy state.

    'Tipping points', 'thresholds and breakpoints', 'regime shifts' - all are terms that describe the flip of a complex dynamical system from one state to another. For banking and other financial institutions, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression epitomize such an event. These days, the increasingly complicated and globally interlinked financial markets are no less immune to such system-wide (systemic) threats. Who knows, for instance, how the present concern over sub-prime loans will pan out?

    1. Economics: Learning with Regret, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Choices in economic games are predicted better by models that look back at what might have been, instead of looking forward to maximum gain. (...)

      In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers in economic psychology such as Herbert Simon challenged the strong assumption made by economic theorists that individual decision-making is purely rational. (...)

      These developments present a second wave of challenge for economic theory: how to incorporate the essential elements of what psychology is revealing about the interaction among habits, emotions, and choices, while not sacrificing the parsimony and cumulation that are valuable hallmarks of economic theorizing.

    2. Predicting Human Interactive Learning by Regret-Driven Neural Networks, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: An unexpectedly simple neural network model that includes feedback driven by regret predicts human behavior in strategic games and outperforms existing models of learning. (...)

      We found that even very simple learning networks, driven by regret-based feedback, accurately predict observed human behavior in different experiments on 21 games with unique equilibria in mixed strategies. Introducing regret in the feedback dramatically improved the performance of the neural network. We show that regret-based models provide better predictions of learning than established economic models.

  2. Stock Exchange For 'Grid' Computing?, PhysOrg.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: You might soon be selling your spare computer power over the internet, or perhaps buying in extra resources to solve a tricky problem. In either case, network administration used to be a stumbling block - until European researchers developed a successful free-market approach to grid computing. (...)

    Current approaches to "grid computing" tend to be organised like an online auction, Eymann says, with everything routed through a central server. This works well for small or slow-moving markets, but soon bogs down when many thousands of traders need to negotiate deals on a timescale of minutes or seconds.


  3. Does China Have Inflationary Effects On The USA And Japan?, China & World Econ. Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: With China's share in global trade increasing rapidly, some argued in 2002-2003 that China was exporting deflation to other countries as it was dumping cheap goods in mature markets. Later, others argued that China was causing sharp increases in global prices. This paper uses several econometric techniques to assess the extent of the link between inflation rates between China and the USA and Japan. Only limited empirical evidence at the aggregate level is found for consumer price inflation in China leading to price changes in the USA and Japan. However, there is some evidence that inflation in the USA has an impact on Chinese inflation. (...)
    • Source: Does China Have Inflationary Effects On The USA And Japan?, N. T. Feyzioglu - tfeyziogluaimf.org, L. B. Willard - lukewillardahotmail.com, DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-124X.2008.00096.x, China & World Economy, Jan.–Feb. 2008, online 2008/02/13
    • Contributed by Pritha Das - prithadas01ayahoo.com

  4. Probing Question: Is the Electoral College an outdated system?, Penn State Live Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: In fact, two states -- Nebraska and Maine -- use an alternative system of allocating their electoral votes, called the Congressional District Method. Electoral College voters in these states are required by law to follow the popular vote within their district, rather than the statewide popular vote. Interestingly, neither Maine nor Nebraska has ever had to split its electoral votes, since statewide winners in a single party have consistently swept all of the states' districts during elections. But, according to Plutzer, it is a move in the right direction.


  5. SCImago Journal Rankings, SCImago Journal & Country Rank Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The Science Citation Index and associated Journal Citation Report (JCR) has long dominated the measurement of scholarly citation, but SCImago Journal and Country Rank, is a new alternative database of journal citation metrics developed by researchers in Spain.

    Unlike the JCR (which is available to subscribers only), SCImago is freely available online, and SCImago offers important improvements, compared to the JCR such as weighting citations from journals according to how highly cited the journal itself is. For further information please read the announcement on the BioMed Central blog.

    1. The New Networking Nexus, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: A crop of websites is making networking among scientists easier than ever. (...)

      The success of social-networking websites such as MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn shows the power of the Internet not only to cultivate, but to capitalize on, friendships. Although online networks may seem impersonal, they can do something for scientists that a handshake cannot: highlight common research interests without leaving the comfort of your desk. Say goodbye to name tags and awkward introductions - say hello to profiles and blogs. In the search for jobs, mentors, collaborators or data, these cyber-social mixers are revealing new ways to gain career advice, create collaborations and share resources.

    2. An Indifference To Boundaries, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Immunologists at Imperial College London have been tripping over a sticky problem: the structures of the molecules they are working on. The obvious go-to team is the institute's strong corps of structural biologists. But the immunologists are in the division for cellular and molecular biology, whereas the structural biologists are in the division of molecular bioscience. Splitting the funding - and the credit - causes turf wars. The solution? A department of life sciences that merges three biological divisions. "We decided we needed to break the incentive to be selfish," says ecologist Ian Owens, who heads the new interdisciplinary department.

  6. Making Memories: Insight Into How Learning Strengthens The Ties Between Neurons, Technology Review Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Follow the glow: By engineering mice to manufacture a fluorescently tagged glutamate receptor protein (shown in green) in active neurons, researchers could follow the protein's path as the mice learned to fear an electric shock. Neuronal cell bodies appear in blue. Credit: Mark Mayford and Naoki Matsuo, Scripps Research Institute
    "It's a first step in visualizing the synapses that encode memories," (...). "We really haven't had a tool like this to see memory encoding at a synaptic level.(...)". "We are developing techniques that allow us to focus on the actual physical sites that are changing in the brain with learning, at finer and finer resolution," (...).

    Neuroscientists believe that in order for a memory to form, individual synaptic connections must be strengthened in response to a memory-generating stimulus. This strengthening is likely the result of a specific set of proteins migrating to synapses in a precisely choreographed pattern, but it remains a mystery which proteins are involved and how they are targeted to their destinations.

    1. Study Identifies New Patterns Of Brain Activation Used In Forming Long-Term Memories, Eurekalert Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The study, (...), also offered an innovative and more comprehensive method for gauging memories. It asked subjects to recall the content of a television sit-com, which more accurately simulated real-life experiences because it required retrieving material that occurs in more complex settings than typically exist in a laboratory environment. (...)

      As the study's subjects watched the episode, the researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the subject's brain function. Three weeks after the video was viewed, the study's subjects returned to answer a series of questions about its content. The researchers then used the memory performance of subjects to analyze their brain activity during movie viewing.

  7. Pentagon Report Investigated Lasers That Put Voices In Your Head, PhysOrg.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: A recently unclassified report from the Pentagon from 1998 has revealed an investigation into using laser beams for a few intriguing potential methods of non-lethal torture. Some of the applications the report investigated include putting voices in people's heads, using lasers to trigger uncontrolled neuron firing, and slowly heating the human body to a point of feverish confusion - all from hundreds of meters away. (...)

    The report explained several types of non-lethal laser applications, including microwave hearing, disrupted neural control, and microwave heating.

  8. How Human Intelligence Evolved--Is It Science Or 'Paleofantasy'?, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: (...) scientists know next to nothing about how humans got so smart. "We are missing the fossil record of human cognition," Lewontin said at the meeting. "So we make up stories." Not so, responded other human evolution experts on the interdisciplinary panel. "Thanks to continuing research in comparative psychology, genetics, neuroimaging, and paleoanthropology, we know plenty about the evolution of human cognition," (...). In rebuttal to Lewontin's complaints about a meager fossil record and the dangers of inferring cognitive capacity from indicators such as skull size, they cited research that they say provides important--if indirect--insights into uniquely human mental capacities.


    1. Big Brains, Small Worlds: Material Culture And The Evolution Of The Mind, Phil. Tran. Biol. Sc. Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: New developments in neuroimaging have demonstrated that the basic capacities underpinning human social skills are shared by our closest extant primate relatives. The challenge for archaeologists is to explain how complex human societies evolved from this shared pattern of face-to-face social interaction. We argue that a key process was the gradual incorporation of material culture into social networks over the course of hominin evolution. Here we use three long-term processes in hominin evolution-encephalization, the global human diaspora and sedentism/agriculture-to illustrate how the cultural transmission of material culture allowed the ‘scaling up' of face-to-face social interactions to the global societies known today. (...)

  9. A Mathematical Formalism for Agent-based Modeling, arXiv Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: Many complex systems can be modeled as multiagent systems in which the constituent entities (agents) interact with each other. The global dynamics of such a system is determined by the nature of the local interactions among the agents. Since it is difficult to formally analyze complex multiagent systems, they are often studied through computer simulations. While computer simulations can be very useful, results obtained through simulations do not formally validate the observed behavior. (...) The paper contains a sampling of the mathematical results from the literature to show how finite dynamical systems can be used to carry out a rigorous study of the properties of multiagent systems (...).

    1. Set-based Complexity and Biological Information, arXiv Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Abstract: It is not obvious what fraction of all the potential information residing in the molecules and structures of living systems is significant or meaningful to the system. Sets of random sequences or identically repeated sequences, for example, would be expected to contribute little or no useful information to a cell. This issue of quantitation of information is important since the ebb and flow of biologically significant information is essential to our quantitative understanding of biological function and evolution. Motivated specifically by these problems of biological information, we propose here a class of measures to quantify the contextual nature of the information in sets of objects, based on Kolmogorov's intrinsic complexity. Such measures discount both random and redundant information and are inherent in that they do not require a defined state space to quantify the information. The maximization of this new measure, which can be formulated in terms of the universal information distance, appears to have several useful and interesting properties, some of which we illustrate with examples.

    2. PC Beats Doctor In Scan Tests, BBC News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      Blue areas show volume loss picked up by computer
      A computer does better than a doctor at diagnosing certain brain diseases, research has suggested. Experts taught a standard computer how to diagnose Alzheimer's from brain scans, and got a 96% success rate. The accuracy of diagnosis from standard scans, blood tests and interviews carried out by a clinician is 85%. (...)

      The method involves teaching a standard computer the difference between brain scans from patients with proven Alzheimer's disease and people with no signs of the disease at all.

      The two conditions can be distinguished with a high degree of accuracy on a single clinical MRI scan without the need for time consuming follow-up tests, say the scientists.

  10. Google Releases Health Service Details, AP Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: (...) service as helping doctors and the increasing numbers of patients who use the Internet for their own medical research. He said surveys show more people trust what they find online than what they hear from physicians, and the service will give people control over their own health. For example, they will be able to store X-rays taken at any number of facilities all on one online account, accessible from any computer. (...)


    1. Predicting Synthetic Rescues in Metabolic Networks, Molecular Systems Biology Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: An important goal of medical research is to develop methods to recover the loss of cellular function due to mutations and other defects. Many approaches based on gene therapy aim to repair the defective gene or to insert genes with compensatory function. Here, we propose an alternative, network-based strategy that aims to restore biological function by forcing the cell to either bypass the functions affected by the defective gene, or to compensate for the lost function. (...) We show that several of these mutants can be turned into viable organisms through additional gene deletions that restore their growth rate. In a rather counterintuitive fashion, this is achieved via additional damage to the metabolic network. (...) The systematic network-based identification of compensatory rescue effects may open new avenues for genetic interventions.

  11. Spanish Researchers Develop Facial Expression Recognition Software, Innovations-report Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Researchers (...) developed an algorithm that is capable of processing 30 images per second to recognize a person's facial expressions in real time and categorize them as one of six prototype expressions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. Applying the facial expression recognition algorithm, the developed prototype is capable of processing a sequence of frontal images of moving faces and recognizing the person's facial expression. The software can be applied to video sequences in realistic situations and can identify the facial expression of a person seated in front of a computer screen. (...)

    1. Social Cognition, Phil. Tran. Biol. Sc. Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpt: Social cognition concerns the various psychological processes that enable individuals to take advantage of being part of a social group. Of major importance to social cognition are the various social signals that enable us to learn about the world. Such signals include facial expressions, such as fear and disgust, which warn us of danger, and eye gaze direction, which indicate where interesting things can be found. Such signals are particularly important in infant development. Social referencing, for example, refers to the phenomenon in which infants refer to their mothers' facial expressions to determine whether or not to approach a novel object. (...)
      • Source: Review. Social Cognition, C. D. Frith, DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0005, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, 2008/02/21
      • Contributed by Atin Das - dasatinayahoo.co.in

  12. Worldwide Human Relationships Inferred from Genome-Wide Patterns of Variation, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Analysis of variation in 51 human populations reveals details of European subpopulations and confirms that humans formed a chain of colonies as they radiated out from Africa. (...)

    The relationship between haplotype heterozygosity and geography was consistent with the hypothesis of a serial founder effect with a single origin in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, we observed a pattern of ancestral allele frequency distributions that reflects variation in population dynamics among geographic regions. This data set allows the most comprehensive characterization to date of human genetic variation.

    1. Largest Yet Survey Of Human Genetic Diversity, Nature News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: DNA analyses highlight human differences ˇX and similarities.(...)

      Their analyses provide more evidence to support existing ideas, including the concepts that populations lost genetic variation as they migrated farther from Africa (...), and that it's possible to trace an individual's geographic heritage through their DNA. They also turned up some new findings: the team reporting in Nature found for the first time that copy number variants differ between human populations similarly to SNPs.

      ˇ§It's like looking back at the earth with a telescope a thousand times more powerful than what you had before,ˇ¨

  13. Human Culture Subject To Natural Selection, Study Shows, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: The process of natural selection can act on human culture as well as on genes, a new study finds. Scientists at Stanford University have shown for the first time that cultural traits affecting survival and reproduction evolve at a different rate than other cultural attributes. Speeded or slowed rates of evolution typically indicate the action of natural selection in analyses of the human genome. This study of cultural evolution compares the rates of change for structural and decorative Polynesian canoe-design traits. (...)

    1. No Easy Answers In Evolution Of Human Language, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The evolution of human speech was far more complex than is implied by some recent attempts to link it to a specific gene, says (...). (...) Some researchers in recent years have speculated that mutations in a gene called Foxp2 might have played a fundamental role in the evolution of human language. (...) some mutations to that gene produce specific impairments to language use, and because our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, lack both these gene mutations and the capacity for language. But the claim that the gene mutation is directly connected to the development of language is very unlikely to be right, (...).

  14. The Future of Universal Water Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Multiple challengesˇXfrom growing populations to economic development to climate changeˇXwill result in increasing pressure on water supplies in many regions, even in World 1 countries. Ultimately, public attitudes about water may prove to be the largest challenge in implementing new technologies. (...)

    Nanowater: High-tech filtering. Nanoparticles, nano-tubes, and other nanomaterials may substantially increase the efficiency of the water desalination and purification processes, and may offer methods for removing new contaminants that are constantly being introduced into the environment.

  15. Epidemiology: Emerging Diseases Go Global, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Novel human infections continue to appear all over the world, but the risk is higher in some regions than others. Identification of emerging-disease 'hotspots' will help target surveillance work.

    1. Cancer: A Skin Cancer Virus?, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Is there a virus that causes Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare but aggressive skin cancer? Maybe. On page 1096 in this issue, Feng et al. (1) describe Merkel cell polyomavirus, a new human virus that is associated with a particular neuroectodermal skin cancer that occurs primarily in elderly immunosuppressed individuals. It may be the first example of a human cancer caused by a polyomavirus, a viral family whose association to other cancers has been controversial.

    2. Triggers, Targets And Treatments For Thrombosis, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Thrombosis ˇX localized clotting of the blood ˇX can occur in the arterial or the venous circulation and has a major medical impact. Acute arterial thrombosis is the proximal cause of most cases of myocardial infarction (heart attack) and of about 80% of strokes, collectively the most common cause of death in the developed world. Venous thromboembolism is the third leading cause of cardiovascular-associated death. The pathogenic changes that occur in the blood vessel wall and in the blood itself resulting in thrombosis are not fully understood. Understanding these processes is crucial for developing safer and more effective antithrombotic drugs.


  16. A Fundamental Avian Wing-Stroke Provides A New Perspective On The Evolution Of Flight, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The evolution of avian flight remains one of biology's major controversies, with a long history of functional interpretations of fossil forms given as evidence for either an arboreal or cursorial origin of flight. Despite repeated emphasis on the 'wing-stroke' as a necessary avenue of investigation for addressing the evolution of flight, no empirical data exist on wing-stroke dynamics in an experimental evolutionary context. Here we present the first comparison of wing-stroke kinematics of the primary locomotor modes (descending flight and incline flap-running) that lead to level-flapping flight in juvenile ground birds throughout development.

    1. Jelly Propulsion - Studies Of Medusan Motion Reveal Secrets Of The Earth's First Muscle-Powered Swimmers, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      CONTRAST IN CADENCE. A jellyfish with a broader bell, left, propels itself by creating two opposing vortices of water-the first results from a jet thrust, the second forms after the jelly relaxes in a paddlelike stroke. Rocket-shaped jellies, right, use a purely jet-pack approach. R. Rogge
      "We think of them as blobs on the beach that don't have the capabilities of complex swimmers," Dabiri says. In fact, the signature move of the broader jellies, the jet-paddle, is sophisticated enough to inspire Dabiri to rethink the constraints faced by underwater vehicles. (...)

      It's likely that the first free-floating jellies were the only swimmers in the ancient seas, says Collins. (...)

      When Dabiri's team plotted swimming strategies onto the tree, it appeared that both swimming styles have been invented again and again in jellyfish evolution. But Collins cautions that jellyfish are understudied beasts. Without surveying all of the species in every group it is difficult to say if jets or paddles emerged first.

    2. Birds Do It. Bees Do It. Dragons Don't Need To., NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Komodos - like many fish, amphibians and reptiles - have lots of reproductive tricks. For example, females can store sperm for a long time, tiding them over when conditions may be poor for reproduction. It's possible that the Wichita dragon eggs could have been fertilized by the sperm from a male that was on site a long time ago. But DNA analysis of the "miracle embryos" from Britain showed that every bit of their DNA came from the females, and nobody should be surprised if this is also true of the Kansas dragons.

      Virgin birth, known to biologists as parthenogenesis (from the Greek, "parthen" meaning "virgin", "maiden".

  17. Electron Stroboscope, Physical Review Focus Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Photos.comIn a flash. To capture an unblurred image of a hummingbird, you can flash a strobe light at the same frequency as its fluttering wings. A similar "stroboscope" method uses sub-femtosecond light pulses synchronized with an oscillating laser field to repeatedly ionize electrons at the same moment in the laser's cycle and get clean images.
    (...) precisely timed trains of ultrashort light pulses to cleanly image electron motion. The pulses in the train were just three hundred attoseconds (10-18 seconds) long. The researchers synchronized the pulse train with the oscillations of a relatively weak infrared laser, so that their cloud of helium atoms received a strong, ionizing "kick" at a precise time during each laser cycle. Each attosecond pulse released a few electrons, some of which were thrown back against their atoms before being pushed sideways and detected.

    Accumulating data from many ionization events, the team created clean images of the quantum state of electrons ionized at a single moment in the laser oscillation cycle. The images are the first of their kind that show such controlled electron-atom scattering.

    1. Directed Self-Ordering Of Organic Molecules For Electronic Devices, Innovations-report Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: A simple surface treatment technique (...) potentially offers a low-cost way to mass produce large arrays of organic electronic transistors on polymer sheets for a wide range of applications including flexible displays, "intelligent paper" and flexible sheets of biosensor arrays for field diagnostics. In a paper (...) the team describes how a chemical pretreatment of electrical contacts can induce self-assembly of molecular crystals to both improve the performance of organic semiconductor devices and provide electrical isolation between devices. Organic electronic devices are inching towards the market. (...)

    2. Materials Science: The Gift Of Healing, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Synthesis of a rubber-like material that can be recycled might not seem exciting. But one that can also repeatedly repair itself at room temperature, without adhesives, really stretches the imagination.

  18. 'Exaflop' Supercomputer Planning Begins, InformationWeek Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: (...) expect to have need for exaflop computing around 2018. The anticipated applications, he said, include large-scale prediction, such as global climate change predictions, materials science analysis, fusion research, and national security problems that he could not discuss. (...)

    "An exaflop supercomputer might need 100 megawatts of power, which is a significant portion of a power plant," said Dosanjh. "We need to do some research to get that down. Otherwise no one will be able to power one."


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

    1. STOP Terrorism Software: Technology For Analysis And Forecasting Of Terrorism, Science Daily Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Researchers at the University of Maryland's Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) have developed the SOMA Terror Organization Portal (STOP) allowing analysts to query automatically learned rules on terrorist organization behavior, forecast potential behavior based on these rules, and, most importantly, to network with other analysts examining the same subjects.

      SOMA (Stochastic Opponent Modeling Agents) is a formal, logical-statistical reasoning framework that uses data about past behavior of terror groups in order to learn rules about the probability of an organization, community, or person taking certain actions in different situations.

    2. Getting Serious About 'Virtual' Terror, Threats Watch Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Virtual worlds like Second Life (SL) are extensions of the online mechanisms used by Jihadists today. Email is great unless you're in a terror cell in a country with a strong anti-terrorism stance. You know its use is dangerous because email is easy to monitor. Save for a token presence by some real-world police forces, there are no indications that local or international forces are even capable of doing the same to SL. If you don't want to be seen or heard by your adversaries, you go to where they're not looking or listening: Tradecraft 101.

  20. Links & Snippets Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Other Publications Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. Nested Subgraphs of Complex Networks, Bernat Corominas-Murtra, José F. F. Mendes, and Ricard V. Solé, SFI Working Papers, DOI: SFI-WP 07-12-050
      2. Evolutionary Biology: Bridge Over Troublesome Plastids, Patrick J. Keeling, Nature.Identification of a direct link between apicomplexan parasites and their algal ancestors is a development full of promise. It illuminates a dark corner in the evolution of photosynthesis, and further insights are to come.
      3. Proportionally More Deleterious Genetic Variation In European Than In African Populations, Kirk E. Lohmueller, Amit R. Indap, Steffen Schmidt, Adam R. Boyko, Ryan D. Hernandez, Melissa J. Hubisz, John J. Sninsky, Thomas J. White, Shamil R. Sunyaev, Rasmus Nielsen, Andrew G. Clark, Carlos D. Bustamante,, 08/02/21, Nature 451, 994-997, DOI: 10.1038/nature06611
      4. A Photon Turnstile Dynamically Regulated by One Atom, Barak Dayan, A. S. Parkins, Takao Aoki, E. P. Ostby, K. J. Vahala, H. J. Kimble, 08/02/22, Science: 1062-1065. A single atom interacting with an optical microresonator can convert an influx of photons into a regular output of single photons.
      5. Spine-Type-Specific Recruitment of Newly Synthesized AMPA Receptors with Learning, Naoki Matsuo, Leon Reijmers, Mark Mayford, 08/02/22, Science : 1104-1107. Mushroom-shaped synaptic spines activated during learning preferentially capture newly synthesized glutamate receptors, which may contribute to memory storage.
      6. Rapid Neural Coding in the Retina with Relative Spike Latencies, Tim Gollisch, Markus Meister, 08/02/22, Science : 1108-1111. In salamanders, ganglion cells, which project from the retina to the brain, use the relative timing of single spikes in each cell to quickly encode a visual scene.
      7. Poll Finds a Fluid Religious Life in U.S., Neela Banerjee, 08/02/26, NYTimes, More than a quarter of adult Americans have left their childhood faith for another religion or no religion.
      8. A Statistical Mechanical Interpretation of Algorithmic Information, Kohtaro Tadaki, 2008/01/28, arXiv, DOI: 0801.4194
      9. The Network and the Synapse: 100 Years After Cajal, Ashesh Dhawale and Upinder S. Bhalla, 2008/02, HFSP Journal 2(1):12-16, DOI: 10.2976/1.2835214
      10. Should Hunting Mortality Mimic The Patterns Of Natural Mortality?, R. Bischof, A. Mysterud, J. E. Swenson, 2008/02/21, Biological Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0027
      11. Why Religion Is Nothing Special But Is Central, M. Bloch, 2008/02/21, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0007
      12. Disposable Credit Card Numbers, 2008/02/22, Innovations-report
      13. Children Show Goal-oriented Behavior By Age Three, 2008/02/22, ScienceDaily & American Psychological Association
      14. Yahoo Chief Lobbies Rice On Chinese Dissidents: Jerry Yang Calls For Pressure On China, S. Nichols, 2008/02/25, vnunet.com
      15. Snakes Locate Prey Through Vibration Waves, 2008/02/25, ScienceDaily & Technical University Munich
      16. What Connection Topology Prohibit Chaos In Continuous Time Networks?, X.-S. Yang - yangxsacqupt.edu.cn, Q. Yuan, L. Wang, Dec. 2007, Advances in Complex Systems, DOI: 10.1142/S021952590700129X
      17. Following The Flag: Troop Deployment And U.S. Foreign Direct Investment, G. Biglaiser, Dec. 2007, online 2007/11/27, International Studies Quarterly, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2478.2007.00479.x
      18. Globalization From Below: Free Software And Alternatives To Neoliberalism, S. Schoonmaker, Nov. 2007, online 2007/11/13, Development and Change, DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7660.2007.00444.x

    2. Webcast Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. 7th Intl Conf on Complex Systems (ICCS), Boston, MA, 07/10/28-11/02
      2. Reseau Nationale des Systemes Complexes , (in French), 2007
      3. World Economic Forum , Davos, Switzerland, 08/01/22-27
      4. TED Talks, TED Conferences LLC , since 2006
      5. Talking Robots: The PodCast on Robotics and AI, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland, 06/11/03
      6. Potentials of Complexity Science for Business, Governments, and the Media 2006, Budapest, Hungary, 06/08/03-05
      7. 6th Intl Conf on Complex Systems (ICCS), Boston, MA, 06/06/25-30
      8. Artificial Life X, 10th Intl Conf on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, Bloomington, IN, USA. 2006/06/03-07
      9. 6th Understanding Complex Systems Symposium, Urbana-Champaign, Il, 06/05/15-18
      10. Ralph Abraham on Complexity Digest, , Calcutta, India, 05/12/27
      11. An Afternoon with Michael Crichton, Washington, 05/11/06
      12. Illuminating the Shadow of the Future, Ann Arbor, Mi 05/09/23-25
      13. Open Network of Centres of Excellence in Complex Systems - Brainstorming Meeting, Paris, France 05/09/19-23
      14. Complexity, Science & Society Conference 2005, U. Liverpool, UK 2005/09/11-14
      15. ECAL 2005 - VIIIth European Conference on Artificial Life, Canterbury, Kent, UK 2005/09/5-9
      16. T. Irene Sanders, Executive Director and Founder, The Washington Center for Complexity & Public Policy, 05/08/27, QuickTime video (10:38 min), Podcast
      17. North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity 2005 Conference, Virtual Conference Network, St. Pete's Beach, Florida, 05/06/09-11
      18. Understanding Complex Systems - Computational Complexity and Bioinformatics, Virtual Conference Network, Urbana-Champaign, Il, UIUC, 05/05/16-19
      19. Nonlinearity, Fluctuations, and Complexity, with a celebration of the 65th birthday of Gregoire Nicolis. , Complexity Session, Universite' Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, 05/03/16
      20. 1st European Conference on Complex Systems, Torino, Italy, 04/12/5-7
      21. From Autopoiesis to Neurophenomenology: A Tribute to Francisco Varela (1946-2001), Paris, France, 2004/06/18-20
      22. Evolutionary Epistemology, Language, and Culture, Brussels, Belgium, 04/05/26-28
      23. International Conference on Complex Systems 2004, Boston, 04/05/16-21
      24. Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: Lab Demonstrations, Strogatz, Steven H., Internet-First University Press, 1994
      25. CERN Webcast Service, Streamed videos of Archived Lectures and Live Events
      26. Dean LeBaron's Archive of Daily Video Commentary, Ongoing Since February 1998
      27. Edge Videos

    3. Conference Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. The 1st Conf on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI-08), Memphis, Tennessee, USA, 08/03/01-03
      2. The 3rd Intl Nonlinear Sciences Conference (INSC), Tokyo, Japan, 08/03/13-15
      3. 19th European Meeting On Cybernetics And Systems Research, (EMCSR 2008), Vienna, Austria, 08/03/25-28
      4. 2nd KES Intl Symp on Agent and Multi-Agent Systems : Technologies and Applications, Incheon, Korea, 08/03/26-28
      5. Nexus for Change II, Bowling Green, OH, 08/03/29-04/01
      6. 2nd Applied Neuroscience Meeting, Monterrey, Mexico, 08/04/03-06
      7. Fumee 1 - 1St Futures Meeting - Understanding Anticipatory Systems, Rovereto (Italy), 08/04/10-12
      8. 1st Intl Conf on Social Entrepreneurship & Complexity, Garden City, NY, USA, 08/04/10-12
      9. Emergence In The Physical And Biological World: A Notion In Search Of Clarification, Erice (Italy), 08/04/12-16
      10. BIO_IT World Conf & Expo, Boston, MA, 08/04/28/30
      11. CHAOS2008 Chaotic Modeling and Simulation International Conference, Chania, Crete, Greece, 08/06/03-06
      12. International Conference on Chaos, Complexity & Conflict, Omaha, NE, 08/06/05-07
      13. 4th Organization Studies Summer Workshop: "Embracing Complexity: Advancing Ecological Understanding in Organization Studies", Pissouri, Cyprus, 08/06/05-07
      14. Cambridge Healthtech Institute's Tenth Annual... Applying Systems Biology, San Francisco, CA, 08/06/09-11
      15. 9th Intl Mathematica Symposium, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 08/06/20-24
      16. The 14th Intl Conf on Auditory Display (ICAD), Paris, France, 08/06/24-27
      17. 7th Intl Summer School and Conf "Let's Face Chaos through Nonlinear Dynamics", Maribor, Slovenia, 08/06/29-07/13
      18. The 12th World Multi-Conf on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics: WMSCI 2008, Orlando, Florida, USA, 08/06/29-07/02
      19. From Animals To Animats 10 - The 10th Intl Conf on the Simulation Of Adaptive Behavior (SAB'08), Osaka, Japan, 08/07/07-12
      20. Complex Systems and Social Simulations, CEU Summer University, Budapest, Hungary, 08/07/07-18
      21. 2008 Gordon Research Conf on Oscillations & Dynamic Instabilities in Chemical Systems, Waterville, ME, 08/07/13-18
      22. Stochastic Resonance 2008, Perugia, Italy, 08/08/17-21
      23. 1st Intl Workshop on Nonlinear Dynamics and Synchronization (INDS'08), Klagenfurt, Austria, 08/07/18-19
      24. Scratch@MIT,Cambridge, MA, 08/07/24-26
      25. 8th Intl Conf on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems, Brighton, UK, 08/07/31-08/02
      26. Intl Conf DEscribing COmplex Systems (DECOS), Zadar, Croatia, 08/09/03-07

    4. Other Announcements Bookmark and Share

      1. A short notice from Dean LeBaron

        Dear ComDig Readers,

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

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

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

        Dean LeBaron
        Publisher, Complexity Digest

        Bank Information:

        If your contribution is made by check:
        Please mail the check, payable to "Gottfried Mayer", to:
        Manufacturers & Traders Trust
        2080 Western Avenue
        20 Mall
        Guilderland, NY 12084 USA
        (on the back of the check, please write: "For Deposit Only: Account # 983 338 3814")

        If your contribution is made by wire:
        Manufacturers & Traders Trust
        2080 Western Avenue
        20 Mall

        Guilderland, NY 12084 USA
        SWIFT Code# MANTUS33
        UID: 209 791
        ABA routing # 022 00 00 46 [for US wire transfers]
        Account # 983 338 3814
        Ref. Gottfried Mayer


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