Complexity Digest 2008.39

26-Sept-2008

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Content

  1. The Blunders That Led To The Banking Crisis, New Scientist
    1. Network Approach May Be The Answer To Understanding Financial ‘Contagion', Innovations-report
  2. Distributed Robustness In Cellular Networks: Insights From Synthetic Evolved Circuits, Interface
  3. Technology Doesn't Dumb Us Down. It Frees Our Minds., NY Times
    1. Review: Lifestreaming Sites Can Organize Web Lives, PhysOrg.com
    2. Weaving a Web of Trust, Science
  4. Teaching Babies To Err, Science News
    1. Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits, Science
    2. This Is The Brain On Age, Science News
  5. The Holes In Our Genomes - Scanning DNA For Structural Changes Brings New Insight Into Disease., Technology Review
    1. Team Finds Genetic Link Between Immune And Nerve Systems, PhysOrg.com
  6. Microbiology: Desperately Seeking New Antibiotics, Science
  7. Cancer Data: Burying Bad News, Science News
    1. Cancer: Hedgehog's Other Great Trick, Nature
  8. Nanoparticles: Size And Charge Matter, Science News
  9. Programmed Cell Death Contributes Force To Movement Of Cells, ScienceDaily
  10. Building a Self-Assembling Stomach-Bot, Technology Review
  11. Ecology: Privatization Prevents Collapse Of Fish Stocks, Global Analysis Shows, Science
    1. Handle With Care, Nature
    2. Biologists Identify Genes Controlling Rhythmic Plant Growth, ScienceDaily
  12. Climate Change: Illuminating the Modern Dance of Climate and CO2, Science
    1. Climate Chaos, PhysicsWorld.com Blog
    2. Blocking the Sky to Save the Earth, NY Times
  13. New Magnetic Field Could Help Explain Earth's Magnetic-Field Flipping, PhysicsWorld.com
  14. Primordial Fish Had Rudimentary Fingers, PhysOrg.com
    1. Biological Theory: Postmodern Evolution?, Nature
  15. Reward-Predictive Cues Enhance Excitatory Synaptic Strength Onto Midbrain Dopamine Neurons, Science
  16. Dynamics Of Alliance Formation And The Egalitarian Revolution, arXiv
  17. The Revolution In Military Affairs: Its Driving Forces, Elements, And Complexity, Complexity
  18. Agents And Conflict: Adaptation And The Dynamics Of War, Complexity
  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
    1. Global Biosecurity In A Complex, Dynamic World, Complexity
  20. Links & Snippets
    1. Other Publications
    2. Webcast Announcements
    3. Conference Announcements
    4. Other Announcements

  1. The Blunders That Led To The Banking Crisis, New Scientist Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Banks pay enormous sums to lure researchers away from other areas of science and set them to work building complex statistical models that supposedly tell the bankers about the risks they are running. So why didn't they see what was coming? The answer lies partly in the nature of liquidity crises. "By definition they are rare, extreme events, so all the models you rely on in normal times don't work any more," (...)


    1. Network Approach May Be The Answer To Understanding Financial ‘Contagion', Innovations-report Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: University of Arkansas economists find that a network approach to the study of financial "contagion" - the transmission and impact of financial crises - may be applied to understand the current turmoil in the U.S. banking sector and the need for a system-wide response by the Fed. (...) Over the past decade, economists focusing on globalization and international trade have debated why financial crises (...) spread financial contagion, while other crises had less impact. Drawing on recent advances in the study of networks, Kali and Reyes developed a new method to better explain various countries' stock market performance in the wake of financial crises. (...)

  2. Distributed Robustness In Cellular Networks: Insights From Synthetic Evolved Circuits, Interface Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: Evolved natural systems are known to display some sort of distributed robustness against the loss of individual components. Such type of robustness is not just the result of redundancy. Instead, it seems to be based on degeneracy, i.e. the ability of elements that are structurally different to perform the same function or yield the same output. Here, we explore the problem of how relevant is degeneracy in a class of evolved digital systems formed by NAND gates, and what types of network structures underlie the resilience of evolved designs to the removal or loss of a given unit. (...)

  3. Technology Doesn't Dumb Us Down. It Frees Our Minds., NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Christophe Vorlet
    It is hard to think of a technology that wasn't feared when it was introduced. In his Atlantic article, Mr. Carr says that Socrates feared the impact that writing would have on man's ability to think. The advent of the printing press summoned similar fears. It wouldn't be the last time.

    When Hewlett-Packard invented the HP-35, the first hand-held scientific calculator, in 1972, the device was banned from some engineering classrooms. Professors feared that engineers would use it as a crutch, that they would no longer understand the relationships that either penciled calculations or a slide rule somehow provided for proficient scientific thought.

    1. Review: Lifestreaming Sites Can Organize Web Lives, PhysOrg.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts:
      In this screen shot provided by Swurl, the "Timeline" page of swurl.com co-creator Ryan Sit is shown. (AP Photo/Swurl.com)
      Lifestreaming sites like FriendFeed,Profilactic, and Swurl aggregate information on what you and your friends are doing on social media sites across the Internet. (...)

      If you're having trouble keeping yourself organized on the Web, a lifestreaming site may help. I definitely felt more connected by using Swurl and FriendFeed in particular.

      But I don't think they'll replace visiting sites one at a time. Posting and perusing the old fashioned way is much more varied and visually stimulating.


    2. Weaving a Web of Trust, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Increasingly, people are studying social and collaborative Web technologies for use in science. However, issues such as privacy, confidentiality, and trust arise around the use of these technologies. Science is crucially based on knowing provenance--who produced what, how and where--and on the Web, trusting scientific information is becoming more difficult for both scientists and the general public. User-generated content, even from professionals, can be opinionated (both informed and uninformed), inaccurate, and deceiving.

  4. Teaching Babies To Err, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Topal's group proposes that social signals from an experimenter repeatedly placing a toy under a cup allow 10-month-olds watching to make a practical inference, akin to ˇ§this kind of object is found under that cup.ˇ¨ Upon seeing the toy get hidden under another cup, a few seconds later the infant acts on his or her previous knowledge and reaches for the first cup, (...). This effect is called the "A-not-B error," since babies choose the A cup after the toy has been moved to the B cup.

    1. Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Although political views have been thought to arise largely from individuals' experiences, recent research suggests that they may have a biological basis. We present evidence that variations in political attitudes correlate with physiological traits. In a group of 46 adult participants with strong political beliefs, individuals with measurably lower physical sensitivities to sudden noises and threatening visual images were more likely to support foreign aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism, and gun control, whereas individuals displaying measurably higher physiological reactions to those same stimuli were more likely to favor defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism, and the Iraq War.

    2. This Is The Brain On Age, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The activity of genes in men's brains begins to change sooner than it does in women's brains, a new study shows. Men and women's brains age differently, a new study demonstrates. Researchers (...), find that the activity of genes in men's brains begins to change earlier than it does in women's brains. The types of genes that change with age also differ between the sexes. (...)

      Brain scientists expect changes in gene activity as the brain ages, and previous studies have demonstrated some changes in other parts of the brain.

  5. The Holes In Our Genomes - Scanning DNA For Structural Changes Brings New Insight Into Disease., Technology Review Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Hole-y DNA: Gene microarrays (shown above) designed to measure two different kinds of genetic variation--single-base changes and larger structural variations--are shedding new light on the genetic basis of complex disease.
    Credit: Broad Institute
    Over the past two years, scientists have made a surprising discovery about our DNA. Like a book with torn pages, duplicate chapters, or upside-down paragraphs, everyone's genome is riddled with large mistakes. These "copy number variations" can include deletions, duplications, and rearrangements of stretches of DNA ranging in size from one thousand to one million base pairs. New tools to screen for such mistakes, described this month in Nature Genetics, should generate a more complete picture of the genetic root of common diseases.

    1. Team Finds Genetic Link Between Immune And Nerve Systems, PhysOrg.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Duke University Medical Center researchers have discovered genetic links between the nervous system and the immune system in a well-studied worm, and the findings could illuminate new approaches to human therapies.

      For some time, researchers have theorized a direct link between the nervous and immune systems, such as stress messages that override the protective effects of antibodies, but the exact connection was unknown.

      "This is the first time that a genetic approach has been used to demonstrate that specific neurons in the nervous system are capable of regulating immune response in distant cells," (...).


  6. Microbiology: Desperately Seeking New Antibiotics, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The need for new antibiotics is undisputed (1). Recent studies estimate that more people die from the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacterium than from HIV in the United States (2), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 90,000 people die from hospital-acquired bacterial infections in the United States each year. Numerous reports have illustrated the "perfect storm" of rising bacterial resistance to antibiotics and an industry pipeline ill-equipped to address the need for new antibacterial drugs.

  7. Cancer Data: Burying Bad News, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: James H. Doroshow, director of the National Cancer Institute's division of treatment and diagnosis, notes that last year alone some 50,000 patients took part in trials that his institute funded. The "apparent lack of access to the final efficacy and toxicity data for cancer clinical trials from all sponsors, but especially for industry-sponsored studies, poses multiple scientific and ethical questions," he charges in an editorial accompanying the new paper.

    1. Cancer: Hedgehog's Other Great Trick, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: The poet Archilochus wrote "The fox has many tricks, and the hedgehog one great one". Yet a signalling-pathway namesake of hedgehog may have two great tricks that could be exploited for cancer therapy.

      Molecular signalling pathways that control the growth of cancer cells have been heralded as prime targets for the treatment of a broad spectrum of tumours. Of particular interest is the hedgehog pathway, which normally is involved in development but whose abnormal activity is thought to drive the proliferation of cancer cells.

  8. Nanoparticles: Size And Charge Matter, Science News Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: It's not so much what the tiny particles are made of, but how they interact with proteins in the blood, that can determine the particles' fates as couriers of specific treatments for diseaseBefore you trust a medical nanoparticle, you should know what kind of riffraff it hangs out with.

    Larger than a protein but much smaller than a bacterium, medical nanoparticles are tiny, synthetic vessels that scientists design to carry drugs, genes or other therapeutic compounds into the body. As these particles travel in the bloodstream, proteins that glom on can dramatically affect whether the particles will be healing or toxic.

  9. Programmed Cell Death Contributes Force To Movement Of Cells, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: In addition to pruning cells out of the way during embryonic development, the much-studied process of programmed cell death, or apoptosis, has been newly found to exert significant mechanical force on surrounding cells. This mechanical force may be harnessed throughout biology by tissues to aid wound formation, organ development (...) according to a Duke University team that melds biology with physics to investigate force at the cellular level. Cells are known to move in coordinated fashion during the closure of an eye-shaped opening on the back of a developing fruit fly embryo, a model system Duke biophysicists have been working on for nearly a decade. (...)

  10. Building a Self-Assembling Stomach-Bot, Technology Review Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts:
    Linked up: By using magnetic links between capsules, researchers hope to build a snake-like robot that can self-assemble inside a patient's stomach.
    Credit: ETH Zurich
    Modules that self-assemble inside the stomach could perform more-sophisticated diagnosis and treatment.

    The ultimate goal is for each capsule to perform a different task: one for imaging, one for power, one to take samples, and so on. Once inside the stomach, the capsules would link together, creating a snake-like device that could slide through the intestines, performing more-complex tasks than those performed by a single capsule or several free-floating ones.

  11. Ecology: Privatization Prevents Collapse Of Fish Stocks, Global Analysis Shows, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Two years ago, a team of researchers took a broad look at the world's commercial fisheries and predicted that excessive harvesting would cause them all to collapse by 2048. Now, three other scientists have taken an equally broad look at how fisheries are managed and come up with a more hopeful view.

    (...) stocks are much less likely to collapse if fishers own rights to fish them, called catch shares. If implemented worldwide, they say, this kind of market-based management could reverse a destructive global trend. (...)


    1. Handle With Care, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Ecologists must research how best to intervene in and preserve ecosystems. (...)

      In the future, as climate change takes hold, management may become even more radical. Some ecologists are beginning to talk about moving slowly dispersing plants and animals pole-wards or upslope to keep them in climates they can thrive in, or introducing non-native 'functional equivalents' in some ecosystems to play certain key roles.

      Such talk will undoubtedly raise hackles among those ecologists for whom intervention in natural ecosystems is anathema. Yet our species' all-pervasive impact on this planet has already doomed that hands-off approach to failure.


    2. Biologists Identify Genes Controlling Rhythmic Plant Growth, ScienceDaily Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: A team of biologists (...) has identified the genes that enable plants to undergo bursts of rhythmic growth at night and allow them to compete when their leaves are shaded by other plants. The researchers report (...) that these genes control the complex interplay of plant growth hormones, plant light sensors and circadian rhythms that permit plants to undergo rhythmic growth spurts at specific times of the day or year in response to varying levels of light and other environmental conditions. Their discovery (...) could eventually allow scientists to design crops that can grow substantially faster and produce more food than the most productive varieties today. (...)

  12. Climate Change: Illuminating the Modern Dance of Climate and CO2, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have been coupled through much of Earth's history: CO2 influences climate through the greenhouse effect, but climate also influences CO2 through its impact on the stores of carbon on the land and in the oceans. This two-way coupling between climate and CO2 will have a large influence on how the climate changes over the course of the 21st century. Currently, the amount of CO2 emitted as a result of human activities is about double the amount required to explain the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2.

    1. Climate Chaos, PhysicsWorld.com Blog Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: As an example, Smith quoted an article written in 1921: more CO2, it read, gives "warmer, wetter winters with increased (larger) storminess". Given that this is still the main point that underlies scientists' current thinking, he said, "why do we need models?"

      This, the audience at his talk realized, was only half a joke. Of course models are in principal integral to forecasting, but Smith wanted to point out that we cannot know whether proposed improvements to climate models - higher resolutions, accountability of cloud cover, etc - will actually guide us towards a better understanding of how climate works.

      • Source: Climate Chaos, Jon Cartwright, PhysicsWorld.com Blog, 08/09/24

    2. Blocking the Sky to Save the Earth, NY Times Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Systems with lots of uncertainty and inertia are notoriously hard to control: we can't effectively predict their future behavior, and we can't quickly correct behavior we don't like. By the time we find out that the climate dice have rolled against us, inertia could make conventional responses like carbon taxes and wind power inadequate. (...) We must hope for the best while laying plans to navigate the worst.

      Navigating the worst could involve what scientists call geo-engineering - the intentional modification of the earth's climate.

  13. New Magnetic Field Could Help Explain Earth's Magnetic-Field Flipping, PhysicsWorld.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Geophysicists in the US are proposing a new magnetic field generated in the Earth's core, the existence of which could help us understand why our planet's magnetic moment has flipped several times in the past.

    By measuring ancient field patterns frozen into the volcanic rocks of West Eifel in Germany and Tahiti in French Polynesia, Kenneth Hoffman of California Polytechnic University and Brad Singer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison have recorded the first data to suggest that the Earth's dipolar magnetic field is accompanied by a second magnetic field with a distinct origin in the Earth's core (Science 321 1800).


  14. Primordial Fish Had Rudimentary Fingers, PhysOrg.com Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Tetrapods, the first four-legged land animals, are regarded as the first organisms that had fingers and toes. Now researchers at Uppsala University can show that this is wrong. Using medical x-rays, they found rudiments of fingers in the fins in fossil Panderichthys, the "transitional animal," which indicates that rudimentary fingers developed considerably earlier than was previously thought.

    Our fish ancestors evolved into the first four-legged animals, tetrapods, 380 million years ago. They are the forerunners of all birds, mammals, crustaceans, and batrachians. Since limbs and their fingers are so important to evolution, researchers have long wondered whether they appeared for the first time in tetrapods, or whether they had evolved from elements that already existed in their fish ancestors.

    1. Biological Theory: Postmodern Evolution?, Nature Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Excerpts: Over dinner at the meeting's end, Pigliucci expresses his hope of "moving from a gene-centric view of causality in evolution to a pluralist, multilevel causality". Postmodernists in the humanities call this 'decentering', and they are all for it. Over the course of the meeting, it's fairly clear that the means to this pluralist end are being sought through mixing and matching neglected ideas and old problems from biology's past with the latest experimental and analytical techniques.

  15. Reward-Predictive Cues Enhance Excitatory Synaptic Strength Onto Midbrain Dopamine Neurons, Science Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: When a rat learns to associate a cue with a reward, dopamine-containing neurons in the midbrain acquire an enhanced response to that cue through the action of glutamate.

    Using sensory information for the prediction of future events is essential for survival. Midbrain dopamine neurons are activated by environmental cues that predict rewards, but the cellular mechanisms that underlie this phenomenon remain elusive. We used in vivo voltammetry and in vitro patch-clamp electrophysiology to show that both dopamine release to reward predictive cues and enhanced synaptic strength onto dopamine neurons develop over the course of cue-reward learning.

  16. Dynamics Of Alliance Formation And The Egalitarian Revolution, arXiv Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: Arguably the most influential force in human history is the formation of social coalitions and alliances (i.e., long-lasting coalitions) and their impact on individual power. In most great ape species, coalitions occur at individual and group levels and among both kin and non-kin. Nonetheless, ape societies remain essentially hierarchical, and coalitions rarely weaken social inequality. In contrast, human hunter-gatherers show a remarkable tendency to egalitarianism, and human coalitions and alliances occur not only among individuals and groups, but also among groups of groups.

  17. The Revolution In Military Affairs: Its Driving Forces, Elements, And Complexity, Complexity Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpts: The current concept of a revolution in military affairs (RMA) mainly characterizes the transformation of the US military to smaller, more lethal forces. It is driven by structural changes in the international system(...). This current revolution in American affairs has been a capital-intensive evolution, and while these innovations have lead to tactical victories over opposing forces on the battlefield, it is not yet clear that they have contributed to stability in the larger strategic context. (...) The Iraqi war demonstrates that the fog of war is not overcome, nor are wars fought with precision-guided munitions necessarily clean. (...)

  18. Agents And Conflict: Adaptation And The Dynamics Of War, Complexity Next Article Bookmark and Share

    Excerpt: Civil wars pose one of the most challenging threats to peace in the post-WWII era. The successful resolution of ongoing civil wars is particularly difficult. Parties opposing peace successfully subverted negotiated agreements in contexts as diverse as Rwanda, Northern Ireland, and Bosnia. (...) little formal-theoretic work addresses the dynamics of civil wars. Empirical work demonstrates that the resolution of civil wars is both complex and uncertain: civil war combatants are heterogeneous in their traits, incompletely informed, and thus, boundedly rational, capable of learning from history and adapting their behavior - all hallmarks of a complex adaptive system. (...)

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

    1. Global Biosecurity In A Complex, Dynamic World, Complexity Next Article Bookmark and Share

      Abstract: Biosecurity is emerging as a major global health priority for which innovative and unprecedented solutions are needed. Biosecurity is a challenging biocomplexity problem involving multifaceted processes such as interactions between humans and nonhuman biota, anthropogenic environmental and ecological factors, and socioeconomic and political pressures. Key to an effective biosecurity strategy will be fundamental understanding of evolutionary, anthropogenic and environmental driving forces at play in transmission and perpetuation of infectious diseases. Biosecurity solutions will depend on increased support of basic biomedical research and public education, enhanced healthcare preparedness, alternative strategies for ensuringsafety, and improved interagency cooperation regarding global health policy.

  20. Links & Snippets Next Article Bookmark and Share

    1. Other Publications Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. When In Doubt, Chimpanzees Rely On Estimates Of Past Reward Amounts, M. J. Beran, T. A. Evans, E. H. Harris, 2008/09/16, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1027
      2. Social Fishes And Single Mothers: Brain Evolution In African Cichlids, A. G.-Voyer, S. Winberg, N. Kolm, 2008/09/16, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0979
      3. Do New Caledonian Crows Solve Physical Problems Through Causal Reasoning?, A. H. Taylor, G. R. Hunt, F. S. Medina, R. D. Gray, 2008/09/16, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1107
      4. US Firms Cheating On Recycling Electronic Waste: GAO Report Discovers Companies Exploiting Loopholes, I. Thomson, 2008/09/19, vnunet.com
      5. Revealing The Regulating Mechanism Behind Signal Transduction In The Brain, 2008/09/19, Innovations-report
      6. Noble Fungi: Noble Metal Nanoparticles Deposit On The Mycelium Of Growing Fungi—An Approach To New Catalytic Systems?, 2008/09/19, Innovations-report
      7. Putting Pictures Into Words, 2008/09/20, ScienceDaily & ICT Results
      8. Face Blindness Research Shows Emotions Are Key In The Study Of Face Recognition, 2008/09/21, ScienceDaily & Public Library of Science
      9. Transactional Memory In A Dynamic Language, L. Renggli - renggliaiam.unibe.ch, O. Nierstrasz, Apr. 2009, online 2008/06/07, Computer Languages, Systems & Structures, DOI: 10.1016/j.cl.2008.06.001

    2. Webcast Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

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

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

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

    3. Conference Announcements Next Article Bookmark and Share

      1. EPOS 2008, III Edition of Epistemological Perspectives on Simulation, Lisbon, Portugal, 08/10/02-03
      2. 1st Intl Conf on the Evolution and Development of the Universe, Paris, France, 08/10/08-09
      3. Spatial Evolutionary Dynamics Workshop, Paris, France, 08/10/17
      4. OD Network Conference 2008 - Advancing The Theory And Practice Of OD, Austin, Texas, 08/10/19-22
      5. International Congress on Complex Thought, Hermosillo , Sonora , Mexico, 08/10/21-24
      6. What Is Computation? (How) Does Nature Compute? - 2008 Midwest NKS Conference, Bloomington, IN, 08/10/30-11/02
      7. 2nd Intl Congress of Complex Systems in Sport (2nd ICCSS) and 10th European Workshop of Ecological Psychology. (10th EWEP), Funchal, in Madeira Island, Portugal, 08/11/05-08
      8. 2008 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence (WI-08), Sydney, Australia, 08/12/09-12
      9. COMPLEX'2009, First Intl Conf on Complex Systems: Theory and Applications, Shanghai, China, 09/02/23-25
      10. Models and Simulations 3 Conference, Charlottesville, USA 09/03/05-07
      11. 2nd Conf on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI-09.org), Arlington, Virginia, 09/03/06-09
      12. 2009 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence, Nashville, Tennessee, USA,09/03/30-04/02
      13. 2nd Chaotic Modeling and Simulation International Conference (CHAOS2009), Chania, Crete, Greece, 09/06/01-05

    4. Other Announcements Bookmark and Share

      1. PhD Studentship in Unconventional Computing or Cellular Automata, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK, Deadline: 08/10/01
      2. A short notice from Dean LeBaron

        Dear ComDig Readers,

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

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

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

        Dean LeBaron
        Publisher, Complexity Digest

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