Complexity Digest 2005.51 Archive: http://comdig.unam.mx "I think the next century will be the century of complexity." Stephen Hawking, 2000 _________________________________________________________________ 01. Internet Encyclopaedias Go Head To Head, Nature 01.01. Wikipedia Survives Research Test, BBC News 02. At Stake: The Net As We Know It, Business Week 03. Busted! A Crisis In Cryptography, New Scientist 04. Surface Story - Inspired By Spiral Soap Films, Mathematicians Zero In On A Novel, Economical, And Infinite Helix, Science News 05. Three Technology Companies Join To Finance Research, NY Times 05.01. White Biotechnology: Differences In US And EU Approaches?, Trends in Biotech. 06. The Turkey Test - Neural Network Sorts The Blockbusters From The Flops, New Scientist 07. Space 'Spiders' Could Build Solar Satellites, New Scientist 08. An Asymmetric World, Nature 08.01. Fluid Dynamics: Drat Such Custard!, Nature 08.02. Chaos And Threshold For Irreversibility In Sheared Suspensions, Nature 09. Brain Training Puts Big Hurt On Intense Pain: Volunteers Learn To Translate Imaging Data Into Neural-Control Tool, Science News 09.01. How Brainpower Can Help You Cheat Old Age, New Scientist 10. Fantastic Voyage Into The Heart Delivers A Protector Against Heart Failure, Journal of Clinical Investigation 11. Developmental Biology: A Message To The Back Side, Nature 11.01. How E. Coli Bacterium Generates Simplicity From Complexity, ScienceDaily 12. Context-Dependent Vocal Mimicry In A Passerine Bird, Proc. Biol. Sc. 12.01. Cognitive Ornithology: The Evolution Of Avian Intelligence, Phil. Tran. Biol. Sc. 13. First Images Of Baby Squid Care, BBC News 14. Civilisation Has Left Its Mark On Our Genes, New Scientist 14.01. Transport On Fractal River Networks: Application To Migration Fronts, Theor. Population Biol. 15. Complexity, System Integration, And Susceptibility To Change: Biodiversity Connection, Ecol. Complexity 16. Hawaii's Coral Trees Feel The Sting Of Foreign Wasps, Science 17. Judge Rules Against 'Intelligent Design' In Class, New Scientist 18. Natural Disasters: The Chaos To Come, Nature 19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Network 19.01. Us, Israel Strengthening Hamas - Latin Patriarch, Reuters 19.02. Editorial: Going Too Far, Washington Post 19.03. Revolt Of The Professionals, Washington Post 20. Links & Snippets 20.01. Other Publications 20.02. Webcast Announcements 20.03. Conference Announcements 20.04. Call for Papers - Book Announcements _________________________________________________________________ 01. Internet Encyclopaedias Go Head To Head , Nature Excerpts: Jimmy Wales' Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries, a Nature investigation finds.One of the extraordinary stories of the Internet age is that of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. This radical and rapidly growing publication, which includes close to 4 million entries, is now a much-used resource. But it is also controversial: if anyone can edit entries, how do users know if Wikipedia is as accurate as established sources such as Encyclopaedia Britannica? * [1] Internet Encyclopaedias Go Head To Head, Jim Giles, 05/12/15, DOI: 10.1038/438900a, Nature 438, 900-901 [1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html _________________________________________________________________ 01.01. Wikipedia Survives Research Test , BBC News Excerpts: The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows. The British journal Nature examined a range of scientific entries on both works of reference and found few differences in accuracy. * [2] Wikipedia Survives Research Test, 05/12/15, BBC News [2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm _________________________________________________________________ 02. At Stake: The Net As We Know It , Business Week Excerpts: Google et al fear broadband carriers will tie up traffic with new tolls and controls. Ultimately, it could mean a world of Internet haves and have-nots The Internet has always been a model of freedom. Today the Web is flourishing because anyone can click to any site or download any service they want on an open network. But now the phone and cable companies that operate broadband networks have a different vision. If they get their way, today's Information Highway could be laden with tollgates, express lanes, and traffic tie-ups -- all designed to make money for the network companies. * [3] At Stake: The Net As We Know It, Catherine Yang, 05/12/15, Business Week [3] http://www.businessweek.com/print/technology/content/dec2005/tc20051215_141991.htm _________________________________________________________________ 03. Busted! A Crisis In Cryptography , New Scientist Excerpts: "LAST year, I walked away saying thank God she didn't get a break in SHA-1," says William Burr. "Well, now she has." (...). Last year Wang, (...), stunned the cryptographic community by breaking a widely used computer security formula called MD5. This year, to Burr's dismay, she went further. Much further. (...)SHA-1 is pretty much the pinnacle of computer security, an algorithm invented and endorsed by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and used in a huge range of security applications. But not for much longer, it seems. * [4] Busted! A Crisis In Cryptography, Celeste Biever, 05/12/17, New Scientist [4] http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/mg18825301.600.html _________________________________________________________________ 04. Surface Story - Inspired By Spiral Soap Films, Mathematicians Zero In On A Novel, Economical, And Infinite Helix , Science News Excerpts: INFINITE TOWER. The central portion of this towering minimal surface features an infinite number of holes, one at each level. D. Hoffman and J. Hoffman, MSRI (...) a helicoid with an infinite number of handles¡Xa hole at each level of an infinite tower¡Xexists and doesn't intersect itself. Weber and Wolf later developed a new way of thinking about minimal surfaces that enabled Weber to provide an alternative, much simpler and shorter, proof that this surface with infinitely many handles is embedded.By manipulating equations, Weber, Hoffman, and Wolf then carefully deformed this particular surface so that it always stayed free of intersections, even as the number of handles decreased. * [5] Surface Story - Inspired By Spiral Soap Films, Mathematicians Zero In On A Novel, Economical, And Infinite Helix, Ivars Peterson, 05/12/17, Science news [5] http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20051217/bob9.asp _________________________________________________________________ 05. Three Technology Companies Join To Finance Research , NY Times Excerpts: With federal funds for basic computer science research at universities in decline, three of the industry's leading companies are joining to help fill the void. University of California computer scientists plan to announce on Thursday that the companies - Google, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems - will underwrite a $7.5 million laboratory on the Berkeley campus. The new research center, called the Reliable, Adaptive and Distributed Systems Laboratory, will focus on the design of more dependable computing systems. * [6] Three Technology Companies Join To Finance Research, John Markoff, 05/12/15, NYTimes [6] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/technology/15research.html?pagewanted=print _________________________________________________________________ 05.01. White Biotechnology: Differences In US And EU Approaches? , Trends in Biotech. Excerpts: Several predominantly political movements advocate white, or industrial, biotechnology as a means to alleviate economic, ecological and societal problems in petroleum-dependent industrialized nations worldwide. US and European approaches differ significantly and we believe that, in the long-term, only economic drivers will be able to bring about the broad use of renewable resources and a bio-based economy. As long as the cost of fossil fuel and feedstock for key chemicals have not passed their respective critical thresholds, industrial biotechnology and its products will need political support and funding, particularly in the energy and bulk-chemicals sectors. (...) * [7] White Biotechnology: Differences In US And EU Approaches?, P. Lorenz , [8] H. Zinke, Dec. 2005, Online 2005/10/25, DOI: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2005.10.003, Trends in Biotechnology * Contributed by [9] Pritha Das [7] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TCW-4HDG943-1&_user=10&_handle=V-WA-A-W-Y-MsSAYVA-UUA-U-AABDWACUDD-AABVDECYDD-CVUZZYCWA-Y-U&_fmt=summary&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2005&_rdoc=3&_orig=browse&_srch=%23toc%235181%232005%23999769987%23611979!&_cdi=5181&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=122bc184042e9bb79798905ec5e2698a [8] mailto:hz@brain-biotech.de [9] mailto:prithadas01@yahoo.com _________________________________________________________________ 06. The Turkey Test - Neural Network Sorts The Blockbusters From The Flops , New Scientist Excerpts: Will the monster remake of King Kong be a box office smash or a total turkey? For movie producers, that's the multi-million dollar question. Now it seems an answer could come from an artificial neural network that can predict how successful a movie will be, even before it is made. The system uses seven key parameters including the "star value" of the cast, the film's age rating, time of release and special effects.. * [10] The Turkey Test - Neural Network Sorts The Blockbusters From The Flops, 05/12/15, New Scientist [10] http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/mg18825305.100 _________________________________________________________________ 07. Space 'Spiders' Could Build Solar Satellites , New Scientist Excerpts: A space "web" could also be created using four satellites (Artists impression/Vienna University of Technology) A mission to determine whether spider-like robots could construct complex structures in space is set to launch in January 2006. The spider bots could build large structures by crawling over a "web" released from a larger spacecraft. The engineers behind the project hope the robots will eventually be used to construct colossal solar panels for satellites that will transmit solar energy back to Earth. The satellites could reflect and concentrate the Sun's rays to a receiving station on Earth or perhaps beam energy down in the form of microwaves. * [11] Space 'Spiders' Could Build Solar Satellites, Kelly Young, 05/12/14, New Scientist [11] http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8466 _________________________________________________________________ 08. An Asymmetric World , Nature Excerpts: The final stage in the standard discussion of the irreversibility paradox is to consider how the initial low-entropy state (...) was produced. It must have come from some even lower-entropy state, and so on back to the beginning of time, when the Universe was in a special macroscopic state of exceptionally low entropy. (...) Likewise, if you use time-directed concepts such as initial conditions and applied probability as tools for looking at the irreversibility paradox, you risk arriving at an incomplete or even misleading solution to this complex puzzle. * [12] An Asymmetric World, Oliver Penrose, 05/12/15, DOI: 10.1038/438919a, Nature 438, 919 [12] http://www.nature.com /nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438919a.html _________________________________________________________________ 08.01. Fluid Dynamics: Drat Such Custard! , Nature Excerpts: They examine suspensions of simple spheres in a liquid, and in their supplementary information supply graphic video evidence of a transition between a reversible flow (which returns to its original state when stirring is reversed) and an irreversible flow (which continues to mix regardless of the direction it is stirred in). Suspended particles can thus, like the Keystone Cops, exactly retrace their steps as the direction of stirring is reversed, or alternatively can diffuse irreversibly over time ¡X as experience teaches us to expect * [13] Fluid Dynamics: Drat Such Custard!, Troy Shinbrot, 05/12/15, DOI: 10.1038/438922a, Nature 438, 922-923 [13] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438922a.html _________________________________________________________________ 08.02. Chaos And Threshold For Irreversibility In Sheared Suspensions , Nature Excerpts: Here we report an experiment showing precisely how time reversibility fails for slowly sheared suspensions. We find that there is a concentration dependent threshold for the deformation or strain beyond which particles do not return to their starting configurations after one or more cycles. (...) By comparing the experimental results with numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the threshold strain is associated with a pronounced growth in the Lyapunov exponent (a measure of the strength of chaotic particle interactions). The comparison illuminates the connections between chaos, reversibility and predictability. * [14] Chaos And Threshold For Irreversibility In Sheared Suspensions, D. J. Pine, J. P. Gollub, J. F. Brady, A. M. Leshansky, 05/12/15, DOI: 10.1038/nature04380, Nature 438, 997-1000 [14] http://www.nature.com /nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/nature04380.html _________________________________________________________________ 09. Brain Training Puts Big Hurt On Intense Pain: Volunteers Learn To Translate Imaging Data Into Neural-Control Tool , Science News Excerpts: Preliminary evidence indicates that people can quell either temporary or chronic physical pain by learning to use their minds to reduce activity in a key brain area.Brain-imaging technology now enables individuals to use mental exercises to control a neural region that contributes to pain perception, (...).Both healthy volunteers and chronic-pain patients "learned to control their brains and, through that, their pain," Mackey holds. "However, significantly more testing must be done before this can be considered a treatment for chronic pain." * [15] Brain Training Puts Big Hurt On Intense Pain: Volunteers Learn To Translate Imaging Data Into Neural-Control Tool, Bruce Bower, 05/12/17, Science news [15] http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20051217/fob5.asp _________________________________________________________________ 09.01. How Brainpower Can Help You Cheat Old Age , New Scientist Excerpts: Some psychologists and neuroscientists have started to call this mental padding "cognitive reserve". The higher your reserve, they argue, the more damage you can sustain without showing signs of mental decline. But the idea of cognitive reserve is controversial. Some dismiss it as nothing more than common sense - people who start off smarter have further to fall. Nevertheless, a growing number of studies are bolstering the idea that cognitive reserve is real.(...) people with high literacy and IQ cope better with the progress of Alzheimer's disease. * [16] How Brainpower Can Help You Cheat Old Age, Lisa Melton, 05/12/17, New Scientist [16] http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18825301.300.html _________________________________________________________________ 10. Fantastic Voyage Into The Heart Delivers A Protector Against Heart Failure , Journal of Clinical Investigation Excerpts: Reminiscent of the 1966 sci-fi thriller Fantastic Voyage, where a surgical team is miniaturized and injected into a dying man, researchers from Harvard Medical School have used injectable self-assembling peptide nanofibers loaded with the pro-survival factor PDGF-BB to protect rat cardiomyocytes from injury and subsequent heart failure. Their study appears online on December 15 in advance of print publication in the January 2006 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. * [17] Fantastic Voyage Into The Heart Delivers A Protector Against Heart Failure, 05/12/15, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Press Release [17] http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-12/joci-fvi120805.php _________________________________________________________________ 11. Developmental Biology: A Message To The Back Side , Nature Excerpts: Vertebrate embryos from fish to mammals seem to use different routes to work out which way is up and which side is front. Yet a novel system involved in defining the dorsal side of fish might be conserved in mammals.(...) so far, no unifying mechanism that specifies the dorsal-ventral (back-to-belly) axis in the vertebrate early embryo has been found. Egg cells, or oocytes, are in general roughly spherical and have only one axis: animal-vegetal, (...). By contrast, the mechanisms of axis formation in mammals are not understood. * [18] Developmental Biology: A Message To The Back Side, Wolfgang Driever, 05/12/15, DOI: 10.1038/438926b, Nature 438, 926-927 [18] http://www.nature.com /nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438926b.html _________________________________________________________________ 11.01. How E. Coli Bacterium Generates Simplicity From Complexity , ScienceDaily Excerpts: The ubiquitous and usually harmless E. coli bacterium, which has one-seventh the number of genes as a human, has more than 1,000 of them involved in metabolism and metabolic regulation. Activation of random combinations of these genes would theoretically be capable of generating a huge variety of internal states; however, (...) only a handful of dominant metabolic states are found in E. coli when it is "grown" in 15,580 different environments in computer simulations. (...) "Complex cellular networks can potentially generate lots of different behaviors, but we find that cells utilize only a few of them." (...) * [19] How E. Coli Bacterium Generates Simplicity From Complexity, 2005/12/15, ScienceDaily & University of California - San Diego * Contributed by [20] Atin Das [19] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051215230641.htm [20] mailto:dasatin@yahoo.co.in _________________________________________________________________ 12. Context-Dependent Vocal Mimicry In A Passerine Bird , Proc. Biol. Sc. Excerpts: How do birds select the sounds they mimic, and in what contexts do they use vocal mimicry? Some birds show a preference for mimicking other species' alarm notes, especially in situations when they appear to be alarmed. Yet no study has demonstrated that birds change the call types they mimic with changing contexts. We found that greater racket-tailed drongos (Dicrurus paradiseus) in the rainforest of Sri Lanka mimic the calls of predators and the alarm-associated calls of other species more often than would be expected from the frequency of these sounds in the acoustic environment. (...) * [21] Context-Dependent Vocal Mimicry In A Passerine Bird, E. Goodale , S. W. Kotagama, 2005/12/14, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2005.3392, Proceedings: Biological Sciences * Contributed by [22] Atin Das [21] http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/(0h0z2cb43mpj4yn2k14tjkyk)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,14,118;journal,1,211;homemainpublications,6,7; [22] mailto:dasatin@yahoo.co.in _________________________________________________________________ 12.01. Cognitive Ornithology: The Evolution Of Avian Intelligence , Phil. Tran. Biol. Sc. Excerpts: Comparative psychologists interested in the evolution of intelligence have focused their attention on social primates, whereas birds tend to be used as models of associative learning. However, corvids and parrots, which have forebrains relatively the same size as apes, live in complex social groups and have a long developmental period before becoming independent, have demonstrated ape-like intelligence. (...) In reviewing the evidence for avian intelligence, corvids and parrots appear to be cognitively superior to other birds and in many cases even apes. This suggests that complex cognition has evolved in species with very different brains (...). * [23] Cognitive Ornithology: The Evolution Of Avian Intelligence, S. A. Wich , H. de Vries, 2005/12/07, DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2005.1736, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences * Contributed by [24] Atin Das [23] http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/yr0466p1422k0721/fulltext.pdf [24] mailto:dasatin@yahoo.co.in _________________________________________________________________ 13. First Images Of Baby Squid Care , BBC News Excerpts: Repeated swishing of the tentacles washes water through the clutch of eggs. Image: MBARI Scientists have captured the first images of a mother squid caring for its young, carrying eggs in a giant sac. Using a remote control submarine, researchers saw the tiny squid Gonatus onyx carrying its eggs in a sac almost the same size as its body. * [25] First Images Of Baby Squid Care, 05/12/15, BBC News [25] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4530980.stm# _________________________________________________________________ 14. Civilisation Has Left Its Mark On Our Genes , New Scientist Excerpts: Darwin's fingerprints can be found all over the human genome. A detailed look at human DNA has shown that a significant percentage of our genes have been shaped by natural selection in the past 50,000 years, probably in response to aspects of modern human culture such as the emergence of agriculture and the shift towards living in densely populated settlements. * [26] Civilisation Has Left Its Mark On Our Genes, Bob Holmes, 05/12/19, New Scientist [26] http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8483 _________________________________________________________________ 14.01. Transport On Fractal River Networks: Application To Migration Fronts , Theor. Population Biol. Excerpts: A quantitative model of the US colonization in the 19th century is presented. We explore the idea that landscape heterogeneities should have strongly affected this process, as the need for water made the colonizers follow the routes of main rivers and set up their towns near them. So, we study transport processes on fractal networks modeling river basins, a case (...). Finally, the propagation rates observed are compared with the results from our model, concluding that migration through fractal media, in spite of being a mathematical idealization of the problem, mimics the dynamics of real systems reasonably well. * [27] Transport On Fractal River Networks: Application To Migration Fronts, [28] D. Campos, [29] J. Fort, V. Méndezc, Feb. 2006, online 2005/10/20, DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2005.09.001, Theoretical Population Biology * Contributed by [30] Atin Das [27] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WXD-4HCDJJN-1&_user=10&_handle=V-WA-A-W-E-MsSWYWW-UUW-U-AABDBZUWUU-AABVEVAUUU-CVVEZAZAZ-E-U&_fmt=summary&_coverDate=02%2F28%2F2006&_rdoc=8&_orig=browse&_srch=%23toc%237156%232006%23999309998%23613658!&_cdi=7156&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8aa34659e09231d5453ff912c1f39303 [28] mailto:daniel.campos@uab.es [29] mailto:joaquim.fort@udg.es [30] mailto:dasatin@yahoo.co.in _________________________________________________________________ 15. Complexity, System Integration, And Susceptibility To Change: Biodiversity Connection , Ecol. Complexity Excerpt: Complexity of system organization involves hierarchy of structure. The hierarchy of structure emerges from the integration of components. Irrespective of the mode of system description, integration determines the hierarchy of the system and hence its effective complexity. Because hierarchy and integration are intrinsic features of ecological systems, they can serve to advance understanding of general properties of such systems. As hierarchical structure affects system assembly and repair, integration becomes a major determinant of such process. To demonstrate potential applications, I develop a quantitative model, grounded in the blind watchmaker analogy. (...) * [31] Complexity, System Integration, And Susceptibility To Change: Biodiversity Connection, [32] J. Kolasa, Dec. 2005, online 2005/10/19, DOI: 10.1016/j.ecocom.2005.05.002, Ecological Complexity * Contributed by [33] Pritha Das [31] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7CRV-4HC7741-1&_user=10&_handle=V-WA-A-W-D-MsSAYVA-UUW-U-AABDBABDAV-AABVYEVCAV-CVBVEVZAW-D-U&_fmt=summary&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2005&_rdoc=7&_orig=browse&_srch=%23toc%2318004%232005%23999979995%23610403!&_cdi=18004&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=b81f2ae1e23d437d25e52e1602472a7d [32] mailto:kolasa@mcmaster.ca [33] mailto:prithadas01@yahoo.com _________________________________________________________________ 16. Hawaii's Coral Trees Feel The Sting Of Foreign Wasps , Science Excerpts: Island researchers are desperate to find a natural enemy of the parasitic wasps that are killing a local treasure, the wiliwili(...)The bulbous growths are infested with tiny wasps, a recently identified parasitic species that first appeared in southern Taiwan in 2003. Within a year, the wasps had spread across the island and had also reached Singapore, (...). By 2005, they appeared in Hong Kong and China and were first seen on Hawaii's Oahu island this April. By August, the wasps had invaded every island in the state (...). * [34] Hawaii's Coral Trees Feel The Sting Of Foreign Wasps, Carolyn Gramling, 05/12/16, DOI: 10.1126/science.310.5755.1759, Science, Vol. 310. no. 5755, pp. 1759 - 1760 [34] http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/310/5755/1759 _________________________________________________________________ 17. Judge Rules Against 'Intelligent Design' In Class , New Scientist Excerpts: Jones also said that language in the school board statement that evolution is only a "theory" is misleading. It confuses the scientific and colloquial meanings of "theory". And by singling out evolution from all other scientific theories it suggests that there is some special doubt about the truth of evolution. The judge stated that intelligent design cannot be considered science for a number of reasons. By depending on a supernatural cause it violates the basic ground rules of science that have been in place since the 16th century. * [35] Judge Rules Against 'Intelligent Design' In Class, Kurt Kleiner, 05/12/20, NewScientist [35] http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8493 _________________________________________________________________ 18. Natural Disasters: The Chaos To Come , Nature Excerpts: In sheer numbers, the death toll of floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and cyclones is small ¡X 80,000 in an average year. Even the recent spate of catastrophes ranks surprisingly low among the scourges of humanity. With the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Kashmir earthquake, disasters in the past 12 months claimed more than 400,000 lives ¡X the highest toll since 1970. But more than three times that number are estimated to have died on Earth's roads in the same period; more than twenty times as many died of avoidable childhood diseases. * [36] Natural Disasters: The Chaos To Come, Quirin Schiermeier, 05/12/15, DOI: 10.1038/438903a, Nature 438, 903-906 [36] http://www.nature.com /nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438903a.html _________________________________________________________________ 19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Network _________________________________________________________________ 19.01. Us, Israel Strengthening Hamas - Latin Patriarch , Reuters Excerpts: Pope Benedict's representative in the Holy Land said on Wednesday that the United States and Israel were helping strengthen Islamic militant group Hamas through policies towards the Palestinians.(...)Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives called for Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction, to be banned from the coming elections."Hamas is getting more powerful thanks to Bush's intervention in the whole process," Latin Patriarch for the Holy Land, Michel Sabbah, a Palestinian, told reporters at a briefing held ahead of Christmas celebrations. * [37] Us, Israel Strengthening Hamas - Latin Patriarch, 05/12/21, Reuters [37] http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2173420.htm _________________________________________________________________ 19.02. Editorial: Going Too Far , Washington Post Excerpts: (...) administration's refusal to hold hearings, as called for by the Geneva Conventions, to determine whether captured fighters deserved prisoner-of-war status (...). It extended to the president's assertion that he could designate any American an enemy combatant and lock him up for as long as he chose, (...). It includes his claimed right to kidnap people, (...) and to hold them as "ghost prisoners," again indefinitely, without allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross any access. (...) right to inflict on detainees treatment that most people would regard as torture. * [38] Editorial: Going Too Far, 05/12/20, Washington Post [38] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/19/AR2005121901040.html?referrer=email&referrer=email _________________________________________________________________ 19.03. Revolt Of The Professionals , Washington Post Excerpts: Professional intelligence officers are furious at the politicized leadership brought to the agency by ex-congressman Porter Goss and his retinue of former congressional staffers. (...) Many of those who remain are trying to keep their heads down until the current wave of political jockeying and reorganization is over -- which is the last thing you would want at an effective intelligence agency. The CIA, like the military, wants clear and sustainable rules of engagement. Agency employees don't want their careers ruined by future congressional or legal investigations of actions they thought were authorized. * [39] Revolt Of The Professionals, David Ignatius, 05/12/21, Washington Post [39] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122000973.html _________________________________________________________________ 20. Links & Snippets _________________________________________________________________ 20.01. Other Publications - Competitive Exclusion And Limiting Similarity: A Unified Theory, Feb. 2006, online 2005/10/20, Theoretical Population Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2005.07.001 - On The Dynamics Of Dengue Epidemics From Large-Scale Information, Feb. 2006, online 2005/11/11, Theoretical Population Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2005.06.008 - Why 'Phish' When You Can Trawl?, 10; 4, 2005, online 2005/11/26, Information Security Technical Report, DOI: 10.1016/j.istr.2005.09.002 - Intel Blasts $100 Laptop: Price Is Secondary To A Computer's Functionality, Chipmaker Argues, 2005/12/12, vnunet.com - Trojan Circulates As Fake Mcafee Patch: Spam Email Lures Users To Spoofed Antivirus Download Page, 2005/12/14, vnunet.com - Why Is Stress So Deadly? An Evolutionary Perspective, 2005/12/14, Proceedings: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2005.3384 - Key Brain Regulatory Gene Shows Evolution In Humans, 2005/12/12, ScienceDaily & Duke University - Ability To Capture Large Prey May Be Origin Of Army Ants' Cooperative Behavior: Scientific Insights Come At The Darnedest Times, 2005/12/15, ScienceDaily & University Of Washington - Food Web Networks: Scaling Relation Revisited, Dec. 2005, online 2005/10/17, Ecological Complexity, DOI: 10.1016/j.ecocom.2005.05.001 - Nonlinear Dynamics In Ecosystem Response To Climatic Change: Case Studies And Policy Implications, Dec. 2005, online 2005/10/13, Ecological Complexity, DOI: 10.1016/j.ecocom.2005.04.010 _________________________________________________________________ 20.02. Webcast Announcements [40] An Afternoon with Michael Crichton, Washington, 05/11/06 [41] Illuminating the Shadow of the Future, Ann Arbor, Mi 05/09/23-25 [42] Open Network of Centres of Excellence in Complex Systems - Brainstorming Meeting, Paris, France 05/09/19-23 [43] Complexity, Science & Society Conference 2005, U. Liverpool, UK 2005/09/11-14 [44] ECAL 2005 - VIIIth European Conference on Artificial Life, Canterbury, Kent, UK 2005/09/5-9 [45] T. Irene Sanders, Executive Director and Founder, [46] The Washington Center for Complexity & Public Policy, 05/08/27, QuickTime video (10:38 min), [47] Podcast [48] 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 [49] Understanding Complex Systems - Computational Complexity and Bioinformatics, Virtual Conference Network, Urbana-Champaign, Il, UIUC, 05/05/16-19 [50] 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 [51] World Economic Forum , Davos, Switzerland, 05/01/26-30 [52] 1st European Conference on Complex Systems, Torino, Italy, 04/12/5-7 From Autopoiesis to Neurophenomenology: A Tribute to Francisco Varela (1946-2001), Paris, France, 2004/06/18-20 Evolutionary Epistemology, Language, and Culture, Brussels, Belgium, 04/05/26-28 International Conference on Complex Systems 2004, Boston, 04/05/16-21 Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: Lab Demonstrations, Strogatz, Steven H., Internet-First University Press, 1994 CERN Webcast Service, Streamed videos of Archived Lectures and Live Events Dean LeBaron's Archive of Daily Video Commentary, Ongoing Since February 1998 Edge Videos [40] http://www.complexsys.org/news.htm target=new [41] http://complexity.vub.ac.be/~comdig/05ISF/index.html target=new [42] http://complexity.vub.ac.be/~comdig/ONCECS05/ target=new [43] http://complexity.vub.ac.be/~comdig/CSS05/ target=new [44] http://complexity.vub.ac.be/~comdig/ECAL2005/ target=new [45] http://complexity.vub.ac.be/~comdig/Sanders0508/Sanders0508.mov target=new [46] http://www.complexsys.org/ target=new [47] http://complexity.vub.ac.be/~comdig/Sanders0508/Sanders.mp3 [48] http://complexity.vub.ac.be/~comdig/05NASPSA/ target=new [49] http://complexity.vub.ac.be/~comdig/05UCS/ target=new [50] http://www.comdig2.de/Conf/Nicolis05/Target=new [51] http://clients.world-television.com/worldeconomicforum_annualmeeting2005/default.aspTarget=new [52] http://www.comdig2.de/Conf/ECCS04/Target=new _________________________________________________________________ 20.03. Conference Announcements 3rd Biennial Seminar on the Philosophical, Methodological, and Epistemological Implications of Complexity Theory, Havana, Cuba, 06/01/09-12 One-Week Intensive Course: Complex Physical, Biological and Social Systems, Cambridge, MA, 06/01/09-13 The Second International Workshop on Biologically Inspired Approaches to Advanced Information Technology , Senri Life Science Center, Osaka, Japan, 06/01/26-27 Intl Wkshp and Sem, Dynamics on Complex Networks and Applications, Dresden, Germany, 06/02/06-03/03 FRACTAL 2006 Complexity and Fractals in Nature, 9th Intl Multidisciplinary Conf, Vienna, Austria, 06/02/12-15 'The Application of Complexity Science to Human Affairs , Milton Keynes, UK, 06/02/28 2nd Intl Nonlinear Science Conf, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, 06/03/10-12 18th European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research (EMCSR), Vienna, Austria, 06/04/18-21 5th Intl Joint Conf on Autonomous Agents And Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2006) Future University, Hakodate, Japan, )6/05/08-12 Nonlinearities: from Turbulent to Magic, Copenhagen, Denmark. 06/05/17-20 Alife X - The 10th Intl Conf on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems,Bloomington, Indiana, 06/06/03-07 Intl. Conference on Complex Systems Boston, MA, 06/06/25-30 NKS 2006: The Wolfram Science Conference, Washington, D.C., 06/06/16-18 Intl Conf on Complex Systems (ICCS) Boston, Ma, 06/06/25-30 2006 Genetic And Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2006), Seattle, Washington, USA, 06/07/08-12 50th Anniversary Summit of AI, Monte Verita, Switzerland, 06/07/09-14 Symmetry Festival 2006, Symmetry in Art and Science Education, Budapest, Hungary, 06/08/12-18 World Conference on Social Simulation (WCSS-06) , Kyoto, Japan, 06/08/21-25 FROM ANIMALS TO ANIMATS 9, The Ninth Intl Conf on the SIMULATION OF ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR (SAB'06), 06/09/25-30 _________________________________________________________________ 20.04. Call for Papers - Book Announcements Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines, © 2004 Robert A. Freitas Jr. and Ralph C. Merkle. All Rights Reserved. This book is now available for free on the Internet, 05/10 New Issue of E:CO (Emergence, Complexity and Organization) was published online. _________________________________________________________________ [53]Complexity Digest is an independent publication available to organizations that may wish to repost ComDig to their own mailing lists. ComDig is published by the [54]Computer Sciences Department, [55]IIMAS and the [56]C3 at the [57]Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico and edited by [58]Carlos Gershenson. To unsubscribe from this list, please go to http://comdig.unam.mx/subscriptions.php [53] http://comdig.unam.mx/ [54] http://turing.iimas.unam.mx/En/index.html [55] http://www.iimas.unam.mx/ [56] http://c3.fisica.unam.mx/ [57] http://www.unam.mx [58] http://turing.iimas.unam.mx/~cgg/