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复杂性文摘 NO：2003.03

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Complexity Digest 2003.03 January-19-2003

Archive: http://www.comdig.org, European Mirror: http://www.comdig.de

Asian Mirror: http://www.phil.pku.edu.cn/resguide/comdig/ (Chinese GB-Code)

"I think the next century will be the century of complexity." Stephen
Hawking, 2000

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     1. Why Do Firms Raise Prices More Readily Than They Reduce Them?,
        Alphagalileo
          1.1. Master Curve For Price-Impact Function, Nature
          1.2. Two-Phase Behaviour Of Financial Markets, Nature
     2. Welfare Reducing Licensing, Games & Econ. Behavior
     3. Over-the-Counter Headache, NYTimes Magazine
          3.1. The New Face of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Science
     4. In a Game of Serenity, Therapy Trumps Thrills, NYTimes
     5. A Model For The Emergence Of Adaptive Subsystems, Bulletin of
         Math. Biol.
     6. Expanding The Genetic Code: The World's First Truly Unnatural
         Organism, ScienceDaily
     7. Chemistry Guides Evolution, Claims Theory, New Scientist
     8. Death is an Outrage, KurzweilAI.net
     9. Developmental Biology: A Larval Revelation, Nature
          9.1. Larval Stages Of A Living Sea Lily, Nature
    10. Stick Insect Forces Evolutionary Rethink, NewScientist
    11. Ancient Tripartite Coevolution in the Attine Ant-Microbe
         Symbiosis, Science
          11.1. Group Decision-Making In Animals, Nature
    12. Toward Cultural Oncology: The Evolutionary Information
         Dynamics of Cancer, CogPrints
    13. How The Brain Processes Emotion, Alphagalileo
    14. Brain Regions Where Nicotine Affects Attention, Other
          Cognitive Skills, ScienceDaily
    15. Scientist Bombards Brains With Super-Magnets To Edifying
          Effect, Boston Globe
    16. Dissecting The Circuitry Of The Auditory System, Trends in
          Neurosc.
    17. "Moss In Space" Project To Test How Plants Grow "Up",
          ScienceDaily
    18. Understanding Biological Complexity: Lessons From The Past,
          FASEB J.
    19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
          19.1. A Deadly Weapon for Beginners, NYTimes
          19.2. Bioterrorism: Agriculture Shock, Nature
          19.3. One Stop Shop For Emergency Staff Facing Biochemical
                   Terrorism, Alphagalileo
    20. Links & Snippets
          20.1. Other Publications
          20.2. Webcast Announcements
          20.3. Conference Announcements
               20.3.1. Public Conference Calls
          20.4. ComDig Announcement: New ComDig Archive in Beta Test

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1. Why Do Firms Raise Prices More Readily Than They Reduce Them?, Alphagalileo

Excerpts: (¡K) booms typically cause inflation, while recessions mainly
reduce output without reducing prices or inflation. (¡K) explains how this
problem emerges through the phenomenon of ¡¥asymmetric price adjustment¡¦
¡V the fact that firms are far quicker to increase prices than to cut them.
The Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas has recently argued that the optimal
inflation target may be negative, so that central banks may need to deflate
the economy persistently. But Bhaskar¡¦s research on pricing asymmetries
shows that deflation would aggravate the negative effects on output and
employment considerably. Positive inflation has the effect of raising
output, since it prevents the output and employment losses (...).
Why Do Firms Raise Prices More Readily Than They Reduce Them?,
Alphagalileo, I. Stewart, 2003/01/10
Contributed by Pritha Das

Excerpts: The price reaction to a single transaction depends on transaction
volume, the identity of the stock, and possibly many other factors. Here we
show that, by taking into account the differences in liquidity for stocks
of different size classes of market capitalization, we can rescale both the
average price shift and the transaction volume to obtain a uniform
price-impact curve for all size classes of firm for four different years
(1995-98). (¡K)suggests that fluctuations (¡K) are governed by the same
statistical rule.

Master Curve For Price-Impact Function, Fabrizio Lillo, J. Doyne Farmer &
Rosario N. Mantegna, Nature 421, 129 - 130 (2003); doi:10.1038/421129a

Excerpts: Buying and selling in financial markets is driven by demand,
which can be quantified by the imbalance in the number of shares transacted
by buyers and sellers over a given time interval. (¡K) surprising existence
of a critical threshold (¡K) equilibrium phase in which neither buying nor
selling predominates. (¡K) two most probable values emerge that are
symmetrical around zero demand, corresponding to excess demand and excess
supply; (¡K) phase in which the market behaviour is mainly buying for half
of the time, and mainly selling for the other half.
Two-Phase Behaviour Of Financial Markets, Vasiliki Plerou, Parameswaran
Gopikrishnan, H. Eugene Stanley, Nature 421, 130 (2003); doi:10.1038/421130a

2. Welfare Reducing Licensing, Games & Econ. Behavior

Abstract: In this paper, we characterize situations where licensing a cost
reducing innovation to a rival firm using two-part tariff contracts (a
fixed fee plus a linear per unit of output royalty) reduces social welfare.
We show that it occurs if (i) the firms compete in prices, (ii) the
innovation is large enough but not drastic, and (iii) the goods are close
enough substitutes. Moreover, we show that, regardless of the type of
competition, first, the optimal contract always includes a positive royalty
and, second, even drastic innovations are licensed whenever the goods are
not homogeneous.
Welfare Reducing Licensing, R. Fauli-Oller, J. Sandonis, Games & Econ.
Behavior, Vol. 41, Issue 2, pp: 192-205, Nov. 2002, DOI:
10.1016/S0899-8256(02)00513-4
Contributed by Pritha Das

3. Over-the-Counter Headache, NYTimes Magazine

Excerpt: Researchers believe that some recurrent headaches are the result
of over-the-counter painkillers interfering with the body's natural pain
control mechanisms. One researcher summarized the situation: ''People often
ask me, 'Why doesn't my headache go away?' A better question is, 'Why does
a headache ever stop?' That, to me, is the crucial issue.''
Over-the-Counter Headache, Sandeep Jauhar, NYTimes Magazine, Jan 12/2003
Contributed by Keith Donnelly

Excerpts: Asian governments hope that high-volume screening and rigorous
clinical trials will unlock the secrets of ancient herbal remedies--and
that the results will pass muster with Western scientists.

Epidemiologists had long suspected that the low cancer rates in southeast
China might be related to coix, a grasslike relative of maize that is a
dietary staple in the region and a key ingredient of many traditional
Chinese herbal medicines. (¡K) Twenty years later, Li won government
approval to market the fruits of his research, a drug he calls Kanglaite, (¡K).

The New Face of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Science 2003 299: 188-190

4. In a Game of Serenity, Therapy Trumps Thrills, NYTimes

Excerpt: (...) radically different games designed specifically to reward
players for being calm and staying that way. Games, in short, like Relax to
Win, a race between two friendly looking dragons named George and Georgina
created recently by the Mindgames research group at the M.I.T. Media Lab
Europe in Dublin.
Relax to Win was designed as a tool to help troubled children, including
those with anxiety disorders and attention-deficit disorders, gain control
over their behavior. But the designers are also excited about hints of
broader potential.

In a Game of Serenity, Therapy Trumps Thrills, Barnaby J. Feder, NYTimes,
03/01/16

5. A Model For The Emergence Of Adaptive Subsystems, Bulletin of Math. Biol.

Abstract: We investigate the interaction of learning and evolution in a
changing environment. A stable learning capability is regarded as an
emergent adaptive system evolved by natural selection of genetic variants.
We consider the evolution of an asexual population. Each genotype can have
`fixed' and `flexible' alleles. Evolution is modelled using genetic
algorithms and the changing environment is represented by two optimal
synaptic patterns that alternate a fixed number of times during the `life'
of the individuals. We find that two types of evolutionary pathways are
possible depending upon how difficult (costly) it is to cope with the
changes of the environment.
A Model For The Emergence Of Adaptive Subsystems, H. Dopazoa, M. B.
Gordonb, R. Perazzoc, S. R. Gusmand, Bulletin of Math. Biol., Vol. 65,
Issue 1, pp: 27-56, Jan. 2003, DOI: 10.1006/bulm.2002.0315
Contributed by Pritha Das

6. Expanding The Genetic Code: The World¡¦s First Truly Unnatural Organism,
ScienceDaily

Excerpts: From time immemorial, every living thing has shared the same
basic set of building blocks -20 amino acids from which all proteins are
made. That is, until now: A group of scientists say they have, for the
first time, created an organism that can produce a 21st amino acid and
incorporate it into proteins completely on its own. The research should
help probe some of the central questions of evolutionary theory.
"Would more amino acids give you a better organism -- one that could more
effectively adapt if placed under selective pressure?"

Expanding The Genetic Code: The World¡¦s First Truly Unnatural Organism,
ScienceDaily, 2003/01/14
Contributed by Atin Das
See also: Researchers Create Novel Life Form, Christine Suh, UPI Science
News, 03/01/13

7. Chemistry Guides Evolution, Claims Theory, New Scientist

Excerpt: That enduring metaphor for the randomness of evolution, a blind
watchmaker that works to no pattern or design, is being challenged by two
European chemists. They say that the watchmaker may have been blind, but
was guided and constrained by the changing chemistry of the environment,
with many inevitable results.
The metaphor of the blind watchmaker has been famously championed by
Richard Dawkins of the University of Oxford. But Robert Williams, also at
Oxford, and Joao Jose R. Frausto da Silva of the Technical University of
Lisbon in Portugal say that evolution is not strictly random. They claim
Earth's chemistry has forced life to evolve along a predictable progression
from single-celled organisms to plants and animals.

Chemistry Guides Evolution, Claims Theory, 2003-01-15, New Scientist
Contributed by Carlos Gershenson

8. Death is an Outrage, KurzweilAI.net

Excerpt: Each year, we allow a destruction of knowledge equivalent to three
Libraries of Congress with an average value of about $2 million dollars for
each human life lost. The solution: "dechronification"-nanomedicine tools
that can arrest biological aging and reduce your biological age.
Death is an Outrage, Robert A. Freitas Jr., KurzweilAI.net, 03/01/

9. Developmental Biology: A Larval Revelation, Nature

Excerpts: The stalked crinoids, or sea lilies, are generally accepted as
the most ancient of living echinoderms, with a fossil record extending back
some 500 million years, almost to the base of the Palaeozoic. (¡K) authors
obtained healthy, gravid individuals that spawned in the lab and produced
viable embryos and larvae.
The main significance of this discovery lies in the rich evolutionary
connections of the phylum Echinodermata and the information that such
'missing' larval forms contain. The larvae of marine invertebrates are
delightfully diverse morphologically, and often delicately beautiful.

Developmental Biology: A Larval Revelation, Thurston Lacalli, Nature 421,
120 - 121 (2003); doi:10.1038/421120a

Excerpts: Here we describe the development of a sea lily from fertilization
to larval settlement. (¡K) We suggest that a dipleurula-type larva is
primitive for echinoderms and is the starting point for the evolution of
additional larval forms within the phylum. From a wider evolutionary
viewpoint, the demonstration that the most basal kind of echinoderm larva
is a dipleurula is consistent with Garstang's auricularia theory for the
phylogenetic origin of the chordate neural tube.

Larval Stages Of A Living Sea Lily (Stalked Crinoid Echinoderm), Hiroaki
Nakano, Taku Hibino, Tatsuo Oji, Yuko Hara & Shonan Amemiya, Nature 421,
158 - 160 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature01236

10. Stick Insect Forces Evolutionary Rethink, NewScientist

Excerpts: The lowly stick insect has forced a rethink of one of the key
rules of evolution - that complex anatomical features do not disappear and
reappear over the course of time.
Researchers have discovered that on a number of occasions in the past 300
million years, stick insects have lost their wings, then re-evolved them.
Entomologists have described the revelation as "revolutionary".

(...very first stick insect, which appeared 300 million years ago, had
already lost its wings and that stick insects re-evolved the structures at
least four times (...).

Stick Insect Forces Evolutionary Rethink, Nicola Jones, NewScientist, 03/01/15

11. Ancient Tripartite Coevolution in the Attine Ant-Microbe Symbiosis, Science

Excerpts: The symbiosis between fungus-growing ants and the fungi they
cultivate for food has been shaped by 50 million years of coevolution.
Phylogenetic analyses indicate that this long coevolutionary history
includes a third symbiont lineage: specialized microfungal parasites of the
ants' fungus gardens. (¡K) ant-microbe symbiosis is the product of
tripartite coevolution between the farming ants, their cultivars, and the
garden parasites. At recent phylogenetic levels, coevolution has been
punctuated by occasional host-switching by the parasite, thus intensifying
continuous coadaptation between symbionts in a tripartite arms race.
Ancient Tripartite Coevolution in the Attine Ant-Microbe Symbiosis, Cameron
R. Currie, Bess Wong, Alison E. Stuart, Ted R. Schultz, Stephen A. Rehner,
Ulrich G. Mueller, Gi-Ho Sung, Joseph W. Spatafora, Neil A. Straus, Science
2003 January 17; 299(5605): p. 386-388

Excerpts: Groups of animals often need to make communal decisions, for
example about which activities to perform, when to perform them and which
direction to travel in; however, little is known about how they do so.
Here, we model the fitness consequences of two possible decision-making
mechanisms: 'despotism' and 'democracy'. We show that under most
conditions, the costs to subordinate group members, and to the group as a
whole, are considerably higher for despotic than for democratic decisions.
(¡K) democracy should be widespread (¡K).
Group Decision-Making In Animals, L. Conradt, T. J. Roper, Nature 421, 155
- 158 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature01294

12. Toward Cultural Oncology: The Evolutionary Information Dynamics of
Cancer, CogPrints

Abstract: 'Racial' disparities among cancers, particularly of the breast
and prostate, are something of a mystery. For the US, in the face of
slavery and its sequelae, centuries of interbreeding have greatly leavened
genetic differences between 'Blacks' and 'Whites', but marked contrasts in
disease prevalence and progression persist. 'Adjustment' for socioeconomic
status and lifestyle, while statistically accounting for much of the
variance in breast cancer, only begs the question of ultimate causality.
Here we propose a more basic biological explanation that extends the theory
of immune cognition to include elaborate tumor control mechanisms
constituting the principal selection pressure acting on pathologically
mutating cell clones. The interplay between them occurs in the context of
an embedding, highly structured, system of culturally specific psychosocial
stress which we find is able to literally write an image of itself onto
disease progression. The dynamics are analogous to punctuated equilibrium
in simple evolutionary process.
Toward Cultural Oncology: The Evolutionary Information Dynamics of Cancer
Modules, Autoimmune Disease, and Pathogenic Social Hierarchy, Wallace,
Rodrick, Wallace, Deborah, Wallace, Robert G., 2003-01-09, CogPrints,DOI: 2702
Contributed by Carlos Gershenson

13. How The Brain Processes Emotion, Alphagalileo

Excerpts: Humans have another unique way to express their emotions: speech.
Speech can convey emotion in two important ways : by content and by
prosody. The content refers to the semantic message of what is said. It's
the difference between WHAT is said and HOW it is said. It appeared from
our research that when participants were asked to pay attention to and
identify the emotional content (the WHAT) of the message their left
hemisphere was significantly more active. In contrast, when we asked them
to pay attention to the emotional prosody (the HOW) of the message, the
right hemisphere kicked in.
How The Brain Processes Emotion, G. Vingerhoets, Alphagalileo,   2003/01/15
Contributed by Atin Das

14. Brain Regions Where Nicotine Affects Attention, Other Cognitive Skills,
ScienceDaily

Excerpts: Nicotine administration in humans is known to sharpen attention
and to slightly enhance memory. Now scientists, using functional magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI), have identified those areas of the brain where
nicotine exerts its effects on cognitive skills. Their findings suggest
that nicotine improves attention in smokers by enhancing activation in the
posterior cortical and subcortical regions of the brain--areas
traditionally associated with visual attention, arousal, and motor
activation. This study provides the first evidence that nicotine-induced
enhancement of parietal cortex activation is associated with improved
attention.
Scientists Identify Brain Regions Where Nicotine Affects Attention, Other
Cognitive Skills, ScienceDaily, 2003/01/14
Contributed by Atin Das

15. Scientist Bombards Brains With Super-Magnets To Edifying Effect, Boston
Globe

Excerpts: J ust by pointing his super-magnets at the right spots on your
head, Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone can make you go momentarily mute or blind.
He can disrupt your working memory or your ability to recognize faces. He
can even make it harder for you to say verbs while nouns remain as easy as
ever. (¡K)

Already, repeated stimulations can apparently produce effects lasting for
weeks afterward, by revving up underactive areas or quieting down
overactive spots for long enough that the changes linger even after the
stimulation stops.

Scientist Bombards Brains With Super-Magnets To Edifying Effect, Carey
Goldberg, Boston Globe, 1/14/2003

16. Dissecting The Circuitry Of The Auditory System, Trends in Neurosc.

Abstract: The brainstem auditory system is a complex system composed of
numerous parallel and serial pathways that converge on a common destination
in the inferior colliculus (IC). The exact nature of the response
transformations that occur in the IC have, however, been elusive ¡V even
though the IC has been the subject of numerous studies for more than 30
years. These studies have revealed some of the ways that signals, relayed
via many different parallel routes, interact in the IC, and suggest some
functional advantages that these interactions might have.
Dissecting The Circuitry Of The Auditory System, G. D. Pollak, R. M.
Burger, A. Klug, Trends in Neurosc., 26:1, pp:33-39, Jan. 2003
Contributed by Atin Das

17. "Moss In Space" Project To Test How Plants Grow "Up", ScienceDaily

Excerpts: An experiment scheduled for todays Space Shuttle Columbia mission
may provide clues about just how plant growth is guided by gravity. The
study (...) should test whether the absence of gravity changes how simple
plants grow. (¡K) in the dark, the cells grow in the direction opposite the
attraction of gravity. These are exceptional cells. It is rare for gravity
to control the direction that single cells grow instead of an entire plant,
Sack says. We wanted to know if they were placed in a near gravity-free
environment, would the plants grow in a random fashion.
"Moss In Space" Project To Test How Plants Grow "Up", ScienceDaily, 2003/01/15
Contributed by Atin Das

18. Understanding Biological Complexity: Lessons From The Past, FASEB J.

Excerpt: Advances in molecular biology now permit complex biological
systems to be tracked at an exquisite level of detail. The information flow
is so great, however, that using intuition alone to draw connections is
unrealistic. Thus, the need to integrate mathematical biology with
experimental biology is greater than ever. To achieve this integration,
obstacles that have traditionally prevented effective communication between
theoreticians and experimentalists must be overcome, so that
experimentalists learn the language of mathematics and dynamical modeling
and theorists learn the language of biology.
Understanding Biological Complexity: Lessons From The Past, Weiss JN, Qu Z,
Garfinkel A. , FASEB J. 2003 Jan;17(1):1-6, PMID: 12522106

19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks

Excerpt: While no treatment or vaccine can counter its deadly effects, it
is 1,000 times less poisonous than botulinum toxin.
A solid, it is harder to disseminate than a liquid, limiting its spread
through the air. And unlike many nerve agents, which tend to be simple
chemicals, it is a large protein the skin has difficulty absorbing. (¡K)

Bulgarian intelligence operatives used a specially modified umbrella to
shoot a ricin pellet into Georgi I. Markov, a dissident. A tiny pellet (¡K)
filled with about 500 micrograms of ricin (¡K)

A Deadly Weapon for Beginners, William J. Broad, NYTimes, 03/01/12

Excerpts: Fears about terrorism usually centre on nuclear or biological
weapons. But attackers could cause huge economic damage by spreading plant
or animal diseases. (¡K)

The statistics on the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in
Britain make for disturbing reading. Four million cattle were culled to
contain the disease, and estimates of the cost to the British economy (¡K)
run as high as ¢G30 billion (US$48 billion).

Agriculture is also now more open to attack, as a result of large-scale
methods such as the use of factory farms and monoculture cropping systems.

Bioterrorism: Agriculture Shock, Virginia Gewin, Nature 421, 106 - 108
(2003); doi:10.1038/421106a

Excerpts: Following recent concerns about possible deliberate releases of
chemical or biological agents, (¡K) has launched a web resource to provide
a one stop access to information for emergency health staff in case of a
suspected deliberate release of such agents. This includes sources of
information to recognise groups of symptoms that may be caused by unusual
agents, treatments and wider public health responses. The electronic
library¡¦s home page is available at www.nelh-ec.warwick.ac.uk
¡§The web site is increasingly seen as the first place emergency care staff
look when needing clinical or managerial information on new developments
(¡K) releases of chemical or biological agents ¡¨

Electronic Library Provides One Stop Shop For Emergency Staff Facing
Biochemical Terrorism, P. Dunn, Alphagalileo, 2003/01/10

20. Links & Snippets

20.1 Other Publications

Hoping to Mend Their Sporting Ways, Researchers turn to gene therapy,
tissue engineering, and more, to heal sports stars' popped knees and torn
ligaments, Karen Young Kreeger, The Scientist, Vol 17, No 1, 32,03/01/13
Anthrax Island, January 12, 2003, Christopher Pala, NYTimes, 03/01/12, In
the middle of the Aral Sea, the ruins of an earlier bioweapons threat.
Nanoparticle Assembly and Transport at Liquid-Liquid Interfaces, Y. Lin, H.
Skaff, T. Emrick, A. D. Dinsmore, and T. P. Russell, p. 226
PHYSICS: Relativity Goes Where Einstein Sneered to Tread, p. 185
Quantum Phase Transition in Organic Charge-Transfer Complexes, Sachio
Horiuchi, Yoichi Okimoto, Reiji Kumai, and Yoshinori Tokura, p. 229
Bose-Einstein Condensation of Cesium, Tino Weber, Jens Herbig, Michael
Mark, Hanns-Christoph Nagerl, Rudolf Grimm, p. 232
Future-Gazing In Las Vegas, January 11, 2003, A giant LCD panel that acts
as computer display and TV, does facial recognition for home security; and
users connecting to huge remote databases of archive material with massive
educational potential linked to advanced, virtual reality technology were
among the forecasts at a CES...
Looking to Iraq, military robots focus on lessons of Afghanistan, January
12, 2003, The newest robots range farther from their "masters" than did
their forebears in Afghanistan. They can navigate terrain and obstacles
more deftly, lay down a cover of smoke, test for chemical weapons and
extend a "neck" that can peer around corners. The machines are also
learning how to right...
Death is an Outrage, Robert A. Freitas Jr., KurzweilAI.net, 03/01/
Cal Tech announces Turing Tournament, KurzweilAI.net, 03/01/15, designed to
"find the best computer programs to mimic human behavior ... and the best
computer programs to detect the difference between machine and human
behavior."
Future Combat: Part 1, January 13, 2003, The U.S. Army is planning a
transformation based on "Future Combat Systems." New technologies will
include hybrid electric vehicles, robotics, lasers, mobile network
communications, and an array of smart weapons and sensors based on enabling
technologies such as micromechanical systems (MEMS),...
Microsoft Eyes Global Radio Network To Support Smart Devices, Bob Brewin,
Computerworld, 03/01/10 (...) broadcast this reference signal over the FM
subcarrier network, saving it from adding another receiver chip to already
complex circuitry (...)
Health: New Ideas Energize Alzheimer's Battle, Gina Kolata, NYTimes,
03/01/14, Many researchers are questioning the old hypothesis about
Alzheimer's. If they are right, it may be possible to reverse memory loss.
Isochronal Difference Mapping: An Approach For Mapping Dynamic Changes
During Reentrant Ventricular Tachycardia, Ciaccio EJ, Lee T., Pacing Clin
Electrophysiol. 2002 Dec;25(12):1737-46, PMID: 12520675
Depth Of Strategic Reasoning In Games, Colman AM. Related Articles, Links,
Trends Cogn Sci. 2003 Jan;7(1):2-4, PMID: 12517348
Bouncing Signals Push the Limits of Bandwidth, Ian Austen, NYTimes,
03/01/16, The process that creates dead spots that cut off cellphone calls,
known as multipath, is now being used to improve reception and boost the
speed of wireless
Repair, Revision, and Complexity in Syntactic Analysis: An,
Electrophysiological Differentiation, Edith Kaan, Tamara Y. Swaab, J. Cogn.
Neurosci. 2003 January 1; 15(1): p. 98-110
Actions Speak Louder Than Functions: The Importance of Manipulability and
Action in Tool Representation, Marion L. Kellenbach, Matthew Brett, Karalyn
Patterson, J. Cogn. Neurosci. 2003 January 1; 15(1): p. 30-46
Theoretical Neuroscience: Computational and Mathematical Modeling of Neural
Systems, Peter Dayan and L. F. Abbott MIT Press, Cambridge, $50.00 ISBN:
0-262-04199-5 460 pages, Bruno A. Olshausen, J. Cogn. Neurosci. 2003
January 1; 15(1): p. 154-155
Cal Tech announces Turing, Tournament, Jan. 15, 2003, Cal Tech has
announced the "Turing Tournament," designed to "find the best computer
programs to mimic human behavior ... and the best computer programs to
detect the difference between machine and human behavior." Two types of
submissions will be accepted: an emulator, which generates a dataset...
Regulation Of The Mammalian Cell Cycle: A Model Of The G1-To-S Transition,
Zhilin Qu, James N. Weiss, W. Robb MacLellan, AJP: Cell 2003 February 1;
284(2): p. C349-C364
Distributed Metadata: Good For Business Instead of a Centralized Business
Directory, What Would a Decentralized Directory Look Like?, David
Weinberger, January 15, 2003
Depth Of Strategic Reasoning In Games, Eleanora Bilotta et al. (Eds.), 03/01.
International: Bush Says Shift by North Korea Could Bring Aid, David E.
Sanger, NYTimes, 03/01/15, The president said he would consider a "bold
initiative" for North Korea if it abandoned its nuclear weapons program.
MIT's Smart Surface Switches Properties Reversibly, Jan. 16, 2002, MIT
engineers and colleagues from the University of California are reporting a
unique design of a "smart surface" that can reversibly switch properties in
response to an external stimulus. The work paves the way for systems that
could, for example, release or absorb cells and chemicals from...
Robots That Suck, Kurzweilai.net, February 2003, Have they finally come out
with a robot for the rest of us? iRobot's Roomba, a robot designed for
vacuuming, rises above the level of mere...
Grid Computing Good for Business, Kurzweilai.net, 03/01/16, Grid computing
is taking off in the corporate world, bouyed by the release this week of a
pre-beta version of the next enhancement of the standard grid software,
Global Toolkit...
Who Says Science Can't Be Fun?, Kurzweilai.net, 03/01/16, Commercial
applications have come from the fertile imagination of MIT Media Lab
researchers, such as composer Tod Machover, whose Etch-A-Sketch-like device
lets children compose by drawing lines on a computer screen and is due to
be released as a...,
Individual Differences In Subjective And Objective Alertness During Sleep
Deprivation Are Stable And Unrelated, Rachel Leproult, Egidio F. Colecchia,
Anna Maria Berardi, Robert, Stickgold, Stephen M. Kosslyn, , Eve Van
Cauter, AJP: Regu 2003 February 1; 284(2): p. R280-R290,
MEDICINE: What Are the Right Targets for Psychopharmacology?, Steven E.
Hyman and Wayne S. Fenton, Science 2003 January 17; 299(5605): p. 350-351,
HISTORY OF LIFE: Just How Pregnant Is the Universe?, Antonio Lazcano,
Science 2003 January 17; 299(5605): p. 347-348,
Robust Judgement Of Inter-Object Distance By An Arthropod, Jan M. Hemmi,
Jochen Zeil, Nature 421, 160 - 163 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature01247
Intracardiac Fluid Forces Are An Essential Epigenetic Factor For Embryonic
Cardiogenesis, Jay R. Hove, Reinhard W. Koster, Arian S. Forouhar, Gabriel,
Acevedo-Bolton, Scott E. Fraser, Morteza Gharib, Nature 421, 172 - 177
(2003); doi:10.1038/nature01282
Coulomb Fission: Rayleigh Jets From Levitated Microdroplets, Denis Duft,
Tobias Achtzehn, Rene Muller, Bernd A. Huber, Thomas Leisner, Nature 421,
128 (2003); doi:10.1038/421128a, Electrified droplets are generated in
thunderstorm clouds, as well as in technological applications such as
ink-jet printing
Synthetic Biology: Act Natural, Steven A. Benner, Nature 421, 118 (2003);
doi:10.1038/421118a , This burgeoning field aims to reproduce advanced,
dynamic behaviours of biological systems, including genetics, inheritance
and evolution.
Materials Science: Bursting Apart, Leo P. Kadanoff, Nature 421, 124 - 125
(2003); doi:10.1038/421124a , When a low-viscosity fluid is injected into
an elastic material, it forces its way through by making slender cracks, in
a random, fractal pattern.
Physicist Proposes Deeper Layer Of Reality, New theory takes the chance out
of quantum mechanics.
Ants' Nests Stay Pine-Fresh, Insects collect resin to keep disease at bay.
Unleashing the Ideavirus, Seth Godin, Hyperion , 2001, "A redefinition of
old ideas...a lot of complexity/networking here but with different terms."
(Dean LeBaron)
Deconstructing Birdsong, JR Minkel, Phys Rev Focus, 03/01/08, Compare real
(80 kb wav) with simulated (78 kb wav) birdsongs.
Best of Consumer Electronics Show 2003, CNET Networks, 03/01
Listening To The Universe With Gravitational-Wave Astronomy, S. A. Hughes,
Annals of Physics, Vol. 303, Issue 1, pp:142-178, Jan. 2003, DOI:
10.1016/S0003-4916(02)00025-8
Superconducting Sensor Helps Detecting Gravitation Waves, W. van der Veen,
Alphagalileo, 2003/01/15
Wavelength Exchange: A Novel Function For Optical Networks, K. K. Y. Wong,
M. E. Marhic, K. Uesaka & L. G. Kazovsky, Information Sc., Vol. 149, Issues
1-3, pp: 161-169, Jan. 2003, DOI: 10.1016/S0020-0255(02)00254-2
Scientists Probe Genetics Of Brain Vulnerability, L. Menzies, Alphagalileo,
2003/01/10
Improbable Areas In The Visual Brain, S. Zeki, Trends in Neurosc., 26:1,
pp:23-26, Jan. 2003
Expanding The Genetic Code: The World¡¦s First Truly Unnatural Organism,
ScienceDaily, 2003/01/14
Regularities Unseen, Randomness Observed: Levels Of Entropy Convergence, J.
P. Crutchfield & D. P. Feldman, Chaos, Vol. 13, Issue 1, pp:25-54, Mar.
2003, doi:10.1063/1.1530990
The Preference Order Of Fuzzy Numbers, L. H. Chen & H. W. Lu, Comp. & Math.
with Appl., Vol. 44, Issues 10-11, pp: 1455-1465, Nov.-Dec. 2002, DOI:
10.1016/S0898-1221(02)00270-5
The Evolution of Cognition A Hypothesis . Holk Cruse. Cognitive Science. 27
(1): 135-155. 2003-01.
Formal Concept Analysis and Resolution in Algebraic Domains. Pascal Hitzler
and Matthias Wendt. arXiv. 2003-01-09
Time Correlations and 1/f Behavior in Backscattering Radar Reflectivity
Measurements from Cirrus Cloud Ice Fluctuations. K. Ivanova, T.P. Ackerman,
E.E. Clothiaux, P.Ch. Ivanov, H.E. Stanley, and M. Ausloos. arXiv. 2003-01-14
Researchers Seek 'Heart' Of Black Hole Mystery, ScienceDaily & NASA,
2003/01/10
Interspecific Influence On Mobility And Turing Instability, Y. Huang & O.
Diekmann, Bulletin of Math. Biol., Vol. 65, Issue 1, pp: 143-156, Jan.
2003, DOI: 10.1006/bulm.2002.0328
Competitive Exclusion And Coexistence Of Universal Grammars, W. G.
Mitchenera, M. A. Nowakb, Bulletin of Math. Biol., Vol. 65, Issue 1, pp:
67-93, Jan. 2003, DOI: 10.1006/bulm.2002.0322
Limit Cycles In An Optimal Control Problem Of Diabetes, J. R. Faria,
Applied Math. Letters, Vol. 16, Issue 1, pp:127-130, Jan. 2003, DOI:
10.1016/S0893-9659(02)00154-4
Where Are the Hawks on North Korea?, Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay; The
American Prospect, 03/01/02
Try To Engage with Pyongyang, James Goodby; International Herald Tribune,
03/01/06
Too Big a Buck for the Bang, Michael E. O'Hanlon, The Washington Post,
03/01/06, To be blunt, Pentagon efforts to save money by outsourcing are
failing.
Why the U.S. Is Focusing on Iraq; Can U.S. Engage Pyongyang Without
Rewarding It?, Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, San Jose Mercury News
(03/01/05), But while Washington's sights have been fixed on Baghdad, North
Korea is actually coming closer to realizing the nightmare Bush warned
against last January: a "rogue" state with nuclear weapons, willing,
perhaps, to sell them to the highest bidder.

20.2 Coming and Ongoing Webcasts

The Center for Business Innovation Bi-Monthly Web Cast, 03/01/15, TOPIC:
CBI Future Scan Version 6.0, WHO: David McIntosh, Director of the CBI Network
Annual Video Game Report Card, Speakers: Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT); Rep.
Betty McCollum (D-MN); David Walsh, President, National Institute on Media
& the Family, c-span.org, 12/19/2002, clip11782 (50 min.)
Artificial Life Conference (A-Life 8), Sydney, Australia, 02/12/09-13
Universes, Edge Video, 02/11
Novel Properties of Nano-Materials Symposium, Natl Taiwan Normal Univ,
02/12/13-14
Dean LeBaron's Archive of Daily Video Commentary, Ongoing Since February 1998

20.3 Conference Announcements

Plexus Ontario Fractal Meeting, Toronto, Canada, 03/01/23
3rd Gathering of the Center for Self-Organizing Leadership, St. George,
Utah, 03/01/24-26
INSC 2003, International Nonlinear Sciences Conference Research and
Applications in the Life Sciences,Vienna, Austria, 03/02/07-09
Complexity Science In Practice: Understanding & Acting To Improve Health
and Health Care, Mayo Clinic Rochester, Minnesota USA, 03/03/21-22
Fourth International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and
Automated Learning (IDEAL'03), Hong Kong, 03/03/21-23
2003 AAAI Spring Symposium Series, Computational Synthesis: From Basic
Building Blocks To High Level Functionality, Stanford, 03/03/24-27
Jahrestagung 2003 des AKSOE (Physics of Socio-Economical Systems), Dresden,
Germany, 03/03/24-28
Uncertainty and Surprise: Questions on Working with the Unexpected, U. of
Texas at Austin, Texas, 03/04/10-12
Agent-Based Simulation 4, Montpellier, France, 03/04/28-30
SPIE's 1st Intl Symp on Fluctuations and Noise, Santa Fe, NM, 03/06/01-04
21st ICDE World Conf on Open Learning and Distance Education, Hong Kong,
03/06/01-05
17th Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Simulation (PADS 2003), San
Diego, California, 03/06/10-13
2003 Summer Computer Simulation Conference (SCSC '03), Montreal, Canada,
03/06/20-24
5th Intl Conf "Symmetry in Nonlinear Mathematical Physics", Kiev, Ukraine,
03/06/23-29, Mirror
9th International Conference on Auditory Display, Boston, MA, 03/07/07-09,
Wkshp on Assistive Technologies for the Blind, 03/07/06
2003 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2003), Chicago,
IL,03/07/12-16
2nd Intl Joint Conf on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
(AAMAS-2003), Melbourne, Australia, 03/07/14-18
7th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (SCI
2003), Orlando, Florida, 03/07/27-30
13th Annual International Conference, Soc f Chaos Theory in Psych & Life
Sciences,Boston, MA, USA
7th European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL-2003), Dortmund, Germany,
03/09/14-17
2003 IEEE/WIC Intl Joint Conf. Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent
Technology, Beijing, China, 03/10/13-17
2nd International Workshop on the Mathematics and Algorithms of Social
Insects, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; 03/12/15-17

20.3.1 Public Conference Calls

PlexusCalls - Pat Rush & Bob Lindberg in health concern conversation with
Keith McCandless and Linda Rusch, 03/01/10, Audio File Available Now, mp3
(28mb)
PlexusCalls - John Holland in Conversation - Audio File Available Now, mp3
(28mb)

Are Disease and Aging Information/Complexity Loss Syndromes?, PlexusCalls,
02/11/08, 1 - 2 pm EST (To learn more about Ary Goldberger¡¦s work and
HeartSongs, Music of the Heart.) Audio File Available Now, mp3 (27mb)
Brenda Zimmerman in Conversation - Audio File Available Now, mp3 (24mb)
The Complexity of Entrepreneurship: A Launchcyte Story, PlexusCalls,
02/11/22, 1 - 2 pm EST

20.4 ComDig Announcement: New ComDig Archive in Beta Test

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

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