Complexity Digest 2008.18    1-May -2008
PDF files of our annual editions are available at www.comdig.de/AnnualEditions.html

A letter from Gottfried Mayer to our readers and friends is at www.comdig.de/GMLetter.html
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  "I think the next century will be the century of complexity." Stephen Hawking
  1. Physicist Seeks 'Deeper' View Of Nature, Societies, ColumbiaTribune
  2. Wall Street, Run Amok, NY Times
  3. Ancient Ecosystems Organized Much Like Our Own, Science Daily
  4. Learning Theory: The Advantage of Abstract Examples in Learning Math, Science
    1. Mechanisms Of Memory Identified: Major Step Forward In Understanding How Memory Works, Innovations-report
  5. My Brain On Booze - A Unique EEG Test Reveals How Alcohol Sets The Brain Aglow., Technology Review
    1. Shining Light On The Brain's Activity, ScienceDaily
    2. Neurobiology And The Development Of Violence: Common Assumptions And Controversies, Phil. Tran. Biol. Sc.
  6. Social Transmission Of Nectar-Robbing Behaviour In Bumble-Bees, Proc. Biol. Sc.
  7. Climate Change: Carbon Crucible, Science
    1. Down With Carbon, Science News
  8. Rest In Peace Nanobacteria, You Were Not Alive After All, Science News
  9. Old Drug Offers New Tricks For Fighting Cancer, Science News
    1. Scientists Provide Explanation For How Cancer Spreads, PhysOrg.com
  10. Triggering Autoimmune Assaults, Science News
  11. The Big Ome - It's Time To Make The Case For Proteins., Nature
    1. Metabolism: Food Alert, Nature
  12. Green Genes, Science
    1. Extending Genomics to Natural Communities and Ecosystems, Science
    2. From Genotype to Phenotype: Systems Biology Meets Natural Variation, Science
  13. Gene Transcription: Two Worlds Merged, Nature
  14. The Effect of Recombination on the Neutral Evolution of Genetic Robustness, arXiv
  15. Paleoanthropology: When Hobbits (Slowly) Walked the Earth, Science
    1. Hobbit Wars, Science News
  16. Disorder And Decision Cost In Spatial Networks, Chaos
  17. Maximum Power Efficiency and Criticality in Random Boolean Networks, arXiv
  18. Superconductors Redux - Yet Another Surprise Has Been Uncovered In The Complex Oxides., Nature
  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks
    1. US Report Says Al-Qaida Gaining Strength, Associated Press
    2. Al-Qaeda Readies in Pakistan, While America Waits, NewsWeek/WashightonPost
  20. Links & Snippets
    1. Other Publications
    2. Webcast Announcements
    3. Conference Announcements
    4. Other Announcements

  1. Physicist Seeks 'Deeper' View Of Nature, Societies, ColumbiaTribune

    Excerpts: Crossing the boundaries of physics and biology, Santa Fe Institute fellow Geoffrey West has moved beyond establishing the relationship between blood flow in the body and traffic flow in cities. (...)

    "We better understand cities if we're going to solve these problems," West said. "We cannot in my opinion we will not - solve the problem by focusing on global warming, by focusing on energy and the environment and then focusing on the market. We need to create a generation of people very quickly that think in broader terms, seeing these as integrated problems."


  2. Wall Street, Run Amok, NY Times

    Excerpts:
    Philip Anderson
    In other words, they can hold some scary "assets." What do they hold as capital against such risks? You would think it would be cash or Treasury bonds, wouldn't you? But no.

    Under an interesting set of rules promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004, called "Alternative Net Capital Requirements for Broker-Dealers That Are Part of Consolidated Supervised Entities," the amount of capital that had to underlie assets was reduced substantially. (Mr. Einhorn rightly says that this set of rules should have been called the "Bear Stearns Future Insolvency Act of 2004.")


  3. Ancient Ecosystems Organized Much Like Our Own, Science Daily

    Excerpts: Similarities between half-billion-year-old and recent food webs point to deep principles underpinning the structure of ecological relationships, as shown by researchers from the Santa Fe Institute, Microsoft Research Cambridge and elsewhere. Analyses of Chengjiang and Burgess Shale food-web data suggest that most, but not all, aspects of the trophic structure of modern ecosystems were in place over a half-billion years ago. It was an Anomalocaris-eat-trilobite world, filled with species like nothing on today's Earth. But the ecology of Cambrian communities was remarkably modern, say researchers behind the first study to reconstruct detailed food webs for ancient ecosystems.
    In this depiction of the food web of the Burgess Shale from the Middle Cambrian, spheres represent species or groups of species, and the links between them show feeding relationships. The drawing shows a top predator, Anomalocaris, chasing one of its likely prey species, the trilobite Olenoides, with arrows indicating their positions in the food web. Many aspects of the structure of this ancient ecological network are similar to the architecture of modern food webs. (Credit: N. D. Martinez)


  4. Learning Theory: The Advantage of Abstract Examples in Learning Math, Science

    Excerpts: Undergraduate students may benefit more from learning mathematics through a single abstract, symbolic representation than from learning multiple concrete examples. (...)

    Here, we tested a hypothesis that learning a single generic instantiation (that is, one that communicates minimal extraneous information) may result in better knowledge transfer than learning multiple concrete, contextualized instantiations. (...)

    These results indicate that learning one, two, or three concrete instantiations resulted in little or no transfer, whereas learning one generic instantiation resulted in significant transfer.


    1. Mechanisms Of Memory Identified: Major Step Forward In Understanding How Memory Works, Innovations-report

      Excerpt: Our ability to remember the objects, places and people within our environment is essential for everyday life, although the importance of this is only fully appreciated when recognition memory beings to fail, as in Alzheimer's disease. By blocking certain mechanisms that control the way that nerve cells in the brain communicate, scientists from the University of Bristol have been able to prevent visual recognition memory in rats. This demonstrates they have identified cellular and molecular mechanisms in the brain that may provide a key to understanding processes of recognition memory. (...)

  5. My Brain On Booze - A Unique EEG Test Reveals How Alcohol Sets The Brain Aglow., Technology Review

    Excerpts:
    Brain waves: Biotechnology editor Emily Singer wears a cap fitted with EEG electrodes, designed by Alan Gevins and his colleagues at SAM Technology. The device assesses brain function as Singer plays a series of specially designed computer games. Credit: Kate Greene
    Gevins, founder of SAM Technology and the San Francisco Brain Research Institute, has developed a system that combines EEG with cognitive testing--computer tests that assess a person's memory or ability to multitask--to get a more direct measure of the brain's ability to remember and pay attention. He is now aiming to commercialize the technology, with the eventual goal of using it to more precisely assess cognitive decline and tailor drug prescriptions to minimize cognitive side effects.

    1. Shining Light On The Brain's Activity, ScienceDaily

      Excerpt: The microscopic structure of the human brain is almost incomprehensibly complicated, composed of trillions of interconnections between tens of billions of neurons. Understanding this circuitry, the aim of modern neuroscience, is a laudable goal for fundamental as well as neurological health care reasons. Exploring the brain's microcircuitry has traditionally been done by lining up tiny electrodes within or near single neurons to probe their electrical activity. Though well established, this method is invasive and often noisy because of background electrical activity in the brain. A number of alternative approaches use optical probes that can detect neuronal activity with light, (...).

    2. Neurobiology And The Development Of Violence: Common Assumptions And Controversies, Phil. Tran. Biol. Sc.

      Excerpts: This paper addresses four common assumptions and related controversies regarding neurobiological factors explaining violence: (i) scholars often assume stability of individual differences in neurobiological factors pertaining to violence, yet much change occurs in aggression/violence during the life course, (ii) individual differences in aggression/violence reflect one or more underlying mechanisms that are believed to have neurobiological origins, yet there is little agreement about which underlying mechanisms apply best, (iii) the development of aggression/violence to some degree can be explained by social, individual, economic and environmental factors, (...) and (iv) violence waxes and wanes in society over time, (...).

  6. Social Transmission Of Nectar-Robbing Behaviour In Bumble-Bees, Proc. Biol. Sc.

    Excerpts: Social transmission of acquired foraging techniques is rarely considered outside of a vertebrate context. Here, however, we show that nectar robbing by bumble-bees (Bombus terrestris)-an invertebrate behaviour of considerable ecological significance-has the potential to spread through a population at the accelerated rates typical of social transmission. Nectar robbing occurs when individuals either bite through the base of a flower to ‘steal' nectar (primary robbing) or use robbing holes that others have made (secondary robbing). (...) Our findings suggest that the positive feedback effects of social transmission may potentially play an ecologically important role in the relationship between plants and pollinators.

  7. Climate Change: Carbon Crucible, Science

    Excerpts: What are the data and modeling requirements for gauging the success of mitigation strategies in reducing greenhouse gas emissions?

    Atmospheric measurements show that the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the atmosphere is currently ~385 parts per million (ppm) and rising fast. But this value is a global average that tells us nothing about the regional distribution of greenhouse gas emissions. As the world embraces myriad mitigation strategies, it must gauge which strategies work and which do not.


    1. Down With Carbon, Science News

      Excerpts: Later this year, McGrail and his colleagues will inject between 1,000 and 3,000 tons of liquid CO2 - enough, give or take, to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool - into the porous rocks at a depth of about 1 kilometer. Then, researchers will assess the effectiveness of their sequestration by occasionally collecting fluid samples at the injection site. Analyses suggest that this volume of CO2 will react to form carbonate minerals within five years, says McGrail.

  8. Rest In Peace Nanobacteria, You Were Not Alive After All, Science News

    Excerpts: "These things can be replicated, but we quickly found that they aren't bacteria at all,' says Didier Raoult, a microbiologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Marseille, France.

    In a study published February 15 in the online journal PLoS Pathogens, Raoult and his colleagues described nanobacteria as complexes of minerals and a protein called fetuin. Fetuin prevents minerals from forming crystals but may aid in clumping calcium molecules into the hollow spheres characteristic of nanobacteria.

    But the particles can "infect" other solutions, producing more nanobacteria.


  9. Old Drug Offers New Tricks For Fighting Cancer, Science News

    Excerpts: Now, oncologist Frank Meyskens Jr. of the University of California, Irvine and his colleagues have completed nearly two decades of testing very low doses of DFMO in people who are at high risk for colorectal cancer. Early on, the work showed that at doses only one-fiftieScience News, 08/04/24th the amount used to treat cancers, DFMO was safe and patients tolerated it well - and the hearing side effect didn't show up. (...)

    DFMO, or difluoromethylornithine, inhibits the synthesis of polyamines, basic compounds in cells.


    1. Scientists Provide Explanation For How Cancer Spreads, PhysOrg.com

      Excerpts: Metastasis, the spread of cancer throughout the body, can be explained by the fusion of a cancer cell with a white blood cell in the original tumor, according to Yale School of Medicine researchers, who say that this single event can set the stage for cancer's migration to other parts of the body. (...)

      "Viewing the fusion of a cancer cell and a white blood cell as the initiating event for metastasis suggests that metastasis is virtually another disease imposed on the pre-existing cancer cell," said Pawelek. "We expect this to open new areas for therapy based on the fusion process itself."


  10. Triggering Autoimmune Assaults, Science News

    Excerpts: Our bodies provide food and shelter for trillions of microbes - bacteria, yeasts and other squatters. Now, researchers report that a few resident species release a substance that can inappropriately rev up the immune system. If this happens at the wrong time, animal tests suggest, the body may launch a dangerous assault against itself.

    Once such an autoimmune attack begins, the body finds it hard to shut it down, notes Robert B. Clark. The question has always been what triggers autoimmunity - the condition underlying multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and a host of other disorders.


  11. The Big Ome - It's Time To Make The Case For Proteins., Nature

    Excerpts: (...) it would systematically catalogue all the proteins manufactured in the body: what they are, where they are and in what abundance (see page 920). A cancer biologist might reveal whether a rogue protein is overexpressed in the tumours she studies compared with levels from healthy tissue that are logged in the proteome register. A geneticist who traces Alzheimer's susceptibility to a region of code could consult the proteome to reveal which proteins are being manufactured from that region in the brain. We can expect this catalogue of proteins to eventually include the targets for almost all future drugs.

    1. Metabolism: Food Alert, Nature

      Excerpts: The gut prevents nutrient overload during a meal by promoting satiety and enhancing insulin secretion. New findings show that nutrients in the gut also activate a neural circuit that increases insulin sensitivity.

      Eating is essential to life, yet its episodic nature necessitates physiological adaptations to avoid excesses or deficits in circulating fuels, especially glucose and lipids. As the first point of contact with ingested food, the gastrointestinal tract is ideally positioned to initiate after-meal adaptations.


  12. Green Genes, Science

    Excerpts: The finished sequences of the flowering plants Arabidopsis, rice, poplar, and grape; the moss Physcomitrella, and the algae Chlamydomonas have begun to allow us to understand how plant genomes share common ground with the genomes of other organisms and how they differ. In this special section, along with an online collection (www.sciencemag.org/plantgenomes), we see how current knowledge of plant genomes lends insights to investigations from biochemistry to ecosystems.
    • Source: Green Genes, Laura M. Zahn, Pamela J. Hines, Elizabeth Pennisi, John Travis, Science : 465., 08/04/25

    1. Extending Genomics to Natural Communities and Ecosystems, Science

      Excerpts: An important step in the integration of ecology and genomics is the progression from molecular studies of relatively simple model systems to complex field systems. The recent availability of sequenced genomes from key plants is leading to a new understanding of the molecular drivers of community composition and ecosystem processes. As genome sequences accumulate for species that form intimate associations in nature, a detailed view may emerge as to how these associations cause changes among species at the nucleotide level. This advance could dramatically alter views about the structure and evolution of communities and ecosystems.

    2. From Genotype to Phenotype: Systems Biology Meets Natural Variation, Science

      Excerpts: The promise that came with genome sequencing was that we would soon know what genes do, particularly genes involved in human diseases and those of importance to agriculture. We now have the full genomic sequence of human, chimpanzee, mouse, chicken, dog, worm, fly, rice, and cress, as well as those for a wide variety of other species, and yet we still have a lot of trouble figuring out what genes do. Mapping genes to their function is called the "genotype-to-phenotype problem," where phenotype is whatever is changed in the organism when a gene's function is altered.

  13. Gene Transcription: Two Worlds Merged, Nature

    Excerpts: Why would two distant genes - on separate chromosomes and from different nuclear locations - unite in response to signals for gene expression? They might be seeds for the formation of transcriptional hubs.

    Gene transcription occurs largely at the submicroscopic scale. So although microscopic analysis of nuclear architecture has implicated various structures in this process, it has lacked the power to unravel the role that higher-order organization of chromatin (complexes of DNA and histone proteins) has in the expression of individual genes.


  14. The Effect of Recombination on the Neutral Evolution of Genetic Robustness, arXiv

    Excerpt: Conventional population genetics considers the evolution of a limited number of genotypes corresponding to phenotypes with different fitness. As model phenotypes, in particular RNA secondary structure, have become computationally tractable, however, it has become apparent that the context dependent effect of mutations and the many-to-one nature inherent in these genotype-phenotype maps can have fundamental evolutionary consequences. (...)

  15. Paleoanthropology: When Hobbits (Slowly) Walked the Earth, Science

    Excerpts: At the recent American Association of Physical Anthropology meetings, a researcher described the foot bones of an 18,000-year-old Indonesian skeleton known as the "hobbit." The tiny hominin would not have walked like we do, he said, and may offer "a window into a primitive bipedal foot." (...)

    The partial skeleton of the hobbit, a specimen known as LB1 from Liang Bua Cave on Flores, had large, flat feet and a high-stepping gait unlike that of living people; it would have been a poor runner, Jungers said.


    1. Hobbit Wars, Science News

      Excerpts:
      Deeper lookComputer-generated reconstructions (bottom) of the fossilized skulls of the small islanders suggest that, contrary to corresponding photos (top), these "hobbits" belonged to a unique species.K. Smith/Mallinckrodt Inst. Radiology, Wash. Univ. St. Louis; E. Indriati, D. Frayer
      Defenders of a small humanlike species that lived on an Indonesian island more than 12,000 years ago have launched their latest scientific counterattacks against critics of their position. Remains of Homo floresiensis, also referred to as hobbits, display no signs of growth disorders proposed by researchers who regard the fossils as those of modern humans, says Dean Falk of Florida State University in Tallahassee.



  16. Disorder And Decision Cost In Spatial Networks, Chaos

    Excerpt: We introduce the concept of decision cost of a spatial graph, which measures the disorder of a given network taking into account not only the connections between nodes but their position in a two-dimensional map. The influence of the network size is evaluated and we show that normalization of the decision cost allows us to compare the degree of disorder of networks of different sizes. Under this framework, we measure the disorder of the connections between airports of two different countries and obtain some conclusions about which of them is more disordered. (...)

  17. Maximum Power Efficiency and Criticality in Random Boolean Networks, arXiv

    Abstract: In this paper we provide a method which defines some fundamental thermodynamic functions for random Boolean networks, independent of the details of their implementation. We start from the concept of a computational Carnot cycle from the theory of reversible computation, together with Landauer's erasure principle and extend these away from the adiabatic limit. Using these, we derive expressions for the minimum (intrinsic) entropy production rate, and hence the maximum possible power efficiency for random Boolean networks. We then demonstrate that the power efficiency of random Boolean networks is maximized when the network is critical.

  18. Superconductors Redux - Yet Another Surprise Has Been Uncovered In The Complex Oxides., Nature

    Excerpts: Most crucially, the 'iron oxypnictides' show that high-temperature conductivity is not the sole preserve of copper oxides. As in that case, superconductivity in the new materials seems to be related to magnetic behaviour. But quite how this works has remained a mystery. With an entirely new family of compounds to play with, the mechanism might be persuaded to start giving up some secrets. With a theory to hand, 'designer superconductors' with much higher transition temperatures might not look like a fool's quest.

  19. Complex Challenges: Global Terrorist Networks


    1. US Report Says Al-Qaida Gaining Strength, Associated Press

      Excerpts: Al-Qaida has rebuilt some of its pre-Sept. 11 capabilities from remote hiding places in Pakistan, leading to a major spike in attacks last year in that country and neighboring Afghanistan, the Bush administration said Wednesday.

      Attacks in Pakistan more than doubled from 375 to 887 between 2006 and 2007, and the number of fatalities jumped by almost 300 percent from 335 to 1,335, the State Department said in its annual terrorism report.


    2. Al-Qaeda Readies in Pakistan, While America Waits, NewsWeek/WashightonPost

      Excerpts: The GAO report warned unambiguously, "al-Qaeda is now using the Pakistani safe haven to put the last element necessary to launch another attack against America into place." But the administration and Senator McCain stand to lose politically from acknowledging and confronting this threat. Doing so would be tantamount to admitting that they have endangered America's security by continuing to invest the bulk of our armed forces and resources in Iraq, when the true danger resides elsewhere.

  20. Links & Snippets


    1. Other Publications

      1. Cell Biology: RNA Metabolism and Oncogenesis, Deborah L. Johnson, Sandra A. S. Johnson, 08/04/25, Science : 461-462. Regulating the production of RNAs involved in protein synthesis can induce the transformation of cells to an oncogenic state.
      2. Encoding Gender and Individual Information in the Mouse Vomeronasal Organ, Jie He, Limei Ma, SangSeong Kim, Junichi Nakai, C. Ron Yu, 08/04/25, Science : 535-538. Mice can recognize the pheromones from individual mice through unique patterns of receptor activation in the vomeronasal organ.
      3. Towards a Stable Definition of Kolmogorov-Chaitin Complexity, Jean-Paul Delahaye, Hector Zenil, 2008/04/22, arXiv, DOI: 0804.3459
      4. Availability Of Prey Resources Drives Evolution Of Predator–Prey Interaction, V.-P. Friman, T. Hiltunen, J. Laakso, V. Kaitala, 2008/04/22, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0174
      5. Low Grades, Bad Behavior? Siblings May Be To Blame, Study Says, 2008/04/22, ScienceDaily & Florida State University
      6. Synchronization of Oscillators Coupled Through an Environment, Guy Katriel, 2008/04/23, arXiv, DOI: 0804.3734
      7. What's Not To Like? Why Fondness Makes Us Poor Judges, But Dislike Is Spot-on, 2008/04/23, ScienceDaily & University of Chicago Press Journals
      8. Lying? The Face Betrays Deceiver's True Emotions, But In Unexpected Ways, 2008/04/24, ScienceDaily & Dalhousie University
      9. Boffins Research 'Fast And Slow' Light: European Research Could Lead To Optical Computers Using Just Electromagnetic Radiation, R. Jaques, 2008/04/25, vnunet.com
      10. Computers Keep Asparagus Plants Vital, 2008/04/25, Innovations-report
      11. Birds Can Detect Predators Using Smell, 2008/04/25, Innovations-report
      12. New Gene Discovered For New Form Of Intellectual Disability, 2008/04/28, Innovations-report
      13. Generalized Synchronization Via Nonlinear Control, M. Juan, W. Xingyuan, Jun. 2008, online 2008/04/23, Chaos, DOI: 10.1063/1.2903841
      14. Topological Invariants In The Study Of A Chaotic Food Chain System, J. Duarte, C. Januário, N. Martins, Jun. 2008, online 2008/04/23, Chaos, DOI: 10.1063/1.2903843
      15. Simple Efficient Contracts In Complex Environments, R. Evans - robert.evansaecon.cam.ac.uk, May 2008, online 2008/04/17, Econometrica, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0262.2008.00844.x

    2. Webcast Announcements

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


    3. Conference Announcements

      1. Chaos And Dynamics In Biological Networks, Cargese, Corsica, France, 08/05/05-09
      2. 8th Understanding Complex Systems Conf , Urbana-Champaign, Il, 08/05/12-15
      3. NICO Complexity Conference, Evanston, IL, 08/05/19-21
      4. Brittle Fracture and Plastic Slip: from the Atomistic to the Engineering Scale, Udine, Italy, 08/05/26-30
      5. CHAOS2008 Chaotic Modeling and Simulation International Conference, Chania, Crete, Greece, 08/06/03-06
      6. International Conference on Chaos, Complexity & Conflict, Omaha, NE, 08/06/05-07
      7. 4th Organization Studies Summer Workshop: "Embracing Complexity: Advancing Ecological Understanding in Organization Studies", Pissouri, Cyprus, 08/06/05-07
      8. Cambridge Healthtech Institute's Tenth Annual... Applying Systems Biology, San Francisco, CA, 08/06/09-11
      9. AUTOMATA 2008, EPSRC Workshop Cellular Automata Theory and Applications, Bristol, UK, 08/06/12-14
      10. Intl Summer School on "Modelling and Optimization in Micro- and Nano- Electronics" - MOMINE 2008, Ragusa, Sicily, Italy, 08/06/14-28
      11. NECSI Summer School, Cambridge, MA, 08/06/16-07/04, Early Registration Deadline: 08/05/02
      12. 9th Intl Mathematica Symposium, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 08/06/20-24
      13. The 14th Intl Conf on Auditory Display (ICAD), Paris, France, 08/06/24-27
      14. 8th Intl Conf of Sociocybernetics - Complex Social Systems, Interdisciplinarity And World Futures, Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico, 08/06/24-28
      15. "Is complexity the new framework for management and public policy in the 21st century?" Complexity Society Workshop, Manchester, UK, 08/06/26
      16. The 3rd Intl Symp on Knowledge Communication and Peer Reviewing: KCPR 2008, Orlando, Florida, USA, 08/06/29-07/02
      17. The 3rd Intl Symp on Knowledge Communication and Conferences: KCC 2008, Orlando, Florida, USA, 08/06/29-07/02
      18. 7th Intl Summer School and Conf "Let's Face Chaos through Nonlinear Dynamics", Maribor, Slovenia, 08/06/29-07/13
      19. The 12th World Multi-Conf on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics: WMSCI 2008, Orlando, Florida, USA, 08/06/29-07/02
      20. From Animals To Animats 10 - The 10th Intl Conf on the Simulation Of Adaptive Behavior (SAB'08), Osaka, Japan, 08/07/07-12
      21. Complex Systems and Social Simulations, CEU Summer University, Budapest, Hungary, 08/07/07-18
      22. 2008 Gordon Research Conf on Oscillations & Dynamic Instabilities in Chemical Systems, Waterville, ME, 08/07/13-18
      23. Nonlinear Fracture Mechanics Models, Udine, Italy, 08/07/14-18
      24. 1st Intl Workshop on Nonlinear Dynamics and Synchronization (INDS'08), Klagenfurt, Austria, 08/07/18-19
      25. Scratch@MIT,Cambridge, MA, 08/07/24-26
      26. 8th Intl Conf on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems, Brighton, UK, 08/07/31-08/02
      27. On the Edge: Healthcare in the Age of Complexity, Kansas City, MO, 08/08/03-05
      28. Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences 18th Annl Intl Conf, Richmond, Virginia, USA, 08/08/08-10
      29. Stochastic Resonance 2008, Perugia, Italy, 08/08/17-21
      30. 4th Intl Conf on Natural Computation (ICNC'08) - 5th Intl Conf on Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD'08), Jinan, China, 08/08/25-27
      31. Intl Conf DEscribing COmplex Systems (DECOS), Zadar, Croatia, 08/09/03-07
      32. 5th European Conference on Complex Systems, Jerusalem, Israel, 08/09/14-19
      33. EPOS 2008, III Edition of Epistemological Perspectives on Simulation, Lisbon, Portugal, 08/10/02-03
      34. 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


    4. Other Announcements

      1. A short notice from Dean LeBaron

        Dear ComDig Readers,

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

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

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

        Dean LeBaron
        Publisher, Complexity Digest

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        Ref. Gottfried Mayer



Complexity Digest is an independent publication available to organizations that may wish to repost ComDig to their own mailing lists. ComDig is published by Dean LeBaron and edited by Gottfried J. Mayer. To unsubscribe from this list, please send a note to subscriptions@comdig.com. [CNW:Counter]