Why we live in hierarchies: a quantitative treatise
Anna Zafeiris, Tamás Vicsek

Source: arxiv.org

Self-Organization and The Origins of Life: The Managed-Metabolism Hypothesis
John E. Stewart

Source: arxiv.org

Thermodynamics of Evolutionary Games
Christoph Adami, Arend Hintze

Source: arxiv.org

The Fall of the Empire: The Americanization of English
Bruno Gonçalves, Lucía Loureiro-Porto, José J. Ramasco, David Sánchez

Source: arxiv.org

What happens when you slow down part of an ultrafast network that is operating quicker than the blink of an eye, e.g. electronic exchange network, navigational systems in driverless vehicles, or even neuronal processes in the brain? This question just adopted immediate commercial, legal and political importance following U.S. financial regulators’ decision to allow a new network node to intentionally introduce delays of microseconds. Though similar requests are set to follow, there is still no scientific understanding available to policymakers of the likely system-wide impact of such delays. Giving academic researchers access to (so far prohibitively expensive) microsecond exchange data would help rectify this situation. As a by-product, the lessons learned would deepen understanding of instabilities across myriad other networks, e.g. impact of millisecond delays on brain function and safety of driverless vehicle navigation systems beyond human response times.

To slow, or not to slow? New science in sub-second networks

Neil F. Johnson

Source: arxiv.org

Optimal percolation on multiplex networks
Saeed Osat, Ali Faqeeh, Filippo Radicchi

Source: arxiv.org

Development of structural correlations and synchronization from adaptive rewiring in networks of Kuramoto oscillators
Lia Papadopoulos, Jason Kim, Jurgen Kurths, Danielle S. Bassett

Source: arxiv.org

The complex nature of organizational culture challenges our ability to infer its underlying dynamics from observational studies. Recent computational studies have adopted a distinctly different view, where plausible mechanisms are proposed to describe a wide range of social phenomena, including the onset and evolution of organizational culture. In this spirit, this work introduces an empirically-grounded, agent-based model which relaxes a set of assumptions that describes past work–(a) omittance of an individual’s strive for achieving cognitive coherence; (b) limited integration of important contextual factors—by utilizing networks of beliefs and incorporating social rank into the dynamics. As a result, we illustrate that: (i) an organization may appear to be increasingly coherent in terms of its organizational culture, yet be composed of individuals with reduced levels of coherence; (ii) the components of social conformity—peer-pressure and social rank—are influential at different aggregation levels.

Ellinas C, Allan N, Johansson A (2017) Dynamics of organizational culture: Individual beliefs vs. social conformity. PLoS ONE 12(6): e0180193. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0180193

Source: journals.plos.org

The Money Formula takes you inside the engine room of the global economy to explore the little-understood world of quantitative finance, and show how the future of our economy rests on the backs of this all-but-impenetrable industry. Written not from a post-crisis perspective – but from a preventative point of view – this book traces the development of financial derivatives from bonds to credit default swaps, and shows how mathematical formulas went beyond pricing to expand their use to the point where they dwarfed the real economy. You’ll learn how the deadly allure of their ice-cold beauty has misled generations of economists and investors, and how continued reliance on these formulas can either assist future economic development, or send the global economy into the financial equivalent of a cardiac arrest.

Rather than rehash tales of post-crisis fallout, this book focuses on preventing the next one. Even amidst global recovery, the financial system still has the potential to seize up at any moment. The Money Formula explores the how and why of financial disaster, what must happen to prevent the next one.

Source: www.amazon.com

No matter how old you are, there’s a good chance that the word “popular” immediately transports you back to your teenage years. Most of us can easily recall the adolescent social cliques, the high school pecking order, and which of our peers stood out as the most or the least popular teens we knew. Even as adults we all still remember exactly where we stood in the high school social hierarchy, and the powerful emotions associated with our status persist decades later. This may be for good reason.

Popular examines why popularity plays such a key role in our development and, ultimately, how it still influences our happiness and success today. In many ways—some even beyond our conscious awareness—those old dynamics of our youth continue to play out in every business meeting, every social gathering, in our personal relationships, and even how we raise our children. Our popularity even affects our DNA, our health, and our mortality in fascinating ways we never previously realized. More than childhood intelligence, family background, or prior psychological issues, research indicates that it’s how popular we were in our early years that predicts how successful and how happy we grow up to be.

But it’s not always the conventionally popular people who fare the best, for the simple reason that there is more than one type of popularity—and many of us still long for the wrong one. As children, we strive to be likable, which can offer real benefits not only on the playground but throughout our lives. In adolescence, though, a new form of popularity emerges, and we suddenly begin to care about status, power, influence, and notoriety—research indicates that this type of popularity hurts us more than we realize.
Popular relies on the latest research in psychology and neuroscience to help us make the wisest choices for ourselves and for our children, so we may all pursue more meaningful, satisfying, and rewarding relationships.

Source: www.amazon.com

There are more than thirty thousand species of fish―more than mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined. But for all their breathtaking diversity and beauty, we rarely consider how fish think, feel, and behave. In What a Fish Knows, the ethologist Jonathan Balcombe takes us under the sea and to the other side of the aquarium glass to reveal what fishes can do, how they do it, and why. Introducing the latest revelations in animal behavior and biology, Balcombe upends our assumptions about fish, exposing them not as unfeeling, dead-eyed creatures but as sentient, aware, social―even Machiavellian. They conduct elaborate courtship rituals and develop lifelong bonds with shoal-mates. They also plan, hunt cooperatively, use tools, punish wrongdoers, curry favor, and deceive one another. Fish possess sophisticated senses that rival our own. The reef-dwelling damselfish identifies its brethren by face patterns visible only in ultraviolet light, and some species communicate among themselves in murky waters using electric signals. Highlighting these breakthrough discoveries and others from his own encounters with fish, Balcombe inspires a more enlightened appraisal of marine life.

An illuminating journey into the world of underwater science, What a Fish Knows will forever change your view of our aquatic cousins.

Source: www.amazon.com

In this follow-up to his hugely popular The Book of Trees and Visual Complexity, Manuel Lima takes us on a lively tour through millennia of circular information design. Three hundred detailed and colorful illustrations from around the world cover an encyclopedic array of subjects–architecture, urban planning, fine art, design, fashion, technology, religion, cartography, biology, astronomy, and physics, all based on the circle, the universal symbol of unity, perfection, movement, and infinity. 

 

The Book of Circles juxtaposes clay trading tokens used by the ancient Sumerians with the iconic logos of twentieth-century corporations, a chart organizing seven hundred Nintendo offerings with a Victorian board game based on the travels of Nellie Bly, and a visual analysis of Stanley Kubrick’s film The Shining with early celestial charts that placed the earth at the center of the universe, among a wealth of other elegant and intriguing methods for displaying information.

Lima provides an authoritative history of the circle as well as a unique taxonomy of twenty-one varieties of circle diagrams, rounding out this visual feast for infographics enthusiasts.

Source: www.amazon.com

The thermodynamic efficiency of computations made in cells across the range of life
Christopher P. Kempes, David Wolpert, Zachary Cohen, Juan Pérez-Mercader

Source: arxiv.org

Scalable Co-Optimization of Morphology and Control in Embodied Machines
Nick Cheney, Josh Bongard, Vytas SunSpiral, Hod Lipson

Source: arxiv.org

How do we think about his career when we consider that Newton wrote vastly more on religious subjects than he did on what we would consider scientific ones? Rob Iliffe’s new book Priest of Nature pulls back the curtain on what Newton thought of as his life’s work, rather than that for which we remember him.

The enlightened empiricist
Matthew Stanley
Priest of Nature: The Religious Worlds of Isaac Newton Rob Iliffe Oxford University Press, 2017. 536 pp.

Science  30 Jun 2017:
Vol. 356, Issue 6345, pp. 1341
DOI: 10.1126/science.aan4659

Source: science.sciencemag.org

DO ME A favor and picture a pasture dotted with a herd of grazing cows. Some stand and stare at you with that patented cow stare, others bury their heads in the green, green grass, while still others have laid down for a rest. Tranquil, right? About as simple as life gets?
Well, I’m sorry to say that your idea of the herd life may be a lie. Because a new mathematical model posits that while they don’t look it, cow herds may be extremely dynamic, secretly contentious gatherings of warring interests. Yes, with the help of a biologist, mathematicians calculated the fascinating dynamics of cow herds, and yes, they reported it today in a journal called Chaos.

Source: www.wired.com

Looking into Pandora’s Box: The Content of Sci-Hub and its Usage

Bastian Greshake

F1000Research Article

Source: f1000research.com

Stochastic growth processes give rise to diverse and intricate structures everywhere in nature, often referred to as fractals. In general, these complex structures reflect the non-trivial competition among the interactions that generate them. In particular, the paradigmatic Laplacian-growth model exhibits a characteristic fractal to non-fractal morphological transition as the non-linear effects of its growth dynamics increase. So far, a complete scaling theory for this type of transitions, as well as a general analytical description for their fractal dimensions have been lacking. In this work, we show that despite the enormous variety of shapes, these morphological transitions have clear universal scaling characteristics. Using a statistical approach to fundamental particle-cluster aggregation, we introduce two non-trivial fractal to non-fractal transitions that capture all the main features of fractal growth. By analyzing the respective clusters, in addition to constructing a dynamical model for their fractal dimension, we show that they are well described by a general dimensionality function regardless of their space symmetry-breaking mechanism, including the Laplacian case itself. Moreover, under the appropriate variable transformation this description is universal, i.e., independent of the transition dynamics, the initial cluster configuration, and the embedding Euclidean space.

Universal fractality of morphological transitions in stochastic growth processes
J. R. Nicolás-Carlock, J. L. Carrillo-Estrada & V. Dossetti
Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 3523 (2017)
doi:10.1038/s41598-017-03491-5

Source: www.nature.com

Is “ethics” a useless word when it comes to politics, policy-making, business, international affairs, laws, governments and real-world situations? The rule of law exists and, to varying extent, it governs power systems, wills and decisions of individuals and organizations, determining the status quo we live with. Then, why have an ethics-based approach at all?

HOW AN ETHICS-BASED APPROACH WORKS WITH GLOBAL AGENDAS
BARIŞ BAYRAM

Source: impakter.com

Empowerment As Replacement for the Three Laws of Robotics

Christoph Salge, Daniel Polani

Front. Robot. AI, 29 June 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2017.00025

Source: journal.frontiersin.org

Characterizing information importance and the effect on the spread in various graph topologies
James Flamino, Alexander Norman, Madison Wyatt

Source: arxiv.org

Title: 1D Printing of  Recyclable Robots
Authors: Daniel Cellucci, Robert MacCurdy, Hod Lipson, Sebastian Risi (2017)
In: EEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L).
Link: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7950924/
PDF: http://sebastianrisi.com/wp-content/uploads/cellucci_ral17.pdf
Video: https://youtu.be/ElW0O2IiuXA

Source: ieeexplore.ieee.org

Social media are massive marketplaces where ideas and news compete for our attention. Previous studies have shown that quality is not a necessary condition for online virality and that knowledge about peer choices can distort the relationship between quality and popularity. However, these results do not explain the viral spread of low-quality information, such as the digital misinformation that threatens our democracy. We investigate quality discrimination in a stylized model of an online social network, where individual agents prefer quality information, but have behavioural limitations in managing a heavy flow of information. We measure the relationship between the quality of an idea and its likelihood of becoming prevalent at the system level. We find that both information overload and limited attention contribute to a degradation of the market’s discriminative power. A good tradeoff between discriminative power and diversity of information is possible according to the model. However, calibration with empirical data characterizing information load and finite attention in real social media reveals a weak correlation between quality and popularity of information. In these realistic conditions, the model predicts that low-quality information is just as likely to go viral, providing an interpretation for the high volume of misinformation we observe online.

Source: www.nature.com

We study structures for efficient integration of multi-community networks where building bridges across communities incur an additional link cost compared to links within a community. Building on the connections models with direct link cost and direct and indirect benefits, we show that the efficient structure for homogeneous cost and benefit parameters, and for communities of arbitrary size, always has a diameter no greater than 3. We further show that if the internal cost is not small enough to justify a full graph for each community, integration always follows one of these two structures: Either a single star, or a new structure we introduce in this paper, called parallel-hyperstar, which is a special multi-core/periphery structure with parallel links among core nodes of different communities. We offer cost and benefit conditions where each structure is efficient and discuss the stability conditions of those structures.

Source: papers.ssrn.com

One of the most frequently used scientific words, is the word “Entropy”. The reason is that it is related to two main scientific domains: physics and information theory. Its origin goes back to the start of physics (thermodynamics), but since Shannon, it has become related to information theory. This conference is an opportunity to bring researchers of these two communities together and create a synergy. The main topics and sessions of the conference cover:

• Physics: classical Thermodynamics and Quantum
• Statistical physics and Bayesian computation
• Geometrical science of information, topology and metrics
• Maximum entropy principle and inference
• Kullback and Bayes or information theory and Bayesian inference
• Entropy in action (applications)

The inter-disciplinary nature of contributions from both theoretical and applied perspectives are very welcome, including papers addressing conceptual and methodological developments, as well as new applications of entropy and information theory.

Entropy 2018: From Physics to Information Sciences and Geometry

  14-16 May 2018
Auditorium Enric Casassas, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Source: sciforum.net

A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed “the taste for the beautiful”—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world.

In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin’s theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature?
     Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum—reviving Darwin’s own views—thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin’s long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change.
    Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time.
     The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature’s splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves.

Source: www.amazon.com

A captivating journey to the outer reaches of human knowledge

Ever since the dawn of civilization we have been driven by a desire to know–to understand the physical world and the laws of nature. But are there limits to human knowledge? Are some things beyond the predictive powers of science, or are those challenges simply the next big discovery waiting to happen?
Marcus du Sautoy takes us into the minds of science’s greatest innovators and reminds us that major breakthroughs were often ridiculed at the time of their discovery. Then he carries us on a whirlwind tour of seven “Edges” of knowledge – inviting us to consider the problems in quantum physics, cosmology, probability and neuroscience that continue to bedevil scientists who are at the front of their fields. He grounds his personal exploration of some of science’s thorniest questions in simple concepts like the roll of dice, the notes of a cello, or how a clock measures time. 

Exhilarating, mind-bending, and compulsively readable, The Great Unknown challenges us to think in new ways about every aspect of the known world as it invites us to consider big questions that no one has yet managed to answer definitively.

Source: www.amazon.com

A compelling firsthand account of Keith Devlin’s ten-year quest to tell Fibonacci’s story

In 2000, Keith Devlin set out to research the life and legacy of the medieval mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, popularly known as Fibonacci, whose book Liber abbaci has quite literally affected the lives of everyone alive today. Although he is most famous for the Fibonacci numbers–which, it so happens, he didn’t invent–Fibonacci’s greatest contribution was as an expositor of mathematical ideas at a level ordinary people could understand. In 1202, Liber abbaci–the “Book of Calculation”–introduced modern arithmetic to the Western world. Yet Fibonacci was long forgotten after his death, and it was not until the 1960s that his true achievements were finally recognized.

Finding Fibonacci is Devlin’s compelling firsthand account of his ten-year quest to tell Fibonacci’s story. Devlin, a math expositor himself, kept a diary of the undertaking, which he draws on here to describe the project’s highs and lows, its false starts and disappointments, the tragedies and unexpected turns, some hilarious episodes, and the occasional lucky breaks. You will also meet the unique individuals Devlin encountered along the way, people who, each for their own reasons, became fascinated by Fibonacci, from the Yale professor who traced modern finance back to Fibonacci to the Italian historian who made the crucial archival discovery that brought together all the threads of Fibonacci’s astonishing story.

Fibonacci helped to revive the West as the cradle of science, technology, and commerce, yet he vanished from the pages of history. This is Devlin’s search to find him.

Source: www.amazon.com

This wide-ranging overview of design in everyday life demonstrates how design shapes our lives in ways most of us would never imagine. The author, a leading expert in social and psychological issues in design, uncovers the gender, age, and body biases inherent in the designs of common products and living spaces that we all routinely use. From the schools our children attend and the buildings we work in to ill-fitting clothes and one-size-fits-all seating in public transportation, restaurants, and movie theaters, we are surrounded by an artificial environment that can affect our comfort, our self-image, and even our health.

Anthony points out the flaws and disadvantages of certain fashions, children’s toys, high-tech gadgets, packaging, public transportation, public restrooms, neighborhood layouts, classrooms, workplaces, hospitals, and more. In an increasingly diverse populace where many body types, age groups, and cultures interact, she argues that it’s time our environments caught up.

Source: www.amazon.com

This monograph presents a general mathematical theory for biological growth. It provides both a conceptual and a technical foundation for the understanding and analysis of problems arising in biology and physiology. The theory and methods are illustrated on a wide range of examples and applications.

A process of extreme complexity, growth plays a fundamental role in many biological processes and is considered to be the hallmark of life itself. Its description has been one of the fundamental problems of life sciences, but until recently, it has not attracted much attention from mathematicians, physicists, and engineers. The author herein presents the first major technical monograph on the problem of growth since D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s 1917 book On Growth and Form.

The emphasis of the book is on the proper mathematical formulation of growth kinematics and mechanics. Accordingly, the discussion proceeds in order of complexity and the book is divided into five parts. First, a general introduction on the problem of growth from a historical perspective is given.  Then, basic concepts are introduced within the context of growth in filamentary structures. These ideas are then generalized to surfaces and membranes and eventually to the general case of volumetric growth. The book concludes with a discussion of open problems and outstanding challenges.  

Source: www.amazon.com

Source: www.asnac2017.org.au

Multiscale Information Theory and the Marginal Utility of Information
Benjamin Allen, Blake C. Stacey, and Yaneer Bar-Yam

Entropy 2017, 19(6), 273; doi:10.3390/e19060273

Source: www.mdpi.com

How to fight corruption
Raymond Fisman, Miriam Golden

Science  26 May 2017:
Vol. 356, Issue 6340, pp. 803-804
DOI: 10.1126/science.aan081

Source: science.sciencemag.org

Zika virus evolution and spread in the Americas
Hayden C. Metsky, et al.

Nature 546, 411–415 (15 June 2017) doi:10.1038/nature22402

Source: www.nature.com

The Human Microbiome and the Missing Heritability Problem

Santiago Sandoval-Motta, Maximino Aldana, Esperanza Martínez-Romero and Alejandro Frank

Front. Genet., 13 June 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2017.00080

Source: journal.frontiersin.org

The Kreyon Conference Unfolding the dynamics of creativity and innovation conference will be held in Rome from 6th to 8th of September 2017 at Palazzo delle Esposizioni.

The aim of the conference is to gather scientists from many different disciplines (physics, mathematics, computer science, biology, social and cognitive sciences, arts, economics, business) to address fundamental questions about how people express their creativity and innovate both at the individual and collective levels.

The conference will feature three days (from september 6th to 8th) of scientific talks covering topics of creativity and innovation, while on Saturday the 9th plain conferences and discussions will engage a broad audience on the”Complexity of the future”.
The conference will also feature a set of interactive installations and ateliers aimed at engaging participants
in “creative” activities.

The Kreyon conference is sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation and organized by Sapienza University in collaboration with ISI Foundation and Complexity Science Hub Vienna.

Source: kreyon.net

Collective benefits in traffic during mega events via the use of information technologies
Yanyan Xu, Marta C. González
Published 12 April 2017.DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2016.1041

Royal Society Interface

April 2017
Volume 14, issue 129

Source: rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org

Trilobite ‘pelotons’: possible hydrodynamic drag effects between leading and following trilobites in trilobite queues
Hugh Trenchard, Carlton E. Brett, Matjaž Perc

Palaeontology

Volume 60, Issue 4
July 2017
Pages 557–569

10.1111/pala.12301

Source: onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Efficient method for estimating the number of communities in a network
Maria A. Riolo, George T. Cantwell, Gesine Reinert, M. E. J. Newman

Source: arxiv.org

Emergent Network Modularity
P. L. Krapivsky, S. Redner

Source: arxiv.org

NetSci 2017 Conference
JW Marriott Hotel, Indianapolis, IN
June 19 – 23, 2017
http://netsci2017.net/

Join us in Indianapolis in June for NetSci 2017!

LAST CHANCE TO REGISTER ONLINE

Online registration ends Sunday. June 11 at midnight (EDT). After this, only on-site registration will be available.  Complete your conference registration by going to: http://netsci2017.net/registration

SEE OUR FULL SCHEDULE: SATELLITES,  SCHOOL, SPEAKERS, SESSIONS, AND POSTERS

22 organized Satellites on a variety of topics in the first two days: http://netsci2017.net/program/satellites

Our International School with lectures on key topics in the field: http://netsci2017.net/program/school

12 exciting keynote and invited speakers: http://netsci2017.net/program/speakers

See our full agenda of lightning talks, oral presentations, and posters with a searchable agenda: http://netsci2017.net/cam

Sincerely,
Oalf Sporns & Fil Menczer
Co-Chairs, NetSci 2017

Contact us at netsci17@iu.edu with questions. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook @netsci2017

Source: netsci2017.net

Simulation and systems thinking is one way to explain the complex world in which we live. By collecting data and creating computer models, scientists can make predictions on critical problems, such as how to influence the flow of traffic, how an epidemic will spread or the probability of individuals in society becoming addicted to drugs. The conference will cover the aspects related to HPC, BigData, large scale simulation of complex systems and offers an ideal range of topics for final year Master’s student or starting PhD students interested in this domain.

Source: ysc.escience.ifmo.ru

New math shows how, contrary to conventional scientific wisdom, conscious beings and other macroscopic entities might have greater influence over the future than does the sum of their microscopic components.

Source: www.quantamagazine.org

The Self-Organizing Society: A Grower’s Guide
John E. Stewart

Source: arxiv.org

A generalized model of social and biological contagion
Peter Sheridan Dodds, Duncan J. Watts

Source: arxiv.org

The Self-Organization of Dragon Kings
Yuansheng Lin, Keith Burghardt, Martin Rohden, Pierre-André Noël, Raissa M. D’Souza

Source: arxiv.org

Crowdsourcing the Robin Hood effect in cities
Thomas Louail, Maxime Lenormand, Juan Murillo Arias and José J. Ramasco
Applied Network Science 2017 2:11
DOI: 10.1007/s41109-017-0026-3

Source: appliednetsci.springeropen.com

Bitcoin ecology: Quantifying and modelling the long-term dynamics of the cryptocurrency market
Abeer ElBahrawy, Laura Alessandretti, Anne Kandler, Romualdo Pastor-Satorras, Andrea Baronchelli

Source: arxiv.org

The placement of the head that maximizes predictability. An information theoretic approach
Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho

Source: arxiv.org

Multiplex model of mental lexicon reveals explosive learning in humans
Massimo Stella, Nicole M. Beckage, Markus Brede, Manlio De Domenico

Source: arxiv.org