Francis Heylighen

This richly illustrated manuscript including an extensive bibliography forms the lecture notes of a course with the same title. This course tries to give the students a deeper insight into what technology is, and how it affects human life on this planet. Given how pervasive and dominant technological systems have become in this 21st century, it is important to understand the dynamics that propel its ever-faster development. It is especially important to understand, on the one hand, the negative effects and dangers of this development, so that we can mitigate or evade those, on the other hand, the benefits and promises, so that we can further promote and enhance them. These issues are reviewed from a systems/cybernetics perspective. The focus is on accelerating evolution, technology as mediator and human-technology symbiosis, leading up to the notion of a global superorganism.

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M. Dashti Moghaddam, Zhiyuan Liu & R. A. Serota 
The European Physical Journal B volume 94, Article number: 83 (2021)

We investigate relaxation and correlations in a class of mean-reverting models for stochastic variances. We derive closed-form expressions for the correlation functions and leverage for a general form of the stochastic term. We also discuss correlation functions and leverage for three specific models— multiplicative, Heston (Cox-Ingersoll-Ross) and combined multiplicative-Heston—whose steady-state probability density functions are Gamma, Inverse Gamma and Beta Prime respectively, the latter two exhibiting “fat” tails. For the Heston model, we apply the eigenvalue analysis of the Fokker-Planck equation to derive the correlation function—in agreement with the general analysis— and to identify a series of time scales, which are observable in relaxation of cumulants on approach to the steady state. We test our findings on a very large set of historic financial markets data.

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Linda Shi and Susanne Moser

Science 29 Apr 2021: eabc8054
As climate change intensifies, civil society is increasingly calling for transformative adaptation that redresses drivers of climate vulnerability. We review trends in how U.S. federal government, private industry and civil society are planning for climate adaptation. We find growing divergence in their approaches and impacts. This incoherence increases maladaptive investment in climate-blind infrastructure, justice-blind reforms in financial and professional sectors, and greater societal vulnerability to climate impacts. If these actors were to proactively and deliberatively engage in transformative adaptation, they would need to address the material, relational and normative factors that hold current systems in place. Drawing on a review of transformation and collective impact literatures, we conclude with directions for research and policy engagement to support more transformative adaptation moving forward.

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Miquel Oliu-Barton, Bary S R Pradelski, Philippe Aghion, Patrick Artus, Ilona Kickbusch, Jeffrey V Lazarus, Devi Sridhar, Samantha Vanderslott

The Lancet

The trade-off between different objectives is at the heart of political decision making. Public health, economic growth, democratic solidarity, and civil liberties are important factors when evaluating pandemic responses. There is mounting evidence that these objectives do not need to be in conflict in the COVID-19 response. Countries that consistently aim for elimination—ie, maximum action to control SARS-CoV-2 and stop community transmission as quickly as possible—have generally fared better than countries that opt for mitigation—ie, action increased in a stepwise, targeted way to reduce cases so as not to overwhelm health-care systems.

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