Author: cxdig

The Complex World: An Introduction to the Foundations of Complexity Science

The Complex World, originally published in Volume 1 of Foundational Papers in Complexity Science, presents an entirely new framing of nature, of the human role in the natural and technological worlds, and what it means to prosper on a living planet.

We live in a complex world—meaning one that is increasingly connected, evolving, technological, volatile, and potentially poised for catastrophe. And yet we continue to treat the world as if it were simple: linear, unchanging, disconnected, and infinitely exploitable.

Complexity science is an approach to understanding and surviving in a complex world. In this concise and comprehensive introduction, Santa Fe Institute President David C. Krakauer traces the roots of complexity science back to the nineteenth-century science of machines—evolved and engineered—into the twentieth-century science of emergent systems.

By combining insights from evolution, computation, nonlinear dynamics, and statistical physics, complexity science provides the first scientific framework for understanding the purposeful universe.

More at: www.sfipress.org

Irreversibility in bacterial regulatory networks

YI ZHAO, THOMAS P. WYTOCK, KIMBERLY A. REYNOLDS, AND ADILSON E. MOTTER 
SCIENCE ADVANCES
28 Aug 2024
Vol 10, Issue 35

Irreversibility, in which a transient perturbation leaves a system in a new state, is an emergent property in systems of interacting entities. This property has well-established implications in statistical physics but remains underexplored in biological networks, especially for bacteria and other prokaryotes whose regulation of gene expression occurs predominantly at the transcriptional level. Focusing on the reconstructed regulatory network of Escherichia coli, we examine network responses to transient single-gene perturbations. We predict irreversibility in numerous cases and find that the incidence of irreversibility increases with the proximity of the perturbed gene to positive circuits in the network. Comparison with experimental data suggests a connection between the predicted irreversibility to transient perturbations and the evolutionary response to permanent perturbations.

Read the full article at: www.science.org

Evolution of Social Norms in LLM Agents using Natural Language

Ilya Horiguchi, Takahide Yoshida, Takashi Ikegami

Recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) have spurred a surge of interest in leveraging these models for game-theoretical simulations, where LLMs act as individual agents engaging in social interactions. This study explores the potential for LLM agents to spontaneously generate and adhere to normative strategies through natural language discourse, building upon the foundational work of Axelrod’s metanorm games. Our experiments demonstrate that through dialogue, LLM agents can form complex social norms, such as metanorms-norms enforcing the punishment of those who do not punish cheating-purely through natural language interaction. The results affirm the effectiveness of using LLM agents for simulating social interactions and understanding the emergence and evolution of complex strategies and norms through natural language. Future work may extend these findings by incorporating a wider range of scenarios and agent characteristics, aiming to uncover more nuanced mechanisms behind social norm formation.

Read the full article at: arxiv.org

The physics of predicting riots: Self-organized critcality and civil unrest

Society is reaching a tipping point. The future remains not only uncertain but also seemingly unpredictable, however, using the science of self-organised criticality, the phenomenon describing how small events can create large ripples in networks, this may no longer be the case. In this piece, Dan Braha presents his physics-informed model of civil unrest and shows not only how we can use it to forecast riots and violent disorder, but how in using the ideas of self-organized criticality smaller movements can better work to topple oppressive regimes.

Read the full article at: iai.tv

Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) in Systems Design | ETH Zurich

The Department of Management, Technology and Economics (D-MTEC, http://www.mtec.ethz.ch) at ETH Zurich invites applications for the above-mentioned position.

The successful candidate should have an excellent publication record in complexity science with business applications, system dynamics, decision sciences, or applied operations research for modeling complex and dynamic systems. Research will focus on the theoretical and applied analysis and design of industrial or service systems. The candidate should demonstrate the ability to contribute to systems design at the organizational, national, and international levels.

At the assistant professor level, commitment to teaching within the curriculum of D-MTEC and the ability to establish and lead a research group in Systems Design are expected. Research and teaching collaboration with other departments and multidisciplinary research centers is required.

Assistant professorships have been established to promote the careers of younger scientists. ETH Zurich implements a tenure track system equivalent to that of other top international universities.

ETH Zurich is an equal opportunity and family-friendly employer, values diversity, and is responsive to the needs of dual-career couples.

Deadline: 15 October 2024

Apply at: ethz.ch