To make speaker suggestions contact organizer Douglas R. White drwhite [at] uci [.] edu, organizer 2005-present
Our group (Human Social Dynamics at the southern UC Campuses) also hosts
reports and discussions on experiments -- research and classrooms -- and how to interpret and learn from results.
go to the last streamed video/next upcoming talk
(all speakers 2005-present)
(2007-2008)
(technical information: our video production team records the video, post production converts
the video to a .ram file (Real Media Player file). It is then sent to the UCI FTP site for
posting and then placed on the steaming server. Start time adjustments for the steaming video can be made by requet
to D. White)
HSC-4UC
Complexity Wiki
streaming video F05#1: rtsp://media.nacs.uci.edu:554/ITC/SocialScience/White/Anthro-093005.rm
2005 Friday 1:30-3:00 - F05#1 Sept 30 Doug White "Civilizations as dynamic networks: Cities, hinterlands, populations, industries, trade and conflict" - preliminary report on
an eBook and Plenary talk/powerpoint and PDF
for the European Conference on Complex Systems Paris, 14-18 November 2005
- and: authorship, response and author response in the Structure and Dynamics eJournal
streaming video F05#2: rtsp://media.nacs.uci.edu:554/ITC/SocialScience/White/2005_10_14_ASC.rm
or just click here.
2005 Friday 2:00-3:30 - F05#2 Oct 14 Chris Chase-Dunn "Rise, fall and upward sweeps: the emergence of a global state" powerpoint pdf Sweeps - and a report on successful Human Social Dynamics funding from the National Science Foundation (- see NSF proposal and project materials)
2005 Friday 1:30-3:00 - F05#3 Oct 28 Dwight Read The Evolution of Cultural Kinship: A non-Darwinian Odyssey
2005 Friday 1:30-3:00 - F05#4 Nov 4 Darren Schreiber "Humans are by nature political animals: New evidence and arguments" powerpoint
2006 Friday Jan 13 1:30-3:20 - VideoConference W06#1 (UCI source: meeting in 120 Social Science Tower, please attend for discussions!)
JIN Xiaoyi;
DU Haifeng; and LI
Shuzhuo (Director of Population and Development Research Institute, Xi'an) - Xi'an Jiaotong University/Stanford Morrison Institute of Population and Resource Studies
streaming video W06#2: rtsp://media.nacs.uci.edu:554/ITC/SocialScience/White/2006_02_03_ASC.rm or just click here
2006 Friday Feb 3 1:00-3:00 - VidCon W06#2 (UCSD source: meeting in Galbraith Hall, Room 260, followed by the Graduate Students
Archaeology Network, which will host a reception following the lecture in Geoff Braswell's Lab in the Chemistry Research Building)
Henry Wright (Anthropology, Michigan), "Recent Research on Mesopotamian State Emergence"
very large powerpoint so download before opening
streaming video W06#3: rtsp://media.nacs.uci.edu:554/ITC/SocialScience/White/2006_02_10_ASC.rm or just click here
2006 Friday Feb 10 1:30-3:00 - VidCon W06#3 (UCR source: Olmsted room A139)
Michalis Faloutsos, UCR Computer Science "The Internet Is Like A Jellyfish" Abstract:
Several novel concepts and tools have revolutionized our understanding of the Internet topology. Most of the existing efforts attempt to
develop accurate analytical models. In this work, our goal is to develop an effective conceptual model: a model that can be easily drawn
by hand, while at the same time, it captures significant macroscopic properties. We build the foundation for our model with two thrusts: a)
we identify new topological properties, and b) we provide metrics to quantify the topological importance of a node. We propose the jellyfish
as a model for the inter-domain Internet topology. We show that our model captures and represents the most significant topological
properties. Furthermore, we observe that the jellyfish has lasting value: it describes the topology for more than six years.
ppt pdf with live links (evolving)
Jellyfish: A Conceptual Model for the AS Internet Topology 2004 coauthored paper
related idea from drw
streaming video W06#4: rtsp://media.nacs.uci.edu:554/ITC/SocialScience/White/2006_02_24_ASC.rm
or just click here
Announcement for Posting: Feb 24
2006 Friday Feb 24 1:30-3:00 - VidCon W06#4 (UCLA source: Powell Library Rm 285; UCI participation in 120 Social Science Tower,
UCSD in 260 Galbraith Hall; UCR in A139 Olmsted)
Adam Kuper,
Conceptualising Society (Editor, for the European Association of Social Anthropologists),
and author of Culture: The Anthropologists' Account,
Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School,
The Social Science Encyclopedia (with Jessica Kuper), and other
works on peoples of southern Africa. Kuper is former editor of Current Anthropology,
professor of anthropology at Brunel University, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a Member of the Academia Europaea.
"Endogamy, adultery and homosexuality: an ethnographic perspective on the Bloomsbury Group." Abstract: Working on kinship in historical perspective in a complex, stratified modern society I have been driven to what were, for me, unexpected conclusions. Structural approaches are notoriously unsuited to the study of change, neglectful of agency, and ill-fitted to the analysis of choices. I was therefore committed to think rather in terms of ego-centred networks, personal strategies of marriage and residence, and the individualistic exploitation of family connections. To my surprise, however, I discovered high levels of endogamy and localisation of kinship networks in 19th and early 20th century England. These were not in remote villages but in the urban heart of the country. There was even a recurrent structure? I call it, with all due reservations,
a system of clan endogamy - which might endure for several generations. I shall be giving an example of a somewhat bizarre transformation of this structure that characterised the Bloomsbury Group, a modernist movement of writers and artists in the early 20th century. Their endogamy was extreme, though it took novel and even shocking forms.
powerpoint and pdf
Announcement for Posting: March 10
2006 Friday Mar 10 1:30-3:00 - VidCon W06#5 (source: Powell Library Rm 285, UCLA)
Mike Agar, "Telling It Like It (Subjunctively) Is:
Organizational Complexity, Linguistic Anthropology, and Narrative" Right click and save to download powerpoint
Abstract:
Everyone talks about narrative, but few plunge into the details. Recently, I've been drawn into discussions of narrative among those interested in organizational complexity.
The problem is, how do I connect the ideas of "narrative" and "story" from linguistic anthropology with the writings and interests of those who speak of "complex organization?" To put it another way, if I lifted the lid off the ideal "complex organization," could I say anything about what the talking that goes on inside of it would look like?
To set the stage, I'll first consider interest in "complexity theory" on the part of organizations as a response to increasingly frequent unpredictable change with unknown consequences. One recommended strategy foregrounds noticing and "sense-making" on the part of those involved in the organizational practices that are directly affected. "Narrative" and "story" are pointers to such events. But what do "narrative" and "story" mean? As an example we'll play with popular stock guru Peter Lynch's idea of the "story" of a stock. That play will lead directly into Ochs and Capps' recent book on the "Living Narrative." I will shamelessly (mis)use their narrative dimensions of tellership, tellability, embeddedness, linearity, and moral stance to help see the many different shapes that "narrative" and "story" can take, and then show some examples from the fields of discourse analysis, conversational analysis, pragmatics, etc. (basically the linguistics of how people actually talk). The examples will suggest a more precise description and evaluation of, and perhaps even training for, the kind of talk that a "complex organization" should enable and make good use of.
This talk is part of a larger project on the relation between ethnography, language, complexity and agent-based models. It builds on an article in press in Emergence and Complex Organizations.
Announcement for Posting: March 30
Thursday Mar 30 10:00-1:00 Rm. 2112 Social Science Plaza A (Video Recorded for 2 streamed talks and discussions)
- UCI Human Sciences and Complexity 3rd Conference, followed by lunch at Chakra
Theme: Simulation
Art Griffin, UCLA, and
Charles Stanish, UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Director "A simulation model of Lake Titicaca Basin settlement patterns
circa 2500 BC - AD 1000" Play the simulation movie! (You might need to install the latest QuickTime. If it doesnt work then you can try to
download the zipfile for the simulation movie and figure it out from there).
see also Modeling Ancient Settlement Systems (Oriental Institute, U Chicago)
streaming video W06#6B: rtsp://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/center/SVideo/2006_03_30_ASC_2.ram
or just click here
or here
Paul Jorion, Anthropology - UCLA affiliate faculty
"Adam Smith's 'Invisible hand' revisited: A simulation"
Summary Abstract: Agent-Based Simulations are often highly stylized representations of the
circumstances they aim at emulating. We've tried instead to replicate to a high degree of
complexity, the operation of the New York Stock Exchange, being fully aware that some
of the detail in verisimilitude has no impact on price formation and trading volumes
involved.
Announcement for Posting: April 7
2006 Friday April 7 1:00-3:00 - VidCon S06#1
Steven Bankes (Evolving Logic Inc, Rand Pardee School, UCLA Human
Complex Systems), "Computational Exploration in Long Term Policy Analysis for
Social and Organizational Complex Systems." pdf- abstract and references
powerpoint for talk
Announcement for Posting: April 21
2006 Friday April 21 1:30-3:00 - VidCon S06#2
Tsutomu (Tom) Nakano, Kwansei Gakuin
University and External Affiliated Faculty, Center on Organizational Innovation, Columbia University, and Doug White (IMBS, UCI) Powerpoint pdf
"Networks-Affect-Pricing Theory in Modern Production Industry: Three Network Studies of the Giant Industrial District of Tokyo" Abstract:
We analyze six questions about production-chain markets that emerge from three empirical studies of trade relationships among over 8,000 firms in a large-scale industrial district in Tokyo. Are they Small-World? Scale-free? Hierarchical? Etc. Analyzing predictive cohesion structures and substructures in the network we find support for network-affects-pricing theory that differs from H. White's model. Supplier-buyer relations are hierarchical (a directed acyclic graph), with no exchange cycles that would promote price equilibrium. We find linked network configurations likely to affect pricing. Multi-connectivity is a critical seeding mechanism where quasi-optimal exchange pricing can be achieved. But a core of elite firms was also detected that organizes status differences among firms and serves to institutionalize role structures in the production markets. In addition, structural advantages in pricing accrue to core firms because suppliers upstream in the hierarchy operate through a preponderance of multiple-supplier triads, which enforces competition among suppliers and transmits pricing benefits to elite firms downstream. Elites exert power over the hierarchy from the top down, share elite suppliers with other elite end-producers, and can dominate price-setting from the top.
Announcement for Posting: May 5 talk
2006 Friday May 5 1:30-3:00 - VidCon S06#3
Jean Ensminger - Anthropology, Cal Tech. "The Co-Evolution of Pro-Social Norms and the Market"
Abstract:
Social norms instruct much of human social interaction in all societies and they often flavor profound differences across cultures. But where do norms come from, and more interestingly, how and why do they change over time and what impact do they have on economic performance? Ensminger will discuss these topics in light of case study material from several decades of research with a nomadic cattle herding population in East Africa. She will also present experimental economic research from a collaborative project with over a dozen fellow anthropologists working in hunting and gathering, horticultural, herding, and industrial societies. Data from controlled experiments around the world help us flesh out the processes involved in the co-evolution of market institutions with social norms that govern cooperation, fairness, and trust.
Announcement for Posting: May 19 talk
2006 Friday June 2 UCI Conference S06#5 (Video Recorded)
Paul Goldstein (Anthro/Archaeology, UCSD), "Agency and Heterarchic Complexity in the Andean Diaspora"
Formative Discussion on creation of new Intercampus and Campus Academic Programs: the June 15th proposal
Back cover quotes: Andean Diaspora - The Tiwanaku Colonies and the Origins of South American Empire 'integrates an enormous body of field data and critical archaeological theory to present a powerful and original interpretation of the great Tiwanaku empire and its diasporic communities.' '...generates fresh perspectives on the evolutionary nature of ancient states.'
Announcement for Posting: June 22 talk
Thursday June 22 S06#6 Post-Quarter UCI-UCR Special Conference (Video Recorded)
Doug White, Laurent Tambayong, and Steve Doubleday (IMBS, UCI); with Natasa Kejzar (Soc Sci, U Ljubljana), Ben Lind (Sociology, UCI), Ben Jester (Social Networks, UCI),
"Cityrise and Cityquake: The Five Alternations Between Global
Economy and Regional Economies in Eurasia in the Last Millennium; and Definitive Evidence of
Macro Civilizational Dynamics"
2005-2006 Videoconferences and Quarterly conference dates
(http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/center/videocon.htm)
fall
Other Internal and External Speakers nominated for invitation 2006-forward - in no particular order
Announcement for Posting: Oct 6'06 talk
Abstract: Studies of macrosocial system dynamics over the past two years have
suggested large scale 'cityquakes' that radically altered the shape of urban city distributions worldwide, especially in Eurasia, alternating between more global economies and more regionalized economies. We present the first definitive evidence and explanation for what these cityquakes entail and argue that we are on the cusp between a continuation of the dynamics of the past, which if continued would entail globalization, and a precipitous and early collapse into divisive regional economies, a transition which is preceded by interregional wars and the breakdown of interregional trade.
a pdf for the ppt
(some data
later program and data)
Robert Garfias - Anthropology - Irvine - recipient of Japan's Rising Sun Award - presentation on "Asian Music Traditions in Transition: My Observations of a Half Century."
Claudio Cioffi-Revilla - Political Science - George Mason - author of
The Scientific Measurement of International Conflict: Handbook of Datasets on Crises and Wars, 1495-1988 ;
Politics and Uncertainty: Theory, Models and Applications
Daniel McFadden - Economics - UC Berkeley - Nobelist, recent work on Hot Money and Cold Comfort: Global Capital Movement and Financial Crises in Emerging Economies,
The Browser War - Econometric Analysis of Markov Perfect Equilibrium in Markets with Network Effects, with Mark Jenkins, Paul Liu and Rosa Matzkin.
See The Econometrics Library Software Archive
Alfred Crosby - History - University of Texas at Austin - author of
Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 ;
The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 ;
Throwing Fire: Projectile Technology through History ;
The Measure of Reality: Quantification in Western Europe, 1250-1600 ;
America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918
Douglass North - Economics -Washington University in St. Louis - nobelist and author of
Understanding the Process of Economic Change ;
Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)
Brian Arthur - Economics and Complexity - World Question Center - author of
Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy (Economics, Cognition, and Society) ;
The Economy As an Evolving Complex System II
W. Arthur De Vany - Economics and Complexity - Emeritus, UCI - author of
Hollywood Economics: How Extreme Uncertainty Shapes the Film Industry (Contemporary Politicaleconomy)
Kenneth Pomeranz - History - UC Irvine - author of
The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy ;
The World That Trade Created: Culture, Society and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present
Marcus Feldman - Demography, Migration, Biology - Stanford - author of Cultural Transmission and Evolution
Charles Stanish - Archaeology - Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA - author of Ancient Titicaca: The Evolution of Complex Society in Southern Peru and Northern Bolivia
Tim Kohler - Archaeology - U Washington - author of Dynamics in Human and Primate Societies: Agent-Based Modeling of Social and Spatial Processes (Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity Proceedings)
Paul Krugman - Economics - Princeton - author of
The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century ;
Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in an Age of Diminished Expectations ;
The Accidental Theorist and Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science ;
Geography and Trade ;
Pop Internationalism ;
Development, Geography, and Economic Theory
Peter Bearman - Network and Historical Socology - Columbia - author of
Doormen (Fieldwork Encounters and Discoveries)
Dates for 2006-2007, Fridays 1:30-3, and 10-1:00 for end-of-quarter conferences
Course numbers for Fall 2006: UCI Soc Sci 240A Social Networks Seminar FWS (aka. Human Sciences and Complexity)
Here is the UCI
Noteboard for the course (SocSci240A-B-C). Instructors for other campuses can put their noteboard and course links here too.
streaming video S06#6: rtsp://media.nacs.uci.edu:554/ITC/SocialScience/White/2006_10_06_ASC.rm
or just click here
UCI SST122 UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
October 6 2006 Friday 1:30-3:00 - Jeff Brantingham,
Archaeology, UCLA: "Foraging Behavior of Contemporary Criminals" pdf for the talk
Monthly auto theft hot spots in Los Angeles (LAPD jurisdiction) January to August 2003
Simulation Modeling of Crime
Abstract: Crime mapping forms a key feature of current approaches to understanding offender behavior and is a tool used increasingly by police departments and policy makers for strategic crime prevention. However, despite the availability of sophisticated digital mapping and analysis tools there is a substantial gap in our understanding of how low-level behaviors of offenders lead to aggregate crime patterns such as crime hot spots. Agent-based modeling offers a potential avenue for developing a quantitative understanding of crime hot spot formation built from the bottom-up around offender behavior. Agent-based models are not only more consistent with the scale of decisions that offenders actually take, but they also open the door to the development of custom statistics that are designed to answer specific behavioral questions less tractable in general statistical models. However, there is also concern that agent-based simulations can lead to erroneous results either because of poor model design or errors in model implementation that go undetected. A solution to this problem is to design simulations around well-studied analytical models where the model behavior can be tested against sound analytical expectations. Only following such testing should simulation models be extended into areas that cannot be treated analytically and, only subsequent to this, into applied contexts.
streaming video S06#6: rtsp://media.nacs.uci.edu:554/ITC/SocialScience/White/2006_10_13_ASC.rm
or just click here
Announcement for Posting: Oct 13'06 talk
UCI SST122 UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
October 13 2006 Friday 1:30-3:00 from SFI Jessica Flack: The Role of Robustness
Mechanisms in the Evolution of Social Complexity. Interactive Seminar -- Santa Fe Institute.
Abstract: All organisms interact with their environment, and in doing so shape it, modifying resource availability. Termed niche construction, this process has been studied primarily at the ecological level with an emphasis on the consequences of construction across generations. I will discuss the behavioral process of construction within a single generation, identifying the role a robustness mechanism--conflict management--plays in promoting interactions that build social resource networks or social niches in animal social organizations. The talk will be structured around two general issues: robustness and niche construction in evolutionary theory and consequences of robustness and niche construction for social complexity.
Jessica Flack received her PhD in the Neuroscience and Animal Behavior Program at Emory in 2003, and took her BA in Anthropology from Cornell in 1996. She is currently a Research Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. Her primary research interest is evolutionary principles of construction governing the emergence of form. Research topics include robustness and innovation in evolutionary systems, information processing in social organizations, social niche construction, evolution of conflict management mechanisms across biological systems, drivers of socio-cognitive complexity, encoding and decoding problems in signaling systems, and index-to-symbol transitions in the evolution of communication.
Announcement for Posting: Oct 27'06 talk
UCI SST122 UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
October 27 2006 Friday 1:30-3:00 from UCSD James
Fowler, Political Science, UCSD, "Supreme Court Networks of Precedents" powerpoint
Abstract: We construct the complete network of 28,951 majority opinions written by the U.S. Supreme Court from 1792 to 2005. Data from this network demonstrates quantitatively the evolution of the norm of stare decisis in the 19th Century and a significant deviation from this norm by the activist Warren court. We further describe a method for creating authority scores using the network data to identify the most important Court precedents. This method yields rankings that conform closely to evaluations by legal experts, and even predicts which cases they will identify as important in the future. An analysis of these scores over time allows us to test several hypotheses about the rise and fall of precedent. We show that reversed cases tend to be much more important than other decisions, and the cases that overrule them quickly become and remain even more important as the reversed decisions decline. We also show that the Court is careful to ground overruling decisions in past precedent, and the care it exercises is increasing in the importance of the decision that is overruled. Finally, authority scores corroborate qualitative assessments of which issues and cases the Court prioritizes and how these change over time.
Announcement for Posting: Nov 3'06 talk
ANDERSON KORN HALL UCLA; UCI SST122; UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall; UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
November 3 2006 Friday 1:00-3:00 from UCLA Colin F. Camerer,
(Axline Professor of Business Economics, CalTech;
"Behavioral Economics and Neuroeconomics"
Marschak Colloquium VideoSeminar talk,
Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Economics and the UCLA Anderson Behavioral Decision Making Group,
with participation by the 4-UC campus Videoseminar in Human Sciences and Complexity.
Abstract. Neuroeconomics seeks to ground economic theory in detailed neural mechanisms which are expressed mathematically and make behavioral predictions. One finding is that simple kinds of economizing for life-and-death decisions (food, sex and safety) do occur in the brain as rational theories assume. Another set of findings appears to support the neural basis of constructs posited in behavioral economics, such as a preference for immediacy and nonlinear weighting of small and large probabilities. A third direction shows how understanding neural circuitry permits predictions and causal experiments which show state-dependence of revealed preference- except that states are biological and neural variables.
Bio. Colin Camerer is the Rea and Lela Axline Professor of Business Economics at the California Institute of
Technology, where he teaches both cognitive psychology and economics. Professor Camerer earned a BA degree in
quantitative studies from Johns Hopkins in 1977, and an MBA in finance (1979) and a Ph.D. in decision theory (1981, at
the age of 22) from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Before coming to Caltech in 1994, he held
positions at the Kellogg, Wharton, and University of Chicago business schools. He was elected a member of the the
Econometric Society (1999) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2001) and is past president of the Economic
Science Association and the Society for Neuroeconomics.
Camerer's research applies psychological principles to economic decisions, in an effort to "reunify" these
social sciences. Unlike psychology, however, behavioral economics poses precise mathematical models of how limits and
emotions work, and uses these models to make bold predictions about behavior both in the laboratory and in field data.
Camerer's research has spanned many domains including: speculative price bubbles in experimental asset markets, labor
supply of cab drivers, mathematical models of how limits on rationality and self-interest explain behavior in strategic
games, collaborating with anthropologists doing bargaining experiments in small-scale societies, and scanning brains
while people make economic decisions. He is the author of Behavioral Game Theory (2003), coauthor of Foundations of
Human Sociality (2004), and coeditor of Advances in Behavioral Economics (2004).
(November 10 is veteran's holiday and not possible for our video personnel)
UCI SST122 UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
December 1 2006 Friday there is a Marshack talk by a Political Scientist
Announcement for Posting: Dec 8'06 talks
December 8 10:00-1:00- UCI Soc Sci Tower 220A end of quarter conference, followed by lunch at Chakra
This UCI complexity conference at uci will focus on biological complexity and evolution
10:00 Discussion of the Proposed UCI add-on to the UCLA Minor in Human Social Complexity
10:20-11:20 Doug Wallace -
MAMMAG "Molecular Anthropology:
Application of Analysis of Mitochondrial Variation toward Understanding the Origins of Humans and Their Culture"
(See MitoMap).
11:35-12:30 + discussion Natasa Przulj - "Protein-Protein Interaction Networks:
Issues, Models, and Comparisons."
Abstract: One of the fundamental problems in computational biology is
understanding the inner workings of a cell. Most cellular processes are
carried out by protein-protein interactions (PPIs). Thus, analyzing and
modeling of large PPI networks is an integral part of this process.
Analogous to biological sequence comparison, comparing cellular networks is
an important problem that could provide insight into biological understanding
and therapeutics. The full-scale comparison of two arbitrary networks is
computationally intractable, because it contains the subgraph
isomorphism problem, which is NP-complete. Thus, heuristic measures must be
developed for network comparison.
We devise a highly constraining network comparison metric based on local
structural properties that are a direct generalization of the degree
distribution. We use this new metric to demonstrate that geometric random
graphs better model PPI networks than do Erdos-Renyi, random
scale-free, or Barabasi-Albert scale-free networks. Our new systematic
measure of a network's local structure imposes a large number of similarity
constraints on networks being compared. In particular, we generalize the
degree distribution, which measures the number of nodes ``touching'' k edges,
into graphlet degree distributions measuring the number of nodes ``touching''
k graphlets, where graphlets are small connected non-isomorphic induced
subgraphs of a large network. Clearly, the degree distribution is the first
one in the spectrum of graphlet degree distributions, since an edge is the
only 2-node graphlet. We design a network ``agreement'' measure as a number
in [0,1] that encompasses the 73 graphlet degree distributions of 2-, 3-, 4-,
and 5-node graphlets. This measure is easily extendible to a greater number
of constraints (i.e., graphlets) and the extensions are limited only by the
available CPU.
Natasa Przulj is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at UC Irvine. Her research involves developing new tools for analyzing and modeling of complex networks in cellular biology. She spent two years in industry working for Hughes Aircraft, IBM, and Westech Information Systems (subsidiary of BC Hydro, Vancouver, Canada). She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute in Toronto working in the lab of Prof. Jeff Wrana. She completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto in 2005 under the supervision of Prof. Derek Corneil and Prof. Igor Jurisica. She received her M.Sc. from the same department in 2000 and her B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computing Science from Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada in 1997 after starting at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Belgrade in Former Yugoslavia.
Winter Quarter 2007 Fridays 1:30-3:00
UCI SST122 UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
streaming video W07#1: rtsp://media.nacs.uci.edu:554/ITC/SocialScience/White/2007_01_05_ASC.rm
or just click here
Announcement for Posting: Jan 5'07 talk
UCI SST122 UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
January 5 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00 Peter Gourevitch.
"Explaining Corporate Governance Systems" powerpoint slides
Abstract: Why do corporate governance systems differ around the world? The US has a diffuse shareholders who elect a
board that supervises managers; most of the world has concentrated blockholders who supervise directly. Why the
difference? Researchers in economics, law and political science debate three alternative interpretations:
legal family (common vs. civil law); political institutions; interest groups. Each tells us something, but the first two depend finally on the third.
Gourevitch is the founding dean of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at UCSD, is a political scientist who specializes in international relations and comparative politics. His focus is on political economy with an emphasis on international trade and economic globalization, trade disputes, and regulatory systems. His latest book is Political Power and Corporate Control: The New Global Politics of Corporate Governance
with James Shinn (2005).Announcement for Posting: Jan 26'07 talk
UCI SST122 UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
January 26 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00 from UCLA
Jared Diamond, Geography and Physiology, UCLA
"Variation in Human Cultural Practices"
Abstract. Human societies differ greatly in cultural traits such as child-rearing practices, marriage, religion, binge eating, risk-taking, treatment of old people, and sexual practices. I have been comparing the diversities of cultural practices in traditional/tribal societies with those in modern state-level societies, based on my experience with many peoples of the New Guinea region over the last 40 years and on accounts by other observers elsewhere in the world. My preliminary impression is of two generalizations: with respect to most cultural variables, there is much greater variation in practices between tribal societies than between modern state-level societies; and the "median" practice in state societies is shifted far from the median practice among traditional societies. For instance, child-rearing in some New Guinea societies is far more repressive, and in others is far more laissez-faire, than would be tolerated in any modern state-level society; some tribal societies are far more caring, and others far crueler, to old relatives than in state-level societies; but, on the average, children in state societies play a smaller economic role, and old people receive less care, than in tribal societies. I shall explore these tentative generalizations for other practices.
Announcement for Posting: Feb 9'07 talk
UCI SST122 UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
February 9 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00 from UCSD Halbert White and Karim Chalak,
Economics, UCSD,
"A Unified Framework for Defining and Identifying Causal Effects"
Pdf for the talk
with PPT Commentary by Judea Pearl (UCLA Computer Science Department and Cog Sci Lab;
pubs
Wikipedia).
Judea Pearl (poor quality) pdf of his (good quality) powerpoint.[The topics here: Causal analysis deals with changes (dynamics)].
Student Tutorial: Causality 1`
Student Tutorial: Causality 2
Shpitser/Pearl (causal) Identification paper (UAI 2006).
Shpitser/Pearl (causally) Recursive Semi-Markovian paper (AAAI 2006)
Huang/Valtorta on Pearl's do-Calculus
more Huang/Valtorta on Pearl's do-Calculus
Further, Hal says "For those who just can't get enough,
here is a supplemental paper
that builds on the Unified Framework paper to extend the
existing statistical methods for estimating causal effects in observational studies. For comparison with economist James J. Heckman
publishing in Sociological Methodology, 35(1): 1-97. 2005, see "The Scientific Model of Causality,"
indicative of the great interest in the topic of causation.
Later papers: Independence
and Conditional Independence in Causal Systems
A
Comparison of Pearl s Causal Models and Settable Systems
Abstract. This paper unites three complementary approaches to defining, identifying, and estimating causal effects: the classical structural equations approach of the Cowles Commission; methods of the labor econometrics and related treatment effects literatures; and the nonparametric structural equation approach (including the structural Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) approach of the machine learning literature). The settable system framework nests these prior approaches, while affording significant improvements to each. For example, the settable system approach permits identification of causal effects without requiring exogenous instruments; instead, a weaker conditional exogeneity condition suffices. It removes the stable unit treatment value assumption of the treatment effect approach and provides significant insight into the selection of covariates. It generalizes the DAG approach by accommodating mutual causality and attributes. We provide a variety of results ensuring structural identification of general covariate-conditioned average causal effects, laying the foundation for parametric and nonparametric estimation of effects of general interest and new tests for structural identification.
Announcement for Posting: Feb 23'07 talk
UCI SST122 UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
February 23 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00 from UCSD; Brian Arthur, "Technology and the Evolution of Complexity"
ppt
background paper: The Evolution of Technology within a Simple Computer Model
Abstract: New technologies are constructed from components that previously exist; and in turn these new technologies offer themselves as possible components "building blocks" for the construction of further new technologies. In this sense, technology "the collection of mechanical devices and methods available to society" creates itself out of itself. Professor Arthur will explore these ideas both by looking at the evolution of technology in human history and the evolution of technology in an artificial computer world. In both cases, technology builds out by bootstrapping itself from few building-block elements to many, and from simple elements to more complicated ones. In the artificial case this evolution can be explicitly studied. Links with complexity theory and with Schumpeter's ideas emerge.
Bio: W. Brian Arthur is best known for his pioneering theoretical work on positive feedbacks or increasing returns in the economy and their role in locking markets in to the domination of one or two players. He has been associated with the Santa Fe Institute since 1987, serving on its faculty, science board and board of trustees. Arthur has a deep interest in technology and is currently writing a book: The Nature of Technology. From 1983 to 1996 he was Morrison Professor of Economics and Population Studies at Stanford, and from 1989 to 2004 was Citibank Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Arthur holds degrees in operations research, economics, electrical engineering, and mathematics.
Announcement for Posting: Mar 9'07 talk
UCI SST122 UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
March 9 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00 (Li moved to Nov 2007) cancellation -- Larry Li rescheduled
Announcement for Posting: Mar 23'07 talk
March 23 10:00-1:00 conference at UCI (Exam Week) Room 3030 Anteater Instruction and Research Building
(opposite to where Anteater Drive comes into East Peltason Drive, its next to the sidewalk and fronts a new
parking structure, The sign facing Anteater in front of Building 321 on the campus
map says Henry Samueli School of Engineering and is across from our building).
Martin Doyle, UCR Political Science, "The state of clan politics in State building"
(talk accompanied with interactive IT tutorials)
Party Alliances (Pajek, 2 mode, actual coordinates for representatives, 2 main parties near centroids, generate in time, svg save with multiple relations)
Party Face-off
Install Google Earth
Transporting your Google Earth files to other users
Marti3_22_07.kmz dataset, right click to download (early version, all but a National Assembly session)
Later edition of the kmz data file - two new maps added
once your GE is installed, just click the datafile in windows explorer
Abstract: State governance based on a clan system lacks adequate definition in the early days of the twenty-first century. This paper seeks to explore the structures and functions of the clan system in the Republic of Azerbaijan. This requires examination of the formal and informal institutions using a cross-disciplinary mixed methods approach to capture the complexities present. Particular emphasis focuses on the local level clan ties to the Milli Mejlis (National Assembly) as expression of citizens' voice in the political decision-making process. Field interviews reveal a bottom-up system with horizontal rather than vertical structures resulting in a dynamic parochial political culture.
Martin Doyle is proposing a Ph.D. dissertation based on extensive field study in Azerbaijan, "The state of Clan Politics in State Politics: Case Study of the Republic of Azerbaijan." To document the existence and workings of clan politics, his data on party ties are embedded in a Google Earth GIS database, with overlay maps for the historical khanates, contemporary administrative districts, and data regarding clans, political party evolution, representation, and interlocking networks. The first part of the talk presents the framing of the dissertation and the Google Earth, GIS spreadsheet and network data. The last half of the conference becomes a tutorial in how to obtain Google Earth freeware to construct complex GIS and linked spreadsheet databases, how they can be shared and posted, and how to use and overlap complex network graphics.
The dataset will be distributed so that each participant who brings their own laptop can view and practice use of the Google Earth GIS database.
Spring Quarter 2007 also fridays 1:30-3
(March 30 is the Cesar Chavez Day Holiday and not possible for our video personnel)
view live -
streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_04_06_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: April 6'07 talk
April 6 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00 from UCI's
Room 3030 Anteater Teaching,
Learning & Technology Center opposite to where Anteater Drive comes into East Peltason Drive. (Its next to the sidewalk and fronts a new
parking structure, The sign facing Anteater in front of Building 321 on the campus
map says Henry Samueli School of Engineering and is across from our building)
interactively beamed to UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall and UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
Robert Garfias - "Complexity in Music: the Human Factor"
Abstract: There are any number of challenges to the study of complexity as it manifests itself in music. The entire area of performance and the inter relationships between performers as well as between performers and audiences are difficult to study. Also the human imagination applied to organization and structure presents thousands of possibilities. In this presentation I will give a short introduction to some of these challenges and then concentrate and my most recent work looking at Ottoman Turkish Makam as it defines a matrix for the control of temporal proportions.
Bio. Robert Garfias (see Wikipedia) is the world's foremost long-term researcher on the analysis of complex music systems, including the Turkish Ottoman Classical system, Japanese court music and many other musical traditions in which he is fluent as a musical performer, linguist, and archivist. Complexity in the domain of expressive culture, music, and the social organization of complex musical tradtions has been his specialty. He has been actively engaged in the area of public policy and the arts as a member of the National Council on the Arts as well as with numerous state and local arts agencies. In these areas his primary concern is with ethnicity and cultural diversity. In 2005 the Government of Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun, one of the country's oldest and highest honors. He was cited for his contributions to promoting traditional Japanese culture and cultural exchanges between Japan and the United States. One of his latest papers is Studying Cultural Change through Music (2006).
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streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_04_13_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
April 13 2007 Friday 1:00-3:00 Marschak Colloquium VideoSeminar, interactive telecast to UCI, UCSD and UCR. co-sponsored by the UCLA Department of Anthropology, the UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, the UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development, and the UCLA Interdisciplinary Relationship Science Program.
Alan Fiske, Professor of Anthropology, UCLA (Field/Subfield: Cultural Anthropology/Social Psychological Anthropology) Relational Models Theory: "THE FOUR FUNDAMENTAL FORMS OF SOCIALITY: THEORY, FORMAL MODELS, AND EVIDENCE" Powerpoint in Pdf
Speaker video/audio and powerpoint from the UCLA Anderson Gold Hall, , 3rd Floor, School of Management, Entrepreneurs Hall, 3rd. Floor, Room C-301
Abstract: Relational models theory (RMT) posits that just four fundamental but generative relational models organize most aspects of social interactions in all cultures. The four models are Communal Sharing (CS), Authority Ranking (AR), Equality Matching (EM), and Market Pricing (MP). CS corresponds to a socially meaningful nominal scale (an equivalence relation), AR is homologous with an ordinal scale (a linear ordering), EM has the structure of an interval scale (an ordered Abelian group), and MP is a ratio scale (an Archimedean ordered field). The fundamental structures of these four relational models are innate but incomplete--they require cultural prototypes and precedents to specify where, when, why, how, and with whom they each operate.
Scores of studies of naturally-occuring and experimentally-induced relational cognition support the claim that these four relational models are salient in human social psychology. These studies have used dozens of methods and dozens of statistical approaches to investigate several distinct aspects of relational thinking and functioning. Other support for the theory comes from ethnography and ethnology, as well as comparative ethology. CS appears to be mediated by the neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin, while the motivational trade-off between AR and CS may be mediated by testosterone. Imaging studies using fMRI show that in both adults and children there is a distinct brain system for understanding CS and AR--a system that is not used for non-social cognition or even cognition about individuals.
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streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_04_20_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: Apr 20'07 talk
UCI Rm. 3030 Anteater I&R Bldg, UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
April 20 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00 from UCI Douglas R. White (IMBS, Anthropology) "Rethinking Social Complexity and Resilience:
Human Survival and Complex Network Dynamics at Continental Scales" pdf for the powerpoint
The UCI building is across from where Anteater Drive comes into East Peltason Drive, next to the sidewalk and fronts a new parking structure. The sign facing Anteater in front of Building 321 on the campus map says Henry Samueli School of Engineering and is across from our building.
Abstract. Two projects on macrosocial systems are examined: food collecting societies varying through time and space in harshness of environmental conditions; and regional city systems networked by trade and war with coordination problems and interregional competition. Both involve complex network dynamics that support human survival. In each case, severe external conditions, competition, and instability often cause create system crashes. A first question in each case concerns the instability of complex systems and the role of networks in resilient outcomes and recovery from system crashes. A second question concerns system dynamics of rise and fall, and problems of coordination. My focus is on how, through network and population dynamics, different but related forms of resilience develop to solve (and hopefully solve in the future) problems of human survival.
These problems are particularly acute since we now face potentially catastrophic consequences of global warming; population collapse in many parts of the world; and a climate of fear and preemptive panic in the grab for resources that are more and more limited relative to urban system demands and pressures to solve resource pressures through warfare rather than adaptive innovation.
.
WhiteBIO.pdf
I gave the URL for the July 30-Aug 10-Aug 26 French (Parisian) Summer School in the Complexity Sciences, which is open for candidates and which pays 80% of living expenses. The web site shows how it is divided into two separate parts (enrollments for either or both), and gives the teaching faculty for each segment. The full schedule has yet to be posted but there is an early enrollment possibility and some of our students are applying; I will be one of the nine faculty, others from SFI, previous SFI faculty, and from leading European institutions in the complexity sciences.
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streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_05_04_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: May 4'07 talk
UCI rm 3030 (new) Anteater I&R Bldg UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
May 4 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00.
Natalia L. Komarova (Mathematics), Kimberly A. Jameson (IMBS), Louis Narens (Cognitive Sciences) and Ragnar Steingrimsson (IMBS).
UCI Color Evolution Laboratory. "Evolutionary Models of Color Categorization Based on Discrimination"
pdf for the paper
The UCI building is across from where Anteater Drive comes into East Peltason Drive, next to the sidewalk and fronts a new parking structure, The sign facing Anteater in front of Building 321 on the campus map says Henry Samueli School of Engineering and is across from our building.
Abstract.
Specifying the factors that contribute to the universality of color categorization
across individuals and cultures is a longstanding and still controversial
issue in psychology, linguistics, and anthropology. The present
article approaches this issue through the simulated evolution of color lexicons.
It is shown that the combination of a minimal perceptual psychology
of discrimination, simple pragmatic constraints involving communication,
and simple learning rules are enough to evolve color naming systems. Implications
of this result for psychological theories of color categorization
and the evolution of color naming systems in human societies are discussed.
JamesonBIO.pdf
NarensBIO.pdf
KomarovaBIO.pdf
SteingrimssonBIO.pdf
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streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_05_11_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
May 11 2007 Friday 1:00-2:45 Marschak Colloquium VideoSeminar, co-sponsored by UCLA Department of Sociology and UCLA Human Complex Systems Program. Phillip Bonacich, Professor of Sociology, Core Faculty Human Complex Systems Program, UCLA. Sociology/Social Networks: "Power in Social Networks"
Speaker video/audio and powerpoint from the UCLA lecture hall, with 4-campus video and multiaudio phone conference set-up for the Q & A at the usual sites, UCI 3030 Anteater I&R Bldg, UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall, UCR A139 Olmsted Hall.
Abstract. Sociologists and economists have come increasingly to realize that much economic life depends on the "embeddedness" (Granovetter 1985) of economic activity - the voluntary non-negotiated reciprocal exchanges of favors in stable long-term networks. Sociologists and economists have also become interested in social capital (Lin 2001), the added capability for action that accrues to sets of individuals who are linked by stable and reciprocal exchanges. Yet, no model of dynamics within such networks has been developed. Such a model would have as its input the potentials individuals have to reward one another and would predict patterns of rewards, including which positions were over and under rewarded. With such a model we can ask whether well-rewarded individuals owe their fortune not to their greater ability to reward others but to their positions within a network.
Bonacich and Liggett (2003) cast this process in the form of an evolving discrete time Markov chain where probabilities of exchange are determined by previous exchanges. The pattern of giving in any particular network converges to one out of a possible set of constellations each constellation containing of a disjoint set of vertices, called stars, star containing one center vertex. The center vertex of each star receives all gifts from other vertices in its star and distributes its gifts only to members of its own star. These and only these patterns are stable. Experimental results are presented.
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streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_05_18_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: May 18'07 talk
UCI 3030 Anteater I&R Bldg UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
May 18 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00 from UCI;
Padhraic Smyth, Department of Computer Science, UCI --
"Automated Analysis of Relations between Words, Entities, Topics, and Documents
using Statistical Topic Models" pdf
Abstract: The availability of very large online corpora of text in digital form has led in recent years to the development of algorithms that try to automatically extract useful information and relationships from such text. In this talk I will describe a recent statistical approach that has proven to be very useful in this general context. Specifically I will discuss a representation for documents as mixtures of topics, where a topic is a probability distribution over words. The topics can be learned in a completely automated and unsupervised manner using a statistical estimation method called Gibbs sampling. I will illustrate the results of applying this approach to a diverse set of large corpora, including 250,000 emails from the Enron investigation, 300,000 news articles from the New York Times, 12,000 technical papers from UCI and UCSD faculty, and 80,000 articles from the Pennsylvania Gazette (from the 18th century). Once the statistical topic model is estimated for a specific corpus, a wide variety of interesting questions can be posed and answered: for example, how have topics changed over time in a particular corpus? which authors write on a particular topic? and so on. I will conclude with a discussion of how these statistical topic models can provide an interesting basis for automatically constructing large and complex networks from text and how these networks can support interesting inferences and insights that would be difficult (or impossible) to obtain by purely manual means.
Bio: Padhraic Smyth is one of the leading researchers in statistical pattern detection and data mining, machine learning, and information theory. His book, Advances in Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining AAAI Press, 1996, was followed by the co-authored, Principles of Data Mining, MIT Press, 2001, and Modeling the Internet and the Web: Probabilistic Methods and Algorithms, John Wiley and Sons, 2003. He was a recipient of best paper awards at the 2002 and 1997 ACM SIGKDD Conferences, an IBM Faculty Partnership Award in 2001, an NSF Faculty CAREER award in 1997 and an Award for Excellence in Research at JPL in 1993, where he was a Technical Group Leader at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. He received a first class honors degree in Electronic Engineering from University College Galway (National University of Ireland) in 1984, and the MSEE and PhD degrees from the Electrical Engineering Department at the California Institute of Technology in 1985 and 1988 respectively. He has been on the UCI faculty since 1996.
He is currently an associate editor for the Journal of the American Statistical Association and for the IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, has served as an action editor for the Machine Learning Journal, is a founding associate editor for the Journal of Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, and a founding editorial board member of the Journal of Machine Learning Research. He served as program chair for the 33rd Symposium on Computer Science and Statistics in 2001 and served as general chair for the Sixth International Workshop on AI and Statistics in 1997.
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streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_05_25_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: May 25'07 talk
May 25 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00. UCI 3030 Anteater I&R Bldg, UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
Carl Simon University of Michigan, Director,
Center for the Study of Complex Systems "Simplicity in Complexity: Complex Systems Approaches Across Disciplines"
(Complexity Research and the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at Michigan) Pdf for the talk
Abstract. Carl Simon will talk about the University of Michigan approach to the study of complex systems.
Decision-makers and policy-analysts who fail to take a systems approach
risk long-run disastrous consequences, as illustrated by environmental
disasters like DDT, policy disasters like the Vietnam War, and business
disasters like the current crunch in the US automobile industry. A
systems approach requires the understanding that an object,
organization, or policy under consideration is a component of a larger
inter-connected network, that changes in the object under consideration
can have repercussions in distant components of that network, and vice
versa.
A systems approach usually entails constructing and analyzing a model of
the overall system, with particular attention to the interactions of its
components. Such a model can be conceptual, mathematical, statistical,
or even a computer simulation. In general, one starts with a simple
model with strong simplifying assumptions about the components and their
interactions, for example that the components and their links are all
alike and are in equilibrium. But, while the K.I.S.S. principle reminds
us to "Keep It Simple, Stupid," Einstein added an appropriate caution:
"But not too simple!" When can one ignore differences among individuals?
Do the ways that individuals connect to one another make a difference?
Does it matter whether or not the world is in some simple static
equilibrium or is changing dynamically? When and how does a modeler
include learning and adaptation to feedback? Why do we separate
microbiology from macrobiology, say, or microeconomics from macroeconomics?
Systems approaches -- simple and complex -- in fields as diverse as
economics, ecology, biology, epidemiology, and traffic engineering share
some remarkable commonalities, so that techniques and insights in one
discipline can shed light on the operations of others.
Bio. Carl Simon (Ph.D. Mathematics, Northwestern University, 1970) is currently Professor of Mathematics, Economics and Public Policy at the
University of Michigan. Since 1999, he has also served as Director of the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of
Michigan, an interdisciplinary program that looks at self-regulation, feedback, adaptation and other features of dynamic systems.
Since such systems may share comparable underlying structures, faculty representing different U-M colleges find it inspiring to work
together at CSCS and transfer methods of analysis from one field to another.
His research focuses on dynamic models of the spread of communicable diseases, especially HIV, influenza, and bacterial
infections -- with a special interest in the role of non-random mixing on the transmission process and most recently on the evolution of
antibiotic resistance. He and his research group won the 1994 Temin prize for their work combining mathematical models and empirical data to
show the importance of the primary infection period on the transmission of HIV and the Kenneth Rothman Epidemiology Prize for the 2005 paper of
the year in Epidemiology. He has been named the University's LS&A Distinguished Senior Lecturer for 2007. Currently, Simon is also leading
research groups exploring sustainable mobility, the life histories of Great Lakes salmon, and the evolution of literary genre.
Simon, Scott Page, and Robert Axelrod have been funded from 2002 to 2008 to run an IGERT graduate program with the Santa Fe Institute
in Structure, Adaptation, and Performance in Economic and Political Institutions bringing together social scientists interested in institutional performance and design.
The analytic core of the curricula borrows from multiple disciplines: economics, political science, computer science, physics, and sociology. The emphasis will be on how collections of diverse agents behave and adapt when their interactions are structured by formal and informal institutional constraints.
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streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_06_01_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: Jun 1'07 conference
June 1 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00 UCLA 285 Powell Library, UCI 3030 Anteater I&R Bldg, UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
Michael Merrill (UCLA and ASU School of Human Evolution & Social Change) "Archaeology and Galois lattices" With an application to the study of Giant Keyhole Limpet ornaments from
the Middle period Phase 5C to Late period Phase L1a cemetery in the coastal
mainland Chumash village CA-SBa-72 South. pdf beware the ppt, way too large
Abstract (see Detailed Abstract) My analytical method is based on determining structure through representing the complexity of artifact data with Galois lattices. Galois lattices are dually ordered algebraic structures that provide a very robust and elegant conceptual framework for exploring structural patterning in archaeological data. The Galois lattice has a formally defined structure that incorporates set-theoretic principles such as set union and overlap in conjunction with other mathematical concepts that include least upper bound (supremum) and greatest lower bound (infimum), which are used to assemble a partially ordered set (the lattice). A Galois lattice is most often visualized in terms of a diagram (often called a Hasse diagram) consisting of nodes (lattice elements) and lines connecting the nodes. Each lattice node in this analysis is associated with one or more shell ornaments from a burial and/or one shell ornament type. The nodes of the computer generated lattice diagrams in my talk will be labeled accordingly. A specific property of Galois lattices known as the Luxenburger basis (Luxenburger 1991) will be used to uncover sets of absolute and partial (true most but not all of the time) implications or dependencies (also known as "association rules") between size classes of shell ornaments recovered from ten burials (a 10% sample size and excellent spatial coverage of a cemetery that was nearly completely excavated by David Banks Rogers in 1926) in a mainland coastal Chumash site occupied from approximately A.D. 900 to 1150. The impetus for the analysis is to find a way to explore further Chester King's comment that "the size of the shell determines the size of the callus ring in the center of the shell" (King 1990:125), which in turn determines the economic value of the shell as well as the exchange value, social context and use of the finished ornament. (Thanks to Chester King and Dwight Read without whom this research would never have taken place.)
References
King, Chester D. 1990. Evolution of Chumash Society. A Comparative Study of Artifacts Used for Social System Maintenance in the Santa Barbara Channel Region before A.D. 1804. Garland Publishing, Inc. New York.
Luxenburger, Michael. 1991. Implications Partielles Dans Un Contexte. Math. Inf. Sci. hum. 29(113): 35-55.
Bio. Michael Merrill is a professional archaeologist with an M.A. in Anthropology, California State University, Los Angeles, 2005 and a B.S. in Mathematics, UCLA, 1989. He will be starting a Ph.D. program in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University in Fall 2007. Research at ASU under the guidance of Drs. Marco Janssen and Marty Anderies will include working as a Research Assistant on the project "Long-term Coupled Socioecological Change in the American southwest and northern Mexico" involving model-based analysis of archaeological data and the development of formal models of the long-term dynamics of ancient societies in the American southwest. Research to date has centered on developing and applying quantitative methods to study site organization in southern California prehistoric sites. He has recently added to the scope of his research by developing and applying new mathematical methods to mortuary analysis and artifact classification. This research would never have taken place without the teaching and encouragement of Dr. Chester King (Topanga Anthropological Consultants) and Dr. Dwight Read (UCLA).
For previous uses of Galois Lattices in Social Science see Using Galois Lattices to Represent Network Data Sociological Methodology 1993 (23):127-146, and some of the papers by John Mohr.
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streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_06_09_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: June 9'07 talk
June 9 2007 Saturday 9:45-4:00 conference at UCLA Haines Hall 352 (last week of classes)
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streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_10_12_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: October 5 '07 talk
Oct 05, 2007: Friday, 1:00-3:00 telecast from UClA to UCR A139 Olmsted Hall, UCI 3030 Anteater I&R Bldg, UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall
Mark A. R. Kleiman, Prof. of Public Policy, UCLA School of Public Affairs; Field/Subfield: Public Policy and Criminology/Game Theory and Simulation.
"The Dynamics of Deterrence"
ALTHOUGH NON-UCLA ATTENDANCE WAS LOW THIS WAS AN EXCELLENT COMPLEXITY TALK AND SHOULD ENCOURAGE REORGANIZATION OF THIS COMPONENT OF THE VIDEOCONFERENCE
Abstract: Because punishment is scarce, costly, and painful, optimal enforcement strategies will minimize the amount of actual punishment required to effectuate deterrence. If potential offenders are deterrable, increasing the conditional probability of punishment (given violation) can reduce the amount of punishment actually inflicted, by "tipping" a situation from its high-violation equilibrium to its low-violation equilibrium. Compared to random or "equal opportunity" enforcement, dynamically concentrated sanctions can reduce the punishment level necessary to tip the system. Game theory and some simple and robust Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate these results, which, in addition to their potential for reducing both crime and incarceration, may have implications for both management and regulation.
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streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_10_12_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: October 12 '07 talk
UCI 3030 Anteater I&R Bldg, UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
Oct 12: Dario Nardo, Co-Director, Anthropology and Human Complex Systems (HCS), UCLA
"The Multiple Models Approach: Burning Man as a Case Study for the Synergistic Use of Memes Theory, Cultural Theory, and Multi-Agent Mapping" pdf ppt
Abstract: Potential benefits are explored of "multiple models" analytic approaches modeling the phenomena of an annual emergence of a temporary city -- Burning Man -- in the Nevada desert, based on fieldwork participation and as a foundation for further fieldwork and computer simulation.
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streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_10_26_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: October 26 '07 talk
UCI 3030 Anteater I&R Bldg, UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
Cancelled due to Epic fire closure of UCSD and teleconferencing facilities
Oct 26 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00. Laurent Tambayong, UCI "Simulating Micro Trade Networks; the Dynamics of Macro Trade Networks" pdf
Abstract. Dynamical game theory offers an approach to modeling complex networks. This research focuses on dynamics in the formation processes of a mutual consent network in game theory setting: the Co-Author Model, in which there is limited time for multiple collaborations. In this article, an assumption of limited observation (to those with whom one is connected) is applied and analytical results are derived. Then, 2 parameters are varied: the number of individuals in the network and the probability of the links in the network in its initial state. A simulation result shows a finding that is consistent with an analytical result for a state of equilibrium, while it shows in addition a different possible equilibrium. Further, the simulation results also exhibit more predictive behaviors of the network as its size increases, violating the notion that complexity increases as the number of its elements increases. Existing empirical findings are presented and integrated to explain, from the model, real-world formation and sustainable processes of entrepreneurial organization in terms of networks. It shows behaviors of members of entrepreneurial organizations that are contradictory to the their self-benefiting motives, including existence of cohesive "old boys" clubs, formation of new "young Turks" organizations as a counter movement, and information diffusion despite the competitive nature of the network.
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streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_11_09_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: November 9 '07 talk
UCI 3030 Anteater I&R Bldg, UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
Nov 9 2007 Friday 1:30-3:00 from UCR B. Larry Li, UCR - Ecological Complexity and Sustainability
ABSTRACT The relationships between human and natural ecological systems are extremely complex. Understanding such complicated interactions and predicting or altering future dynamics from the standpoint of a single scientific discipline or from a reductionist position is almost certain to miss crucial mechanisms and dynamics. A holistic, complex systems approach is needed. Systems approaches in ecological studies have made considerable progress in understanding the fundamental ecological interactions in relatively "pristine" ecosystems, especially through the establishment of systems ecology and ecosystems theory. Human systems -- also regarded as complex -- have also been analyzed from a systems perspective. There are many models on basic economic and social processes, as well as practical applications in urban and regional planning, transportation system design, etc. Recent environmental, economic and political demands are requiring better understanding of the linkage between the ecological and human social systems, especially in the context of the development of management strategies for a sustainable world. We are facing several environment-related threats to human welfare, health and security in the coming century. The respective questions for a holistic approach to such dynamic human-environmental interactions are extremely important and significant for the scientific progress, as well as for the political decision-making and development processes in the face of inevitable environmental change. New methods and approaches in the science of complexity have provided us a new opportunity to comprehensively understand the coupling dynamics of human and ecological systems, and the prospects of sustainable management across a range of spatial and temporal scales. New complex systems approaches also shed a new light on co-evolution trajectories and the resilience of coupled social and ecological systems. In this talk, I will outline this latest development and research results in this emerging and exciting research area, along with some of my own works.
view live -
streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/08_01_11_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: January 11 '08 talk
UCI 3030 Anteater I&R Bldg, UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison (UCSD Emeriti Professors in Visual Arts)
"Complexity Works: Rain Forest / Meadow / Eco-Urban Edge / Mountain Glacier and Sponge"
Abstract We present four illustrative projects in which we have been invited to intervene on a large ecological scale in the aftermath of massive resource extractions from diverse environments whose sustainability is profoundly compromised. Each work proposes a response and new proposal to four different large systems at risk. These are the North American Rain Forest, the Endangered Meadows of Europe, the Green Heart of Holland, and the water sources of Peninsula Europe in relationship to global warming and glacial meltdown. Includes discourse, presentation of readings & imagery, discussion.
Announcement for Posting: Saturday January 12 '08 talks
January 12, 2008 Conference, UC Irvine 9:45-2:30 catered lunch
Instructions for the speaker
What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
NEW WIKI SITE FOR THE COLLOQUIUM SERIES
Abstract. The quest at the center of evolutionary computation has been to understand the emergence of emergence in nature and how to implement it in simulations. It is not difficult to simulate the emergence of global patterns of behavior from local primitive rules of causation, and thus understand and explain the emergence of one level of complexity, the first order of emergence. But how can we build simulations which then capture the emergent patterns of behavior at one level and use them as the local primitives to build yet a higher level of global patterning, a second order of emergence. This is the problem which has been the focus of recent workshops on "Dynamical Hierarchies" in Australia, "Dynamic Ontology" in Italy, and "Computational Synthesis" in California. It is, as stated in the invitation to the meeting on "Levels of Reality," "possibly the single most relevant and unresolved problem in science and philosophy." Significant progress is likely to result from the realization that the "capture" of emergences often takes place by the transference of information from one medium to another, a process I refer to as intermediation. In the process of representing reality in computer code materiality is often lost. Thus intermediation is often overlooked in computer simulations of social and cultural multiagent (multicausal) models. Information is always instantiated on a marker, and the materiality of that marker changes the character of the information it conveys. Each marker, information carrier, or medium, consequently has a life of its own: its own audience and capacity, its own costs of inscription, maintenance and presentation. Each has its own vagueness and ambiguity, its own accuracy, precision and repeatability, and ultimately its own robustness, durability, failure and decay. The world is re-presented in the medium of mind as concepts and ideas, re-presented as speech or written text, and embodied in a myriad of material contrivances, signs, symbols and suggestions of behavior, in a world of technological artifacts and ways of doing things - a material cultural environment that is, in many ways, more immersive, durable and compelling than the ideas themselves.
It is these artifacts of technology which constitute distributed material cultural cognition, the processes which mediate our daily lives. Intermediation, in simulation and in nature is often conceptualized as hierarchical, with level building upon level of complexity. However, emergence takes place not only upward, but laterally and downward with significant feedback taking place through heterarchical circuits. We must also take into account at least two temporally different meanings of levels of emergence which might best be described as evolutionary and instantaneous. Not only do we see complexity arise through evolutionary time, we see it maintained at every instant. If the causal regularities that govern the world of physics should change instantaneously, all higher level processes would stop as quickly. With regard to computer models of social and other processes, we must begin to represent the materiality of the real world in the medium of simulation. In other words, we must imbue our simulations with simulations of the media of materiality within the media of computation.
As an aside, this question is insightfully pursued by Greg Egan in his science fiction book PERMUTATION CITY, and the entailments discussed in his description of the relative robustness of the "Lambertians" versus the "Copies."
Instructions for the speaker
What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Abstract. Conceptual blends are ways that networks or relations as metaphors are used to generate and map our thought. In this talk I will explore some ways that systems of human cultural practice bring simple perceptual abilities into coordination with the social and material world to produce complex cognitive accomplishments.
view live -
streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_10_26_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: Jan 12'08 talk
UCI Calit2 seminar room 3008-telecast to UCSD Calit2 Atkinson 4004 and to UCLA 285 Powell Library
February 22 2008 Friday 1:30-3:00 Mark Handcock University of Washington.
"A simple model for complex networks with arbitrary degree distribution and clustering"
Abstract. We present a stochastic model for networks with arbitrary degree distributions and average clustering coefficient. Many descriptions of networks are based solely on their computed degree distribution and clustering coefficient. We propose a statistical model based on these characterizations. This model generalizes models based solely on the degree distribution. We present alternative parameterizations of the model. Each parameterization of the model is interpretable and tunable. We present a simple Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm to generate networks with the specified characteristics. We provide an algorithm based on MCMC to infer the network properties from network data and develop statistical inference for the model. The model is generalizable to include mixing based on attributes and other complex social structure.
view live -
streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_10_26_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker
What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
Announcement for Posting: January 25 '08 talk
UCI 3030 Anteater I&R Bldg, UCLA 285 Powell Library UCSD 260 Galbraith Hall UCR A139 Olmsted Hall
March 8 2008 Saturday CONFERENCE AT UCLA. Michalis Faloutsos, UCR "Systematizing the analysis of complex networks,
mainly Internet and biological networks"
AND OTHER SPEAKERS -- see OUR NEW WIKI EVENTS PAGE
view live -
streaming video at the time of the conference: http://earth.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/07_10_26_SocialScience240A.rm (only works during the actual presentation)
Instructions for the speaker What's in it for and from students (discussions at the Complexity Sciences wiki)
-- see OUR NEW WIKI EVENTS PAGE
May 16 Friday 2008 Cosma Shalizi, CMU, "Statistical methods for complex systems"
See:"Methods and Techniques of Complex Systems Science: An Overview", chapter 1 (pp. 33-114) in Thomas S. Deisboeck and J. Yasha Kresh (eds.), Complex Systems Science in Biomedicine (NY: Springer, 2006) = nlin.AO/0307015. A summary of the tools people should use to study complex systems, covering statistical learning and data-mining, time series analysis, cellular automata, agent-based models, evaluation techniques and simulation, information theory and complexity measures