Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Health Poverty Index (HPI) visualisation tool: Background
UK (England) only it appears - excellent tool for viewing spider/radar chart of your region/group in terms of health poverty and its semi-proximate causes, compared to England total. Data for Manchester are grim:
Manchester chart here!
UK (England) only it appears - excellent tool for viewing spider/radar chart of your region/group in terms of health poverty and its semi-proximate causes, compared to England total. Data for Manchester are grim:
Manchester chart here!
Health Poverty Index (HPI) visualisation tool: Background
UK (England) only it appears - excellent tool for viewing spider/radar chart of your region/group in terms of health poverty and its semi-proximate causes, compared to England total. Data for Manchester are grim:
Manchester chart here!
UK (England) only it appears - excellent tool for viewing spider/radar chart of your region/group in terms of health poverty and its semi-proximate causes, compared to England total. Data for Manchester are grim:
Manchester chart here!
Monday, November 29, 2004
Rethinking doomsday | thebulletin.org: "Loose nukes, nanobots, smallpox, oh my! In this age of endless imagining, and some very real risks, which terrorist threats should be taken most seriously?" Solid Bulletin of Atomic Scientists piece... but what about fast pace of development in biotech?
Science Friday:Archives By Topic
US radio discussion of scientific issues - I've just been listening to debates about teaching evolution in public schools in the US (sad or what? while making sandwiches for school lunches) - earlier this evening BBC radio 4 had an interesting piece on City Academies in the Uk, which raised some interesting questions about the "material base" as they say of the notorious creationist one in Middlesborough (contracts to family members, reduction in really deprived students, above-average rate of expulsions...) Of course the issues are separate but when the fundamentalists arer coming, its interesting to see certain hallowed practices revived under a modernising guise. Poor old New Labour.
US radio discussion of scientific issues - I've just been listening to debates about teaching evolution in public schools in the US (sad or what? while making sandwiches for school lunches) - earlier this evening BBC radio 4 had an interesting piece on City Academies in the Uk, which raised some interesting questions about the "material base" as they say of the notorious creationist one in Middlesborough (contracts to family members, reduction in really deprived students, above-average rate of expulsions...) Of course the issues are separate but when the fundamentalists arer coming, its interesting to see certain hallowed practices revived under a modernising guise. Poor old New Labour.
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Paradise-engineering : The Hedonistic Imperative: "The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life.... The abolitionist project is hugely ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and morally urgent. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved because they served the fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture. States of sublime well-being are destined to become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. It is predicted that the world's last unpleasant experience will be a precisely dateable event."
And that about says it - lots on this site, which doesnt seem a spoof, but no NO DIRECTION HOME (the Norman Spinrad short story, recommended)
And that about says it - lots on this site, which doesnt seem a spoof, but no NO DIRECTION HOME (the Norman Spinrad short story, recommended)
Friday, November 26, 2004
E-Learning: "
Policy paper with some tough conclusions about strengths and weaknesses of EU programmes here:
"On the positive side the following points may certainly be mentioned:
* a strong mobilisation effect of national authorities, higher education, industry and several other stakeholders, which was mainly achieved at the beginning of the period considered here, when the rhetoric of eLearning was still strong;
* massive networking activity at European level, thanks to the fact that projects containing eLearning elements were actually supported, not only - of course - within the eLearning Action Plan and the neighbouring MINERVA Action of the SOCRATES Programme, but also in Leonardo da Vinci, GRUNDVIG, LINGUA, ERASMUS and IST. Even in European initiatives such as EQUAL and in the Cooperation Programmes of the European Union with other parts of the world eLearning has gained some room as a result of the early years’ mobilisation;
* a substantial contribution to the evolution of the rhetoric of eLearning away from just computers, connectivity competitiveness and cost-effectiveness, and towards contents, context, collaboration and learning communities, so facilitating the integration of eLearning and ICT in the processes of endogenous innovation of education and training systems;
* also as a result of EU initiatives, a wealth of new R&D results and developments have become available, not necessarily in the way politicians were looking forward to; but they led to the formation of an increasingly professionalized community, a factor undervalued by some political comments;
* openness of mind of the responsible people as a recognised quality that has made new ideas and concepts acceptable and integrated within the European eLearning agenda;
* we also note a critical willingness to simplify the EU financial regulations and administrative procedures, such as proposed in new educational programmes, but we also have to add that this attitude is not yet part of daily practice which is even sometimes contradictory.
Several weaknesses should also be noted:
* first of all, the lack of persistence on the concept and practice of the eLearning Initiative: in fact real co-ordination of the EU intervention in this domain has been given up. This does not mean that DG Education and Culture in other Programmes or other DGs are not active, but that regarding eLearning much less than optimal use of resources is made and replication and lack of sustainability of initiatives become serious risks;
* the reduced amount of resources attributed to the new eLearning Programme which - also symbolically - shows the reluctance that all the decision making bodies at EU level (not only the Commission, but also the Parliament and especially the Council of Ministers and the related Education Committee) have had in taking eLearning seriously.
Probably most people involved in these bodies – understandably - have very little personal experience of eLearning or the use of ICT in learning and fail to appreciate the full potential of ICT, or perceive more risks than benefits at first sight.
If we go beyond a superficial criticism toward this lack of understanding, we will probably find visions of the world and rooted values that made - and still make - a large part of education policy makers, managers, teachers resistant to the initial rhetoric of eLearning, because this rhetoric was carrying simplified visions and over-optimistic statements on the virtues of ICT in learning. In our view this “visions and values” tension has practically resulted in the interruption of a dialogue that, a few years ago, was starting;
* a lack of systematic consultation by decision makers at different levels in the policy-making process of the professional environment of ODL and eLearning, as a result of which they depend too much on the institutional representations of Member Countries and top level relations with the relevant industry and academic elites;
* the lack of real integration of the eLearning discourse into the lifelong learning agenda, as if the two “movements”, one originated by the eEurope strategy and the other more “endogenous” to education and training policy, were to be kept separate to avoid contaminations (by the way, the same applies to the Bologna process in Higher Education);
* connected and partially explaining the previous point is the unbalanced emphasis, especially in the first period, on European competitiveness rather than equity and inclusiveness. This has been corrected in a more recent phase, but produced a certain reluctance in the educational community to join the promotional messages on eLearning;
* too much focus on formal education as opposed to post-initial, non-formal and informal learning, where the use of ICT may be integrated without facing a strong institutional resistance or at least inertia;
* finally, a certain discontinuity of actions supported by the EC funding, partially due to administrative principles that may discourage continuity of funding to the same initiatives/actors/partnerships. This is partly based on a certain “beauty contest” attitude in the selection of such proposals, irrespective of their relevance, that look more innovative than those which develop, consolidate or mainstream previous lines of action."
Goes on to make proposals
Policy paper with some tough conclusions about strengths and weaknesses of EU programmes here:
"On the positive side the following points may certainly be mentioned:
* a strong mobilisation effect of national authorities, higher education, industry and several other stakeholders, which was mainly achieved at the beginning of the period considered here, when the rhetoric of eLearning was still strong;
* massive networking activity at European level, thanks to the fact that projects containing eLearning elements were actually supported, not only - of course - within the eLearning Action Plan and the neighbouring MINERVA Action of the SOCRATES Programme, but also in Leonardo da Vinci, GRUNDVIG, LINGUA, ERASMUS and IST. Even in European initiatives such as EQUAL and in the Cooperation Programmes of the European Union with other parts of the world eLearning has gained some room as a result of the early years’ mobilisation;
* a substantial contribution to the evolution of the rhetoric of eLearning away from just computers, connectivity competitiveness and cost-effectiveness, and towards contents, context, collaboration and learning communities, so facilitating the integration of eLearning and ICT in the processes of endogenous innovation of education and training systems;
* also as a result of EU initiatives, a wealth of new R&D results and developments have become available, not necessarily in the way politicians were looking forward to; but they led to the formation of an increasingly professionalized community, a factor undervalued by some political comments;
* openness of mind of the responsible people as a recognised quality that has made new ideas and concepts acceptable and integrated within the European eLearning agenda;
* we also note a critical willingness to simplify the EU financial regulations and administrative procedures, such as proposed in new educational programmes, but we also have to add that this attitude is not yet part of daily practice which is even sometimes contradictory.
Several weaknesses should also be noted:
* first of all, the lack of persistence on the concept and practice of the eLearning Initiative: in fact real co-ordination of the EU intervention in this domain has been given up. This does not mean that DG Education and Culture in other Programmes or other DGs are not active, but that regarding eLearning much less than optimal use of resources is made and replication and lack of sustainability of initiatives become serious risks;
* the reduced amount of resources attributed to the new eLearning Programme which - also symbolically - shows the reluctance that all the decision making bodies at EU level (not only the Commission, but also the Parliament and especially the Council of Ministers and the related Education Committee) have had in taking eLearning seriously.
Probably most people involved in these bodies – understandably - have very little personal experience of eLearning or the use of ICT in learning and fail to appreciate the full potential of ICT, or perceive more risks than benefits at first sight.
If we go beyond a superficial criticism toward this lack of understanding, we will probably find visions of the world and rooted values that made - and still make - a large part of education policy makers, managers, teachers resistant to the initial rhetoric of eLearning, because this rhetoric was carrying simplified visions and over-optimistic statements on the virtues of ICT in learning. In our view this “visions and values” tension has practically resulted in the interruption of a dialogue that, a few years ago, was starting;
* a lack of systematic consultation by decision makers at different levels in the policy-making process of the professional environment of ODL and eLearning, as a result of which they depend too much on the institutional representations of Member Countries and top level relations with the relevant industry and academic elites;
* the lack of real integration of the eLearning discourse into the lifelong learning agenda, as if the two “movements”, one originated by the eEurope strategy and the other more “endogenous” to education and training policy, were to be kept separate to avoid contaminations (by the way, the same applies to the Bologna process in Higher Education);
* connected and partially explaining the previous point is the unbalanced emphasis, especially in the first period, on European competitiveness rather than equity and inclusiveness. This has been corrected in a more recent phase, but produced a certain reluctance in the educational community to join the promotional messages on eLearning;
* too much focus on formal education as opposed to post-initial, non-formal and informal learning, where the use of ICT may be integrated without facing a strong institutional resistance or at least inertia;
* finally, a certain discontinuity of actions supported by the EC funding, partially due to administrative principles that may discourage continuity of funding to the same initiatives/actors/partnerships. This is partly based on a certain “beauty contest” attitude in the selection of such proposals, irrespective of their relevance, that look more innovative than those which develop, consolidate or mainstream previous lines of action."
Goes on to make proposals
Thursday, November 25, 2004
FISTERA Workshop & Regular IT STAR Committee Meeting
There's a lot of material here in IT and IS olicieis in new EU member states - and more on IT capabilities and Foresight in the EU.
There's a lot of material here in IT and IS olicieis in new EU member states - and more on IT capabilities and Foresight in the EU.
Monday, November 22, 2004
"Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren"
Arthur Cordell wites on FUTUREWORK:
"...I thought I would send
out the URL for J.M. Keynes' provocative 1930 essay on "Economic
Possibilities for our Grandchildren"
"We are suffering, not from the rheumatics of old age, but from the
growing-pains of over-rapid changes, from the painfulness of readjustment between one
economic period and another."Keynes, 1930
....
selected passages from this amazing 1930 essay by Keynes.
For the moment the very rapidity of these changes is hurting us and
bringing difficult problems to solve. We are being afflicted with a new
disease of which some readers may not yet have heard the name, but of
which they will hear a great deal in the years to come--namely,
technological unemployment. This means unemployment due to our discovery
of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we
can find new uses for labour. But this is only a temporary phase of
maladjustment. All this means in the long run that mankind is solving its
economic problem. I would predict that the standard of life in progressive
countries one hundred years hence will be between four and eight times as
high as it is to-day. There would be nothing surprising in this even in
the light of our present knowledge. It would not be foolish to contemplate
the possibility of afar greater progress still.
.......
I draw the conclusion that, assuming no important wars and no important
increase in population, the economic problem may be solved, or be at least
within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the
economic problem is not-if we look into the future-the permanent problem
of the human race. Why, you may ask, is this so startling? It is startling
because-if, instead of looking into the future, we look into the past-we
find that the economic problem, the struggle for subsistence, always has
been hitherto the primary, most pressing problem of the human race-not
only of the human race, but of the whole of the biological kingdom from
the beginnings of life in its most primitive forms.
Thus we have been expressly evolved by nature-with all our impulses and
deepest instincts-for the purpose of solving the economic problem. If the
economic problem is solved, mankind will be deprived of its traditional
purpose.
.......
Will this be a benefit? If one believes at all in the real values of life,
the prospect at least opens up the possibility of benefit. Yet I think
with dread of the readjustment of the habits and instincts of the ordinary
man, bred into him for countless generations, which he may be asked to
discard within a few decades.
..............
I see us free, therefore, to return to some of the most sure and certain
principles of religion and traditional virtue-that avarice is a vice, that
the exaction of usury is a misdemeanour, and the love of money is
detestable, that those walk most truly in the paths of virtue and sane
wisdom who take least thought for the morrow. We shall once more value
ends above means and prefer the good to the useful. We shall honour those
who can teach us how to pluck the hour and the day virtuously and well,
the delightful people who are capable of taking direct enjoyment in
things, the lilies of the field who toil not, neither do they spin.
But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred
years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and
foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and
precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can
lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight. I look
forward, therefore, in days not so very remote, to the greatest change
which has ever occurred in the material environment of life for human
beings in the aggregate. But, of course, it will all happen gradually, not
as a catastrophe. Indeed, it has already begun. The course of affairs will
simply be that there will be ever larger and larger classes and groups of
people from whom problems of economic necessity have been practically
removed. The critical difference will be realised when this condition has
become so general that the nature of one's duty to one's neighbour is
hanged. For it will remain reasonable to be economically purposive for
others after it has ceased to be reasonable for oneself. The pace at which
we can reach our destination of economic bliss will be governed by four
things-our power to control population, our determination to avoid wars
and civil dissensions, our willingness to entrust to science the direction
of those matters which are properly the concern of science, and the rate
of accumulation as fixed by the margin between our production and our
consumption; of which the last will easily look after itself, given the
first three.
There are changes in other spheres too which we must expect to come. When
the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there
will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid
ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us
for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most
distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues.
We shall be able to afford todare to assess the money-motive at its true
value. The love of money as apossession -as distinguished from the love of
money as a means to theenjoyments and realities of life -will be
recognised for what it is, a somewhatdisgusting morbidity, one of those
semicriminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a
shudder to the specialists in mental disease. All kinds of social customs
and economic practices, affecting the distribution of wealth and of
economic rewards and penalties, which we now maintain at all costs,
however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are
tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of capital, we shall
then be free, at last, to discard.
Meanwhile there will be no harm in making mild preparations for our
destiny, in encouraging, and experimenting in, the arts of life as well as
the activities of purpose.
Arthur Cordell wites on FUTUREWORK:
"...I thought I would send
out the URL for J.M. Keynes' provocative 1930 essay on "Economic
Possibilities for our Grandchildren"
"We are suffering, not from the rheumatics of old age, but from the
growing-pains of over-rapid changes, from the painfulness of readjustment between one
economic period and another."Keynes, 1930
....
selected passages from this amazing 1930 essay by Keynes.
For the moment the very rapidity of these changes is hurting us and
bringing difficult problems to solve. We are being afflicted with a new
disease of which some readers may not yet have heard the name, but of
which they will hear a great deal in the years to come--namely,
technological unemployment. This means unemployment due to our discovery
of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we
can find new uses for labour. But this is only a temporary phase of
maladjustment. All this means in the long run that mankind is solving its
economic problem. I would predict that the standard of life in progressive
countries one hundred years hence will be between four and eight times as
high as it is to-day. There would be nothing surprising in this even in
the light of our present knowledge. It would not be foolish to contemplate
the possibility of afar greater progress still.
.......
I draw the conclusion that, assuming no important wars and no important
increase in population, the economic problem may be solved, or be at least
within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the
economic problem is not-if we look into the future-the permanent problem
of the human race. Why, you may ask, is this so startling? It is startling
because-if, instead of looking into the future, we look into the past-we
find that the economic problem, the struggle for subsistence, always has
been hitherto the primary, most pressing problem of the human race-not
only of the human race, but of the whole of the biological kingdom from
the beginnings of life in its most primitive forms.
Thus we have been expressly evolved by nature-with all our impulses and
deepest instincts-for the purpose of solving the economic problem. If the
economic problem is solved, mankind will be deprived of its traditional
purpose.
.......
Will this be a benefit? If one believes at all in the real values of life,
the prospect at least opens up the possibility of benefit. Yet I think
with dread of the readjustment of the habits and instincts of the ordinary
man, bred into him for countless generations, which he may be asked to
discard within a few decades.
..............
I see us free, therefore, to return to some of the most sure and certain
principles of religion and traditional virtue-that avarice is a vice, that
the exaction of usury is a misdemeanour, and the love of money is
detestable, that those walk most truly in the paths of virtue and sane
wisdom who take least thought for the morrow. We shall once more value
ends above means and prefer the good to the useful. We shall honour those
who can teach us how to pluck the hour and the day virtuously and well,
the delightful people who are capable of taking direct enjoyment in
things, the lilies of the field who toil not, neither do they spin.
But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred
years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and
foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and
precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can
lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight. I look
forward, therefore, in days not so very remote, to the greatest change
which has ever occurred in the material environment of life for human
beings in the aggregate. But, of course, it will all happen gradually, not
as a catastrophe. Indeed, it has already begun. The course of affairs will
simply be that there will be ever larger and larger classes and groups of
people from whom problems of economic necessity have been practically
removed. The critical difference will be realised when this condition has
become so general that the nature of one's duty to one's neighbour is
hanged. For it will remain reasonable to be economically purposive for
others after it has ceased to be reasonable for oneself. The pace at which
we can reach our destination of economic bliss will be governed by four
things-our power to control population, our determination to avoid wars
and civil dissensions, our willingness to entrust to science the direction
of those matters which are properly the concern of science, and the rate
of accumulation as fixed by the margin between our production and our
consumption; of which the last will easily look after itself, given the
first three.
There are changes in other spheres too which we must expect to come. When
the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there
will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid
ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us
for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most
distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues.
We shall be able to afford todare to assess the money-motive at its true
value. The love of money as apossession -as distinguished from the love of
money as a means to theenjoyments and realities of life -will be
recognised for what it is, a somewhatdisgusting morbidity, one of those
semicriminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a
shudder to the specialists in mental disease. All kinds of social customs
and economic practices, affecting the distribution of wealth and of
economic rewards and penalties, which we now maintain at all costs,
however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are
tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of capital, we shall
then be free, at last, to discard.
Meanwhile there will be no harm in making mild preparations for our
destiny, in encouraging, and experimenting in, the arts of life as well as
the activities of purpose.
Friday, November 19, 2004
Thursday, November 18, 2004
BBC - Radio 4 - Connect 04/08/2004
Yet another radio 4 science programme, this one featuring "science and everyday life" themes - doesnt stop sessions focusing on robots and so on!
Yet another radio 4 science programme, this one featuring "science and everyday life" themes - doesnt stop sessions focusing on robots and so on!
BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time - mp3 download
This excellent chat programme often covers S&T issues, and this week it ios on the Higgs Boson. The BBC is experimenting with letting us download the sesions as MP3s (only up for a week after the broadacst). Older items can be listened to (or captured illicitly)as streaming audio, and there are often good web links and other discussions.
The set of programmes just under the science category are:
Science
Electrickery - the origins of electricity
The Origins of Life - how it all began
Pi - the number that doesn't add up
Planets - the astronomy of the 21st century
Zero - everything about nothing
Hysteria - the normal state of human beings?
Theories of Everything - still the holy grail of physics?
Dreams - is there a science of dreams?
Rutherford - the father of nuclear physics
Cryptography - secret history of ciphers and codes
Lamarck and Natural Selection - the Lamarckian Heresy
Ageing the Earth - a journey in geological time.
Infinity - a brief history.
James Clerk Maxwell - great 19th century physicist
Nature - from Homer to Darwin
Vulcanology - significance of volcanoes.
The Lunar Society - scientific ferment 200 years ago.
Memory - and the brain
Supernovas - the life cycle of stars
Meteorology - why does it still fascinate us?
Chance and Design in Evolution - Design in Nature
Disease - the fight against diseases and plagues
The Calendar - a history of the Calendar in all its forms
Psychoanalysis - do people crave dictatorship?
The scientist in history - missionary or monster?
History of drugs - their role in medicine and the arts
Schrodinger's Cat - Quantum Mechanics
Chaos Theory - ws the universe chaotic or orderly?
ET - new life within our solar system
Anatomy - 2000 years of anatomical study
This excellent chat programme often covers S&T issues, and this week it ios on the Higgs Boson. The BBC is experimenting with letting us download the sesions as MP3s (only up for a week after the broadacst). Older items can be listened to (or captured illicitly)as streaming audio, and there are often good web links and other discussions.
The set of programmes just under the science category are:
Science
Electrickery - the origins of electricity
The Origins of Life - how it all began
Pi - the number that doesn't add up
Planets - the astronomy of the 21st century
Zero - everything about nothing
Hysteria - the normal state of human beings?
Theories of Everything - still the holy grail of physics?
Dreams - is there a science of dreams?
Rutherford - the father of nuclear physics
Cryptography - secret history of ciphers and codes
Lamarck and Natural Selection - the Lamarckian Heresy
Ageing the Earth - a journey in geological time.
Infinity - a brief history.
James Clerk Maxwell - great 19th century physicist
Nature - from Homer to Darwin
Vulcanology - significance of volcanoes.
The Lunar Society - scientific ferment 200 years ago.
Memory - and the brain
Supernovas - the life cycle of stars
Meteorology - why does it still fascinate us?
Chance and Design in Evolution - Design in Nature
Disease - the fight against diseases and plagues
The Calendar - a history of the Calendar in all its forms
Psychoanalysis - do people crave dictatorship?
The scientist in history - missionary or monster?
History of drugs - their role in medicine and the arts
Schrodinger's Cat - Quantum Mechanics
Chaos Theory - ws the universe chaotic or orderly?
ET - new life within our solar system
Anatomy - 2000 years of anatomical study
zodiac thirteenth sign
John Sladek - sadly deceased in 2000, fondly remembered for "Space Shoes of the Gods" as well as novels like Muller-Fokker Effect and Reproductive System - wrote under the pseudonym James Vogh - a nice hoax - alleging a suppressed thirteenth sign of the zodiac. ARACHNE RISING. There are still many believers, this is apparently one. (Hint: try searching sites that do NOT mention Sladek.)
John Sladek - sadly deceased in 2000, fondly remembered for "Space Shoes of the Gods" as well as novels like Muller-Fokker Effect and Reproductive System - wrote under the pseudonym James Vogh - a nice hoax - alleging a suppressed thirteenth sign of the zodiac. ARACHNE RISING. There are still many believers, this is apparently one. (Hint: try searching sites that do NOT mention Sladek.)
The Tech Museum of Innovation
Its in San Jiose - now, if I'd gone to the IBM conference on Service Science today, I might have been able to slip out here...
The robotics section is a good starting point.
Its in San Jiose - now, if I'd gone to the IBM conference on Service Science today, I might have been able to slip out here...
The robotics section is a good starting point.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Complexity and Emergent Behaviour
The Uk Foresight Programme's review paper on complexity and
emergent behaviour in ICT systems, by Seth Bullock and Dave Cliff. (There is also a short non-technical
version of the full paper on foresight.gov.uk website.) Commissioned to pursue themes from the Foresight
projects on Cognitive Systems, and Cyber Trust and Crime Prevention, and being used it to inform the new project on Intelligent Infrastructure Systems.
The short version is available from http://www.foresight.gov.uk Science
Review Summary: Complexity and Emergent Behaviour in ICT Systems.
Bullock and Cliff's full paper, Complexity and Emergent Behaviour in
Information and Communications Systems, is available to view or download
in PDF format from http://www.foresight.gov.uk .
The Uk Foresight Programme's review paper on complexity and
emergent behaviour in ICT systems, by Seth Bullock and Dave Cliff. (There is also a short non-technical
version of the full paper on foresight.gov.uk website.) Commissioned to pursue themes from the Foresight
projects on Cognitive Systems, and Cyber Trust and Crime Prevention, and being used it to inform the new project on Intelligent Infrastructure Systems.
The short version is available from http://www.foresight.gov.uk Science
Review Summary: Complexity and Emergent Behaviour in ICT Systems.
Bullock and Cliff's full paper, Complexity and Emergent Behaviour in
Information and Communications Systems, is available to view or download
in PDF format from http://www.foresight.gov.uk .
Monday, November 15, 2004
First Monday November 2004 Special issue on Free Open Source Software; papers from a wide range of perspectives, with several quite different empirical issues (translation, software developers, social communities...)
