Complexes

International Journal of Public Information Systems Vol. 2008:1 , pp. 1-24 Towards Self-Organizing Bureaucracies Author: Carlos Gershenson Keywords: eGovernment, self-organization, adaptation, communication, hierarchies Abstract The goal of this paper is to contribute to eGovernment efforts, encouraging the use of self-organization as a method to improve the efficiency and adaptability of bureaucracies and similar social systems. Bureaucracies are described as networks of agents, where the main design principle is to reduce local "friction" to increase local and global "satisfaction". Following this principle, solutions are proposed for improving communication within bureaucracies, sensing public satisfaction, dynamic modification of hierarchies, and contextualization of procedures. Each of these reduces friction between agents (internal or external), increasing the efficiency of bureaucracies. Current technologies can be applied for this end. "Random a...

My brother told me a couple of palindromes he recently came up with (in Spanish). This one is a phonetic palindrome, and the middle part is a palindrome itself (could we call this a recursive palindrome?): Adan es "one" ke solo soy rebazo mínimo saber yo sólo sé ke no sé nada And this one is more interesting, as it is two dimensional: ORAR RAZA AZAR RARO

I recently watched Robin Chase's talk on TED.com . She is the founder of Zipcar , Goloco , and Meadow Networks . Great ideas for reducing carbon emissions, traffic, and improving quality of life... I wonder whether Zipcar would work in Mexico City...

First International Workshop on nonlinear dynamics and synchronization (INDS’08) July18-19, 2008 (Klagenfurt, Austria) http://inds08.uni-klu.ac.at/ The First International Workshop on Nonlinear Dynamics and Synchronization (INDS’08) is a two-day international workshop bringing together international researchers, developers and practitioners from different horizons to discuss the latest advances in nonlinear dynamics and synchronization. INDS’08 will serve as a forum to present current and future works as well as to exchange research ideas pertaining to various aspects in this field of nonlinear dynamic systems and synchronization. INDS’08 will feature contributed as well as invited papers and will include poster and demo sessions. Keynote Speakers: G. Chen, City Univ. of Hong Kong, Hong Kong L.O. Chua, University of California, USA D. Helbing, ETH Zürich, Switzerland J. Kacprzyk, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland W. Mathis, University of Hannover, Germany D. Ruan, Belgian Nuclear Re...

The EPOS 2008 workshop will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, on October 2008: The EPOS workshop series brings together researchers from the social, natural and computational sciences, as well as philosophers of science, to debate and elaborate on epistemological perspectives of simulation. The recognition that progress in the science of simulation must be on a par with progress in the analysis of its epistemological status has been an important mobile for the realization of the EPOS workshops. See the Call for Papers here. Important Dates: May 1 – Submission of papers or extended abstracts June 15 – Notification of acceptance August 31 – Receipt of full papers October 2-3 – Workshop, Lisbon, Portugal

Next month, the film "Fraude: México 2006" by Luis Mandoki will be released in more than 200 Mexican cinemas. You can see the trailer in YouTube (in Spanish...). This documentary gathers evidence filmed by hundreds of people about the fraud of the 2006 presidential elections. The Mexican supreme court already accepted that there had been severe irregularities, but in spite of that, we're stuck with a duck president (Felipe Calderón, aka FeCal), puppet of the people who managed to put him in power. Most recently, AeroMexico was sold to a business group who supported FeCal. I hope that this film will inform better people. There is no doubt about the fraud, there is more than enough evidence for it. But many Mexicans don't know about it (TV companies invested a lot in FeCal), and most don't even care... It is worth noting that Warner Bros, the original distributor of the film, tried to censor it, namely a part that compromises Televisa directives. When the director ...