Smart Economy

Four decades of business scenarios: what can experience teach?

Four decades of business scenarios: what can experience teach?

Authors: Stephen M. Millett

Article Type: Conceptual paper

Keywords: Future unknowns, Futuring and visioning, Long-term risk,
Research-based scenarios, Scenario learning, Scenario methodology, Scenarios,
Scenarios as hypotheses, Scenarios for desirable futures, Subject experts

Strategy & Leadership, Volume 41, Issue 1

Page Numbers: 29 - 33

Year: 2013

Assessing the effects of cell phone radiation on brain tissue

Assessing the effects of cell phone radiation on brain tissue
December 17, 2012 by Sunanda Creagh in Medical research

 

Researchers have found a novel, non-invasive technique for measuring brain hot spots caused by electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones, according to a study published today.

However, the scientists noted their model measured a "worst case scenario" level of heat and that in reality, the body's natural self-cooling mechanisms would reduce the amount of heat rise in the
brain caused by a mobile phone. The World Health Organisation's cancer agency,
the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), classed mobile phones
as Group 2B or "possibly carcinogenic" in a report released last
year. That puts them in the same IARC category as coffee, napthalene and
pickled vegetables. To test how much electromagnetic energy from cell phone
radiation was absorbed into a brain, US researchers David H. Gultekin and
Lothar Moeller used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques on a brain that
had been removed from a cow. The scientists rigged up an antenna system to help
create 3D images of the hot spots without allowing the strong magnetic fields
of the NMR to interfere with the results. The results were checked against heat
measurements taken with fibre optic temperature sensors and showed that the NMR
method delivered accurate findings. The researchers concluded that "NMR
thermometry offers sufficient spatial and temporal resolution to characterise
the hot spots from absorbed cell phone radiation in… biological tissues."
However, the researchers said that a biological process called perfusion—in
which blood is directed to overheated body parts to help cool them down—would
mean that the amount of heat rise caused by a mobile phone in a living brain would
be less in real life than what was studied in this experiment. Ads by Google
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www.SinoBiological.com "This study essentially presents the worst case
scenario in terms of radiation-heated brain tissue. The temperature rise in the
in vivo brain tissue is expected to be smaller because of perfusion," the
study said. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences. Their technique was an improvement on existing methods to
test for hot spots, which currently involve inserting a probe into a gel
designed to mimic the way a brain would conduct heat. "They are invasive
and they can not measure the thermal fields in ex-vivo or in-vivo tissues. NMR
method is non-invasive and can measure the thermal fields in ex-vivo and
in-vivo including the perfusion effects," said one of the scientists who
conducted the research, Dr David Gultekin from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Centre in New York.
Another author of the paper, Dr Lothar Moeller of Bell Labs, said "our
method has the advantages that it can be applied to measure remotely temperature
enhancement caused by cell phone radiation inside in-vivo brain. No other
existing method can do this." Professor Rodney Croft, Professor of Health
Physiology at the University
of Wollongong and a
researcher of mobile phone radiation said the research was interesting
proof-of-concept study but "I don't think it has much relevance to the
mobile phone debate." "What they are talking about at the moment is a
non-realistic model using biological material without thermoregulation,"
meaning natural mechanisms that help cool down overheated body parts, said Dr
Croft. "We can be exposed to quite a lot of changes in temperature and our
body can deal with it. If we get mobile phone exposure, because it's such a
small amount of heat, the thermoregulation can deal with that without any
difficulty." Dr Croft said there still was no research suggesting major
health problems caused by mobile phone use. "It really doesn't represent
much of a risk. We are talking about a conclusion that it remains a possibility
[that they may cause cancer] but there is no evidence it is a problem."
More information: "NMR imaging of cell phone radiation absorption in brain
tissue," by David H. Gultekin and Lothar Moeller: www.pnas.org/conte…
0/1205598109 Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Provided by The Conversation This story is published courtesy of the The
Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives)



Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-effects-cell-brain-tissue.html#jCp

A study reveals the rhythms of communications between people

A study reveals the rhythms of communications between people

 

Communication between people is produced in bursts, with intense periods of conversations and long periods of inactivity. And it happens at the same time between members of the same social group, which accelerates the spreading of information within that group, according to a scientific study carried out by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) in collaboration with Telefónica I+D.

 

This study, which has analyzed around 9,000 million calls throughout almost a year period, is the first to identify these features of the communication process and to quantify their impact in the diffusion of information. "This is something very important in the processes such as the diffusion of commercial information, viral marketing and the market trends of products, but also in situations such as the spreading of rumours, opinions, policies, etc.”, explained one of the authors of this research, Esteban Moro, from the Grupo de Investigación Interdisciplinar de Sistemas Complejos (Interdisciplinary Research Group of Complex Systems) of the Mathematics Department at the UC3M and the Instituto de Ciencias Matemáticas ICMAT (Institute of Mathematic Sciences), a CSIC, UAM, UCM and UC3M joint center.

 

The study’s main conclusion, published in the scientific Journal, Physical Review E, is the finding that people communicate in bursts. In this way, our behaviour (in communication as well as in other activities) does not happen in a homogenous way over time, but rather there is universal behaviour in which there is no communication, followed by short intervals called bursts. "This aspect of human activity which has also been observed in other activities such as e-mail, web page visits and stock market operations governs communication between people,” , the researchers concluded. The effect of the bursts is that it slows down the information diffusion since the large periods of inactivity in the communication between two persons make it less likely that information is passed from one to the other. The study also highlights another important aspect of human communications: in group conversations, that is, although it is produced in bursts, these bursts happen at the same time among the members of the social group, which then accelerates information diffusion within these groups.

 

When, how much, and how do I communicate

 

The main objective of the research is to try to understand the temporal pattern of communication among persons in a social network. "As opposed to the static vision of a social network (who I interact with), our study seeks to understand when and how these social relations are produced,” Professor Esteban Moro elaborated. And with two purposes, the first being, to see if relations in a social network can be quantified better, that is, determine if the communication rhythm between two persons allows us to know something about the "strength" or characteristics of the relation (family member, acquaintance, friend, colleague, etc..); and the second, to investigate the impact of these rhythms on the propagation of information in social networks, in processes such as viral marketing, product recommendations, etc.

 

Static visualization of the social network of some of the persons speaking by phone (300,000 customers). Each circle is a customer and each line is a call between two customers. The network is very dense, a reflection of the small world of the social networks. .

 

 

This study, which receives funding from the Ministry of Science and Innovation through the MOSAICO Science and Innovation project, has been possible thanks to the framework agreement that the UC3M has with Telefónica I+D and a program of Becas de Formación de Doctores. (Professional Training Grants for PhD’s) In addition, the company facilitated access to totally anonymous databases of calls in a country during a period of eleven months. In all, the researchers analyzed approximately 9,000 million calls between 20 million people, around 30 percent of the population of a country. "This large volume of data and the extended time period guarantees the representiveness and universality in the results", pointed out another one of the study’s author, Giovanna Miritello, a PhD candidate in the Mathematics Department of UC3M, with a grant-contract from Telefónica I+D.

 

More info:

 

Title: Dynamical strength of social ties in information spreading

Authors: Giovanna Miritello, Esteban Moro y Lara Rubén

Source: Physical Review E. Volume: 83. Issue: 4.

ISSN: 1539-3755

Important step in the next generation of computing-spintronics

Research reveals vital insight into spintronics

Scientists have taken one step closer to the next generation of computers. Research from the Cavendish Laboratory, the University of Cambridge's Department of Physics, provides new insight into spintronics, which has been hailed as the successor to the transistor.

Spintronics, which exploits the electron's tiny magnetic moment, or 'spin', could radically change computing due to its potential of high-speed, high-density and low-power consumption. The new research sheds light on how to make 'spin' more efficient.

For the past fifty years, progress in electronics has relied heavily on the downsizing of the transistor through the semiconductor industry in order to provide the technology for the small, powerful computers that are the basis of our modern information society. In a 1965 paper, Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore described how the number of transistors that could be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit had doubled every year between 1958 and 1965, predicting that the trend would continue for at least ten more years.

That prediction, now known as Moore's Law, effectively described a trend that has continued ever since, but the end of that trend—the moment when transistors are as small as atoms, and cannot be shrunk any further—is expected as early as 2015. At the moment, researchers are seeking new concepts of electronics that sustain the growth of computing power.

Spintronics research attempts to develop a spin-based electronic technology that will replace the charge-based technology of semiconductors. Scientists have already begun to develop new spin-based electronics, beginning with the discovery in 1988 of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) effect. The discovery of GMR effect brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disk drives and was also key in the development of portable electronic devices such as the iPod.

While conventional technology relies on harnessing the charge of electrons, the field of spintronics depends instead on the manipulation of electrons' spin. One of the unique properties in spintronics is that spins can be transferred without the flow of electric charge currents. This is called "spin current" and unlike other concepts of harnessing electrons, the spin current can transfer information without generating heat in electric devices. The major remaining obstacle to a viable spin current technology is the difficulty of creating a volume of spin current large enough to support current and future electronic devices.

However, the new Cambridge researchers in close collaboration with Professor Sergej Demokritov group at the University of Muenster, Germany, have, in part, addressed this issue. In order to create enhanced spin currents, the researchers used the collective motion of spins called spin waves (the wave property of spins). By bringing spin waves into interaction, they have demonstrated a new, more efficient way of generating spin current.

Dr Hidekazu Kurebayashi, from the Microelectronics Group at the Cavendish Laboratory, said: "You can find lots of different waves in nature, and one of the fascinating things is that waves often interact with each other. Likewise, there are a number of different interactions in spin waves. Our idea was to use such spin wave interactions for generating efficient spin currents."

According to their findings, one of the spin wave interactions (called three-magnon splitting) generates spin current ten times more efficiently than using pre-interacting spin-waves. Additionally, the findings link the two major research fields in spintronics, namely the spin current and the spin wave interaction.

Novel Qualitative/Quanitative Scenario Interviewing methodology for complex systems & risk illumination / mitigation developed by grad students at OCAD. Toronto

With all the attention on Goldman Sachs, greed, risk-shifting and deception, any new methods for risk illumination would benefit business, government and the consumer. 

A team of graduate students at OCAD MA Design program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation (SFI) in Toronto have developed a unique semi quantitative and qualitative scenario and interviewing methodology-which they trialed on the topic of Carbon Capture.  

But it can be applied equally well to other wicked, complex, risk-embedded issues and problems. It addresses stakeholder perceptions, real and perceived risks, liabilities and decision paradoxes and contradictions, better then any other method I’ve seen.

It seems that it might be useful as a decision-making aid and policy development tool in complex. multifactor scenarios where cross impact analysis is needed, and where the need to surface often dynamic and ever changing /evolving stakeholder situational mental models, emerging unintended consequences, conflicts, paradoxes, contradictions and anomalies that may be critical or significant  (ie Critical success factor) in the overall process.

Individual foresight methods don’t capture all this richness

 As they cite in their research report: “We’ve spent a fair amount of thought in separating out factors of biases towards and against other stakeholders in order to elicit the actual objective and subjective perceptions of each, and how those will come into game theoretic conflict…[…]… We used neuro-dynamic programming, also known as reinforcement learning.  This works by treating the domain as a partially-observable Markov decision process (POMDP).

 As a next step, they  are now looking at incorporating the sense-making methodology and my database of social, behavioral and cognitive biases from the Opportunity Clinic into the process.

To date this is proprietary and unpublished work 

I think it’s ready to take public.

The students are trying to identify a private corporation or government agency or Ministry who would be interested in this as a pilot project to use this method in addressing some of their wicked problems.

Any leads, contacts or suggestions appreciated.

Walter Derzko, The Opportunity Clinic.Smart Economy,Toronto

Sr. Fellow S-Lab, OCAD, MA Design in Strategic Foresight & Innovation (OCAD) 

Brains, worms and computer chips have 2 striking similarities

An international team of scientists has discovered striking similarities between the human brain, the nervous system of a worm, and a computer chip.  The finding is reported in the journal PloS Computational Biology today.

"Brains are often compared to computers, but apart from the trivial fact that both process information using a complex pattern of connections in a physical space, it has been unclear whether this is more than just a metaphor," said Danielle Bassett, first author and a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Physics at UC Santa Barbara.

The team of scientists from the U.S., the U.K., and Germany has uncovered novel quantitative organizational principles that underlie the network organizations of the human brain, high performance computer circuits, and the nervous system of the worm, known as nematode C. elegans.  Using data that is largely in the public domain, including magnetic resonance imaging data from human brains, a map of the nematode's nervous system, and a standard computer chip, they examined how the elements in each system are networked together.

They found that all three shared two basic properties.  First, the human brain, the nematode's nervous system, and the computer chip all have a Russian doll-like architecture, with the same patterns repeating over and over again at different scales.

(Significance? The Nested Doll architechure follows Stafford Beer's principles of Management Cybernetics and Viable Systems Modeling dicovered in the 1950's and 1960's and explored  in the book "Brain of the Firm"--Walter Derzko

Second, all three showed what is known as Rent's scaling, a rule used to describe the relationship between the number of elements in a given area and the number of links between them.

Worm brains may seem to have very little in common with human brains and even less in common with computer circuits, explained Bassett.  In fact, each of these systems contains a pattern of connections that are locked solidly in a physical space, similar to how the tracks in a railway system are locked solidly to the ground, forming traffic paths that have fixed GPS coordinates.  A computer chip starts out as an abstract connectivity pattern, which can perform a specific function.  Stage two involves mapping that connectivity pattern onto the two-dimensional surface of the chip.  This mapping is a key step and must be done carefully in order to minimize the total length of wires –– a powerful predictor of the cost of manufacturing a chip –– while maintaining the abstract connectivity or function.

"Brains are similarly characterized by a precise connectivity which allows the organism to function, but are constrained by the metabolic costs associated with the development and maintenance of long 'wires,' or neurons," said Bassett.  She explained that, given the similar constraints in brains and chips, it seems that both evolution and technological innovation have developed the same solutions to optimal mapping patterns.

She explained that this scaling result may further explain a well-known but little-understood relationship between the processing elements (neuronal cell bodies, or gray matter) and wiring (axons, or white matter) in the brains of a wide range of differently sized mammals –– from mouse to opossum to sea lion –– further suggesting that these principles of nervous system design are highly conserved across species.

This work suggests that market-driven human invention and natural selection have negotiated trade-offs between cost and complexity in designing both types of information processing network: brains and computer circuits.

Bassett worked closely with Edward Bullmore, professor of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge.  He explained: "These striking similarities can probably be explained because they represent the most efficient way of wiring a complex network in a confined physical space –– be that a three-dimensional human brain or a two-dimensional computer chip."

Walter Derzko, The Opportunity Clinic, Smart Economy, Toronto

Weapons of mass moral corruption (MMC) ? - electromagnetic interference (EMI)

The conspiracy theorists will likely jump all over this one. Wait a minute-come to think of it, this research makes me a little nervous too !!

It's well known that the Russians bombard the US embassy in Moscow with electromangnetic waves or pulses.

"From the public medical literarture, we know that the magnetic component of the electromagnetic field  is psychoactive and can cause mood or behavior changes. These fields can cause brain entrainment, a state when the brain mirrors the pulse rate of the external artificial signal which cause changes in the body and mind.

In a Feb 1985 Omni Magazine story called The Mind Fields, the military was quoted as concluding that "with the right electromagnetic field you might be able to produce the same effects as psychoactive drugs."

Both the Soviet and American military have long been well aware of the health effect of low level radio frequencey waves of 5-12 pulses per second (Hertz) and at very low energy levels (25 nanoteslas)

• 6 Hz- Headaches reported
• 6.66 Hz and lower- nausea, headaches, confusuion and depressive anxiety
• 7.8 Hz, 8Hz, 9Hz- produced alpha rhythms often reched in meditation and a sense of well being
• 10.35 Hz- created agitated anxiety, fear and hostile aggressive behavior
• 11 Hz-induced riotous behavior

(source: Controlling the Human Mind by Dr Nick Begich)

Now we see that moral judgments can be altered or swayed  ... by magnetic fields too.

By disrupting brain activity in a particular region, neuroscientists at MIT can sway people’s views of moral situations. To make moral judgments about other people, we often need to infer their intentions — an ability known as “theory of mind.” For example, if one hunter shoots another while on a hunting trip, we need to know what the shooter was thinking: Was he secretly jealous, or did he mistake his fellow hunter for an animal?

MIT neuroscientists have now shown they can influence those judgments by interfering with activity in a specific brain region — a finding that helps reveal how the brain constructs morality.

Previous studies have shown that a brain region known as the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) is highly active when we think about other people’s intentions, thoughts and beliefs.  In the new study, the researchers disrupted activity in the right TPJ by inducing a current in the brain using a magnetic field applied to the scalp.  They found that the subjects’ ability to make moral judgments that require an understanding of other people’s intentions — for example, a failed murder attempt — was impaired.  The researchers, led by Rebecca Saxe, MIT assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences, report their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of March 29.  Funding for the research came from The National Center for Research Resources, the MIND Institute, the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, the Simons Foundation and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation.

The study offers “striking evidence” that the right TPJ, located at the brain’s surface above and behind the right ear, is critical for making moral judgments, says Liane Young, lead author of the paper.  It’s also startling, since under normal circumstances people are very confident and consistent in these kinds of moral judgments, says Young, a postdoctoral associate in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

“You think of morality as being a really high-level behavior,” she says.  “To be able to apply (a magnetic field) to a specific brain region and change people’s moral judgments is really astonishing.”

Thinking of others

Saxe first identified the right TPJ’s role in theory of mind a decade ago — a discovery that was the subject of her MIT PhD thesis in 2003.  Since then, she has used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to show that the right TPJ is active when people are asked to make judgments that require thinking about other people’s intentions.

In the new study, the researchers wanted to go beyond fMRI experiments to observe what would happen if they could actually disrupt activity in the right TPJ.  Their success marks a major step forward for the field of moral neuroscience, says Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, professor of philosophy at Duke University.

“Recent fMRI studies of moral judgment find fascinating correlations, but Young et al usher in a new era by moving beyond correlation to causation,” says Sinnott-Armstrong, who was not involved in this research.

The researchers used a noninvasive technique known as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to selectively interfere with brain activity in the right TPJ.  A magnetic field applied to a small area of the skull creates weak electric currents that impede nearby brain cells’ ability to fire normally, but the effect is only temporary.

In one experiment, volunteers were exposed to TMS for 25 minutes before taking a test in which they read a series of scenarios and made moral judgments of characters’ actions on a scale of one (absolutely forbidden) to seven (absolutely permissible).  In a second experiment, TMS was applied in 500-milisecond bursts at the moment when the subject was asked to make a moral judgment.  For example, subjects were asked to judge how permissible it is for a man to let his girlfriend walk across a bridge he knows to be unsafe, even if she ends up making it across safely.  In such cases, a judgment based solely on the outcome would hold the perpetrator morally blameless, even though it appears he intended to do harm.  In both experiments, the researchers found that when the right TPJ was disrupted, subjects were more likely to judge failed attempts to harm as morally permissible.  Therefore, the researchers believe that TMS interfered with subjects’ ability to interpret others’ intentions, forcing them to rely more on outcome information to make their judgments.

“It doesn’t completely reverse people’s moral judgments, it just biases them,” says Saxe.

While understanding other people’s intentions is critical to judging them, it is just one piece of the puzzle.  We also take into account the person’s desires, previous record and any external constraints, guided by our own concepts of loyalty, fairness and integrity, says Saxe.

“Our moral judgments are not the result of a single process, even though they feel like one uniform thing,” she says.  “It’s actually a hodgepodge of competing and conflicting judgments, all of which get jumbled into what we call moral judgment.”

Saxe’s lab is now studying the role of theory of mind in judging situations where the attempted harm was not a physical threat.  The researchers are also doing a study on the role of the right TPJ in judgments of people who are morally lucky or unlucky.  For example, a drunk driver who hits and kills a pedestrian is unlucky, compared to an equally drunk driver who makes it home safely, but the unlucky homicidal driver tends to be judged more morally blameworthy.

Magnets over the right ear, you say ? eh? That's called cell phone use. So could cell phones become the next huge health stigma or the cigaretes of the 1980 or 1970's?

Walter Derzko

Is Toyota a victim of complexity?

IPCC and Toyota seem to be the two hard luck cases in 2010 so far. Everyone knows that IPCC fudged, "hid" and modified climate data.

Not only has Toyota "hid" data from consumers too but Toyota's case may be far more complex-literally.  With over 8 million autos recalled worldwide so far, they still don't know the exact cause(s) of all the recall problems. Cases of "phantom acceleration" are still being reported.

Modern day cars are no longer just vehicles, but an integrated package of hundreds of sensors and computers on wheels. All these systems need to work seemlessly and in synch. It's ironic because Toyota uses a TRIZ -like process to address technology paradoxes and contradictions (see "Extreme Toyota-radical contradictions that drive success at the world's best manufacturer." by J. Wiley and Sons)/ If your home computer occasionally freezes, then why not the car computer. Frankly, I'm surprised that there are so few cases.

I suspect that eventually the auto industry and government will admit that natural or man-made electromagnetic interference (EMI) is the underlying reason for random acceleration and not accelerator pedal designs or floor mats.

A University of Washington press release called "Conquering the chaos in modern, multiprocessor computers."might shed some light on the mystery.

"Computers should not play dice.  That, to paraphrase Einstein, is the feeling of a University of Washington computer scientist with a simple manifesto: If you enter the same computer command, you should get back the same result.  Unfortunately, that is far from the case with many of today's machines.  Beneath their smooth exteriors, modern computers behave in wildly unpredictable ways, said Luis Ceze, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering.

"With older, single-processor systems, computers behave exactly the same way as long as you give the same commands.  Today's computers are non-deterministic.  Even if you give the same set of commands, you might get a different result," Ceze said.

He and UW associate professors of computer science and engineering Mark Oskin and Dan Grossman and UW graduate students Owen Anderson, Tom Bergan, Joseph Devietti, Brandon Lucia and Nick Hunt have developed a way to get modern, multiple-processor computers to behave in predictable ways, by automatically parceling sets of commands and assigning them to specific places.  Sets of commands get calculated simultaneously, so the well-behaved program still runs faster than it would on a single processor. Next week at the International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems ( http://www.ece.cmu.edu/CALCM/asplos10/doku.php ) in Pittsburgh, Bergan will present a software-based version of this system that could be used on existing machines.  It builds on a more general approach the group published last year, which was recently chosen as a top paper for 2009 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' journal Micro.

In the old days one computer had one processor.  But today's consumer standard is dual-core processors, and even quad-core machines are appearing on store shelves.  Supercomputers and servers can house hundreds, even thousands, of processing units.

On the plus side, this design creates computers that run faster, cost less and use less power for the same performance delivered on a single processor.  On the other hand, multiple processors are responsible for elusive errors that freeze Web browsers and crash programs. 

It is not so different from the classic chaos problem in which a butterfly flaps its wings in one place and can cause a hurricane across the globe.  Modern shared-memory computers have to shuffle tasks from one place to another.  The speed at which the information travels can be affected by tiny changes, such as the distance between parts in the computer or even the temperature of the wires.  Information can thus arrive in a different order and lead to unexpected errors, even for tasks that ran smoothly hundreds of times before.

"With multi-core systems the trend is to have more bugs because it's harder to write code for them," Ceze said.  "And these concurrency bugs are much harder to get a handle on."

One application of the UW system is to make errors reproducible, so that programs can be properly tested.

"We've developed a basic technique that could be used in a range of systems, from cell phones to data centers," Ceze said.  "Ultimately, I want to make it really easy for people to design high-performing, low-energy and secure systems."

Last year Ceze, Oskin, and Peter Godman, a former director at Isilon Systems, founded a company to commercialize their technology.  PetraVM (http://petravm.com/) is initially named after the Greek word for rock because it hopes to develop "rock-solid systems," Ceze said.  The Seattle-based startup will soon release its first product, Jinx, which makes any errors that are going to crop up in a program happen quickly.

"We can compress the effect of thousands of people using a program into a few minutes during the software's development," Ceze said.  "We want to allow people to write code for multi-core systems without going insane."

The company already has some big-name clients trying its product, Ceze said, though it is not yet disclosing their identities.

"If this erratic behavior irritates us, as software users, imagine how it is for banks or other mission-critical applications."

N.B. Part of this research was funded by the National Science Foundation and a Microsoft Research fellowship.

Walter Derzko

Technology, Control, Happiness and Depression: Is technology controlling you and your life or vise a versa?

(Graphic from New Scientist)  Just sit back and think for a moment: how long has it been since you read your last email? Scanned your last last Twitter?  Dispatched you previous text message? Updated Facebook or Linked In?

With the annual homage to the  Mecca of consumer materialism -the consumer electronics show  (CES) in  Vegas this month ,it may be appropriate to ask the bigger social question

Is technology controlling you and your life or vise a versa?  

Yair Amichai-Hamburger offers  a provocative opinion piece on this month’s issue of New Scientist (Dec 27, 2009 volume 2739) titled “Shiny unhappy People” in the print version or “Free yourself from oppression by technology.” In  the online version

From his Tetrad model, Marshall McLuhan reminds us that technology has four simultaneous impacts on society...and in this case, here's my take on the social impacts and secondary consequences of communication technologies

 

1)Something gets enhanced?  (materialism, consumption, depression, a stecato culture of information, continuous interruption, a middle class that's under the influence of mass cultural and perpetual distraction, fragmentation of reactive efforts, sense of being overwhelmed and not knowing were to turn, public passivity, digital version of divide to conquer etc )

2) something gets obsolesced or lost?  (social relationships, happiness, tenacity & longevity of thought, thoroughness,  propensity for societal action, coordinated social response)

3) something gets brought back or retrieved? (digital-slavery, time enslavement ) and

4) something gets flipped or reversed?  (from ease of communication to communication stress &Info overload or what I call pauperization of communication & information, debasted or watered-down wisdom)

 

Amichai-Hamburger touches on  all 4 of these social impacts- enhancement, retrieval, obsolescence, and reversal.

 

Here’s a recap and summary of his key points

• "Are we being served by these technological wonders or have we become enslaved by them?"
• We living in an"age of melancholy" coined by psychologist Daniel Goleman to describe our era. "People today experience more depression than previous generations, despite the technological wonders that help us every day. It might be because of them."
• "Our lifestyles are increasingly driven by technology. Phones, computers and the internet pervade our days. There is a constant, nagging need to check for texts and email, to update Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn profiles, to acquire the latest notebook or 3G cellphone. "
• "For many of us it is becoming increasingly difficult to control the impulse to check our inbox yet again or see whether the headlines have changed since we last looked. [...] In many homes, the computer has become the centre of attention; it is the medium through which we work and play."
• "How did this arise, and what is it doing to us? In this era of mass consumption, we are surrounded by advertising that urges us to find fulfillment through the acquisition of material goods. As a result, adults and children increasingly believe that in order to belong and feel good about themselves, they must own the latest model or gadget."
• "Yet research has shown that people who place a high value on material goals are unhappier than those who are less materialistic. Materialism is also associated with lower self-esteem, greater narcissism, greater tendency to compare oneself unfavorably with other people, less empathy and more conflict in relationships."
• "People who place a high value on material goals are unhappier than those who are less materialistic "--N.B. this is supported by other studies that show consumers value "experiential events" over "material goods"--Walter Derzko
• "Our culture also constantly reminds us that time is money. This implies a need for total efficiency, which is why we are allowing laptop computers and mobile phones to blur the separation between work and home. As one unhappy human-resource manager in a high-tech company put it: "They gave me a mobile phone so they can own me 24 hours a day, and a portable computer, so my office is now with me all the time - I cannot break out of this pressure." Sound familiar?"
• "Psychologists generally believe that the lack of a clear separation between work and home significantly damages our relationships with loved ones. It also predisposes us to focus on the here and now at the expense of long-term goals."
• "By imposing these twin pressures, modern society is in danger of swapping standard of living for quality of life. We need ways to help recover those increasingly large parts of our lives that we have ceded to technology, to regain mastery over technology and learn to use it in a healthy and positive way."
• Amichai-Hamburger offers a 4 point  prescription to reagin self-control based on  self-determination theory, developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan of the University of Rochester in New York state. It identifies three vital elements of healthy personal development and functioning that  can be used to recalibrate our relationship with technology. Amichai-Hamburger  thenadds a 4th point below.

1) "The first is autonomy - the feeling that our activities are self-chosen and self-endorsed. When we feel in control, we are able to organize our priorities and place effective boundaries around them. But when we feel we have insufficient control, it leaves us vulnerable to our impulses and causes us to abdicate decisions to other people. It is easy to see how technology undermines autonomy, but also how to regain it. This may be as simple as switching off mobile phones during meals and family time, setting aside specific times to answer emails, and being available only when we choose to be."

2) "We also need a sense of competence, a belief that our actions are effective. In this respect our relationship with technology is complex, because many of us feel competent when we deal with an email, when we have the newest BlackBerry, or because 50 people enjoyed the holiday snaps we posted on Facebook. "

3) "Relatedness:our need to feel close to other people. Technology is a threat to this. Devices like the iPod can be used to create a bubble that disconnects us from normal human interactions, and while some virtual relationships may be truly meaningful, in many cases they come at the expense of real-world connections. Psychologists have found that the pivotal difference between happy and unhappy people is the presence or absence of rich and satisfying social relationships. Spending meaningful time with friends, family and partners is necessary for happiness."

Many North American's have lost this, which is why seemingly poorer nations tend to be happier --Walter Derzko.

4) "Critical thinking. In today's world, where we are potentially available 24/7 to absorb messages from well-honed advertisements, it is vital that we know how to analyze and evaluate their validity - and to neutralize them where necessary."

Autonomy, competence, relatedness and critical thinking are the best ways to establish a balanced approach to technology, and so enhance our well-being.

Intersting question to ponder...will Eastern & Asian cultures (India, China etc) turn to North American ideals of materialism & consumption to find fullfillment in life as they develop economically or to something else?--Walter Derzko

N.B Yair Amichai-Hamburger is director of the Research Center for Internet Psychology at the Sammy Ofer School of Communications, the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.

Full story here

Walter Derzko, Smart Economy, Toronto

 

Author of the soon-to-be published book- Opportunity 45 Scenarios to Drive Your Business in Challenging Times, published by J. Wiley and Sons

ISBN13: 978-0-470-73761-3

ISBN10: 0-470-73761-1

Bacterial decisions offer insights into human decision making

If only humans had as good threat sensing and "game theory decision making" mechanisms as bacteria--Walter Derzko 

Colonies of billions of Bacillus subtilis bacteria exhibit the complex structures that sometimes form under environmental stress.

Scientists studying how bacteria under stress collectively weigh and initiate different survival strategies say they have gained new insights into how humans make strategic decisions that affect their health, wealth and the fate of others in society. Their study, published this week in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was accomplished when the scientists applied the mathematical techniques used in physics to describe the complex interplay of genes and proteins that colonies of bacteria rely upon to initiate different survival strategies during times of environmental stress. Using the mathematical tools of theoretical physics and chemistry to describe complex biological systems is becoming more commonplace in the emerging field of theoretical biological physics.

The authors of the new study are theoretical physicists and chemists at the University of California, San Diego's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics,and Tel Aviv University in Israel. They say that how genes are turned on and off in bacteria living under conditions of stress not only shed light on how complex biological systems interact, but provide insights for economists and political scientists applying mathematical models to describe complex human decision making.

"Everyone knows the need to try to postpone important decisions until the last moment but apparently there are simple creatures that do it well and therefore can really teach us — the bacteria," said Eshel Ben Jacob, a physics professor at Tel Aviv University and a fellow of the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics. He co-authored the study with three other scientists at the center: José Onuchic, a professor of physics at UC San Diego and a co-director of the center, Peter Wolynes, a professor of physics and chemistry at UC San Diego and Daniel Schultz, a postdoctoral researcher at UC San Diego.

BACKGROUND

In nature, bacteria live in large colonies whose numbers may reach up to 100 times the number of people on earth. Many bacteria respond to extreme stress — such as starvation, poisoning and irradiation — by creating spores, dormant states that are highly resistant to the outside environment and that can germinate into fully functioning bacteria once the environment improves. The response involves more than 500 genes and takes about 10 hours in Bacillus subtilis, the bacterium used by the scientists in their study.

Each bacterium in the colony communicates via chemical messages and performs a sophisticated decision making process using a specialized network of genes and proteins. Modeling this complex interplay of genes and proteins by the bacteria enabled the scientists to assess the pros and cons of different choices in game theory, a branch of mathematics that attempts to model decision making by humans, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others.

When bacteria form spores, the mother cell dies, but not before it stores a copy of its DNA in a special capsule called the spore. The mother cell then breaks open and its DNA and remaining proteins are released to the environment. The bacteria on the road to spore formation don’t always form spores. They can change their fate and escape into a different state called "competence."

In this state, the bacteria change their membranes to allow the easy absorption of material from the dying cells. This allows for the creation of a "competence intermediate state," in which the bacteria hope to survive even under these unfriendly conditions. When normal conditions are restored, bacteria return to normal life without having to make a spore. The advantage of this situation is the ability of quickly returning to normality, but there is also a disadvantage: likely death if the conditions get even worse. As a result, each bacterium has a dilemma.

"It pays for the individual cell to take the risk and escape into competence only if it notices that the majority of the cells decide to sporulate," explained Onuchic. "But if this is the case, it should not take this chance because most of the other cells might reach the same conclusion and escape from sporulation. Observations have shown that indeed only about 10 percent of the bacteria enter into competence. But how they make this decision and which cells take this chance have been a mystery."

The researchers discovered in their study that the bacteria’s game theory decision making process is far more advanced than the well-known game theory problem known as the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Classic Prisoner's Dilemma, when applied to two prisoners, gives them the following offer: If only one prisoner pleads guilty, the one that cooperates gets two years in jail while the other one gets six years. If both of them admit guilt, then they will be imprisoned for four years. However, if none of them pleads guilty, they go free with no punishment. The temptation is not to admit anything, but the prisoners never know whether or not the other prisoner cooperated and pled guilty.

Because the number of participants in a bacterial colony can be up to 100 times the number of people on earth, the bacteria need to construct a more complex form of game theory. The rapidly changing environmental conditions they face means also bacteria have limited time to decide.

"Prisoner's Dilemma for bacteria is more complex," said Ben Jacob. "Each bacterium must decide whether to become a spore; that is, to cooperate, or escape into competence, or take advantage of the others, while it has a limited time to decide while a clock is ticking. We discovered that each cell has an internal timer whose pace changes according to the stress it experiences — the pace goes up for higher stress decisions such as in humans. Our internal clock speeds up under danger because of the secretion of adrenaline and therefore we have the sensation of time slowing down. In addition to internal stress, each bacterium adjusts the pace of its timer accordingly to the stress of its peers and their intention to sporulate or to go into competence."

According to Onuchic, bacteria usually do not cheat their friends and inform them by sending chemical messages about their true intensions.

"We have developed for the first time a system level model of a large gene network to decipher the underlying principles of the bacteria game theory and how an internal network of genes and proteins is used to calculate risks in this complicated situation," he said.

This has applications to human society because many people encounter similar dilemmas during their own lives. For example, should people ignore side effects and vaccinate against a new potentially lethal virus or should they not vaccinate and take the risk of being infected with the possible consequences? If the majority of the population is going to get vaccinated, then it is better for each individual not to get vaccinated. However, if most people will not be vaccinated then it is better to be vaccinated.

"What each bacterium is doing is the equivalent if each individual on earth was able receive the exact information about the rate of spread of this new virus, the exact information about the intensions, to be vaccinated or not, by each person on the planet, and in addition the exact information about the health risks of side effects or being infected,” said researchers. “A decision is then made in the context of this vast amount of information."

"We have shown how the bacteria do this complex calculation according to well-defined principles," added scientists "We learned a simple rule: Anyone who needs to make a decision under pressure in life, especially if it is a possible death decision, will take its time. She or he will review the trends of change, will render all possible chances and risks, and only then react."

"Another interesting fact is that the same cells in the same environment, in this case, bacteria in the colony, can actually in a statistical matter choose two different outcomes: sporulation or competence. This leads us to speculate whether similar ideas can be extrapolated to explain the decisions of cells to develop cancer: Can a similar cell in a tissue make the decision to duplicate normally or to modify into a cancer cell? How does this stochastic process affect life, biology, evolution and disease is an interesting challenge that will be at the center of questions answered at the interface of the physical and life sciences."

Source:  University of California press release

Walter Derzko

 

 

 

Author of the soon-to-be published book- Opportunity 45 Scenarios to Drive Your Business in Challenging Times,

published by J. Wiley and Sons

ISBN13: 978-0-470-73761-3

ISBN10: 0-470-73761-1