Thank you.
Note: Pointers to the journals listed below can be found on
the journal and publisher information page linked to the ACE web
site home page.
- Latest Two Issues of JASSS:
- The latest two issues of the electronic Journal of Artificial
Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS) were published on January 31st
and March 31st, respectively. Each issue contains refereed articles, a forum
section, and book reviews, and can be fully and freely accessed at
http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/.
The January special issue was guest-edited by Bruce Edmonds and Kerstin
Dautenhahn and has the following theme: "Starting from Society: the
Application of Social Analogies to Computational Systems." The forum section
focuses on Ascape, a multi-agent toolkit. The March issue was guest-edited
by François Bousquet and focuses on "Agent-based modelling, game
theory and natural resource management issues." In the forum section, Pietra
Terna reflects on the lessons to be learned from the Sugarscape "bottom-up"
style of modelling.
- Journal of Psychology and Financial Markets:
- The Journal of Psychology and Financial Markets is published by
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., and is edited by Gunduz Caginalp.
- From the editor (February 2001): "(This) journal is particularly
interested in papers that study the motivations, psychology and strategy of
participants in asset markets. Aspects of trader behavior that influence the
dynamics of price, the underlying causes of overreactions and
under-reactions, and investor bias in general are some of the topics that are
of central interest. Experiments and theory that lead to some insight into
trading and investing in financial markets are most desirable from our
perspective. Bias in decision making of individuals and groups as it relates
to asset pricing or valuation, for example, is another topic of interest, as
are topics in social psychology, organizational behavior, accounting,
corporate finance and marketing. Papers should be written for a broad
audience that includes practitioners."
- For more information, visit
http://www.psychologyandmarkets.org/
- Complexity Digest:
- Complexity Digest (ComDig) is sponsored by Dean LeBaron,
Trustee of the Santa Fe Institute, and is edited by Dr. Gottfried Mayer. The
stated mission of ComDig is to collect and disseminate online information
related to complexity science to anyone interested in the topic area. The
intended readership includes academics, business people, and journalists.
For more information, visit
http://www.comdig.org/.
- Advances in Complex Systems:
- This quarterly journal, now published by World Scientific, aims to
provide a unique medium of communication for multidisciplinary approaches,
either empirical or theoretical, to the study of complex systems. For more
information, visit
http://journals.wspc.com.sg/acs/acs.html.
Book Announcements
Note: The following book announcements have been incorporated
into the annotated syllabus of ACE-related readings linked to the
ACE Web site home page. Links to publishers (for ordering purposes)
can be found on the journal and book announcements and information
page linked to the ACE Web site home page.
- Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, What is Evolutionary Psychology?:
Explaining the New Science of the Mind, Yale University Press, December
2000, 64 pages, ISBN: 0-300-08309-2.
- Synopsis from Barnes&Noble.com: "The human mind, according to the
exciting new discipline called evolutionary psychology, was designed by
natural selection to solve the problems faced by our hunter-gatherer
ancestors. In this book, the two pioneers in the field explain evolutionary
psychology, its main findings and conclusions, and its agenda for future
research. They show how this powerful approach can change the way we look at
reasoning, emotions, motivation, and other mysteries of human nature."
- Leda Cosmides, Professor of Psychology, and John Tooby, Professor of
Anthropology, codirect the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the
University of California, Santa Barbara.
- J. E. R. Staddon, Adaptive Dynamics: The Theoretical Analysis of
Behavior, The MIT Press, A Bradford Book, May 2001, 420 pages, ISBN:
0-262-19453-8.
- From the publisher: "In this book J. E. R. Staddon proposes an
explanation of behavior that lies between cognitive psychology, which seeks
to explain it in terms of mentalistic constructs, and cognitive neuroscience,
which tries to explain it in terms of the brain. Staddon suggests a new way
to understand the laws and causes of learning, based on the invention,
comparison, testing, and modification or rejection of parsimonious real-time
models of behavior. The models are neither physiological nor cognitive: they
are behavioristic. Staddon shows how simple dynamic models can
explain a surprising variety of animal and human behavior, ranging from
simple orientation, reflexes, and habituation through feeding regulation,
operant conditioning, spatial navigation, stimulus generalization, and
interval timing."
- J. E. R. Staddon is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and
Professor of Zoology and Neurobiology at Duke University.
- Pierre Baldi, The Shattered Self: The End of Natural Selection,
MIT Press, A Bradford Book, May 2001, 245 pages, ISBN: 0-262-02502-7.
- From the publisher: "Through evolution our brains have been wired to
provide us with an inner sense of self, a feeling that each of us is a unique
individual delimited by precise boundaries. We have also been wired to
reproduce ourselves in a certain way. Baldi argues that this self-centered
view of the world is scientifically wrong. Its past success lies in its
being an adequate model during our evolutionary boot-strap: a world without
molecular biotechnology, human cloning, and the Internet. Eventually we must
come to terms with the fact that genomes, computations, and mind are fluid,
continuous entities, in both space and time. The boundary between the self
and the world has begun to blur and ultimately may evaporate entirely. Baldi
offers not predictions but an open-eyed exploration of our current state of
knowledge and the possibilities that lie ahead."
- Pierre Baldi is Professor of Information and Computer Science and of
Biological Chemistry (College of Medicine), and Director of the Institute for
Genomics and Bioinformatics, all at the University of California, Irvine.
- Kenneth A. De Jong, Evolutionary Computation, MIT Press, A
Bradford Book, April 2001, 272 pages, ISBN: 0-262-04194-4.
- From the publisher: "This book offers a clear and comprehensive
introduction to the field of evolutionary computation: the use of
evolutionary systems as computational processes for solving complex problems.
Over the past decade, the field has grown rapidly as researchers in
evolutionary biology, computer science, engineering, and artificial life have
furthered our understanding of evolutionary processes and their application in
computational systems. Although many excellent books have covered specific
areas of evolutionary computations, this one is noteworthy for approaching
genetic algorithms, evolution strategies, genetic programming, and so on as
specific instances of a more general class of evolutionary algorithms."
- Kenneth A. De Jong is Professor of Computer Science at George Mason
University.
- Klaus Obermayer and Terrence J. Sejnowski (eds.), Self-Organizing Map
Formation, MIT Press, A Bradford Book, July 2001, 415 pages, ISBN:
0-262-65060-6.
- From the publisher: "This book provides an overview of
self-organizing map formation, including recent developments.
Self-organizing maps form a branch of unsupervised learning, which is the
study of what can be determined about the statistical properties of input
data without explicit feedback from a teacher. The articles are drawn from
the journal Neural Computation."
- Klaus Obermayer is Professor of Computer Science and Head of the
Neural Information Processing Group at the Technical University of Berlin.
Terrence J. Sejnowski is Head of the Department of Computational Neurobiology
at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies and Professor of Biology and the
University of California, San Diego.
- John Brockman, The Third Culture,Touchstone Books, May 1996, ISBN:
0-684-82344-6.
- From Amazon.com: "In this treatise on the central role of science,
John Brockman contends that science is becoming the predominant culture and
scientists are taking the place of traditional intellectuals in answering the
important questions facing humankind. Structured in interview format, The
Third Culture consists of twenty-three noted scientists discussing their
theories, the nature of scientific inquiry, and their common desire to be
recognized as today's intellectual leaders." Those interviewed include:
Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Paul Davies, Murray Gell-Mann, Roger
Penrose, Lynn Margulis, and Stuart Kauffman.
Software
Note: Pointers to the following materials have been
incorporated into the software page linked to the ACE Web site home
page.
- Cellular Automata Lab (CelLab):
- From the CelLab User Guide: "The first edition of CelLab was
developed by Rudy Rucker and John Walker in 1998 and 1989 when both were
working in the Autodesk research lab... Celab allows you to explore cellular
automata on your own personal computer, running under MS-DOS or Windows. You
can define your own rules by writing short programs in Java, C, BASIC, or
Pascal, create patterns of cells and color palettes, then run the rule and
observe its evolution on the screen. We supply a wide variety of
ready-to-run rules, simulating processes as varied as heat flow, diffusion of
gases, annealing of metal, behavior of tubeworms on the ocean floor, chemical
reactions, and ecosystems of artificial life. Complete source code for all
of these rule definitions in included in both Java and Pascal, allowing you
to use our rule definitions as the point of departure for your own
experiments. Advanced users can customize the cellular automata simulator by
writing custom evaluators in assembly language for DOS or Windows, or as a
DLL written in C for the Windows-based simulator."
- Rudy Rucker is Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at San
Jose State University. John Walker is founder and former president of
Autodesk, Inc. For more information about CelLab, visit
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cellab/
- The Python Language:
- From the official Web site for the Python Language: "Phython is
an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language. It is
often compared to Tcl, Perl, Scheme, or Java. Python combines remarkable
power with very clear syntax. It has modules, classes, exceptions, very high
level dynamic data types, and dynamic typing. ... The Python implementation
is portable: it runs on may brands of UNIX, on Windows, DOS, OS/2, Mac,
Amiga... " For more information, visit
http://www.python.org/
- Java Expert System Shell (Jess):
- From Sandia National Laboratories: "Jess is a rule engine and
scripting environment written entirely in Sun's Java language by Ernest
Friedman-Hill at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California.
Jess was originally inspired by the CLIPS expert system shell, but has
grown into a complete, distinct Java-influenced environment of its own.
Using Jess, you can build Java applets and applications that have the
capacity to `reason' using knowledge you supply in the form of declarative
rules." For more information, visit
http://herzberg.ca.sandia.gov/jess/main.html
Research Groups and Sites
Note: Pointers to the following research groups and sites
have been incorporated into the ACE-related research groups and
sites page linked to the ACE Web site home page.
- Teaching Resources for Agent-Based Computational Economics:
- Agent-based computational economics (ACE) is the computational study
of economies modelled as evolving systems of autonomous interacting agents.
An annotated list of pointers to course outlines (Anderson, Axelrod, Axtell,
Banerjee, Crawford, De Vany, Hughes, Page, Tesfatsion, White,...), program
announcements (Carnegie Mellon, University of Michigan,...), and other
on-line teaching resources related to ACE has been compiled by Leigh
Tesfatsion (Economics, Iowa State University) and can be accessed at
http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/teachace.htm
- Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance:
- The Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance (CeNDEF)
is a multi-disciplinary research institute started in 1998 and located at
the Department of Economics and Econometrics at the University of Amsterdam.
Research topics addressed by CeNDEF participants include: endogenous
fluctuations; bounded rationality; expectation formation and learning,
evolutionary dynamics, bifurcations and chaos, nonlinear time series
analysis, and nonlinear prediction methods. For more information, visit
http://www.fee.uva.nl/cendef/.
- On-Line Lectures:
- From UMBC AgentNews (Volume 6, No. 8): The following multimedia
(audio, video, text, images) lectures, among others, are hosted by
boxmind.com. (Access requires Internet Explorer 4.x). Stephen Pinker
lectures on language and the brain in a talk titled "The Ingredients of
Language." John Searle lectures on consciousness in a presentation titled
"Consciousness, Free Will, and the Brain." Richard Dawkins lectures on
evolutionary biology in a talk titled "Survival of the Fittest - The Fittest
What?." And Daniel Dennett lectures on consciousness in a lecture titled
"Consciousness - More like Fame than Television." For more information,
visit
http://www.boxmind.com/lectures/
- Philosophy of Mind:
- From UMBC AgentNews (v6n9): A free on-line dictionary of topics
relating to the philosophy of mind, edited by Chris Eliasmith (Washington
University, St. Louis), can be accessed at
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/.
See, also, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Web site, edited by Edward
N. Zalta (Stanford University), available at
http://plato.stanford.edu/.
The latter site is a dynamic encyclopedia of entries for all areas of
philosophy, including many entries relevant to agents, cognitive science and
AI.
Workshops and Meetings
Note: The following announcements have been incorporated into
the workshops and meetings page linked to the ACE Web site home
page.
- Computational Economics (June 2001):
- The sixth annual Workshop on Economics with Heterogeneous
Interacting Agents (WEHIA) will be held June 7-9, 2001 in Maastricht. The
workshop is being hosted jointly by MERIT and the International Institute on
Infonomics. Its themes include: Agent interaction; Aggregation of
heterogeneous agents; Intelligent agents in economics; Interacting particle
systems; Percolation theory; Models of learning; Evolutionary game theory;
Computational methods in economics; Market modelling; Macroeconomic
modelling; Non-linear econometrics; Models of economic aggregation; Models of
population development; Growth theory; and Network analysis. For more
information, visit
http://meritbbs.unimaas.nl/WEHIA/.
- Intelligent Agents, Web Technology and Internet Commerce (July 2001):
- The International Conference on Intelligent Agents, Web Technology
and Internet Commerce (IAWTIC'2001) will be held July 9-11, 2001, in Las
Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A., in conjunction with the International Conference on
Computational Intelligence for Modelling, Control and Automation
(CIMCA'2001). IAWTIC'2001 will provide a medium for researchers and
practitioners to exchange and explore issues of mutual interest. The
conference will consist of both plenary sessions and contributory sessions
focusing on theory, implementation and applications of intelligent agents,
Web technologies and Internet commerce. For more information, visit
http://beth.canberra.edu.au/conferences/IAWTIC2001/index.htm.
- Agent-Based Economic Modeling (August 2001):
- A Special Session on Agent-Based Economic Modeling will be held at
the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN) Aug 21-25,
2001, in Vienna, Austria. The aim of this special session is to explore the
interfaces and synergies between the fields of neural computation and
agent-based eonomic modeling. For more information, visit
http://www.ai.univie.ac.at/icann.
- Intelligent Virtual Agents (September 2001):
- The Third International Workshop on Intelligent Virtual Agents
(IVA2001) will be held September 10-11, 2001, in Madrid, Spain. The workshop
will focus on autonomous embodied agents in an interactive graphical
environment, usually 3D, which draw on AI and ALife technology so as to
interact intelligently with their environment and with human users. For more
information, visit
http://bermudas.ls.fi.upm.es/~iva01/.
- Economics and Complexity (September 2001):
- A conference titled "New Economic Windows (N.E.W.): New Paradigms for
the New Millennium" will be held September 13-15, 2001, at the University of
Salerno, Italy. For further information, visit
http://www.unisa.it/NEW-Conference/
Miscellaneous News Items
Note: The following announcements have been incorporated into
the Miscellany site linked to the ACE Web site home
page.
- Openings at the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (Berlin):
- From the announcement by Peter Todd and Gerd Gigerenzer (February
2001): "We would like to announce a few upcoming opportunities at the Center
for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition in Berlin: predoctoral and postdoctoral
research fellowships, long-term research scientist position openings, and a
summer institute on bounded rationality in psychology and economics." For
more information, visit
http://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/ABC/.
- Two-Week Intensive Summer Course in Experimental Economics (June
18-29, Trento, Italy):
- From the brochure: "This course is the second of a series in
Adaptive Dynamic Economics offered by the Computable and Experimental
Economics Laboratory of the University of Trento (CEEL), supported by
Associazione Tecnologie di Economia Computazionale e Sperimentale (TECS). ...
This year's course will be conducted by Professor Daniel Friedman of the
University of California, Santa Cruz. The course will provide an overview of
the history and purposes of economics experiments. The rest of the course
interweaves lectures on laboratory methods with surveys of laboratory
results. ... This year's distinguished lecturer, Nobel Prize winner Reinhard
Selten, will discuss his new theory of impulse balance equilibrium, the
laboratory evidence, and applications to auctions. Guest lecturers Massimo
Egidi, Steffen Huck, and Rosemarie Nagel will survey discoveries in their
fields, with supplementary coverage by the instructor." For more
information, please visit
http://www-ceel.gelso.unitn.it
- Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (July
2001):
- The Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems
(CASOS) Summer Institute will be held July 9-15, 2001, at Carnegie Mellon
University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. The CASOS Summer Institute
provides an intense and hands-on introduction to computational analysis of
social and organizational systems. The focus is on social and organizational
network analysis, complex adaptive systems, designing and evaluating
computational models, virtual experiments, and docking. Illustrative models
such as VDT, ORGAHEAD, CONSTRUCT, and ORGCON will be discussed. Sessions
will be split between lectures and labs. This institute is supported in part
by the National Science Foundation, IGERT program. Ph.D. students who are US
residents can apply to the CMU IGERT program for scholarships to help cover
part of the cost of attending this workshop. For more information, visit
www.ices.cmu.edu/casos.
- Summer Institute on Bounded Rationality in Psychology and Economics
(August 2001):
- The Summer Institute on Bounded Rationality in Psychology and
Economics will be held August 17-21, 2001, at the Max Planck Institute for
Human Development, Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, in Berlin.
The main objective of the Summer Institute is to introduce students from
different disciplines to the concept of bounded rationality. For more
information, visit
http//www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/SummerInstitute/
- Agent Standards Mailing Lists:
- From UMBC AgentNews (v6n9): "Foundation for Intelligent Physical
Agents (FIPA) maintains a set of mailing lists, most of which are open to
anyone. Mailing lists include those devoted to general discussion, agent
architectures, agents in wireless environments, the agentCities application
testbed, and manufacturing applications." For more information, visit
http://www.fipa.org/activities/mailing.html.
Reminder: Items Requested for ACE News Notes and Complexity
Just a reminder that if you have any ACE-related news items, or
any information about ACE-related teaching materials, software,
books, journals, or conferences that you would like to have
considered for inclusion in the ACE news notes, and/or the
Complexity-at-Large section of the John Wiley journal
Complexity, please email them to me (along with Web site
information if available) at the following address:
tesfatsi@iastate.edu
Copyright © 2001 Leigh Tesfatsion. All Rights Reserved.