Systems Science Friday Noon Seminar Series

The Systems Science Seminar Series covers a wide range of topics, providing an opportunity for presenters to share and attendees to become exposed to the latest research from different fields and disciplines. Agent-based simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, genetic algorithms, machine learning, neural networks, signal processing, social networks, system dynamics, and science itself are just a few of the many diverse topics that have been presented, all in an informal environment where questions and discussion are encouraged.
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Speaker Schedule

Unless otherwise specified, seminars are held on Fridays from 12-1 p.m. in Harder House Room 104 throughout Fall and Winter terms. For those taking the seminar for credit, grading is based on attendance, either in-person or remote.

CONTACT US: If you have questions, comments, or topic/speaker suggestions, or if you would like to present a seminar, please email Wayne Wakeland.

SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT LISTSERV: To receive seminar announcements, you can join our mailing list. If that doesn't work, please email Wayne Wakeland.

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Complexity Theory and Political Change: Talcott Parsons Occupies Wall Street

Martin Zwick

1-27-2012

Complexity theory can assist our understanding of social systems and social phenomena. This paper illustrates this assertion by linking Talcott Parsons' model of societal structure to the Occupy Wall Street ...Read More
New Ways to Manage Information as a Good that Improves with Use

Ida Kubiszewski

11-4-2011

Information has some unique characteristics. Unlike most other goods and services, it is neither rival (use by one prevents use by others) nor non-rival (use by one does not affect ...Read More
Participatory Action Research: Science and Social Change

Dora Raymaker

10-28-2011

Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a general collaborative approach to inquiry that includes research "subjects" as members of the research team. Useful in any setting involving groups of people, PAR ...Read More
Instructional Practices for Teaching Systems Concepts

Dario Nardi

10-7-2011

15-minute presentations on the following three topics:

I. Live Group Simulations Promote Learning of Systems Concepts
Systems concepts such as attractors, bifurcation, chaotic behavior, and emergence may be hard for learners to ...Read More
Evolving Machine Morality Strategies through Multiagent Simulations

David Burke

6-3-2011

There is a general consensus among robotics researchers that the world of the future will be filled with autonomous and semi-autonomous machines. There is less of a consensus, though, on ...Read More
Systems Ideas for the Scientific and Societal Imperatives of the Coastal Ocean: Case of the BP Oil Gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, Spring & Summer 2010

Christopher Mooers

5-27-2011

In recent decades, great progress has been made in advancing the scientific understanding of the coastal ocean (i.e., the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)) across a broad set ...Read More
Hardware Acceleration of Inference Computing: The Numenta HTM Algorithm

Dan Hammerstrom

5-13-2011

In this presentation I will describe the latest version of the Numenta HTM Cortical Learning Algorithm and why it is interesting for doing research into radical new computer architectures. Then ...Read More
Regional Trade Agreements and the Pattern of Trade: A Networks Approach

Rossitza Wooster, Javier A. Reyes, and Stuart Shirell

4-29-2011

This paper uses a complex network approach for the analysis of bilateral trade data between countries over the period 1970-2000. We compute the network community structure for every year between ...Read More
Integer Optimization and Computational Algebraic Topology

Bala Krishnamoorthy

4-22-2011

We present recently discovered connections between integer optimization, or integer programming (IP), and homology. Under reasonable assumptions, these results lead to efficient solutions of several otherwise hard-to-solve problems from computational ...Read More
Systems Views of the Economics of Sustainable Development

Joshua Hughes

4-15-2011

The mainstream economics of the 20th century (and now 21st century) has often failed to predict what will happen--or explain what has happened--in the real world, even with (or because ...Read More
Higher-level Application of Adaptive Dynamic Programming/reinforcement Learning – A Next phase for Controls and System Identification?

George G. Lendaris

4-8-2011

Humans have the ability to make use of experience while performing system identification and selecting control actions for changing situations. In contrast to current technological implementations that slow down as ...Read More
Building a Decision Aid Right-side-out

Barry F. Anderson

4-1-2011

Tools have long been available for improving decision making, yet people who have knowledge of these tools seem reluctant to use them. I consider multiple reasons why this might be ...Read More
Modal Logic and its Applications, Explained using Puzzles and Examples

Marek Perkowski

3-4-2011

The talk introduces Modal Logic as an extension of classical propositional and First Order Logics. We discuss motivations of Lewis to create modal logic system, axioms and rules of proof. ...Read More
The Illicit Arms Trade: A Social Network Analysis

David Todd Kinsella

3-4-2011

In recent years, researchers have increasingly turned their attention to the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. Small arms are difficult to track and are not the stuff of ...Read More
Some Problems and Solutions in the Experimental Science of Technology: The Proper Use and Reporting of Statistics in Computational Intelligence, with an Experimental Design from Computational Ethnomusicology

Mehmet Vurkaç

2-25-2011

Statistics is the meta-science that lends validity and credibility to The Scientific Method. However, as a complex and advanced Science in itself, Statistics is often misunderstood and misused by scientists, ...Read More
Optimality in Neural Adaptation

Adrienne Fairhall

2-18-2011

Nervous systems tune themselves to the statistical structure of the stimuli they encounter. This sensitivity to statistics appears in phenomena ranging over many timescales, from the adaptation of vision to ...Read More
On the Effect of Criticality and Topology on Learning in Random Boolean Networks

Alireza Goudarzi

1-28-2011

Random Boolean networks (RBN) are discrete dynamical systems composed of N automata with a binary state, each of which interacts with other automata in the network. RBNs were originally introduced ...Read More
Information Disclosure and Environmental Performance

Mark Stephan

1-21-2011

Scholars and policymakers increasingly argue that information disclosure programs such as the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) should be used to supplement conventional environmental regulation. Yet we lack a clear understanding ...Read More
Random Automata Networks: Why Playing Dice is not a Vice

Christof Teuscher

12-3-2010

Random automata networks consist of a set of simple compute nodes interacting with each other. In this generic model, one or multiple model parameters, such as the the node interactions ...Read More
The 'Goldilocks Hypothesis' : A Political Ecology of the Land-sparing/Wildlife-friendly Farming Debate

M. Jahi Chappell

11-19-2010

Proposals for biodiversity conservation as related to the dominant form of human land use, agriculture, have broadly coalesced around two paradigms: "Land sparing" and "Wildlife-friendly farming." Neither paradigm is sufficiently ...Read More
Gender and the Social Structure of Collaboration

Kjersten Bunker Whittington

11-12-2010

Previous research demonstrates that individuals’ network positions in their surrounding social structure of relations influence the extent of their output and performance. The unique situation of minority groups complicates the ...Read More
The Limits of Control, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Regulation (Discussion)

Joshua Hughes

11-5-2010

When we want to solve a problem, we talk about how we might manage or regulate—control it. Control is a a central concept in systems science, along with system, environment, ...Read More
Neural Coding and Decoding

Alexander Dimitrov

10-29-2010

Methods based on Rate Distortion theory have been successfully used to cluster stimuli and neural responses in order to study neural codes at a level of detail supported by the ...Read More
Understanding, Modeling and Valuing Ecosystem Services

Robert Costanza

10-22-2010

Ecosystem services (ES) are the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems (in combination with other inputs) to human well-being. An ES-based approach can assess the trade-offs inherent in managing humans ...Read More
How a Systems Engineer Starts...

Herman Migliore

10-15-2010

Dr. Migliore will review systems engineering as a process for developing products, processes, and services and suggest views that encourage systems thinking. As an example, he will focus on the ...Read More