Discontinuous and continuous transitions of collective behaviors in living systems

Living systems are full of astonishing diversity and complexity of life. Despite differences in the length scales and cognitive abilities of these systems, collective motion of large groups of individuals can emerge. It is of great importance to seek for the fundamental principles of collective motion, such as phase transitions and their natures. Via an eigen microstate approach, we have found a discontinuous transition of density and a continuous transition of velocity in the Vicsek models of collective motion, which are identified by the finite-size scaling form of order-parameter. At strong noise, living systems behave like gas. With the decrease of noise, the interactions between the particles of a living system become stronger and make them come closer. The living system experiences then a discontinuous gas-liquid like transition of density. The even stronger interactions at smaller noise make the velocity directions of the particles become ordered and there is a continuous phase transition of collective motion in addition.     

How Do Cultural Classes Emerge from Assimilation and Distinction? An Extension of the Cucker-Smale Flocking Model

When cultural tastes are not neutral but hierarchically matched to social status, people assimilate themselves to higher status by consuming cultural goods while distinguishing themselves from lower status by developing new tastes. Extending the Cucker-Smale model for mutual influence among agents, we examine when and how many cultural classes emerge from continuous distributions of tastes and what conditions those classes satisfy, through the assimilation-distinction mechanism. We simulate the models with different initial distributions of tastes (uniform, normal, and chi-square), given various ranges of 2 parameters: (a) the strength and (b) the range of distinction relative to assimilation. Tastes are flocking and cultural classes emerge when the range of assimilation is much larger than that of distinction. The number of classes increases with the strength of distinction, whereas the distance between classes equals the range of distinction. Some properties of emergent classes are mathematically proved. First, in a two-class system, the stronger distinction, the larger the upper class. Second, in a three-class system, the middle class is necessarily larger than the lower class and likely larger than the upper class. Third, a 3-class system cannot emerge if distinction is weaker than assimilation. These properties are universal and do not depend on the initial distribution of cultural tastes. This independence predicts homogeneous cultural classes emerging across different social conditions. Also, the cultural middle class as the largest group may explain why subjective class consciousness is often higher than objective position. Unless assimilating efforts can reach an infinite range, there emerges a cultural outcast at the lowest end of the cultural hierarchy.     

‘Experimental pedagogy’ in Germany,elaborated for mathematics – a case study in searching the roots of PME

PME, the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, was founded in 1976, at the Third International Congress on Mathematical Education in Karlsruhe, organised by the International Commission on Mathematics Instruction (ICMI). While PME is thus beyond coming of age and is reflecting its further orientation – due to the present “social turn” – the origins of investigating psychological aspects of mathematics learning have not yet been systematically studied. I am undertaking here a first such approach, concentrating on Germany, where the first pertinent monographs were published in 1913 and 1916. Different endeavours, focussing in particular on the notion of error, merged into the characteristic approach of ‘experimental pedagogy’. Given the key function of ICMI for founding PME, an additional aspect is whether the forerunner of ICMI: the Internationale Mathematische Unterrichtskommission (IMUK), founded in 1908, had an impact upon promoting research into the psychology of mathematics education. The pertinent research was effected by psychology; doing research themselves was still outside the horizon of mathematics educators. Perspectives of future research, in particular comparative ones, are outlined.     

Models and people: An alternative view of the emergent properties of computational models

Computer models can help humans gain insight into the functioning of complex systems. Used for training, they can also help gain insight into the cognitive processes humans use to understand these systems. By influencing humans understanding (and consequent actions) computer models can thus generate an impact on both these actors and the very systems they are designed to simulate. When these systems also include humans, a number of self‐referential relations thus emerge which can lead to very complex dynamics. This is particularly true when we explicitly acknowledge and model the existence of multiple conflicting representations of reality among different individuals. Given the increasing availability of computational devices, the use of computer models to support individual and shared decision making could potentially have implications far wider than the ones often discussed within the Information and Communication Technologies community in terms of computational power and network communication. We discuss some theoretical implications and describe some initial numerical simulations. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 202–213, 2016     

The reductionist blind spot

Can there be higher level laws of nature even though everything is reducible to the fundamental laws of physics? The computer science notion of level of abstraction explains how there can be. The key relationship between elements on different levels of abstraction is not the is‐composed‐of relationship but the implements relationship. I take a scientific realist position with respect to (material) levels of abstraction and their instantiation as (material) entities. They exist as objective elements of nature. Reducing them away to lower order phenomena produces a reductionist blind spot and is bad science. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity, 2009.     

Sociology and Social Theory in Agent Based Social Simulation: A Symposium

A lengthy and intensive debate about the role of sociology in agent based social simulation dominated the email list simsoc@jiscmail.ac.uk during the autumn of 2000. The debate turned on the importance of models being devised to capture the properties of whole social systems and whether those properties should determine agent behaviour or, conversely, whether the properties of social systems should emerge from the behaviour and interaction of the agents and, if so, how that emergence should be represented. The positions of four of the main protagonists concerned specifically with the modelling issues are reprised and extended in this symposium.     

Self-Organization and Leadership Emergence: A Cross-Cultural Replication

Project examined the cross-cultural generalizability of a model for leadership emergence based on the rugged landscape self-organization and the swallowtail catastrophe. Twelve groups of eight Chilean university students played the Island Commission game and rated each other on leadership behavior at the end of the one-hour activity. Analysis confirmed the replication of dynamical structure and critical points obtained previously from a U.S. sample.     

水温对棘胸蛙人工孵化的影响

利用地下水微流水状态下孵化石蛙卵子,初步试验结果表明：水温对石蛙卵子的出苗率影响很大,21－23℃是其最适宜的孵化水温,当水温高于25℃,石蛙卵子开始出现畸形苗,32℃是其孵化的致死水温。     

联合勤务保障体系网络化建模与研究方法

为了研究联合勤务保障体系在作战行动中的作用,并为体系作战建立网络化的研究方法,提出了一种包含联合勤务网络的四层复杂作战网络,建立了相应的网络化模型。首先,对联合勤务保障体系进行了网络化的定义与描述,得到了认知域、信息域、物理域、联合勤务网络内每个节点的状态属性值;然后,建立了不同网络之间的涌现性模型,提出了作战链与勤务保障链的概念,通过定义涌现满足度曲线,得到了每个节点的网络涌现程度值;最后,针对同层网络和不同层网络分别提出了对应的网络体系同步能力提高方法。研究结果表明：建立的网络化模型与提高同步能力的方法合理有效,对于体系作战的量化研究有一定的实践意义。