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Complex Systems Task Group Summaries (2009) / Chapter Skim
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General Summary
Pages 1-4

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 1...
... Foster offered a relevant piece of advice to advance thinking on the project; that, like chess masters pondering the small problems of skirmishes and macro problems of the whole game, scientists must learn to effectively "zoom in and zoom out" with their minds. Network research expert Albert-László Barabási gave the conference a rapid-fire overview of his theories of scale-free networks, that is, naturally emerging but ordered systems whose distributions follow an exponential 
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From page 2...
... Task Group 1 tackled the question of how to design the acquisition and organization of the data required to completely model human biology. Their assignment was to simulate the complex functions of the human body, a job they acknowledged "is larger and more complex than the human body itself." The group began by drafting a five year plan for collecting and checking biological data, the first step in building the living, breathing simulation of the human body which would not only vastly enhance research but which is an enormous research challenges in and of itself.
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From page 3...
... The Internet as a tool for taking snapshots of trends in real life and cyberspace piqued the group's interest. They concluded that mapping a "moving picture" of progressions of diseases and ideologies across the Web would be a valuable first step in using social networks as a alreadybuilt sensor system for society.
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From page 4...
... Group members postulated that two forces govern information and financial flow -- gain and fear -- and that such a warning system could alert those in control of interest rates and other relevant financial data to rapidly react when the system switched from pursuit of wealth mode to avoidance of loss mode. Taken as a whole, the challenges are both mechanical and epistemological, both chemical and philosophical, and the questions are the ones that will define us as a species within our ecosystem.
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Key Terms

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  • human biology
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  • mies keck

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  • airline traffic
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  • reveal projections

  • notions helped
  • tackle nonlinear
  • disaster relief
  • research challenges
  • science writing

  • holistic issues
  • govern information
  • own potholes
  • flu outbreaks
  • built sensor

  • knowledge lead
  • charting environmental
  • stimulating task
  • distributions follow
  • simply eliminating

  • coming economic
  • brain research
  • enormous research
  • ecosystem futures
  • data required


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