Agent Street: An Environment for Exploring Agent-Based Models in Second Life

Urban models can be seen on a continuum between iconic and symbolic. Generally speaking, iconic models are physical versions of the real world at some scaled down representation, while symbolic models represent the system in terms of the way they function replacing the physical or material system by some logical and/or mathematical formulae. Traditionally iconic and symbolic models were distinct classes of model but due to the rise of digital computing the distinction between the two is becoming blurred, with symbolic models being embedded into iconic models. However, such models tend to be single user. This paper demonstrates how 3D symbolic models in the form of agent-based simulations can be embedded into iconic models using the multi-user virtual world of Second Life. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates Second Life\'s potential for social science simulation. To demonstrate this, we first introduce Second Life and provide two exemplar models; Conway\'s Game of Life, and Schelling\'s Segregation Model which highlight how symbolic models can be viewed in an iconic environment. We then present a simple pedestrian evacuation model which merges the iconic and symbolic together and extends the model to directly incorporate avatars and agents in the same environment illustrating how \'real\' participants can influence simulation outcomes. Such examples demonstrate the potential for creating highly visual, immersive, interactive agent-based models for social scientists in multi-user real time virtual worlds. The paper concludes with some final comments on problems with representing models in current virtual worlds and future avenues of research.Agent-Based Modelling, Pedestrian Evacuation, Segregation, Virtual Worlds, Second Life

Models and metaphors: complexity theory and through-life management in the built environment

Complexity thinking may have both modelling and metaphorical applications in the through-life management of the built environment. These two distinct approaches are examined and compared. In the first instance, some of the sources of complexity in the design, construction and maintenance of the built environment are identified. The metaphorical use of complexity in management thinking and its application in the built environment are briefly examined. This is followed by an exploration of modelling techniques relevant to built environment concerns. Non-linear and complex mathematical techniques such as fuzzy logic, cellular automata and attractors, may be applicable to their analysis. Existing software tools are identified and examples of successful built environment applications of complexity modelling are given. Some issues that arise include the definition of phenomena in a mathematically usable way, the functionality of available software and the possibility of going beyond representational modelling. Further questions arising from the application of complexity thinking are discussed, including the possibilities for confusion that arise from the use of metaphor. The metaphor of a 'commentary machine' is suggested as a possible way forward and it is suggested that an appropriate linguistic analysis can in certain situations reduce perceived complexity

Communicating the Unspeakable: Linguistic Phenomena in the Psychedelic Sphere

Psychedelics can enable a broad and paradoxical spectrum of linguistic phenomena from the unspeakability of mystical experience to the eloquence of the songs of the shaman or curandera. Interior dialogues with the Other, whether framed as the voice of the Logos, an alien download, or communion with ancestors and spirits, are relatively common. Sentient visual languages are encountered, their forms unrelated to the representation of speech in natural language writing systems. This thesis constructs a theoretical model of linguistic phenomena encountered in the psychedelic sphere for the field of altered states of consciousness research (ASCR). The model is developed from a neurophenomenological perspective, especially the work of Francisco Varela, and Michael Winkelman’s work in shamanistic ASC, which in turn builds on the biogenetic structuralism of Charles Laughlin, John McManus, and Eugene d’Aquili. Neurophenomenology relates the physical and functional organization of the brain to the subjective reports of lived experience in altered states as mutually informative, without reducing consciousness to one or the other. Consciousness is seen as a dynamic multistate process of the recursive interaction of biology and culture, thereby navigating the traditional dichotomies of objective/subjective, body/mind, and inner/outer realities that problematically characterize much of the discourse in consciousness studies. The theoretical work of Renaissance scholar Stephen Farmer on the evolution of syncretic and correlative systems and their relation to neurobiological structures provides a further framework for the exegesis of the descriptions of linguistic phenomena in first-person texts of long-term psychedelic selfexploration. Since the classification of most psychedelics as Schedule I drugs, legal research came to a halt; self-experimentation as research did not. Scientists such as Timothy Leary and John Lilly became outlaw scientists, a social aspect of the “unspeakability” of these experiences. Academic ASCR has largely side-stepped examination of the extensive literature of psychedelic selfexploration. This thesis examines aspects of both form and content from these works, focusing on those that treat linguistic phenomena, and asking what these linguistic experiences can tell us about how the psychedelic landscape is constructed, how it can be navigated, interpreted, and communicated within its own experiential field, and communicated about to make the data accessible to inter-subjective comparison and validation. The methodological core of this practice-based research is a technoetic practice as defined by artist and theoretician Roy Ascott: the exploration of consciousness through interactive, artistic, and psychoactive technologies. The iterative process of psychedelic self-exploration and creation of interactive software defines my own technoetic practice and is the means by which I examine my states of consciousness employing the multidimensional visual language Glide

Modelling Land Use Change and Nonpoint Source Pollution Potential Using Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System Technology

In this study Geographic Information System (GIS) technology was integrated with remote sensing techniques in order to determine the potential for nonpoint source pollution in the Lake Palestine and Cedar Creek Reservoir watersheds of North Central Texas. The Universal Soil Loss Equation was used to determine soil erosion potential from the watersheds, and export coefficients were used to estimate nutrient loadings into the reservoirs

Book Reviews

Garrigus and Morris, eds., Assumed Identities: The Meanings of Race in the Atlantic World. by Light T. Cummins; Evans, A Topping People : The Rise and Decline of Virginia\u27s Old Elite, 1680-1790. by Ronald L. Hatzenbuehler; Ashton, I Belong to South Carolina: South Carolina Slave Narratives. by Carmen V. Harris; Kennedy, Born Southern: Childbirth, Motherhood, and Social Networks in the Old South. by Blain Roberts; Pickenpaugh, Captives in Gray: The Civil War Prisons of the Union. by Jeremy Taylor; Martin, Benching Jim Crow: The Rise and Fall of the Color Line in Southern College Sports, 1890-1980. by Michael Oriard; Keirn and Muller, Hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico. by Susan J. Fernandez; Stone, Sacred Steel: Inside an African American Steel Guitar Tradition. by Phil Townes; White and Brennen, eds., Randy Wayne White\u27s Ultimate Tarpon Book: The Birth of Big Game Fishing. by Robert C. Poister; Duggins, Trailblazing Mars: NASA\u27s Next Giant Leap. by Stephanie A. Smit

An Investigation of the Digital Sublime in Video Game Production

This research project examines how video games can be programmed to generate the sense of the digital sublime. The digital sublime is a term proposed by this research to describe experiences where the combination of code and art produces games that appear boundless and autonomous. The definition of this term is arrived at by building on various texts and literature such as the work of Kant, Deleuze and Wark and on video games such as Proteus, Minecraft and Love. The research is based on the investigative practice of my work as an artist-programmer and demonstrates how games can be produced to encourage digitally sublime scenarios. In the three games developed for this thesis I employ computer code as an artistic medium, to generate games that explore permutational complexity and present experiences that walk the margins between confusion and control. The structure of this thesis begins with a reading of the Kantian sublime, which I introduce as the foundation for my definition of the digital sublime. I then combine this reading with elements of contemporary philosophy and computational theory to establish a definition applicable to the medium of digital games. This definition is used to guide my art practice in the development of three games that examine different aspects of the digital sublime such as autonomy, abstraction, complexity and permutation. The production of these games is at the core of my research methodology and their development and analysis is used to produce contributions in the following areas. 1. New models for artist-led game design. This includes methods that re-contextualise existing aesthetic forms such as futurism, synaesthesia and romantic landscape through game design and coding. It also presents techniques that merge visuals and mechanics into a format developed for artistic and philosophical enquiry. 2. The development of new procedural and generative techniques in the programming of video games. This includes the implementation of a realtime marching cubes algorithm that generates fractal noise filtered terrain. It also includes a versatile three-dimensional space packing architectural construction algorithm. 3. A new reading of the digital sublime. This reading draws from the Kantian sublime and the writings of Deleuze, Wark and De Landa in order to present an understanding of the digital sublime specific to the domain of art practice within video games. These contributions are evidenced in the writing of this thesis and in the construction of the associated portfolio of games

Organic information design

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-94).Design techniques for static information are well understood, their descriptions and discourse thorough and well-evolved. But these techniques fail when dynamic information is considered. There is a space of highly complex systems for which we lack deep understanding because few techniques exist for visualization of data whose structure and content are continually changing. To approach these problems, this thesis introduces a visualization process titled Organic Information Design. The resulting systems employ simulated organic properties in an interactive, visually refined environment to glean qualitative facts from large bodies of quantitative data generated by dynamic information sources.Benjamin Jotham Fry.S.M

Glory Days: Popular Constitutionalism, Nostalgia, and the True Nature of Constitutional Culture

This article uses political science data on participation, knowledge, and popular sentiments about the political process to critique different strands of popular constitutionalism, a recent movement in constitutional theory that highlights the People\u27s role in the development of interpretive norms. It argues that popular constitutionalists have not paid sufficient attention to the increasingly distant relationship between the people and political life, resulting in an interpretive model that is often unable to realize its normative goals and rests on some weak descriptive premises. It also suggests that the existence of high levels of civic engagement during the 1960s - a formative period for many current theorists - has contributed to the increasingly distant relationship between constitutional theory and political practice

Glory Days: Popular Constitutionalism, Nostalgia, and the True Nature of Constitutional Culture

This article uses political science data on participation, knowledge, and popular sentiments about the political process to critique different strands of popular constitutionalism, a recent movement in constitutional theory that highlights the People\u27s role in the development of interpretive norms. It argues that popular constitutionalists have not paid sufficient attention to the increasingly distant relationship between the people and political life, resulting in an interpretive model that is often unable to realize its normative goals and rests on some weak descriptive premises. It also suggests that the existence of high levels of civic engagement during the 1960s - a formative period for many current theorists - has contributed to the increasingly distant relationship between constitutional theory and political practice