Systems, Resilience, and Organization: Analogies and Points of Contact with Hierarchy Theory

Aim of this paper is to provide preliminary elements for discussion about the implications of the Hierarchy Theory of Evolution on the design and evolution of artificial systems and socio-technical organizations. In order to achieve this goal, a number of analogies are drawn between the System of Leibniz; the socio-technical architecture known as Fractal Social Organization; resilience and related disciplines; and Hierarchy Theory. In so doing we hope to provide elements for reflection and, hopefully, enrich the discussion on the above topics with considerations pertaining to related fields and disciplines, including computer science, management science, cybernetics, social systems, and general systems theory.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of ANTIFRAGILE'17, 4th International Workshop on Computational Antifragility and Antifragile Engineerin

Multi-level agent-based modeling - A literature survey

During last decade, multi-level agent-based modeling has received significant and dramatically increasing interest. In this article we present a comprehensive and structured review of literature on the subject. We present the main theoretical contributions and application domains of this concept, with an emphasis on social, flow, biological and biomedical models.Comment: v2. Ref 102 added. v3-4 Many refs and text added v5-6 bibliographic statistics updated. v7 Change of the name of the paper to reflect what it became, many refs and text added, bibliographic statistics update

Ontologies and Information Extraction

This report argues that, even in the simplest cases, IE is an ontology-driven process. It is not a mere text filtering method based on simple pattern matching and keywords, because the extracted pieces of texts are interpreted with respect to a predefined partial domain model. This report shows that depending on the nature and the depth of the interpretation to be done for extracting the information, more or less knowledge must be involved. This report is mainly illustrated in biology, a domain in which there are critical needs for content-based exploration of the scientific literature and which becomes a major application domain for IE

Conceptual graph-based knowledge representation for supporting reasoning in African traditional medicine

Although African patients use both conventional or modern and traditional healthcare simultaneously, it has been proven that 80% of people rely on African traditional medicine (ATM). ATM includes medical activities stemming from practices, customs and traditions which were integral to the distinctive African cultures. It is based mainly on the oral transfer of knowledge, with the risk of losing critical knowledge. Moreover, practices differ according to the regions and the availability of medicinal plants. Therefore, it is necessary to compile tacit, disseminated and complex knowledge from various Tradi-Practitioners (TP) in order to determine interesting patterns for treating a given disease. Knowledge engineering methods for traditional medicine are useful to model suitably complex information needs, formalize knowledge of domain experts and highlight the effective practices for their integration to conventional medicine. The work described in this paper presents an approach which addresses two issues. First it aims at proposing a formal representation model of ATM knowledge and practices to facilitate their sharing and reusing. Then, it aims at providing a visual reasoning mechanism for selecting best available procedures and medicinal plants to treat diseases. The approach is based on the use of the Delphi method for capturing knowledge from various experts which necessitate reaching a consensus. Conceptual graph formalism is used to model ATM knowledge with visual reasoning capabilities and processes. The nested conceptual graphs are used to visually express the semantic meaning of Computational Tree Logic (CTL) constructs that are useful for formal specification of temporal properties of ATM domain knowledge. Our approach presents the advantage of mitigating knowledge loss with conceptual development assistance to improve the quality of ATM care (medical diagnosis and therapeutics), but also patient safety (drug monitoring)

A Semantic Network for Modeling Biological Knowledge in Multiple Databases

We have developed a semantic network of biological terminology to aid in the retrieval and integration of biological information from a variety of disparate information sources. Our semantic network strives to provide a categorization of biological concepts and relationships among these concepts. The semantic network will impart a knowledge structure through which computers can reason and draw conclusions about biological data objects and will provide a federated view of the many disparate databases of interest to biologists. In the development of our system, we have included the concepts from several established controlled vocabularies, chief among them being the National Library of Medicine\u27s Unified Medical language System (UMLS). While the UMLS Metathesaurus provides an excellent controlled vocabulary, we have found their semantic network lacking in sufficient detail to be useful as a tool for categorization of biological concepts in databases. We would like to provide a categorization of concepts that provides finer detail than their semantic network without the considerable size and complexity of their Metathesaurus. Our complete semantic network consists of 183 semantic types and 69 relationships

New Ideas for Brain Modelling

This paper describes some biologically-inspired processes that could be used to build the sort of networks that we associate with the human brain. New to this paper, a 'refined' neuron will be proposed. This is a group of neurons that by joining together can produce a more analogue system, but with the same level of control and reliability that a binary neuron would have. With this new structure, it will be possible to think of an essentially binary system in terms of a more variable set of values. The paper also shows how recent research associated with the new model, can be combined with established theories, to produce a more complete picture. The propositions are largely in line with conventional thinking, but possibly with one or two more radical suggestions. An earlier cognitive model can be filled in with more specific details, based on the new research results, where the components appear to fit together almost seamlessly. The intention of the research has been to describe plausible 'mechanical' processes that can produce the appropriate brain structures and mechanisms, but that could be used without the magical 'intelligence' part that is still not fully understood. There are also some important updates from an earlier version of this paper

Livelisystems: a conceptual framework integrating social, ecosystem, development and evolutionary theory

Human activity poses multiple environmental challenges for ecosystems that have intrinsic value and also support that activity. Our ability to address these challenges is constrained, inter alia, by weaknesses in cross disciplinary understandings of interactive processes of change in socio-ecological systems. This paper draws on complementary insights from social and biological sciences to propose a ‘livelisystems’ framework of multi-scale, dynamic change across social and biological systems. This describes how material, informational and relational assets, asset services and asset pathways interact in systems with embedded and emergent properties undergoing a variety of structural transformations. Related characteristics of ‘higher’ (notably human) livelisystems and change processes are identified as the greater relative importance of (a) informational, relational and extrinsic (as opposed to material and intrinsic) assets, (b) teleological (as opposed to natural) selection, and (c) innovational (as opposed to mutational) change. The framework provides valuable insights into social and environmental challenges posed by global and local change, globalization, poverty, modernization, and growth in the anthropocene. Its potential for improving inter-disciplinary and multi-scale understanding is discussed, notably by examination of human adaptation to bio-diversity and eco-system service change following the spread of Lantana camera in the Western Ghats, India