The Past, Present, and Future of Artificial Life

For millennia people have wondered what makes the living different from the non-living. Beginning in the mid-1980s, artificial life has studied living systems using a synthetic approach: build life in order to understand it better, be it by means of software, hardware, or wetware. This review provides a summary of the advances that led to the development of artificial life, its current research topics, and open problems and opportunities. We classify artificial life research into fourteen themes: origins of life, autonomy, self-organization, adaptation (including evolution, development, and learning), ecology, artificial societies, behavior, computational biology, artificial chemistries, information, living technology, art, and philosophy. Being interdisciplinary, artificial life seems to be losing its boundaries and merging with other fields

The University-Commune

In this new book we return to the challenge of deepening the task to the point of imagining the university formed by commoner university students. It is a turn, a new place from which to name and reconsider community management and action from a sense of co-responsibility for the commons that we must guarantee so that the common project prevails and achieves long-term self-sustainability.This is what the seven articles in this book are about, which calls into question what it means for the university to be and act according to economic principles and logics (giving, receiving, undertaking), social (distribution of roles and benefits) and policies (agreements, consensus, participation and assignment of responsibilities) of the commune. The institutional dimension is important but the vitality, the sense of belonging and the profound strength of the Salesian university project depend much more on the commons logic. Feeling of the commons is not a possibility among many others. We are convinced that, in order to take on this project, it is necessary to transcend institutional, business logic and state regulations. Therefore, the university-commune is the way and, perhaps, the only one possible. University and Common Goods Research Group Universidad Politécnica Salesian

Organizational Posthumanism

Building on existing forms of critical, cultural, biopolitical, and sociopolitical posthumanism, in this text a new framework is developed for understanding and guiding the forces of technologization and posthumanization that are reshaping contemporary organizations. This ‘organizational posthumanism’ is an approach to analyzing, creating, and managing organizations that employs a post-dualistic and post-anthropocentric perspective and which recognizes that emerging technologies will increasingly transform the kinds of members, structures, systems, processes, physical and virtual spaces, and external ecosystems that are available for organizations to utilize. It is argued that this posthumanizing technologization of organizations will especially be driven by developments in three areas: 1) technologies for human augmentation and enhancement, including many forms of neuroprosthetics and genetic engineering; 2) technologies for synthetic agency, including robotics, artificial intelligence, and artificial life; and 3) technologies for digital-physical ecosystems and networks that create the environments within which and infrastructure through which human and artificial agents will interact. Drawing on a typology of contemporary posthumanism, organizational posthumanism is shown to be a hybrid form of posthumanism that combines both analytic, synthetic, theoretical, and practical elements. Like analytic forms of posthumanism, organizational posthumanism recognizes the extent to which posthumanization has already transformed businesses and other organizations; it thus occupies itself with understanding organizations as they exist today and developing strategies and best practices for responding to the forces of posthumanization. On the other hand, like synthetic forms of posthumanism, organizational posthumanism anticipates the fact that intensifying and accelerating processes of posthumanization will create future realities quite different from those seen today; it thus attempts to develop conceptual schemas to account for such potential developments, both as a means of expanding our theoretical knowledge of organizations and of enhancing the ability of contemporary organizational stakeholders to conduct strategic planning for a radically posthumanized long-term future

Effectiveness of policy on digital transformation in Kenya's national goverment : Huduma service delivery case study

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the field of ICT Policy and Regulation“Flagship projects” is a hackneyed phrase that features prominently in Kenya’s government policy documents. Yet soon after their unveiling, some of these projects, notably ICT projects have stagnated or diverged from their core objectives as outlined in the said documents. Combining two established theoretical approaches, Hanna’s (2016a) digital transformation approach and McConnell’s (2010b) policy-as-a-programme framework, this study makes an original contribution to address the gap in literature and policy analysis, by tackling the complementarities in thinking about digital transformation as a programme and policy as a programme as it relates to Kenya’s Huduma citizen service experience. Employing a multi-method case study, including 20 key informant interviews, one 7-person focus group, observations at Nairobi’s City Square Huduma Centre and Huduma’s Network Operations Centre, and analysis of 18 policy documents relevant to this study, the research found that most digital innovation projects emphasised technology, while neglecting other key elements in the digital transformation space. However, the Huduma programme was different in that it paid due attention to several framework elements namely, policies and institutions, ICT infrastructure, ICT industry, human capital and public value, resulting into the category of resilient success. The analysis emphasises that sustainable digital transformation of public services can only be realised if all the transformational elements are prioritised in order to fit into the citizen’s way of life and integrate the Kenyan government’s “islands of automation”. The study makes a case for a “whole-ofgovernment” (WoG) digital transformation that extends beyond flagship projects. This will require creating and fostering collaborative leadership structures to enable digital transformation across national government ministries, departments and agencies, encouraged by youthful, highly-trained, non-political, professional leadership, and continuous learning in order to inculcate policy effectiveness and sustainability of digital transformation as a culture in all facets of national government. Key words: Digital transformation, effectiveness, policy, Huduma programmeGR201

An Ecosystem Called University

This book is dedicated to the university as a protagonist of change. Its purpose is to see the university as a place where the lines between organization and system are fluid, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and the product is knowledge as an end, a means and a way of developing the individual (critical sense) and its interaction with the environment (instrumental reason). The book seeks throughout to foster the image of the Ecosystem University as being a producer of novelty, where the only certainty is uncertainty. The university undergoes a process of permanent spiral growth - the spiral of knowledge without any control of causality - and creating, through its environment, responsible citizens, and free-thinking persons. The Ecosystem University is undeTTast that is assumed in the present. Our work to rediscover the natural feel of an ecosystem embedded in the university and the rich experience of community will take us by the hand and lead us, proud professors, to the purest origin of human knowledge with a flair of joie de vivre: the refreshing purity of the new and the authentic value of ingenuity that will allow us to be ourselves in that very moment: a community that self-organizes, builds projects of life and culture, and determines its own destiny

Interaction dynamics and autonomy in cognitive systems

The concept of autonomy is of crucial importance for understanding life and cognition. Whereas cellular and organismic autonomy is based in the self-production of the material infrastructure sustaining the existence of living beings as such, we are interested in how biological autonomy can be expanded into forms of autonomous agency, where autonomy as a form of organization is extended into the behaviour of an agent in interaction with its environment (and not its material self-production). In this thesis, we focus on the development of operational models of sensorimotor agency, exploring the construction of a domain of interactions creating a dynamical interface between agent and environment. We present two main contributions to the study of autonomous agency: First, we contribute to the development of a modelling route for testing, comparing and validating hypotheses about neurocognitive autonomy. Through the design and analysis of specific neurodynamical models embedded in robotic agents, we explore how an agent is constituted in a sensorimotor space as an autonomous entity able to adaptively sustain its own organization. Using two simulation models and different dynamical analysis and measurement of complex patterns in their behaviour, we are able to tackle some theoretical obstacles preventing the understanding of sensorimotor autonomy, and to generate new predictions about the nature of autonomous agency in the neurocognitive domain. Second, we explore the extension of sensorimotor forms of autonomy into the social realm. We analyse two cases from an experimental perspective: the constitution of a collective subject in a sensorimotor social interactive task, and the emergence of an autonomous social identity in a large-scale technologically-mediated social system. Through the analysis of coordination mechanisms and emergent complex patterns, we are able to gather experimental evidence indicating that in some cases social autonomy might emerge based on mechanisms of coordinated sensorimotor activity and interaction, constituting forms of collective autonomous agency

A NOVEL FRAMEWORK FOR SOCIAL INTERNET OF THINGS: LEVERAGING THE FRIENDSHIPS AND THE SERVICES EXCHANGED BETWEEN SMART DEVICES

As humans, we tackle many problems in complex societies and manage the complexities of networked social systems. Cognition and sociability are two vital human capabilities that improve social life and complex social interactions. Adding these features to smart devices makes them capable of managing complex and networked Internet of Things (IoT) settings. Cognitive and social devices can improve their relationships and connections with other devices and people to better serve human needs. Nowadays, researchers are investigating two future generations of IoT: social IoT (SIoT) and cognitive IoT (CIoT). This study develops a new framework for IoT, called CSIoT, by using complexity science concepts and by integrating social and cognitive IoT concepts. This framework uses a new mechanism to leverage the friendships between devices to address service management, privacy, and security. The framework addresses network navigability, resilience, and heterogeneity between devices in IoT settings. This study uses a new simulation tool for evaluating the new CSIoT framework and evaluates the privacy-preserving ability of CSIoT using the new simulation tool. To address different CSIoT security and privacy issues, this study also proposes a blockchain-based CSIoT. The evaluation results show that CSIoT can effectively preserve the privacy and the blockchain-based CSIoT performs effectively in addressing different privacy and security issues

Unveiling the challenges of curbing wildlife crime in Kenya : evaluating the 3Cs solution.

This is an original thematic research thesis that investigated the causes that lead to the current unprecedented escalation of wildlife crime in Africa that threatens to destroy our global environment by decimating and driving our wildlife which is a global heritage to extinction. The research study which was conducted both in Kenya and in the United Kingdom, has developed unique and distinguishable proposals, methods and recommendations, referred to as the 3Cs solutions, which can be effectively utilized in combating and curbing wildlife crime at a global scale. Nature has provided very delicate and sophisticated ecological systems where all plants and animals have very important roles that they play which keeps this planet Earth’s environment habitable. The realization that the future of this World and the entire human race is greatly linked to these global ecological systems and their biodiversity balance has caused a new global awareness and eagerness to view these eco-systems and the entire global environment as one and to halt destruction of any of these eco-systems taking place anywhere on planet Earth. Wildlife crime is currently the greatest threat to the ecological system and its bio-diversity balance in Africa and by extension to the global environment, as it is destroying an ecological and bio-diversity system of a globally important biome and green belt area south of the Sahara. East, Central and Southern Africa have been identified as the largest source markets that supply illegal wildlife trophies to the consumer markets in the Far East Asia, Western Europe the Middle East and the USA. Yet some of these supply source countries have functioning legal systems that have failed to curb this crime. Kenya is one such country. Kenya was selected for this study because it is the region’s major logistics and trading hub for illegal wildlife crime trophies. Kenya has a functioning Criminal Justice System mandated to combat wildlife crime yet it has badly failed to do so. The three departments within that Criminal Justice System which are mandate to protect wildlife by enforcing wildlife crime laws in Kenya are Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) warders for policing, the Prosecution and the Judiciary. The main purpose of this study was therefore to investigate and understand why a functioning legal system is unable to combat wildlife crime by determining the challenges it faces in curbing this vice. The study focused on wildlife crime committed for commercial export purposes and identified 5 prime species that are targeted for their trophies for illegal export which are the elephant, rhino, lion, leopard and cheetah herein after referred to in this study as the ‘Charismatic Five. The study employed Empirical research methods to conduct the research and to answer the research questions. Qualitative and quantitative research techniques were utilized. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design in order to assist the researcher achieve the objective of the study. Five national parks were selected for the study being the parks where the charismatic 5 wildlife species are abundantly found and therefore the targeted parks by poachers. The population of the study were therefore Kenya Wildlife Service Wardens in the selected national parks, Magistrates and Prosecutors serving in the courts where these parks are located. A peer review of this study’s research tool was first done followed by pilot study carried out at the Nairobi National Park in Kenya, which tested and found the research tool to be suitable, reliable and valid to achieve the overall research objectives. The main survey was conducted in Kenya and took over 4 months for data collection to be completed. Data analysis was done in the United Kingdom. Inferential statistics were used in drawing conclusions. Out of the 156 questionnaires distributed, 152 were completed and returned, representing a 97% response rate due to massive interest shown on the topic by the respondents. The study identified 20 causes and challenges being experienced within the criminal justice system and made recommendations for each challenge that offers the best solution to resolving that challenge. This research study has developed and promulgates some conclusive proposals as its original contributions to knowledge. These contributions are supported by analytical and empirical evidence from this research study and are as follows: Firstly, it challenges the Apocryphal Cause that corruption is the cause of the escalation of wildlife crime. Based on the evidence collected through this research, it can now be categorically and authentically proved that the sudden upward surge of demand in wildlife trophies in the consumers markets of the Far East Countries is the leading cause of escalation of wildlife crime in the source markets like Kenya. Secondly, this study has developed a new concept called ‘The 3Cs’ concept, through which it proposes and offers new methods for combating wildlife crime. The concept is conceptualized and propounded in a pack consisting of The Concept; The 3Cs Test; The 3C’s Model; and, the 3 Cs Application Tool Kit. Overall, it is sincerely hoped that the finding of this research will dominate discussions in the global arena dealing with wildlife crime and contribute tremendously as a solution to this global cause

The University As Commune: the centrality of community action in the management model and practices of Universities

In this new book we return to the challenge of deepening the task to the point of imagining the university formed by commoner university students. It is a turn, a new place from which to name and reconsider community management and action from a sense of co-responsability for the commons that we must guarantee so that the common project prevails and achieves long-term self-sustainability. This is what the seven articles in this book are about, which calls into question what ir means for the university to be and act according to economic principles and logics (giving, receiving, undertaking), social (distribution of roles and benefits) and policies (agreements, consensus, participation and assignment of responsibilities) of the commune. The institutional dimension is important but the vitality, the sense of belonging and the profound strength of the Salesian university project depend much more on the commons logic. We are convinced that, in order to take on this project, it is necessary to transcend institutional, business logic and state regulations. Therefore, the university-commune is the way and, perhaps, the only one possibl