*Please distribute to others who may be interested...*
You are hereby invited to the opening seminar in our seventh interdisciplinary series on Evolution, Complexity and Cognition<http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108>(ECCO). *Time*: Friday, Nov. 5, *10-12 am*. (note: this year, all seminars take place on Fridays, 2-4 pm, unless announced otherwise) *Place*: Room B 0.036 (building B, level 0, close to the human sciences computer rooms), on the VUB Campus Etterbeek (Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels), in collaboration with MOSI. Coffee available. Free entrance: everybody welcome! ------------------------------ *Evaluation of self-organizing systems using quantitative measures* Richard Holzer and Hermann de Meer <[email protected]> University of Passau *Abstract:* For analyzing properties of self-organizing systems, mathematical models of the systems are considered desirable. Such models can be used for suggesting improvements to a real system under investigation or for gaining confidence in the purposeful behavior of self-organizing systems. Global properties of interest that can be related to purposefulness, like emergence or target orientation, may also be identified on the micro-level, such that quantitative measures do provide a link from micro-level to macro-level modeling. Due to the high computational complexity of practical systems, however, it is usually prohibitive to derive the exact values of the measures. Therefore, approximations have been developed, which are presented and discussed in this talk. Limits and potentials of the new concepts are illustrated by means of some example applications. *About the speaker: *Prof. Dr. Hermann De Meer<http://www.net.fmi.uni-passau.de/hp/?id=113>is chair of Computer Networks and Computer Communications, Dep. of Mathematics and computer Science, University of Passau * * ------------------------------ *Upcoming Seminars* *Nov. 12* Karin Verelst (CLEA, VUB): *A Note on the Categorical Nature of Causation* *Nov. 19* *academic holiday*:* no seminar* *Nov. 26* Jon Echanove (AoEC <http://www.aoec.cn.com/>, China) *Uncertainty and Personal Development* <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/133> *Dec. 3* Clément Vidal <http://clement.vidal.philosophons.com/> (ECCO, VUB) *Black Holes as Attractors for Intelligent Civilizations*<http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/132> *Dec 10* Nathalie Gontier <http://vub.academia.edu/NathalieGontier> (CLWF, VUB) *Identifying the units, levels and mechanisms of evolution: an epistemological approach* *Dec. 17* Bertin Marten<http://books.google.be/books?id=r7CbVtlfc0sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=bertin-martens&source=bl&ots=Amuu-Z3p_8&sig=oD4mkFDgiTLlVLJo5xe7zUU2RqU&hl=en&ei=7D7ATKDFLZm8jAe8xMSUCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CC8Q6AEwBw>s (European Commission) *Economic exchange as a cognitive transmission channel in human societies* *Jan 14* Chris Exton <http://www.csis.ul.ie/staff/chrisexton/> (University of Limerick) *Crowd sourcing **Jan 21* Marco Fenici <http://unisi.academia.edu/MarcoFenici> (University of Siena) *Children's Understanding of Others' Minds: Empirical Research and Challenges Ahead* * * More info about the ECCO seminar program: http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108
