[p2p-research] from Italy

Thu Apr 15 11:49:20 CEST 2010

ok, let's keep in touch about this,

Michel

On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 4:04 AM, Stefano Serafini <metafrasis at alice.it>wrote:

> Dear Michel,
>
> thank you very much for your kind feedback, and thank's to all!
>
> The spin-off company I work for (Promete) is to organize a task force to
> carry on the project. Maybe we can get linked with you guys about the p2p
> core of this matter, and this can become an experimental cast for your
> ideas, as such it is for the biophilic architecture. Until we have not
> finished the first brainstorming there's nothing to see more than my short
> text and the bibliography. I've asked Russian colleagues about the
> possibility of editing the whole conference in English or Italian, but they
> said would prefer to publish in Russian before. Well... they learn fast! :-)
>
> I'll be back as soon as I have news, and more concrete matter.
>
> Best,
>
> Stefano
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Michel Bauwens пишет:
>
>> Dear Stefano,
>> This is an interesting project, but beyond my capacities for the moment.
>> Though we have quite a few scholars, our network is very informal, and
>> some of our iniatives, like a p2p research cluster on facebook, do not pan
>> out ...
>> But it is really worth trying of course, and we can at least help with
>> spreading the word,
>> Allessandro, Tom, and Smari, are young scientists and technologists
>> interested in networking, I hope they can assist you, or at least explore
>> and dialogue,
>> I post your report in the back of your letter,
>> If you put it online with a URL, it will be easier to spread the word, and
>> also, where can we 'see' anything, to make it more concrete?
>> Michel
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 1:50 AM, Stefano Serafini <metafrasis at alice.it<mailto:
>> metafrasis at alice.it>> wrote:
>>
>>    Dear Michel,
>>
>>    I've got your email by Nikos Salingaros.
>>
>>    I'd like to show you the attached synthesis of a conference, that
>>    I've presented at the international conference “Enforcing
>>    scientific and technical cooperation between Russian scientists
>>    and Russian research and formation centres, and compatriot
>>    scientists working abroad”, Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russian
>>    Federation, 2-4 April 2010.
>>
>>    Maybe, you and your colleagues can find interesting to realize the
>>    network I sketched out. We can offer it to the Russian Speaking
>>    Scientists Association (RASA), and adapt it for other countries as
>>    such, starting from Italy. My country has many scientists and
>>    scholars around the world, due to the unhappy situation of Italian
>>    research in homeland. By the way, I think this can contribute to a
>>    real epistemological revolution, transforming the global monopoly
>>    in a multi-pole glocality.
>>
>>    Please let me know what do you think about it.
>>
>>    All the best,
>>
>>    Stefano Serafini
>>
>>
>>
>> *Effective connections among Russian and European scientists. Steady
>> tendency and progress in the study of natural and technological phenomena
>> (biology of form, linguistics, urbanism)*
>>
>> * *
>>
>> Dr. Stefano Serafini*¶
>>
>> / * STOQ Project, Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Rome,
>> Italy) /
>>
>> / ¶ PROMETE Spin off Company of the National Institute for the Physics of
>> Matter - National Research Council (Naples, Italy) /
>>
>> / /
>>
>> / metafrasis at alice.it <mailto:metafrasis at alice.it> /
>>
>>
>> / Synthesis of the paper read at the International Conference “Enforcing
>> scientific and technical cooperation between Russian scientists and Russian
>> research and formation centres, and compatriot scientists working abroad”,
>> Tomsk, Russian Federation, 2-4 April 2010. /
>>
>> *ABSTRACT:* /The idea of a very effective scientific network, based upon
>> “biophilic” architecture principles (peer-to-peer, self-organized, scaled,
>> self-similar, and “small-world”-like network) is offered here. The network
>> should be Russian both in language and scientific tradition, offering a
>> paradigm for a new, hyper-connected vision of world science, based on a
>> multi-centric epistemology./
>>
>> In order to optimize scientific communication among Russian scholars in
>> the homeland and abroad, a network is proposed having the following
>> qualities:
>>
>> 1) A peer-to-peer network, generated by gradual, bottom-up unfolding,
>> according to principles of self-organization;
>>
>> 2) Fractal, self-similar, and scaled;
>>
>> 3) Connected to external networks (non-Russian and non-scientific), by
>> “small-world” bridges;
>>
>> 4) Russian in language, culture, and epistemological background;
>>
>> 5) Animating a scientific, imaginative and political multi-centrism
>> worldwide.
>>
>> Work refers to the epistemology of complexity, and aims to unfold the same
>> kind of self-organization that emerges in biology, linguistics, and
>> urbanism.
>>
>> Self-organization is characterized by connection and self-similar
>> integration (i.e. biological homeostasis, ecological network), or by
>> morpho-functional isomorphism determining an operational fitness, as shown
>> by René Thom’s theory of catastrophes. Self-organization is a formal
>> ecological invariant underling all efficient systems. It always develops
>> non-linear, emergent phenomena, such as observed in the human brain,
>> society, and the biosphere. It can be found in all par-excellence adaptive
>> systems, such as biological systems, linguistic systems, configurations of
>> adaptive artificial systems (wiring technology, power networks, telephone,
>> computer or road networks), and the special kinds of architecture and urban
>> systems called “biophilic”. Full integration and self-organization tend to
>> coincide. Self-organized systems generate human comfort and functionality,
>> and these effects can help in identifying self-organization. Culture and
>> techniques should be oriented towards human natural functionality.
>>
>> Scaling similarity allows a fuller connection. For instance, Zipf’s Law
>> shows the hierarchical recurrence of the most used terms in linguistics,
>> flowing up to an empowerment of expressive capability, and flowing down to a
>> nucleus of more common terms. Several semantic universes and social groups
>> can connect to the same language, and thereby become reciprocally connected.
>> No “on/off” barrier here. The lower scales (i.e. most often used words,
>> shared by all the people speaking the same language) sustain the whole
>> system. If a scale is lacking, then all the other scales dependent upon it
>> get disconnected and become useless. The same scaling connectivity rules
>> urban morpho-functional patterns.
>>
>> Watts and Strogatz’s /small-world theory/ showed that a network obtains
>> its highest efficiency and speed when it is connected somewhere in-between
>> regularity and disorder. Random connections allow skipping serial elements,
>> and reduce the number of passages needed to reach any point inside the
>> network. Small-world network efficiency grows with random connections,
>> according to the following formula:
>>
>> /n/ >> /k/ >> ln(/n/) >> 1
>>
>> where /n/ denotes the graph’s vertices, and /k/ its edges. The condition
>> /k/ >> ln(/n/) guarantees that the graph is not disconnected. The percentage
>> of random connection needed to make the network whole is the natural
>> logarithm of /n/ [1n(/n/)//n/], and this says that this percentage
>> diminishes according to a power law, as the number of edges grows. A
>> constant and scalar ratio regulates system efficiency: below it, efficiency
>> decreases; above it, dispersion occurs. This is the kind of adaptive and
>> self-organized network we find in the real world. Proteins, food chain
>> ecosystems, human nervous system, languages; all of these are
>> “small-worlds”.
>>
>> A one-language monopoly in science exists not only for practical reasons.
>> Universal use of English also reflects a few institutions’ imperialism over
>> all the others. This involves: 1) uniformity to an apparently global
>> expressive model, hiding a monopolistic view of the world and epistemology;
>> 2) consequent separation from one’s specific and historical culture, and
>> local needs; 3) the loss of schools of thought, research traditions, and a
>> quantity of data, no matter if they become apparently just “re-elaborated”.
>>
>> The Russian Federation has enough material and human resources to enforce
>> an autonomous epistemological pole. The Scientific Diaspora affecting the
>> homeland’s universities during the ‘90s seeded an outstanding world-wide
>> hyper-connection. This can invert the current direction of the “brain
>> drain”, getting back – in an enriched form – the previously exported skills.
>> A Russian network will not in any way produce a soviet-fashion scientific
>> isolation. On the contrary, a highly complex, interconnected, multi-centric
>> world-wide organization will rise from it. Its positive effects would go
>> beyond the Russian Federation. Typical Russian love for culture and arts
>> would make such a scientific network hologrammatical, and produce complex
>> effects that go much further than in science.
>>
>> As a concrete instantiation of a self-generated network, the
>> Italian-speaking “Salingaros Group” (“Gruppo Salingaros”) is presented. This
>> is a highly-efficient scientific, cultural and political lobby, rapidly
>> unfolded by the interest of some scholars and professionals in the urban
>> theories of Nikos Salingaros.
>>
>> Main bibliography
>>
>> Christopher Alexander, /The Nature of Order/, 4 voll., Berkeley, Ca.,
>> Center for Environmental Structure, 2002-2005.
>>
>> Adrian Bejan, /Shape and Structure, from Engineering to Nature/, New York,
>> Cambridge University Press, 2000.
>>
>> *Adrian Bejan - James H. Marden, *«The constructal unification of
>> biological and geophysical design», /Physics of Life Reviews/, Volume 6,
>> Issue 2, June 2009, pp. 85-102.
>>
>>
>>      Johan Bollen - Francis Heylighen, «Algorithms for the
>>      self-organisation of distributed, multi-user networks. Possible
>>      application to the future world wide web», In R. Trappl (ed.),
>>      /Cybernetics and Systems ’96/, Austrian Society for Cybernetics,
>>      1996, pp. 911-916 (http://pcp.vub.ac.be/Papers/AlgorithmsWeb.pdf).
>>
>> Scott Camazine - Jean-Louis Deneubourg - Nigel R. Franks - James Sneyd -
>> Guy Theraulaz - Eric Bonabeau, /Self-Organization in Biological Systems/,
>> Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2001.
>>
>> Daniel J. Depew - Bruce H. Weber, /Darwinism Evolving. //Systems Dynamics
>> and the Genealogy of Natural Selection/, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. -
>> London 1995.
>>
>> Ramon Ferrer i Cancho - Ricard V. Solé, «Least effort and the origins of
>> scaling in human language», /Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
>> of the United States of America/, February 4, 2003 vol. 100 no. 3, pp.
>> 788-791.
>>
>> Jerry Fodor - Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, /What Darwin got wrong/,
>> London, Profile Books, 2010.
>>
>>
>>      Carlos Gershenson, /Design and Control //of Self-organizing
>>      Systems/, PhD Thesis, Vrije Universiteit, Brussel, 2007.
>>
>> Johan Gielis, «A generic geometric transformation that unifies a wide
>> range of natural and abstract shapes», /American Journal of Botany/, 90
>> (2003), pp. 333-338.
>>
>>
>> Antonio Lima-de-Faria, /Evolution without Selection. Form and Function by
>> Autoevolution/, Elsevier, Amsterdam - London - New York, 1988 (trad. Russa:
>> /Эволюция без отбора. Автоэволюция формы и функции/, МИР, Москва, 1991).
>>
>> Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini - Juan Uriagereka, «Still a bridge too far?
>> Biolinguistic questions for grounding language on brains», /Physics of Life
>> Reviews/ 5 (2008) 207–224.
>>
>> Nikos A. Salingaros, /Algorithmic Sustainable Design: The Future of
>> Architectural Theory/, Solingen, Umbau-Verlag, 2009.
>>
>>
>>      Stefano Serafini, «L’architettura come salute psicobiologica
>>      quotidiana: morfogenesi e biofilia», /Atti del I Convegno
>>      Internazionale su Psiche e Architettura/, Siracusa, 2010, in
>>      stampa.
>>
>> Ian Stewart, «Self-organization in evolution: a mathematical perspective»,
>> /Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. /A (2003) 361, pp. 1101-1123.
>>
>>
>>      René Thom, /Esquisse d’une Sémiophysique/, Paris, InterEditions,
>>      1991.
>>
>>
>>      René Thom, /Modèles mathématiques de la morphogénèse/, Paris,
>>      Christian/ //Bourgeois/, 1980^2 .
>>
>>
>> Duncan J. Watts - Steven H. Strogatz, «Collective dynamics of
>> “small-world” networks», /Nature/, 393 (1998), pp. 440-442.
>>
>> Geoffrey B. West - James H. Brown - Brian J. Enquist, «The fourth
>> dimension of life: Fractal geometry and allometric scaling of organisms»,
>> /Science/ 284 (1999), pp. 1677-1679.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think
>> thank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>
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>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>

-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

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