Winter School 2009: Social Structures in Communication Networks

On 5-10 January 2009 and chaired by Jorge Louça, has been celebrated at the University of Lisboa, the Winter School 2009: "Social Structures in Communication Networks". On Monday, Professor Louça presented the program and scientific goals in the context of the International Doctoral Program in Complexity Sciences. The "Universidade" is accomplishing a great effort following the way pioneered by Santa Fe Institute or the Complex Science Society at Paris.

Professor Araújo analysed whether biological-inspired network models contribute to the understanding of aggregate economic behaviors. Besides, and following the ideas by John von Neumann, she explained the redundant nature rather than efficient nature of the network structures, contributing to clarify the idea of efficiency versus reliability in social environments. In the evening, Professors Louça and Rodrigues introduced tools for the study of social networks like NWB, PAJEK, GUESS or UCINET.

On Tuesday, Professor Symons introduced in his second presentation, ideas including references to the analysis of emergent properties. Symons offers an alternative to the macro-properties model of emergence. Emergence is not restricted to macro-phenomena, but can appear at the intersection of networks. Objects or agents can be involved in distinguishable systems or networks simultaneously. An agent may participate in social, economic, political and other networks at the same time.

On Wednesday, Professors Louça and Rodrigues showed multi-agent based social simulation by means of tools like NETLOGO, MASON or BREVE, while on Thursday, both Professors outlined community detection in social networks, employing algorithms like Girvan-Newmann. In the evening, Professor Palla exposed the statistical properties of community evolution in complex networks. On Friday, Professor Marinheiro spoke about network architectures and organization. Network maps have been used to mitigate the problem of the understanding of the network structures. Professor Lopes explained that in the networked multimedia realm, "more is different".

Finally, on Saturday, 10th, it was programmed a keynote talk by James Sterbenz (University of Kansas), concerning adaptive computer network architectures.

I am very grateful to the University of Lisboa by the organization of this School in which young students and prestigious Professors, have shared very interesting viewpoints about the formal and social analysis of networks, mixing complex systems and dynamics of networks.

"The brain is a network of neurons; organizations are people networks; the global economy is a network of national economies, which are networks of markets...How do such networks matter?"

The link to the Winter School is:

http://idpcc.dcti.iscte.pt/ws2009/ws2009_home.html

Synergetics and social cognition

The term "synergetics" was introduced by Hermann Haken, pioneer in the study of the laser, on 1970. It means the science of cooperation and can be considered as a science of orderly, self-organized, collective behavior subject to general laws. Therefore, the aim of synergetics is to establish the natural laws on which the self-organization of systems is based.

In physics there are different aggregate states-solid, liquid, gaseous-called phases, and the transitions between them are called phase transitions. The three phases differ only in the arrangement of the molecules. If we heat a layer of liquid in a dish from below and if the temperature difference berween top and bottom is only slight, there will be no motion of the liquid on a macrolevel. But when the temperature difference is further increased the liquid begins to move macroscopically in a quite orderly manner in the form of rolls. The curious fact is that such hot drops do not rise irregularly but in an orderly manner. Nature discovers that it can transport the heated parts upward more efficiently when they join in a regular motion. If we add the individual motions of the rolls, we obtain a hexagonal pattern. The liquid rises in the center of the hexagons and sinks along the outside:

Once the choice is made the alternatives are out of the question, and the choice cannot be reversed. Minor fluctuations decide the nature of the choice. Once it has been made, all particles must accept it. Increasingly complex motion patterns can be created by self-organization, that is, and employing the language of synergetics, new order parameters succeed each other.

Nowadays, many concepts of the synergetics, like "attractor", "bifurcation", "fluctuation", "synchronization effect", "symmetry broken"... are useful for the application to social sciences. For instance, to social conflicts. According to Haken, conflicts exist that offer two equivalent solutions in which society resolves the conflict for individuals merely displacing it. Do the courts favor the mother or the father in the child´s upbringing? (Haken, 1984). The symmetry must be broken by the judge. The advantages and disadvantages of one solution are balanced against those of the other.