Conscious Evolution | New Paradigm Digest Just received the following invite from Barbara Marx Hubbard, a friend and leader in conscious evolution, about an upcoming teleconference. Dearly Beloved Pioneers throughout the world, I write to celebrate our journey: We give thanks to be alive right NOW. When we see our situation with evolutionary eyes, we discover that the pattern of 13.7 billion years of evolution is a deep design of creation within ourselves, guided by a Cosmic Prime Directive: Create More Intelligent Life. We discover recurring patterns in the process: Problems are evolutionary drivers. In this moment, we are embodying our multi-billion year birth narrative pattern toward higher consciousness, greater freedom and more complex order. Then let us therefore dedicate this July 4th 2011 to learning from and following nature’s fabulous design. Let us envision celebrating such a Declaration on Dec. 22, 2012 as part of a planetary Birth Day – a day inaugurating a new era in human evolution. Barbara Marx Hubbard
Complex Adaptive Systems - Webs of Delight by Chris Lucas "Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."Mignon McLaughlin "An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents... What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning." Introduction In the world of yesterday the clockwork toys ruled. A mushroom cloud of change swept the Earth, mountains collapsed, rivers dried up, the cosy world of horse and sail exploded into a multi-fragmented cascade of invention. This is a vision of tomorrow, a world out of control, yet promising a level of understanding and achievement far beyond anything yet seen. Control Collapse Late in the 20th Century we began to realise that linear prediction, far from being the ubiquitous panacea of success imagined in the past, was only a simplified viewpoint applicable to relatively few systems. Distributed Systems Cybernetics Innovation
Illumination Magazine, Research at the University of Missouri New Paradigm Thinking Multi-Agent System - CasGroup From CasGroup A Multi-Agent System (MAS) is a system composed of several autonomous agents which are able to interact and communicate with each other. In software, MAS are realised as software agents. The field of MAS is related to Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) and also to distributed systems . MAS is also an abbreviation for Mobile Agent System . Normally, Mobile Agent Systems are also Multi-Agent Systems, but generally with less emphasis on intelligence but on mobility. Elements Agents represented by abstract actors or persons Basic elements of a MAS are (a) the agents themselves (b) their interaction and communication (c) the necessary middleware or environment . Autonomous Agents As the name says, a Multi-Agent System is a system composed of several autonomous agents . Interaction and Communication Communication is a central property of any distributed system , and it is very important in MAS. Communication can occur through multiple ways in complex multi-modal environments.
America's Top 10 Small Public Companies - Forbes.com 200 Best Small Companies Kurt Badenhausen and Christina Settimi, 10.15.09, 08:00 PM EDTForbes Magazine dated November 02, 2009 Behind the numbers of this year's best small companies. Small fry got smacked hard in year two of the Great Recession: 42% of the companies in the Russell 2000 small-company index lost money in the last 12 months, versus 22% for those in the S&P 500. Our list of the 200 Best Small Companies in America begins with a search for companies that show both sales and earnings growth. Seventy-one companies on last year's list fell off, including No. 6, PetroQuest Energy, an oil and natural gas explorer squeezed by falling prices. For more financial data and corporate governance ratings, visit www.forbes.com/200best. The Top 10 Best Small Companies 1. Started in 1994 by building contractor Thomas Sullivan, who sold surplus wood at bargain prices. 2. Operates a low-cost airline serving resort locales such as Las Vegas and Orlando.
Preventive medicine 101: Hospitals incorporate farmers markets into facilities Hospitals and health clinics have pharmacies for their patients, but why not add a place to pick up vegetables and fruits, too? After years of treating their clientele for the ravages of poor nutrition — obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke — some doctors finally are catching on to the idea that prescribing carrots instead of pharmaceutical drugs might be a better option. It's preventive medicine 101. The Harris County Hospital District serving Houston, Texas, and its surroundings is among just a handful of health organizations that have incorporated a full-fledged farmers market into its facilities. The reasons are many: Most of the patients coming to its clinics are poor; their neighborhoods are largely devoid of grocery stores selling healthy foods and instead are filled with fast-food outlets and small shops selling snacks; and many of those people with access to supermarkets either cannot afford fresh foods there or do not understand basic nutrition.
Adaptation - CasGroup From CasGroup Adaptation is a response to environmental conditions: the process of adjustment to given (outer) conditions. It refers to a any change in the structure or function of an entity (say, a biological organism or a software system) that allows it to act more effectively, efficiently and successfully in its environment. Originally, the term adapted meant "apt, or suited to, to, some particular purpose or other" (Keller and Lloyd, 1992). In evolutionary systems, adaptation means the change of traits across generations which increase the fitness . In general it is the ability to learn from experience and describes the process of change and modification in a system that helps to adjust and fit the system to the conditions of the environment. Function, Purpose and Niche Occupation Typical for adaptive systems is the existence of a function or purpose: they occupy a niche and play a role, specified by the context of the environment. Optimization of Fitness Requirements Types and Forms
Louise Yamada Technical Research Advisors ChangeCycle.com Self-Organization - CasGroup From CasGroup Self-organization is a process where the internal organization of a system increases, and the organizational change takes place without being controlled, guided and managed completely by the environment (i.e. the system is involved in the increase of organization itself). The name already implies that feedback is an important factor in many self-organizing systems, and in fact feedback and emergence are the two most fundamental terms related to self-organization. As the name suggests, Self-Organization occurs in a system if, left to itself, it maintains its organization or even tends to become more organized. Definitions Various Attemps and Views Self-Organization is problematic. So what is 'self-organization' really ? Promises Problems Self-organization is a buzzword . Like many mysterious things which appear puzzling, it is partially an illusion which depends on our point of view. History The second meaning refers to a system which improves its organization. General