The availability of online documents coupled with emergent text mining methods has opened new research horizons. To achieve their potential, mining technologies need to be theoretically focused. We present data theory as a crucial component of text mining, and provide a substantive proto- theory from the synthesis of complex multigames, prototype concepts, and emotio-cognitive orientation fields. We discuss how the data theory presented informs the application of text mining to mining discourse(s) and how, in turn, this allows for modeling across contextual thresholds. Finally, the relationship between discourse mining, data theory, and thresholds is illustrated with an historical example, the events surrounding the 1992 civil war in Tajikistan.

Some proteins, such as homeodomain transcription factors, contain highly conserved regions of sequence that cannot be attributed to the constrains imposed by any single function. It has recently been suggested that multiple conserved functional domains overlap and together explain the high conservation of these regions. However, because these highly conserved domains are part of much larger proteins, we are still left with the question why so many functional domains cluster together. Here we have modeled an evolutionary mechanism that can produce this kind of clustering. Due to adaptive competition between different protein functions for control over amino acid residue identity, conserved functional domains get displaced from regions undergoing adaptive evolution. At first they undergo a steady random walk within the sequence for an indefinite amount of time; however, a threshold is reached when two functional domains happen to come into contact, at which point there is a dramatic shift in the adaptive dynamics such that the domains rapidly converge, lengthen, and evolve overlap — stabilizing at a fully overlapped state. We also studied the evolution of single amino acid tandem repeats (a.k.a. homopeptides), which are especially prevalent in transcription factors. Homopeptides that are encoded by nonhomogenous mixtures of synonymous codons cannot be explained by the neutral process of replication slippage. Our model provides two ways to explain the origin and maintenance of such repeats, and their over-representation in highly conserved proteins: competition between multiple functional domains for space within a sequence, or reuse of a sequence for many functions over time. Both processes depend on reaching certain critical thresholds, however they both deterministically cause the evolution of repeats once these thresholds are reached. Further, both of these processes are characteristic of multi-functional proteins such as homeodomain transcription factors. We conclude that our model can explain two widely recognized features of transcription factor proteins: conserved domains and a tendency to accumulate homopeptides.

A state is not alive, yet it performs many of the central enjoys few bonds of kinship: and residence depends upon functions of life like replication and adaptation to new conditions occupational specialization rather than blood relations. A to balance social protection and opportunity. As a modern state can declare war on behalf of the entire collectivity, lifelike system the rise of the modern state raises four sets reserving the right to declare mandatory participation of fundamental questions about its evolutionary design. A and to contract the area of private vengeance. They proclaim first set concerns how it became a sustainable, autonomously a monopoly of force and of law, while requiring citizens to replicating system, capable of evolution. All non-state agglomerations forgo violence; vengeance is not the responsibility of the offended such as empires or chiefdoms eventually stagnate party. Almost any crime against one member is a because they are closed systems that break down over crime against the state. Subgroups seeking vengeance are time (Weber). A state is an open system that must able to viewed as threatening to the order of the state.

Boid flocking is a system in which several individual agents follow three simple rules to generate swarm-level flocking behavior. To control this system, the user must adjust the agent program parameters, which indirectly modifies the flocking behavior. This is unintuitive because the properties of the flocking behavior are non-explicit in the agent program. In this paper, we discuss a domain-independent approach for detecting and controlling two emergent properties of boids: density and a qualitative threshold effect of swarming vs. flocking. Also, we discuss the possibility of applying this approach to detecting and controlling traffic jams in traffic simulations.

The coagulation system (CS) is a complex, inter-connected biological system with major physiological and pathological roles. The CS may be viewed as a complex adaptive system, in which individual components are linked through multiple feedback and feedforward loops. The non-linear relationships between the numerous coagulation factors and the interplay among the elements of the CS render the study of this biology at a molecular and cellular level nearly impossible. We present an Agent Based Modeling and Simulation (ABMS) approach for simulating these complex interactions. Our ABMS approach utilizes a subset of 52 rules to define the interactions among 33 enzymes and factors of the CS. These rules simulate the interaction of each “agent”, such as substrates, enzymes, and cofactors, on a two-dimensional grid of ~12,000 cells and ~300,000 agents. Our ABMS method successfully reproduces the initiation, propagation, and termination of thrombin formation due to the activation of the extrinsic pathway. Furthermore, the ABMS is able to demonstrate the emergence of a threshold effect for thrombin generation as a result of the synergistic effect of combining anticoagulant systems.

Recent research identifies stochastic dominance as critical for understanding the relationship between network structure and diffusion. This paper introduces the concept of stochastic dominance, explains the theory linking stochastic dominance and diffusion, and applies this theory to a number of diffusion studies in the literature. The paper illustrates how the theory connects observations from different disciplines, and details when and how those observations can be generalized to broader classes of networks.

Early studies of public budgeting emphasized uncertainty Two of us (BJ and FB) have published a set of papers, in the decision-making environment. Budgeting in the books focusing on annual budget changes (Jones and absence of information about the impacts of decisions led Baumgartner 2005b). Leptokurtic distribution of percentual to an adjustment process rooted in simple decision rules budget changes were observed in a broad range of settings: and bargaining among interests. This led to marginal or small increases and small decreases of budgets and budget incremental adjustments from the budgetary status quo, components are the most frequent, but time to time large with all major actors wary of big changes to the budgetary increases and cutoffs are observed as well.

A small consortium of philosophers has begun work on the implications of epistemic networks (Zollman 2008 and forthcoming; Grim 2006, 2007; Weisberg and Muldoon forthcoming), building on theoretical work in economics, computer science, and engineering (Bala and Goyal 1998, Kleinberg 2001; Amaral et. al., 2004) and on some experimental work in social psychology (Mason, Jones, and Goldstone, 2008). This paper outlines core philosophical results and extends those results to the specific question of thresholds. Epistemic maximization of certain types does show clear threshold effects. Intriguingly, however, those effects appear to be importantly independent from more familiar threshold effects in networks.

Irregular Warfare (IW), with its emphasis on social and cognitive phenomena such as population sentiment, is a major new focus of the Department of Defense (DoD). One of the most important classes of IW action is Information Operations (IO), the use of information to influence sentiment. With the DoD’s new focus on IW comes the new need to analyze and forecast the effects of IO actions on population sentiment. Analysts at the DoD traditionally use Modeling and Simulation to analyze and forecast the effects of conventional warfare’s actions on the outcome of wars, but IW and IO in particular are far more complex than conventional physics-based simulations. DoD analysts are in the early stages of looking for scientifically rigorous methods in the Modeling and Simulation of IO’s complex effects. This paper presents the state of IO modeling and simulation in the DoD, using examples from several computer models now being used, in these early stages of IW analysis. It discusses how the ideas of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and threshold events in particular may be incorporated into IO modeling in order to increase its scientific rigor, fidelity, and validity.

International law is a singular exception to the top-down systems of law within nations. It presents the puzzle of how the law can be created or changed in the absence of authoritative rule-making institutions. The present paper is part of a work in progress that locates the law-making apparatus of international law in a complex adaptive system. Herein the focus is on thresholds. The first and most detailed threshold describes the emergence of the complex adaptive system. The second threshold consists of the transformation of international law from the voluntary to the automatic. The third threshold is here but has not yet been crossed: actualizing human rights as enforceable claims by individuals against States.