mental managerialism” wherein the “Western scientist continues to speak for the Earth” (1995, 194). In its very conception, however, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) represents a challenge to such a business-as-usual approach, and the current volume clearly shows this. One defining characteristic of the MA is a concern to link scales of analysis by integrating local/indigenous knowledge...

Vision perception is ambiguous and visual arts play with these ambiguities. While perceptual ambiguities are resolved with prior constraints, artistic ambiguities are resolved by conventions. Is there a relationship between priors and conventions? This review surveys recent work related to these ambiguities in composition, spatial scale, illumination and color, three-dimensional layout, shape, ...

In this paper we identify the spreading components required to design convention emergence mechanisms. We have empirically tested the effectiveness of our approach to emerge conventions in scenarios where the space of conventions is large. Moreover, we identify their shortcomings when used for the emergence of stable, global conventions despite unreliable communications (be them because of nois...

If you have been driving in Europe recently, you must have had that strange feeling. You see a sign that says 'Deutschland', or 'France', or 'España', and just drive through. No customs barrier, no passport control—just a sign. You say 'Ah!' and carry on; the sign could be a hundred yards further out and it would make no difference. Yet by crossing that line you enter a different world-district...

H. Peyton Young SFI WORKING PAPER: 1991-08-043 SFI Working Papers contain accounts of scientific work of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Santa Fe Institute. We accept papers intended for publication in peer-reviewed journals or proceedings volumes, but not papers that have already appeared in print. Except for papers by our external faculty, papers must be based ...

Conventions of Spatial Literacy Conventions in media serve as a kind of shorthand between creator and audience: In order to understand and enjoy novels, films, theaters, audiences must be able to “read” the conventions of these media. Though early filmgoers did not understand that the train coming toward them in the Lumiere Brothers’ L'Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat (1895) was merely a projecte...

A few conventions for thinking about and writing quantum pseu-docode are proposed. The conventions can be used for presenting any quantum algorithm down to the lowest level and are consistent with a quantum random access machine (QRAM) model for quantum computing. In principle a formal version of quantum pseudocode could be used in a future extension of a conventional language. Note: This repor...

The mathematical modeling conventions known collectively as the Discrete Event System Specification (DEVS) can be used to specify models of essentially any system that varies in time. But when DEVS is used for implementation, as opposed to specification, practical considerations such as convenience, efficiency, and repeatability motivate various changes to the original conventions. Here we disc...

At the start of Convention (1969) Lewis says that it is "a platitude that language is ruled by convention" and that he proposes to give us "an analysis of convention in its full generality, including tacit convention not created by agreement." Almost no clause, however, of Lewis's analysis has withstood the barrage of counter examples over the years, and a glance at the big dictionary suggests ...