NASA is researching advanced technologies for future exploration missions using intelligent swarms of robotic vehicles. One of these missions is the Autonomous Nano Technology Swarm (ANTS) mission that will explore the asteroid belt using 1,000 cooperative autonomous spacecraft. The emergent properties of intelligent swarms make it a potentially powerful concept, but at the same time more diffi...

Second Life is a virtual world where users, known as residents, can interact socially and commercially. Its population is growing at 20% per month and each day sees around 500,000 real American dollars change hands between them. Worlds such as Second Life represent extreme versions of the sort of web-based knowledge sharing communities that have been studied in information management literature...

The COVID-19 pandemic forced surprised governments worldwide to act fast and decisively, often revealing lack of preparation for this kind situation. However, such crises are expected occur far more frequently than ever before. To keep societies prospering, governments, administrations, civil servants will have adapt quickly effectively—and hence need develop the required capabilities (e.g., ap...

The importance of Ca 2 /calmodulin-dependent myosin light chain kinase (MLCK) for smooth muscle contraction is well documented.1 Until recently, myosin light chain (MLC) phosphatase was thought to be unregulated and constitutively active. However, studies have demonstrated that smooth muscle contraction is dependent on regulation of MLC phosphatase activity.2,3 The inhibition of phosphatase act...