When species compete, it’s a colossal game of rock-paper-scissors

Organisms competing for contested resources like nutrients, light, and space play an important role in biodiversity shown in a recent paper co-authored by incoming SFI Omidyar Fellow Jacopo Grilli whose model offers a better understanding than that provided by previous models of how diverse communities are maintained in nature.

 
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New Studios deliver ACtioN-able insights

SFI’s Applied Complexity Network (ACtioN) is offering The Studio which is a multi-day intensive workshop wherein a group of a firm’s decision-makers convene at SFI and meet with SFI scientists to work through aspects of complexity theory that apply to their organization’s specific challenges.

 
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Global trade entrenches poverty traps

A theorem published this week in the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics suggests that greater engagement in the international exchange can actually reinforce productivity-impeding practices that keep countries in poverty.

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A new tool for multilayer networks

Sophisticated network analysis means finding relationships that often aren’t easy to see. A new algorithm from an interdisciplinary team at SFI identifies relationships not only within individual layers, but also across multiple layers.

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What algae can tell us about political strategy

Cells compete for nutrients. Political campaigns compete for voters. According to new research published in Nature Scientific Reports, general principles may begin to explain how differing strategies play out where groups compete for resources.

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What algorithms can’t tell us about community detection

Groups of interconnected nodes, called “communities” or “modules,” represent real-world relationships like friend groups on Facebook, businesses in a supply chain. A new paper addresses the challenge of identifying whether, and ultimately where, these structures exist within a mass of data.

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