Network motifs

Connections or actions between nodes have a property of "direction". A can act on B, B can act on A, or A can act on B and B can act on A. In dialectical terms the latter case would be an interaction or interconnection. Throw in a third node, and the number of possible connection types grows to 13?; add a fourth, and the number jumps to 199. (I'm not sure of the math of this, the numbers are from the article referenced below.)

In a 2002 Science article, "Network Motifs: Simple Building Blocks of Complex Networks" six researchers studied various types of networks, and found "the striking appearance of motifs in networks representing a broad range of natural phenomenon."

The researchers studied various real-world networks, including gene regulation, neurons, food webs, electronic circuits, and the World Wide Web. Out of the range of all of the possible connections types, a small number of connection types -- that is, motifs -- showed up much more frequently than the others. Not all networks, though, have the same motifs. The presence of different motifs in different networks suggests a way of distinguishing types of networks.

"None of the network motifs shared by the food webs matched the motifs found in the gene regulation networks or the World Wide Web. Only one of the food web consensus motifs [their term, consensus motifs are "motifs shared by networks of a given type" - jd] also appeared in the neuronal network. Different motifs were found in electronic circuits with different functions. This suggests that motifs can define broad classes of networks, each with specific types of elementary structures. The motifs reflect the underlying processes that generated each type of network [my emphasis - jd]; for example, food webs evolved to allow a flow of energy from the bottom to the top of the food chains, whereas gene regulation and neuron networks evolve to process information. Information processing seems to give rise to significantly different structures than does energy flow.

Two more observations: (1) "In general, the larger the network is the more significant the motifs tend to become;" and (2) motifs "may be interpreted as structures that arise because of the special constraints under which the network has evolved."

Somehow this concept of "motif" is related to the concept of the "law system" (or, the necessary connections) that govern or constrain the interactions between nodes in the network. Or perhaps they are evidence of the existence of the law system? (These would be in part "the special constraints under which the network has evolved" -- internal constraints, while there are also external or environmental constraints as well?)

jd

This is a column I did a few years ago, relevant to this blog.

jd

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The dumbest networks

Found on the Internet: The best network is the dumbest network. But... it's not the most profitable...

So we won't see it.

That's the implied conclusion in David Isenberg and David Weinberger's online essay "The Paradox of the Best Network".

A "dumb network" is a network that is optimized to move bits -- any kind of bits, all bits -- as fast as possible. "Only then is the network truly open to any and all services that want to use it, no matter how innovative or how unexpected. In the best network, the services live at the edges of the network and use the network to transport bits; they do not rely on any special characteristics of the network itself."

But, they argue, the simpler the network, the easier it is for any network operator to provide the service -- capacity grows, prices fall, all is good. Right? Except.

Telecom companies can't make money that way. (Witness the telecom carcasses along the road over the past two years: Northpoint, PSINet, CAIS/Ardent Communications, to name a few; and a number of companies like Global Crossing are teetering on the curb).

The telecom companies make money off of complicated, premium services that aren't versatile. So they have no incentive to develop the kind of networks that (a) serve the most people and (b) realize the possibilities of a well-networked world.

Isenberg and Weinberger argue that "[i]ncumbent communications company clout has forestalled delivery of a variety of radically simplified, extremely affordable technologies," like wireless and fiber optic networks.

It gets better: "Telephone companies are not the only institutions goaded by new network technology. We can see from the reaction to today's Internet that the Paradox of the Best Network is not kind to the recording industry, to book publishers, or to any other group that makes its living by controlling access to content. These groups have already called in the lawyers and lobbyists to protect their current business models. Nor will the new network be popular with any institution — economic, political or religious — that seeks to shield itself from conflicting cultures and ideas."

The apologists for our great economic system like to argue that yeah, capitalism might be rough, but the competitive spirit ensures that new technologies get developed and deployed. The paradox of the best network is just another example that this is a Big Lie.

Capitalism cannot make the most of new technologies. The above is just one more example. The best networks are not being built because they are too hard to make money from. An economic system that favors maximum profit over maximum satisfaction, maximum usability, maximum access, maximum information, etc. etc. is a bundle of chains on society, keeping it down.

Isenberg and Weinberger pose the obvious question: "But if the best network is also the cheapest and hardest to make money from, who will build it?"

The essay goes on to propose some ways to ensure the development of big, dumb networks. They plainly state that "Arguably, building the best network is a Public Good." But between the rock of telecom capitalism and the hard place of Enron-ized government -- here's where we need everyone's imagination and initiative.

What kind of society do we want? We have a world to win, And, well, nothing to lose but our chains.

* * *

Another reason why capitalism sucks: Harold Russell, the disabled World War II vet and non-actor who won an Academy Award for his remarkable performance in William Weller's classic movie "The Best Years of Our Lives", died in January. He was 88. In 1992 he was forced to sell his Oscar -- he needed the money to pay for his sick wife's medical bills.

Jim Davis
2/01/02



This originally appeared at http://www.lrna.org, now living at http://www.gocatgo.com/jdav/columns/dumbnet.html

Here's the description of a paper that I am planning to do for the The Global Studies Association Annual Conference, May 12 - 15, 2005 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville:

Networks and globalization

"Network" is a popular metaphor for talking about globalization. For the most part, "network" has been just that -- a vague metaphor with many meanings. "Network science", a new cross-discipline offshoot of complexity theory, brings a formality to thinking about network structures. "Network science" concepts like "superconnectors", "preferential attachment", and "small-world effect" are universal in real-world networks, whether they be ecological, social or economic. "Network science" explains both the strengths of globalized capitalism, and its weaknesses. Perhaps more importantly, it provides powerful insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the "network form" of organization, the emerging structure of resistance to globalization.

jd

From Neal Stephenson's The System of the World, the concluding volume of The Baroque Cycle, a great read:

...I saw one or two smoke-rings about the size of a man's hat, propagating across the room, and retaining their shape and vis viva for extraordinary distance. These rings are unlike water-waves, which consist of different water at different times, for smoke rings propagate through clear air, proving that they indeed carry their own substance with them, neither diluting it with, nor dispersing it into, the surrounding atmosphere. And yet there is nothing special about the smoke as such -- it is the same smoke that hangs over battlefields in shapeless clouds. The identity of the smoke ring would appear to consist, not in the stuff of which it is made, for that is commonplace and indifferent, but rather in a particular set of relationships that is brought into being among its parts. It is this pattern of relationships that coheres in space and persists in time and endows the smoke-ring with an identity. Perhaps some similar observation might be made about other entities that we observe, and credit with uniqueness and identity, including even human beings. For the stuff of which we are made is just the common stuff of the world, viz. ordinary gross matter, so that a materialist might say, we are no different from rocks; and yet our matter is imbued with some organizing principle that endows us with identities, so that I may send a letter to Daniel Waterhouse in London in full confidence that, like a smoke ring traversing a battle-field, he has traveled a great distance, and persisted for a long time, and yet is still the same man." (a fictional Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz writing to Daniel Waterhouse; p54)

Some comments on yesterday's massive earthquake off of the coast of Sumatra, and the ensuing tidal waves that have crashed around the Indian Ocean reminded me of some scientist's description of complexity theory (or chaos theory?) that it is deterministic, not predictive. Which I read as "you know something is going to happen, just not when". The earthquake reporting clarifies what constitutes a prediction. This is from a Washington Post article "When Disaster Strikes" (12/27/2004):

[Caltech geologist Kerry Seih] he knew that, generally speaking, it was getting to be about time for another big one.



But a general forecast of a major quake sometime in the coming decades is not the same thing as a prediction. It's not a prediction unless the time window is so narrow that it can incite dramatic changes in the behavior of people who are vulnerable.



No one has a reliable prediction scheme," said Brian Tucker, president of GeoHazards International, a nonprofit group that tries to reduce the toll of natural disasters in developing countries. "Even if they did, the most reliable prediction would be in terms of probability. So you'd be saying that in the next six months, plus or minus three months, an earthquake of magnitude 6, plus or minus one unit, will occur" -- and even there there'd be uncertainty about the exact location.



"The public can't respond to that. What would a mayor do or a governor do with such a probabilistic prediction?" Tucker said.

jd

I'm reading Robert Shiller's book The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st Century. I thought, from the title, that the books was more reportage of the current state of finance; it turns out to be prescription for dealing with risk through a higher order of financial tools. That is, ideas about fixing capitalism through more capitalism.



Still, there are important concepts outlined in the book. One could argue that risk management is another way of describing the material basis for society or human groups. We have a better chance of surviving together than apart. Capitalism, because of its focus on private property, competition and the individual, that is, by its fundamental law system, creates risk for people. These risks are over and above the natural risks of plagues, hurricanes, locusts, fire, drought, etc. Shiller outlines these risks, in particular risks to individual and national income and risks to savings. New technology adds to the risk mix under capitalism, by endangering old forms of earning income and undermining national economies through the vicissitudes of globalization. But new technology also allows new ways of hedging against risk, and his book describes some hypothetical financial instruments to distribute the risk.



Risk management is really an information game (e.g., the construction of actuarial tables in the 18th century provided the basis for modern insurance). By understanding probabilities of outcomes based on actual data, the cost of risk management can be determined, and priced accordingly. The complexity of risks that can be managed is, per Shiller, a function of the quality (speed, cost) of information technology. Information technology applies in the data collection and analysis department; and again in managing the distribution of shares of risk across a broad market of whoever wants to buy the risk, for some consideration (i.e., speculate). More sophisticated information processing technology means more complicated risks can be managed.



The way out of the destruction of capitalism then is through different kinds of insurance or derivatives for personal income, national income, home prices, etc. Socialism, or communism, is another, more obvious way of managing such risks -- that is, mutual social responsibility, mediated through public, community structures rather than hedge funds and banks.



Shiller's book does highlight the confluence of several themes I find of interest: new technologies allow us to understand or interact w/ processes in more discrete ways -- the pellets of iron have different properties than the ingot. New technologies shrink transaction costs -- the hookup cost (the cost of making a connection) and the transmission cost (the cost of using a connection), the processing cost (the time the node is busy). So more connections can happen. And as more connections happen, the medium exists for emergent properties to flower. These properties will be conditioned by the law system that governs the network/process.



Capitalism allows connections in very specific ways. Its volatility equals risk. Creative destruction, perhaps, but destruction nevertheless. The global may flourish, in an aggregate way, while the local is sacrificed quite brutally. Wealth polarizes. The factories of Canton and Akron are shuttered, while new ones open in Guangdong. The wheatfields of North Dakota lay fallow while those of the Ukraine or Argentina ripen.



Shiller envisions a global system of managing such risks via new financial instruments made possible by new information technology. Much more straightforward solutions have been proposed in the past; he is looking for ways to manage the symptoms while leaving the causes in place.



His argument, I think, is that capitalism allows for creativity, initiative and opportunity that other systems do not. But risk is the enemy of creativity and opportunity (better to go the safe route than the risky one), so managing the risk will allow for more opportunities to be explored, more experiments made, more connections explored, hence more likelihood of good things to happen (emergence). Which all sounds good, but also seems like hoping the wolf becomes a vegetarian.

"The Pentagon is building its own Internet, the military's world wide web for the wars of the future." So starts an article from the Nov. 13, 2004 NY Times, "Pentagon Envisioning a Costly Internet for War".



The article describes Pentagon plans for its "Global Information Grid" or GIG, its own secure network to distribute battlefield information. The effort is an aspect of "network-centric warfare" championed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (see the May '04 post on the Nova "Battle Plan Under Fire" show for more). More battlefield information -- from satellites, other units, data archives, etc. -- will in theory allow soldiers to cut through the fog of war; and more real-time information requires more secure bandwidth than is currently available.



As Rumsfeld is quoted: "Possibly the single most transforming thing in our force will not be a weapons system, but a set of interconnections." More interconnections makes for a more efficient force (better use of resources, in particular information); and a network-form foe (e.g., the resistance in Iraq) can be fought most effectively? by a network-form force.



Whether such an approach is in fact effective is still not univerally accepted; it is, however, very expensive. $200 billion by some estimates once the costs for the special radios, satellites, laptops, cabling, routers, etc. are totalled up.



The pros and cons of "force transformation" and "network-centric warfare" have been debated elsewhere; what is significant I think about this article is the construction of a parallel, military-only Internet. The public 'net is apparently insufficient -- too leaky, insecure, narrow, clogged w/ spam and porn to be of use to the military. The current Internet had its roots in Defense, but was never intended to be a military-only infrastructure. One of its potent strengths is its openness, which allows for emergent properties. A closed-network will never achieve that; perhaps the price tag is how you buy security and robustness when you don't have 1/2 billion naked apes pounding on the keyboards. Or maybe the military's private skynet is ultimately unrealistic. As Vincent Cerf notes in the NYT article, "I want to make sure what we realize is vision and not hallucination... There's nothing wrong with having ambitious goals. You just need to temper them with physics and reality."