Fractally-organized Connectionist Networks

VincenzoDe FlorioMOSAIC: UniAntwerp iMinds

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Times, they are a-changin’…

Less resources

Higher peaks, harder

shocks

Higher number

of users…

ICT

Energy product-ion & distribution

Businesses

Transport ofgoods & people

HEALTHCARE

ORGANIZATIONALCRISIS

Understanding & rethinkingour organizations is crucial!

3

With the meter in the red zone…• …organizations that

appeared to work fine reveal their limitations!– lose too much –use up too many resources–do not scale well– intolerable to changes– fail to address new aspects→Traditional approaches are

reaching structural limits.

A little world with big problems• Scale has changed– Data are big; users are many; requests and

needs to be answered are too many• Complexity has arisen and is spreading

through the layers of our interconnected infrastructures

• Interdependence increases fragility• Our design assumptions systematically

introduce yielding points.

Challenges• How do we address pervasive societal

problems such as healthcare & crisis management?• How do we rethink our organizations?

Which tools, which software could help?

1.Examples & ingredients2.A recipe3.Discussion4.Conclusions

This ppt

Example: A LED Lamp• A collective system

made of a largenumber of simple units

• Simple-behavioured "Parts" producinga simple-behavioured"Whole"

• A simple organization!– No need to "connect"– Connection: managed "physically", through

the additive properties of physical light.

Simple Parts, Simple Whole... Complex Emergence!

• Complex emerging properties!– Low power consumption– Higher efficiency– Graceful degradation: "Fuzzy" failure

semantics!

→ Small is (sometimes!) beautiful!

Example: Telemonitoring Servicein Project "Little Sister"

• Low-cost non-intrusivetelemonitoring solution

• Specially designed low-res sensors• Battery powered• All resources wrapped as

manageable web services• Deployed into a smart

house.

Simple Parts, Complex "Glue":Complex Emergence!

• A middleware component manages the WS• Middleware turns on / off the nodes– in function of the context / situation / required

operation / "mode"– Energy vs. Safety trade-offs: Sensors are used

only when needed to guarantee safety→ Prolonging the sensors' "lives"

• Connectionism: small and connected is (sometimes!) even more beautiful.

Connectionism

• Our first "ingredient"!• aka Parallel and distributed processing;

aka ANN• Networks of tiny units• Complexity is in the network rather than in

the units• Units: feature-like entities.

Connectionism

• State of activation: unit is participating / it is in sleep-mode

• Output of the unit: percentage of involvement

• Patterns of activity: how involvement "spreads" through the network

• Activation rule: next configuration, given the current one + context change.

Connectionism

• Modifying patterns of connectivity as a function of experience

• Done in PhD work (outside the scope of LS)– Tracking the performance of individual units– Gradual penalization / rewarding– Enrollment = f( "score" )

→ A learning step!

Connectionism

• Biggest limitations:– absolute simplicity– flat organization.

Example: Little Sister'sFractal Organization

• Idea: moving from absolute simplicity to relative simplicity

• Units are simple w.r.t. their "level"• Hierarchical organization of "fractals"• Each fractal, a WS group of units led by a

coordinator/representative: the MW.

LS Middleware• Based on a fork of Apache MUSE– “a Java-based implementation of the WS-

ResourceFramework (WSRF), WS-BaseNotification (WSN), and WS-DistributedManagement (WSDM) specifications”

• On top of Axis2• Partially implements the WSDM-MOWS

specifications (Web Services Distributed Management: Management of Web Services).

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LS' fractal social organization

• Multi-tier distributed architecture• Services structured within hierarchical

federation reflecting structure of deployment environment– rooms; flats; building; external application

• Each level, a "fractal"– Same rules, different units– Service-oriented community.

Bind

Local analysisand coordination Intra-level

processing

Member

Service and feature registry

Servicedescription

Publish PublishCapabilitiesPoliciesAvailabilityLocations…

Roles &situations

Member MemberLS sensors Units MemberMember MemberMember

SoC's…

Inter-levelprocessing

Service-oriented CommunityException → Event propagation

FSO: Fractal organization of SoC's

• "Principle of increasing inclusiveness, so that entities at one level are composed of parts at lower levels and are themselves nested within more extensive entities"

• Nature's way: nested compositional hierarchies.

FSO: Fractal organization of SoC's

• Simplified version in LS– Predefined number of levels– Predefined operations– No semantic description and matching– No definition of new inter-level SoC's.

Fractal connectionism• Our "recipe"!• Connectionism with– relative simplicity– increasing inclusiveness.

Fractal connectionism

• Networks of fractals• Complexity is in the network and in the

units• Units: entities simple w.r.t. the current

level.

Fractal connectionism• State of activation: as in connectionism– unit is participating / it is in sleep-mode

• Output of the unit: percentage of involvement– FSO: all or nothing

• Patterns of activity: how involvement "spreads" through the network– FSO: enrollment and exceptions.

Fractal connectionism• Modifying patterns of connectivity as a

function of experience• Tracking the performance of individual

units and compounds• Permanentification: from transient to

permanent response→ A learning step!

Fractal Social Orgs

• Mathematical model: http://goo.gl/gvVGH5

• Geometrical and audio representations–Modularity–Self-similarity–Fractal dimension!

http://goo.gl/vO8RKj

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Conservation of modularity

• Complex FSOs• With NetLogo

Simulations

Simulations

Preliminary results

Conclusions• Two "Gestalts"– Connectionism, fractal organization

• F → C– relative simplicity; increasing inclusiveness

• C → F–Many gaps are revealed!–More complex states of activation and outputs

of the unit: nature and percentage of involvement.

Conclusions

• Small is beautiful→Small and connected is more beautiful →Relatively small and fractally organized is

even more so!

Thank you for your attention!

Questions?

vincenzo.deflorio@gmail.com / uantwerpen.be

Blog: eraclios.blogspot.be

LinkedIn group "Computational Antifragility"

ANTIFRAGILE workshop

twitter://@EnzoDeFlorio