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In distinction to research on ‘peer work’ within mental health systems, crisis support in grass-roots organisations of people with psychiatric experience has been researched to a far lesser extent....

Creating innovative methods of treatment and regeneration of damaged tissues or organs is a key challenge of the twenty-first century. The aim of this study was to determine the possibility of producing and characterising the properties of self-organising chitosan hydrogels prepared with the use of chitosan lactate/chloride and disodium hydrogen phosphate dodecahydrate as a cross-linking agent. The structure and supramolecular architecture of the biomaterials were evaluated by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and polarised optical microscopy. Biological studies assessed cytotoxicity by contact with a human colon adenocarcinoma cell line. The colourimetric resazurin assay showed that the obtained chitosan hydrogels are non-cytotoxic materials. Thus, self-organising biomaterialshold great promise for application in tissue engineering.

This article presents Khongelani Hlungwani’s experiences of working as a labour broker worker and his struggle to become a permanent worker in Gauteng, South Africa. His account provides a lens through which to understand the shopfloor divisions between permanent and labour broker workers. These divisions are, as Hlungwani’s account demonstrates, compounded by a trade union movement that largely sidelines the interests of precarious workers in favour of permanent workers. This has led many workers, like Hlungwani, to be distrustful of trade unions. Thus, when new labour rights were introduced in 2015, which provided an impetus for labour broker workers to organise, many, like Hlungwani, chose to do so outside of trade unions. The article demonstrates how it was possible, in the South African context, to utilise the institutional power of new labour rights to build associational power outside of trade unions. The article provides insight into both the strength and the fragility of these forms of organising through an account of the strike that Hlungwani participated in in solidarity with unionised workers at his workplace.

Increasing the level of self-organization and self-development competences is an urgent issue for students and graduates. The author considers applying a project method to be an effective way of developing self-organisation in students. However, it is very important to choose the type of a project which can ensure achieving the goal of increasing the level of self-organisation in learners. Individual practice-oriented long-term projects are viewed as the best option. On the basis of the research works analysis we single out three main stages of project activities. They are the preparatory stage, the stage of realising the project and the final stage. At the same time a project is only the part of an individual programme developed by a student in collaborative work with their teacher. The article presents a scheme of an individual educational trajectory the implementation of which will result in an increased level of student’s self-organisation. Creating individual trajectories requires a special type of interaction between the teacher and the student. It is necessary to provide pedagogical support of students in the process of increasing their self-organization level. Teacher’s help and teacher’s support being forms of pedagogical support should be used in creating primary situations in which a student can develop an individual educational trajectory, and secondary situations in which he or she can implement it and achieve a higher level of self-organisation.

Defined as ‘networks of learning relationships among students and significant others’, peer assisted learning takes a bewildering array of forms in higher education. A useful way to conceptualise these is to draw from ideas of communities of practice and communicative rationality, with the degree of student autonomy a third key element. We illustrate this approach with a study of Kuppi, an example of peer assisted learning initiated and organised entirely by students. We interviewed undergraduate participants from six state universities in Sri Lanka and found strong support for this model of peer assisted learning from student learners and student tutors. These classes are characterised by informality and discussion, flexibility in timing and location and a focus on assessments. Students determine the content and who teaches, whilst tutors give their time without payment, out of fraternity and to improve their own learning and skills. The theory of communicative rationality helped explain much of the attraction of this form of peer assisted learning. There was evidence for a strong community of practice; however apart from peer tutors aspiring to become academics, this involved mostly reinforcement of student identity rather than transformation into emerging roles. The high levels of engagement and student autonomy shown by Kuppi challenge suggestions that peer assisted learning must be organised by tutors if it is to be effective.

In recent decades, several theories have claimed to explain the teleological causality of organisms as a function of self-organising and self-producing processes. The most widely cited theories of this sort are variations of autopoiesis, originally introduced by Maturana and Varela. More recent modifications of autopoietic theory have focused on system organisation, closure of constraints and autonomy to account for organism teleology. This article argues that the treatment of teleology in autopoiesis and other organisation theories is inconclusive for three reasons: First, non-living self-organising processes like autocatalysis meet the defining features of autopoiesis without being teleological; second, organisational approaches, whether defined in terms of the closure of constraints, self-determination or autonomy, are unable to specify teleological normativity, that is, the individuation of an ultimate beneficiary; third, all self-organised systems produce local order by maximising the throughput of energy and/or material (obeying the maximum entropy production (MEP) principle) and thereby are specifically organised to undermine their own critical boundary conditions. Despite these inadequacies, an alternative approach called teleodynamics accounts for teleology. This theory shows how multiple self-organising processes can be collectively linked so that they counter each other’s MEP principle tendencies to become codependent. Teleodynamics embraces – not ignoring – the difficulties of self-organisation, but reinstates teleology as a radical phase transition distinguishing systems embodying an orientation towards their own beneficial ends from those that lack normative character.

The present contribution defends network theory empirically by considering the governance of cyberspace. It aims to normatively explain the largely non-state regulation of cyberspace with the help of network theory. To this end, it first introduces key conglomerates of cyberspace governance and analyses their structures and processes. The empirical analysis of the organisational structures forms the basis for the concluding theoretical evaluation. The contribution can serve as an impulse for further research on global governance in a departure from state-centred perceptions.

Due to their many advantages, permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) are increasingly used in not only industrial drive systems but also electric and hybrid vehicle drives, aviation and other applications. Unfortunately, PMSMs are not free from damage that occurs during their operation. It is assumed that about 40% of the damage that occurs is related to rolling bearing damage. This article focuses on the use of Kohonen neural network (KNN) for rolling bearing damage detection in a PMSM drive system. The symptoms from the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and Envelope (ENV) Analysis of the mechanical vibration acceleration signal were analysed. The signal ENV was obtained by applying the Hilbert transform (HT). Two neural network functions are discussed: a detector and a classifier. The detector detected the damage and the classifier determined the type of damage to the rolling bearing (undamaged bearing, damaged rolling element, outer or inner race). The effectiveness of the analysed networks from the point of view of the applied signal processing method, map size, type of neighbourhood radius, distance function and the influence of input data normalisation are presented. The results are presented in the form of a confusion matrix, together with 2D and 3D maps of active neurons.

Quality management (QM) has shown an impressive ability to update and evolve. The purpose of this paper is to highlight themes that have been identified as vital and important for research projects...

Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird dargestellt, nach welchen Grundlagen Bildungsraume in Kitas gestaltet werden sollten, damit sie Kinder zum selbsttatigen Spielen und damit Lernen einladen. Grundlagen fur die Einordnung bieten dabei neben Konzepten aus der Reggio- und Montessoripadagogik auch die Prinzipien psychomotorischer Entwicklungsforderung. Ein weiterer Fokus liegt auf der Auswahl entsprechenden Materials, die u.?a. auf Grundlage der Beobachtung kindlicher Verhaltensmuster geschehen kann, und auf einer Spielraumgestaltung, die die Fahigkeit der Kinder zur Selbstorganisation unterstutzt.

Arguably, chaos and entropy are adaptive to activism and utopian theory; they trouble normative approaches to temporal progress, applying a non-linear and emergent approach to thinking about activism and possibility. [...] This initial exploratory definition of the nano-utopian describes moments that are fractions of [...] micro- utopian structures, or that may initially sit at a disconnect from them, differing mainly in the fact that they are unpredictable, unplanned or unexpected.

Cells act as building blocks of multicellular organisms, forming higher-order structures at different biological scales. Niches, tissues and, ultimately, entire organisms consist of single cells that remain in constant communication. Emergence of developmental patterns and tissue architecture thus relies on single cells acting as a collective, coordinating growth, migration, cell fate transitions and cell type sorting. For this, information has to be transmitted forward from cells to tissues and fed back to the individual cell to allow dynamic and robust coordination. Here, we define the design principles of tissue organisation integrating chemical, genetic and mechanical cues. We also review the state-of-the-art technologies used for dissecting collective cellular behaviours at single cell- and tissue-level resolution. We finally outline future challenges that lie in a comprehensive understanding of how single cells coordinate across biological scales to insure robust development, homoeostasis and regeneration of tissues.

The following article aims to highlight the differences between a traditional or ‘information processing’ approach to skill acquisition and the ‘constraints-led approach’. The terms are defined then various aspects of each method are considered in the context of tennis coaching. Practical examples of using the constraints-led approach are then given.

The paper describes the method for increasing the level of self-organisation in students which has been developed by the author. It also contains the method testing results and presents the prospects and risks teachers could face while applying the method in a higher education institution. The purpose of this study is to find out the prospects and risks of applying the method for increasing the level of self-organisation in students and to determine the ways of reducing the risks. Methodology. The author points out the learning approaches which were the basis of developing the method and describes diagnostic methods for determining students’ self-organisation levels. The work focused on increasing each student’s initial level consists of a theoretical and a practical part and includes project activities on creating a study guide. The results of the study. The method developed proved to be effective. It was established by diagnosing the final level of self-organisation in students in the experimental and control groups. The paper considers the advantages of the method among which there is universal character, flexibility, improvements to teacher’s and students’ professional competence, etc. At the same time it is necessary to be aware of the risks due to the increased amount of teacher’s work and the fact that students’ work within the project tends to be monotonous. In conclusion, the prospects of the method for increasing the level of self-organisation in students are related to its advantages and the final results of the work. The risks of its use can be reduced with the help of the measures proposed in the paper.

Self-organisation in environmental service delivery is increasingly being promoted as an alternative to centralised service delivery. This article argues that self-organised environmental service delivery must be understood in the context of legal rules, especially environmental legislation. The article’s aim is twofold: first, to understand the changing relationship between the government and citizens in self-organised service delivery, and second, to explore how self-organised environmental service delivery complies with environmental quality requirements stipulated in legislation. The empirical study focuses on wastewater management in Oosterwold, the largest Dutch urban development that experimented with self-organisation. The results show that while individual wastewater management was prioritised and implemented at scale, the applicable legal rules were not adequately considered and integrated. Consequently, the experiment led to a deterioration of water quality. The article concludes that the success or failure of self-organisation in delivering environmental services such as wastewater management critically hinges on ensuring compliance with environmental legislation.

The experiment was conducted by the radical collapse of thick-walled cylinders. Optical microscopic examination showed that sample (γ˙ = 7.3 × 104 s−1, eef = 0.45) failed to produce adiabat...

The period from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s in the Soviet Union was known as the “Thaw,” a political era that fostered hopes of restoring the rule of law and democracy to the country. In that period cybernetics came to symbolize both scientific progress and social change. The Soviet intelligentsia had survived the hardship of Stalinist repression and now regarded the new discipline, which brought together the natural sciences and the human sciences, as a pathway to building a freer and more equal society. After decades of domination by Pavlovian doctrine, a paradigm shift was under way in physiology and psychology. Cybernetics reinforced the new paradigm, which put forward ideas of purposive behavior and self-organization in living and non-living systems. The conditioned reflex and a simplistic one-to-one view of connections in the nervous system gave way to more sophisticated and complex models, which could be formalized mathematically. Previous models of control in living organisms were mostly hierarchical and included top-down control of peripheral movement by the motor centers. The new models supplemented this picture with feedback commands from the periphery to the center. By the time cybernetics had made its appearance in the Soviet Union, new models of control had already been formulated in physiology by Nikolay Bernstein (1896– 1966). He termed the feedback from afferent signals “sensorial corrections,” meaning that they play an important part in adapting central control to the changing situation at the periphery of movement. The new paradigm emphasized horizontal connections over vertical ones, and new models took hold based on less “totalitarian” and more “democratic” principles, such as the idea of automatic or autonomous functioning of intermediate centers, the mathematical concept of well-organized functions, the theory of “the collective behavior of automata,” etc. This line of research was carried out in the USSR as well as abroad by Bernstein’s students and followers who formed the Moscow School of Motor Control. The author argues that this preference for less hierarchical models was one expression of the Thaw’s trend toward liberalization of life within the USSR and greater involvement in international politics.

Encountering cities as complex systems has been pictured as both an intellectual challenge and an urge to reconceptualise planning practices accordingly. Statutory planning in Finland, like in many other European countries, is built on the principles of hierarchical three-level zoning and area reservation codes. The zoning system reflects two historical tasks: the industrialising society’s need to separate uses and the post-war desire for hierarchical administrative structures. Both these demands are rapidly losing their importance. The article focuses on current urban planning practices and planning rules, discussing their limitations to cope with urban complexity and self-organised dynamics, and aiming to develop new rules that could potentially turn complexity into an asset. Evolving digital technologies provide completely new opportunities for developing urban planning into a more transparent and interactive tool. In this framework, we set out to study the development potentials of planning rules in Finland, where the drafting of a new Land Use and Building Act is currently underway calling for a reassessment of the operative role of the planning system.

Human muscle is a hierarchically organised tissue with its contractile cells called myofibers packed into large myofiber bundles. Each myofiber contains periodic myofibrils built by hundreds of contractile sarcomeres that generate large mechanical forces. To better understand the mechanisms that coordinate human muscle morphogenesis from tissue to molecular scales, we adopted a simple in vitro system using induced pluripotent stem cell-derived human myogenic precursors. When grown on an unrestricted two-dimensional substrate, developing myofibers spontaneously align and self-organise into higher-order myofiber bundles, which grow and consolidate to stable sizes. Following a transcriptional boost of sarcomeric components, myofibrils assemble into chains of periodic sarcomeres that emerge across the entire myofiber. By directly probing tension we found that tension build-up precedes sarcomere assembly and increases within each assembling myofibril. Furthermore, we found that myofiber ends stably attach to other myofibers using integrin-based attachments and thus myofiber bundling coincides with stable myofiber bundle attachment in vitro. A failure in stable myofiber attachment results in a collapse of the myofibrils. Overall, our results strongly suggest that mechanical tension across sarcomeric components as well as between differentiating myofibers is key to coordinate the multi-scale self-organisation of muscle morphogenesis.

Depuis quelque temps, au moins sur le papier, un certain nombre d’entreprises revendiquent une nouvelle manière de fonctionner, de s’organiser, de manager les individus, de prendre les décisions : plus d’horizontalité, de démocratie, d’initiatives laissées aux personnels, la prise en considération de leur bien-être… On les rassemble sous le vocable d’entreprises libérées… Mais, de quoi sont-elles le nom ? N’existe-t-il pas un écart entre les discours, les intentions affichées (vers l’émancipation des travailleurs) et les réalisations concrètes ? Est-ce un nouvel avatar de l’entreprise capitaliste post-taylorienne, une adaptation à la marge par rapport à un nouveau contexte, à de nouvelles aspirations de la part des travailleurs ou une véritable innovation managériale, un changement de paradigme figurant l’entreprise de demain ? Les entreprises libérées tiennent-elles leurs promesses, ne sont-elles pas des organisations en trompe-l’oeil ? C’est autour de ces questions que nos trois débatteurs ont discuté. A number of so-called « liberated » companies claim for some time now that they have discovered a new way of operating, organising themselves, managing people and making decisions – a modus operandi characterised by greater horizontality, democracy and support for initiatives launched by staff members whose own well-being has supposedly also become more of a priority. Questions remain, however, as to the validity of such claims, specifically whether the rhetorical aspiration of worker emancipation reflects the actual outcomes ; whether the companies in question are anything other than a new avatar of post-Taylorist capitalism ; if the adaptation they incarnate are at best peripheral ; if they respond to new worker aspirations or embody actual managerial innovation ; and if this paradigm shift accurately represents the future of companies – in short, whether liberated companies keep their promises or are shams. The present paper speaks to all these debates. Desde hace algún tiempo, por lo menos en papel, cierto número de empresas reivindican una nueva manera de funcionar, de organizarse, de dirigir a los individuos, de tomar decisiones : más horizontalidad, democracia, iniciativas que se dejan al personal, importancia de su bienestar… Se les agrupa con el nombre de empresas liberadas… Sin embargo, ¿qué significan ? ¿No existe una distancia entre los discursos, las intenciones mostradas (hacia la emancipación de los trabajadores) y los logros concretos ? ¿Es un nuevo avatar de la empresa capitalista postayloriana, una adaptación al margen respecto a un nuevo contexto, a nuevas aspiraciones de parte de los trabajadores o una verdadera innovación gerencial, un cambio de paradigma que representa la empresa de mañana ? ¿Las empresas liberadas mantienen sus promesas, no son organizaciones engañosas ? Sobre estas cuestiones debatieron nuestros tres panelistas.

To succeed in academia requires excellent professional skills and also effective self-organisation that integrates research, teaching, and administration into a balanced life. This book offers adapted tools for time management and explains scholarly project management, stress prevention, and life planning. Its practical questions and exercises lead to a personalised approach to the challenges of an academic career.

During cardiac arrhythmias, dynamical patterns of electrical activation form and evolve, which are of interest to understand and cure heart rhythm disorders. The analysis of these patterns is commonly performed by calculating the local activation phase and searching for phase singularities (PSs), i.e. points around which all phases are present. Here we propose an alternative framework, which focuses on phase defect lines (PDLs) and surfaces (PDSs) as more general mechanisms, which include PSs as a specific case. The proposed framework enables two conceptual unifications: between the local activation time and phase description, and between conduction block lines and the central regions of linear-core rotors. A simple PDL detection method is proposed and applied to data from simulations and optical mapping experiments. Our analysis of ventricular tachycardia in rabbit hearts $(n=6)$ shows that nearly all detected PSs were found on PDLs, but the PDLs had a significantly longer lifespan than the detected PSs. Since the proposed framework revisits basic building blocks of cardiac activation patterns, it can become a useful tool for further theory development and experimental analysis., Comment: second version, modified according to reviewer comments

Background While research demonstrates that somatisation is highly correlated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the relationship between International Classification of Diseases 11th edition (ICD-11) PTSD, complex PTSD (CPTSD) and somatisation has not previously been determined. Objective To determine the relationship between frequency and severity of somatisation and ICD-11 PTSD/CPTSD. Method This cross-sectional study included 222 individuals recruited to the National Centre for Mental Health (NCMH) PTSD cohort. We assessed rates of Patient Health Questionnaire 15 (PHQ-15) somatisation stratified by ICD-11 PTSD/CPTSD status. Path analysis was used to explore the relationship between PTSD/CPTSD and somatisation, including number of traumatic events, age, and gender as controls. Results 70% (58/83) of individuals with CPTSD had high PHQ-15 somatisation symptom severity compared with 48% (12/25) of those with PTSD (chi-square: 95.1, p value, Highlights • People with CPTSD had a higher prevalence of co-morbid somatisation. • People with CPTSD had a worse somatisation symptom severity. • The core features of PTSD predicted somatisation.

Micropatterning encompasses a set of methods aimed at precisely controlling the spatial distribution of molecules onto the surface of materials. Biologists have borrowed the idea and adapted these methods, originally developed for electronics, to impose physical constraints on biological systems with the aim of addressing fundamental questions across biological scales from molecules to multicellular systems. Here, I approach this topic from a developmental biologist's perspective focusing specifically on how and why micropatterning has gained in popularity within the developmental biology community in recent years. Overall, this Primer provides a concise overview of how micropatterns are used to study developmental processes and emphasises how micropatterns are a useful addition to the developmental biologist’s toolbox., Summary: This Primer introduces micropatterning as a tool to study development and discusses what we have learnt so far with this technique.

The article deals with the results of the study focused on the pattern of the distribution of heat flows in the cutting wedge of a carbide tool during the turning of steel. The influence of the wear-resistant TiN, (TiAlCr)N, and (AlTiCr)N coatings on the thermal state of the tool has been investigated. The results of the mathematical modeling have been compared with the data obtained by a method that relates the temperature in the cutting wedge of the tool to the changes in the microstructure and hardness of the material (the Wright and Trent methods). The experimental studies of tool life of the tools with the coatings under study and uncoated tools were carried out during the turning of AISI 5135 steel. It has been found that a tool with the (AlTiCr)N coating has the longest tool life which may be associated with a rational distribution of heat flows in the cutting zone and the cutting wedge of the tool. The use of self-organising wear-resistant coatings reduces the level of temperatures in the cutting zone by 8-20%.

In order to find conditions for biologically plausible, cognitive self-organisation, an adequate representation of the final stage of this process is crucial. The implications of this assumption are analysed for the area of visual-word processing, in particular for position-specific top-down processes from a word – to a letter representation. These processes pose a problem to reviewed models of word reading and computational models in general. A solution in the form of a conceptual network is proposed. In this general model for cognitive brain processes, neural binding of identity and location and of identity and position play a fundamental role: temporary connections emerge during word recognition and are reactivated later, when a letter at given position has to be identified. It is shown how modules active in word recognition are “re-used” in letter identification. In simulations, the role of a critical threshold of cell-assemblies is shown and the selective propagation of activation loops at task-dependent time scales. Requirements for prospective studies on cognitive self-organisation and relations with new empirical work on visual-word processing are discussed.

We propose a computational workflow (I3) for intuitive integrative interpretation of complex genetic data mainly building on the self-organising principle. We illustrate the use in interpreting genetics of gene expression and understanding genetic regulators of protein phenotypes, particularly in conjunction with information from human population genetics and/or evolutionary history of human genes. We reveal that loss-of-function intolerant genes tend to be depleted of tissue-sharing genetics of gene expression in brains, and if highly expressed, have broad effects on the protein phenotypes studied. We suggest that this workflow presents a general solution to the challenge of complex genetic data interpretation. I3 is available at http://suprahex.r-forge.r-project.org/I3.html. Keywords: Self-organising, Human genetics, Interpretation, Evolution, Machine learning

Optimality of the premise, IF part is critical to a zero-order evolving intelligent system (EIS) because this part determines the validity of the learning results and overall system performance. Nonetheless, a systematic analysis of optimality has not been done yet in the state-of-the-art works. In this paper, we use the recently introduced self-organising neuro-fuzzy inference system (SONFIS) as an example of typical zero-order EISs and analyse the local optimality of its solutions. The optimality problem is firstly formulated in a mathematical form, and detailed optimality analysis is conducted. The conclusion is that SONFIS does not generate a locally optimal solution in its original form. Then, an optimisation method is proposed for SONFIS, which helps the system to attain local optimality in a few iterations using historical data. Numerical examples presented in this paper demonstrate the validity of the optimality analysis and the effectiveness of the proposed optimisation method. In addition, it is further verified numerically that the proposed concept and general principles can be applied to other types of zero-order EISs with similar operating mechanisms.

The nonlinear dynamics of self-organising bubble departures from twin nozzles in engine oils was analysed. Air bubbles were generated from twin brass nozzles with an inner diameter equal to 1 mm. The flow of bubbles in bubble chains was recorded using high-speed camera. The time series of air pressure oscillations and signal from laser–phototransistor identifying the presence of bubbles over the nozzles outlet were recorded simultaneously. The self-organising bubble departures were observed and their stability was analysed. It was found that self-organising bubble departures become unstable because of successive (during subsequent bubble departures) decrease of the mean air pressure in one of the nozzle air supply system. It was shown that instability of self-organising bubble departures leads to equalization of pressures in both nozzles air supply systems which causes that simultaneous bubble departures appear. In the present experiment, this process was repeated in a cyclic and chaotic way. It was shown that stable self-organising bubble departures are accompanied by periodic air pressure oscillations in one of the nozzles and chaotic air pressure oscillations in the second one.

Jane Jacobs suggested that ‘just and diverse streets’ reflect the functioning of the city as ‘a problem of organised complexity’. The topic has recently been at the centre of the debate on her work. This paper looks at Jane Jacobs's reconstruction of the way a city works with reference to self-organisation and ethical aspects (trust and respect for diversity). The paper uses ‘Street-Level epistemology’ (SLe), which is a theory on the knowledge of ordinary people, in order to examine different ways to approach contemporary complex urban systems, resulting from myriads of self-organised practices and ‘vital little plans’. The paper employs Jacobs's early works on cities, in particular, a chapter in her book titled ‘Downtown Is for People’, to outline a proper Jacobsian Street-Level approach (SLa) substantiated by an ethical-cognitive component. This SLa is associated with the Complexity Theory of Cities (CTC), to improve the understanding of how complex, non-linear, discontinuous, and contingent urban systems work while constantly progressing and transforming. The paper draws on Jacobs's legacy and advocates progress through specific advancements in the debate around theoretical planning within CTC that describes the city as an emerging complex order.

Self-organization is central to the morphogenesis of multicellular organisms. However, the molecular platform that coordinates the robust emergence of complex morphological patterns from local interactions between cells remains unresolved. Here we demonstrate that neural self- organization is driven by coupled cycling of progenitor cells. In a coupled cycling mode, intercellular contacts relay extrinsic cues to override the intrinsic cycling rhythm of an individual cell and synchronize the population. The stringency of coupling and hence the synchronicity of the population is programmed by recruitment of a key coupler, β-catenin, into junctional complexes. As such, multicellular self-organization is driven by the same basic mathematical principle that governs synchronized behavior of macro-scale biological systems as diverse as the synchronized chirping of crickets, flashing of fireflies and schooling of fish; that is synchronization by coupling. It is proposed that coupled cycling foreshadows a fundamental adaptive change that facilitated evolution and diversification of multicellular life forms.

Fixed-time control and vehicle-actuated control are two distinct types of traffic signal control. The latter control method involves switching traffic signals based on detected traffic flows and thus offers more flexibility (appropriate for lighter traffic conditions) than the former, which relies solely on cyclic, predetermined signal phases that are better suited for heavier traffic conditions. The notion of self-organisation has relatively recently been proposed as an alternative approach towards improving traffic signal control, particularly under light traffic conditions, due to its flexible nature and its potential to result in emergent behaviour. The effectiveness of five existing self-organising traffic signal control strategies from the literature and a fixed-control strategy are compared in this paper within a newly designed agent-based, microscopic traffic simulation model. Various shortcomings of three of these algorithms are identified and algorithmic improvements are suggested to remedy these deficiencies. The relative performance improvements resulting from these algorithmic modifications are then quantified by their implementation in the aforementioned traffic simulation model. Finally, a new self-organising algorithm is proposed that is particularly effective under lighter traffic conditions.

This article explores the presence of noise in processes of communication and organisation in social movements. While the concept of noise has always had a role in discussions of communication, it is in light of the influence and use of social media that it comes to the fore as crucial in terms of how we understand communication. Rather than being a factor that interferes with effective communication, we will argue that noise is in fact inseparable from the experience of receiving information and organising through social media. Furthermore, the emergence of different ‘nuances’ of noise tells us something about different dynamics of self-organisation via social media. This article analyses the online forms of organisation of the 15M movement and the experiences of Dutch radical left activists to inform a better appreciation of the radical potential of a certain variant of noise: pink noise.