We demonstrate the existence of a phase transition in combinatorial optimization problems. For many of these problems, as local search algorithms are parallelized, the quality of solutions first improves and then sharply degrades to no better than random search. This transition can be...

A new approach to drug discovery is based on the generation of high diversity libraries of DNA, RNA, peptides or small molecules. Search of such libraries for useful molecules is an optimization problem of high-dimensional molecular fitness landscapes. We utilize a spin-glass-like model, the NK...

The most general aim of "Investigations" is to explore whether there might, conceivably, be some general laws governing a certain class of non-equilibrium systems - namely the class of coevolutionary self-constructing communities of autonomous agents. The first lecture discusses the general...

The Utilization of high diversity molecular libraries for dtug discovery in now becoming a cnetrally important and developing set of technologies, (Balliver and Kauffman 1986, 1989,1990, Geysen et. al 1987). Om he pase decade, efforts focused on two approaches: The first is ``genetic'' and based...

We argue that in classical and quantum theories of gravity the configuration space and Hilbert space may not be constructible through any finite procedure. If this is the case, then the ``problem of time'' in quantum cosmology may be a pseudo-problem, because the argument that time disappears...

The theory of autocatalytic binary ligation is reviewed within the context of a rigorously applied Michaelis-Menten quasi-steady-state approximation to obtain explicit analytical results describing time-course data from experiments. A detailed protocol for the step-wise elucidation of a minimal...

Technological change at the firm level has commonly been modeled as random sampling from a fixed distribution o f possibilities. Such models, however, typically ignore empirically important aspects of the firm's search process, notably the observation that the present state of the firm guides...

Optimization of systems with many conflicting constraints arises in numerous settings. Common optimization procedures seek to improve performance of the system as a whole. We show that coevolutionary problem solving, in which a system is partitioned into subsystems each of which selfishly...