Gill Eapen's Blog, page 69

Evolutionary accident

Recent research from the Marine Biological Laboratory and the University of Chicago (1) find similar signaling centers in the acorn worm that compare favorably to those influencing brain development in vertebrates. The assumption that brain development is unambiguously favored by selection may have to be challenged. The brain has been a highly inefficient organ in vertebrates as it consumes a disproportionate amount of available energy. In the presence of a simple objective function to maximize – such as the probability of reproduction – it is unclear that brain development is a positively influencing factor.

Empirical findings based on local considerations such as chimps and humans, may have led to the wrong conclusion on the utility of the brain. It is conceivable that brain development is an evolutionary accident – something recent vertebrates share with worms. To fully understand the evolutionary implications of brain development, one has to sketch out system wide effects of it. The concept of the brain in the evolutionary schema had to do with involuntary management – i.e. taking care of the systems that are absolutely necessary for the general up keeping. Somewhere along the evolutionary cycle, excess and unnecessary capacity was added to the organ, with potentially disastrous effects in the long run.

The brain, the pride and joy of humans, may be the result of an evolutionary accident.

(1) An evolutionary surprise, Published: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 - 15:35 in Biology & Nature. Source: Marine Biological Laboratory

The precarious existence

The recently observed X class flare from the Sun (1), reinforces the precarious existence of the blue planet, whose inhabitants are dumb enough not to think about it. Two massive coronal mass injections passed through the Earth as painlessly as X' Rays, while most are engaged in finding tomorrow's meals and the rest accumulating fame and wealth. Some are busy building nuclear weapons or making plans to destroy the factory. Some are busy supporting or blaming class war fare – some are in the 99% and the rest unknown. Some are making plans to colonize the Moon and yet others dreaming to travel to  Mars. The more imaginative have been listening behind radio ears for extra-terrestrial life while those less so, making plans to travel in interstellar space, looking for it. Some are building taller skyscrapers and yet others ever larger atom smashers. Some want to stop contraception and yet others want to free themselves of responsibilities of bringing up the next generation.

Day and night, some fight to save and build businesses and yet others in academics count the papers yet to be published. Some toil in factories making nuts and bolts and yet others live in penthouses moving paper and noise. As the sun rises in the East, stock-markets open one by one keeping those who trade back and forth, engaged round the clock – with little time to find out if they made money. Some travel across the world looking for oil and gold and yet others stand in line to pump gas in their automobiles. Politicians take the center stage of shouting matches and delegate counting in a finely crafted virtual chess game while the opponents wait in the shadows, making sudden policy reversals. Some print money, some count it, some hoard it and yet others consume it – borrowing from yet to be defined future.

It is a most engaging comedy – unlikely to be disturbed by any advanced civilization – in-spite of the phone calls that are being made to them.

(1) NASA sees second biggest flare of the solar cycle. Published: Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - 21:32 in Astronomy & Space

Unpredictable analytics

Recent research from MIT (1) focusing on optimization of path planning for automated underwater vehicles demonstrates that complex engineering problems are solved a lot faster than similar issues in other areas. This is because engineers have been dealing with complex problems in prediction, estimation, control and optimization for many decades. This knowledge, however, has not transferred to more mundane problems in business. For example, in the hottest area of predictive analytics, practicality has taken a back-seat with a focus on complex mathematical techniques at one end and data aggregation and reporting on another.

Better solutions to complex problems use data as an aid and not as a controlling factor. For engineers, the goals are better defined and hence the processes are less cluttered. Those in business, who do not spend sufficient effort to fully define the goals, often get lost in data and lately, the analysis of that data. With hardware vendors peddling faster computers and bigger storage bins, the push has always been on the quantity and not on quality. Equally important are the large software houses and consulting companies focusing on delivering complex closed systems to enterprises, on the hope that such implementations will result in revenue streams to perpetuity.  Both of these effects have resulted in many dead ends and blind alleys for businesses.

Data and analysis are unlikely to improve businesses unless they are able to robustly connect analytics with business value. Without practical approaches to real problem solving, technology and analysis bring little value to businesses.

(1) MIT research: Sometimes the quickest path is not a straight line.Published: Thursday, March 8, 2012 - 14:37 in Mathematics & Economics

Viral block

A recent study (1) has raised some questions on status-quo marketing campaigns, largely based on old ideas. In a world of increasing diversity in channels of communications, standardized practices of creating content once and replicating that across multiple segments and channels are unlikely to succeed. Business schools and old school marketing and advertising agencies have been lost in time as they continue on well trodden paths with limited success.

For starters, information content matters more in today's world than before and how different people understand and respond to content differ. Additionally, both the effect and understandability of content change with time as they are impacted by information from other avenues. So, any campaign that creates stagnant content and spreads that without consideration for diversity in space and time, will fail.The ability of an idea to go viral, thus, substantially depends on the ability to communicate customized and timely information. Size does not matter, in this context, and scope and relevance do.

It also appears that the internet behemoths have conditioned businesses to think about virality as a binary outcome. This is a favorable situation for those companies deriving significant revenue from advertising scale. By educating their customers that size matters, they have become highly successful companies. But such success may be short lived as more businesses begin to realize that throwing money at the problem is not the best way.

It is time to think differently. The first step may be to realize that companies are dealing with more sophisticated consumers, who do not buy products only because companies flood every channel with irrelevant information about their own products.

(1) Share and share alike. Published: Thursday, March 8, 2012 - 17:36 in Mathematics & Economics. Source: Inderscience Publishers

Cumulative culture

A recent article (1) describes an experiment in which sequential problem solving was demonstrated in capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees. The result showed that the children were ultimately able to solve a three stage problem, providing evidence for the accumulation of knowledge over time. The authors argue that it also is happening in humans and cumulative culture moves us forward. This is interesting but there are multiple considerations. The most important one is tangible and clear incentives to solving the problem at hand and the other is unambiguous positive results from effecting a solution. Both of these are needed to assure that it is knowledge that accumulates over time and not noise. In the present experiment, both of these conditions were satisfied. However, in the case of humans, there is ample scope for strategic hoarding of knowledge and/or unintended noise accumulation where cultural incentives are misaligned and/or the net effects of information accumulation is not clear.

For example, in nearly human clans, leaders had to trade-off the need to transfer knowledge to her subordinates with the possibility of tactical loss of power after such a transfer. Accordingly, those in power, held secrets and knowledge back. For example, the clan leader may not have divulged the information on the favorable route to the best local water hole, till close to her death – disallowing cumulative culture. Such local and strategic optimization have held humans back and the trend has been consistent across history – including what happens in large companies today (2). The advent of language, writing, printing and the internet have ameliorated these issues lately.

Another consideration is accumulation of misinformation or noise in situations when the problem being solved has ambiguous end results. For example, the herd effect that humans are vulnerable to take them to many dead ends very quickly as can be clearly seen in finance (stock market trading), science (confirmation bias) and religion (incrementalism). Noise accumulation is a significant problem in a world of increasing complexity with misaligned incentives, localized optimization and evolving problem sets with fuzzy results.



(1) Science, 2 March 2012: Vol. 335 no. 6072 pp. 1114-1118 DOI: 10.1126/science.1213969. Identification of the Social and Cognitive Processes Underlying Human Cumulative Culture. L. G. Dean1, R. L. Kendal2,*, S. J. Schapiro3, B. Thierry4, K. N. Laland1,*



(2) Flexible companies for the uncertain world: http://decisionoptions.info/DoBook/Publications.aspx

Exercise - not just the body

A recent finding (1) that the accumulation of the HDAC2 protein is an early precursor to the onset of Alzheimer's has offered renewed hope for gene therapy and hardware modifications for slowing down the progression of this terrible disease. This certainly helps and vaccines targeting this general mechanism are already in clinical trials.

It is also interesting to investigate software aspects of the disease that may complement hard therapies. It has been shown that brain diversity due to the use of the organ in many different and unrelated activities provide redundant connections that may ameliorate the effects of the disease. Professionals adept at a singular profession – such as engineering, medicine and law – have shown a higher proclivity to the disease supporting the hypothesis that specialization has a negative effect on brain flexibility. On the other hand, the same cohort who expresses interests in orthogonal areas such as art and music, seem to do better. If these findings are robust, then, they have implications for both education and societal designs. Whether humans want it or not, they are living longer and traditional designs have them "retire," and generally shut down their brains or at the very least become less mentally active. It is possible that the idea of retirement – a remnant of industrial revolution, has an impact on the frequency of the disease seen in modern populations.

Early in human history – age was positively correlated with mental activity – with the elders engaging in story telling and management. In the modern society, this has been reversed, with the older generation expending less of their brain power. This is problematic and the design that led us here is inefficient. It not only leads to disease but also destroys valuable information. It is time to think differently. The brain, that consumes over a quarter of the available energy is designed to be active continuously. Better designs are needed to fully deploy every available brain cell around the world.

 

 

 

 

 

(1) Blockade of learning and memory genes may occur early in Alzheimer's disease. Source: NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Policy persistence

Recent announcement by India (1) to hike R&D expenditures significantly is a welcome change. Even though, the amounts pledged are too little to make any difference, the move toward understanding that growth of an economy is fundamentally driven by innovation and not artificially controlled currency advantages and strategic regulations, will help in the long run. Equally important is policy persistence – India has shown high proclivity to dramatically reversing policies every five years. Politicians have held the country back for over half a century by short sighted and uncertain policy regimes. Independent boards with long tenures and the right incentives are imperative to move forward.

Enriching science education may not be enough. India's elite always had access to excellent education. What has been lacking is an environment that is stable and one that welcomes investments without bureaucracy. Science has to progress toward innovation and then application to transform the economics of the country. Every policy change accompanied by a significant allocation in resources always resulted in waste and in many cases fraud. And, as usual, bureaucracy may eliminate the participation of the high achievers. It is unclear if it will be any different this time around. 

To assure the country progresses to its potential, policy makers have to focus on a consistent and persistent policy toward science and innovation. They have to also assure that the implementation of such policies are efficient.

(1) Science 24 February 2012: Vol. 335 no. 6071 pp. 904-910
DOI: 10.1126/science.335.6071.904 Science in India, India Rising Richard Stone*

Automated injections

A recent successful trial for a wirelessly controlled drug delivery microchip finally ushers in an era that has been anticipated for over a decade. Traditionally led life sciences companies have been resisting customized medicine and customized dosing regimes, for unknown reasons. Water has to flow downhill, however, and it is inevitable that medicine will progress toward treating each human specimen as different with differing needs and requirements. Technology to do so has been available for many years but the intent to move in this direction has been lacking.

It has arrived, but not without fundamental concerns. If humanity reaches a stage in which every new-born will get a custom implant within the first hour of birth, with sufficient knowledge to counteract genetically known weaknesses, we can substantially reduce healthcare costs. But in the present context, is such a person, really human? For most of the history of humans, disease has been as fundamental to them as food and water. They battled hunger and disease together and in many respects these battles made them human. They understood animals and the environment as their own pain and tribulations helped them see a broader universe. One has to wonder if a newly minted human with a microchip to protect her from all known disease states, will have a different perspective on her world and the environment that surrounds her.

Technology has to advance. If Philosophy does not keep pace, we will ultimately turn ourselves into robots of infinite life and zero emotions.

(1) DRUG DELIVERY : First-in-Human Testing of a Wirelessly Controlled Drug Delivery Microchip, Published in Science Translational Medicine Rapid Publication on February 16 2012, Sci Transl Med 22 February 2012:
Vol. 4, Issue 122, p. 122ra21, Sci. Transl. Med. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3003276

Robert Farra1,*, Norman F. Sheppard Jr., Laura McCabe, Robert M. Neer,
James M. Anderson,John T. Santini Jr., Michael J. Cima and
Robert Langer

Frozen in time

An analysis of a social aggregator (1) shows that those with an engineering degree are more likely to lead technology companies than MBAs. This further illustrates the declining content of the business education – a process that started when the needs of organizations were significantly different from today. When manufacturing and commodity industries were dominating production, the skills and techniques needed to manage them were different (2). Most of the MBA education content, however, have not changed for over two decades, a period that showed a significant shift from those dealing with commodities to those creating intellectual property.

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(1) http://blog.identified.com/2012/01/new-identified-research-reveals-engineers-far-more-likely-than-mbas-to-build-and-run-companies.html

Most of the business schools today continue to teach techniques for managing companies that produce nuts, bolts and automobiles. They focus on accounting that deals with tactical profits and reporting. They teach Discounted Cash Flow analysis based on precise forecasts of the future – how much more cash will accrue if they buy another machine and scale up the production of nuts and bolts. They impart marketing ideas – how to segment consumers and price products based on status-quo assumptions. They instill operations research principles to optimize production and supply chains. They inculcate corporate finance ideas of capital structure and dividend policies. However, they fail to ask if any of these have any relevance for today's businesses.

Contemporary business education has lost touch with today's needs. If they continue in the current path, they will go the way of magic and sorcery.

(2) Flexibility : Flexible Companies for the Uncertain World http://decisionoptions.info/DoBook/Publications.aspx

Knowledge multiplication

Recent news (1) that physicists have been successful in conceiving a working transistor from a single phosphorous atom move us closer to a technology step function change, higher than the computer itself. Last few decades have been devoid of fundamental changes – both in theory and practice - and this is clearly reflected in the declining economics of the present generation. However, if computing can be fundamentally rewritten, not just in incrementally doubling speed in every 18 months, but rather redefining what it is all about, it may finally draw the curtains on the dark ages of technology incrementalism.

It is not the speed of computing that has held humans back from the next generation insights – it has been computing itself. Computers have exposed an inherent human weakness of attempting to make things bigger and faster so that they can conduct status-quo at higher scale and speed. Not many ask if running faster on bigger tracks is better if the destination is not any different. This is because most of the contemporary accomplishments focus on the process and not on the results. This is to be expected as the last 50 years have been the golden era of engineering and medicine – with an equal proclivity to think process and not fundamental leaps.

This may be changing. The time has come to leave the comfort of determinism and move boldly into a regime, in which knowledge – not the speed of computers – multiplies every 18 months. Without that, we are still progressive ants, who build better sand structures every year and find ways to keep themselves running a few days more.

Physicists Create a Working Transistor From a Single Atom By JOHN MARKOFF Published: February 19, 2012, NY Times