Dear colleagues,

I'm pleased to announce the availability of the following article,
which appears in the current issue of Complex Systems (14:4) :

De Jong, E.D. and L. Steels. A Distributed Learning Algorithm
for Communication Development.

Available from: http://www.cs.uu.nl/~dejong/index.html#devcom

Abstract:
We study the question of how a local learning algorithm, executed by
multiple distributed agents, can lead to a global system of
communication. First, the notion of a perfect communication system is
defined. Next, two measures of communication system quality are
specified. It is shown that maximization of these measures leads to
perfect communication production. Based on this principle, local
adaptation rules for communication development are constructed. The
resulting stochastic algorithm is validated in computational
experiments. Empirical analysis indicates that a mild degree of
stochasticity is instrumental in reaching states that correspond to
accurate communication.

An online appendix to the article, including a Matlab implementation
of the algorithm, can be found here:
http://www.cs.uu.nl/~dejong/devcom/devcom.html

Any comments welcome.

Best regards,

Edwin de Jong
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