Complex adaptive system

About: Complex adaptive system is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3190 publications have been published within this topic receiving 111947 citations. The topic is also known as: Complex adaptive system, CAS.

Navigating Complexities : Agent-Based Modeling to Support Research, Governance, and Management in Small-Scale Fisheries

Abstract: The sustainable governance and management of small-scale fisheries (SSF) is challenging, largely due to their dynamic and complex nature. Agent-based modeling (ABM) is a computational modeling approach that can account for the dynamism and complexity in SSF by modeling entities as individual agents with different characteristics and behavior, and simulate how their interactions can give rise to emergent phenomena, such as over-fishing and social inequalities. The structurally realistic design of agent-based models allow stakeholder, experts and scientists across disciplines and sectors to reconcile different knowledge bases, assumptions, and goals. ABMs can also be designed using any combination of theory, quantitative data, or qualitative data. In this publication we elaborate on the untapped potential of ABM to tackle governance and management challenges in SSF, discuss the limitations of ABM, and review its application in published SSF models. Our review shows that, although few models exist to date, ABM has been used for diverse purposes, including as a research tool for understanding cooperation and over-harvesting, and as a decision-support tool, or participatory tool, in case-specific fisheries. Even though the development of ABMs is often time- and resource intensive, it is the only dynamic modeling approach that can represent entities of different types, their heterogeneity, actions and interactions, thus doing justice to the complex and dynamic nature of SSF which, if ignored can lead to unintended policy outcomes and less sustainable SSF.

Implementing strategies in complex systems: lessons from Brazilian hospitals

Abstract: Hospitals, as social organizations, are seen as complex, surprising, ambiguous and paradoxical. The theoretical foundation finds its roots in organizational complexity, strategic management characterized by strategy implementation, and sensemaking especially in the context of complex adaptive systems. Managers frequently neglect elements of complexity when they develop models and implement management practices. The purpose of this study is to analyze the implementation of strategies in complex organizations. The focus of the study is two Brazilian nonprofit hospitals. This is a comparative, qualitative case study. Data were gathered from three main sources: interviews, non-participant observation, and documents. Two important aspects of the strategic approach are discussed: first, the implementation of strategies, and second, the influence of ambiguity, unpredictability and uncertainty in the way strategies are implemented. The analysis indicated that the implementation of strategies in the hospitals has to do with the practices and processes that are adopted (

Complex Adaptive Systems and the Origins of Adaptive Structure: What Experiments Can Tell Us

Abstract: Language is a product of both biological and cultural evolution. Clues to the origins of key structural properties of language can be found in the process of cultural transmission between learners. Recent experiments have shown that iterated learning by human participants in the laboratory transforms an initially unstructured artificial language into one containing regularities that make the system more learnable and stable over time. Here, we explore the process of iterated learning in more detail by demonstrating exactly how one type of structure-compositionality-emerges over the course of these experiments. We introduce a method to precisely quantify the increasing ability of a language to systematically encode associations between individual components of meanings and signals over time and we examine how the system as a whole evolves to avoid ambiguity in these associations and generate adaptive structure.