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.

Computational ecology: from the complex to the simple and back.

Abstract: In 1958, when ecology was a young science and mathematical models for ecological systems were in their infancy, Elton [1] wrote of the “neolithic days of animal ecology, that is to say about twenty-five years ago.” Acknowledging the influence of Lotka and Volterra, he noted, “Being mathematicians, they did not attempt to contemplate a whole food-chain with all the complications of five stages. They took two: a predator and its prey.” Today, in the era of computational ecological modeling, deterministic systems for two variables—and even a whole food chain—appear like simple idealizations well removed from the complexity of nature. We now consider predator–prey interactions as “consumer–resource” interactions embedded within the large ecological networks that underlie biodiversity (Figure 1) [2]. Consequently, the scale of the problems we model has grown to reflect the world as we now need to observe it. For example, the interplay between ecosystem dynamics and the physical environment that influences global change occurs over a tremendous range of spatial and organizational scales (e.g., [3]). Similarly, the population dynamics of the transmission of infectious diseases often involve spatial or social networks with large numbers of individuals, but the interactions of each individual involve only a subset of the network and can span from local to global distances (e.g., [4–6]). Figure 1 The Network of Trophic Interactions for Little Rock Lake, Wisconsin These examples illustrate the current view of ecological systems as complex adaptive systems [7,8]. Complex adaptive systems are distinguished not only by the multiplicity of components within them, but also by interactions that can be local or distributed among these components and whose rates vary as nonlinear functions of the state of the system itself. One obvious role of computation in the science of complex systems is simply one of synthesis: to reconstruct the whole from the parts as we learn more and more about the components and their interactions. There are obvious limitations to this approach, evident in the famous image of those imperial cartographers who produced a map of the empire of the same size as the empire itself [9]. I argue here that an alternative and more useful role of computation is to address questions on the relationship between dynamics at different temporal, spatial, and organizational scales, that is, to address the importance of variability at small, local scales to the dynamics of aggregated quantities measured at large, global scales. If small-scale “details” matter, we need to ask how much complexity we need to incorporate into large-scale models if we seek to both understand and predict the dynamics of global quantities. Is it possible to incorporate the effect of small-scale variability without resorting to the “brute force” approach of using higher and higher resolution? I start with examples from theoretical ecology that illustrate problems and approaches related to these scaling questions; I then present more specific examples related to global change and ecosystem dynamics, and end with a series of related problems on the dynamics of large food webs, the ultimate networks of ecological interactions.

Modeling high-resolution broadband discourse in complex adaptive systems.

Abstract: Numerous researchers and practitioners have turned to complexity science to better understand human systems. Simulation can be used to observe how the microlevel actions of many human agents create emergent structures and novel behavior in complex adaptive systems. In such simulations, communication between human agents is often modeled simply as message passing, where a message or text may transfer data, trigger action, or inform context. Human communication involves more than the transmission of texts and messages, however. Such a perspective is likely to limit the effectiveness and insight that we can gain from simulations, and complexity science itself. In this paper, we propose a model of how close analysis of discursive processes between individuals (high-resolution), which occur simultaneously across a human system (broadband), dynamically evolve. We propose six different processes that describe how evolutionary variation can occur in texts-recontextualization, pruning, chunking, merging, appropriation, and mutation. These process models can facilitate the simulation of high-resolution, broadband discourse processes, and can aid in the analysis of data from such processes. Examples are used to illustrate each process. We make the tentative suggestion that discourse may evolve to the "edge of chaos." We conclude with a discussion concerning how high-resolution, broadband discourse data could actually be collected.

Organizational Survival in the New World

Abstract: In this book David and Alex Bennet propose a new model for organizations that enables them to react more quickly and fluidly to today's fast-changing, dynamic business environment: the Intelligent Complex Adaptive System (ICAS) ICAS is a new organic model of the firm based on recent research in complexity and neuroscience, and incorporating networking theory and knowledge management, and turns the living system metaphor into a reality for organizations This book synthesizes new thinking about organizational structure from the fields listed above into ICAS, a new systems model for the successful organization of the future designed to help leaders and managers of knowledge organizations succeed in a non-linear, complex, fast-changing and turbulent environment Technology enables connectivity, and the ICAS model takes advantage of that connectivity by fostering the development of dynamic, effective and trusting relationships in a new organizational structure This book outlines the model in chapter four, and then breaks down the model into its components in the next two chapters This is a benefit to readers since different components of the model can be implemented at different times, so the book can guide implementation of one or all of the components as a manager sees fit There are eight characteristics of the ICAS: organizational intelligence, unity and shared purpose, optimum complexity, selectivity, knowledge centricity, flow, permeable boundaries, and multi-dimensionality

A mechanism for pockets of predictability in complex adaptive systems

Abstract: We document a mechanism operating in complex adaptive systems leading to dynamical pockets of predictability ("prediction days"), in which agents collectively take predetermined courses of action, transiently decoupled from past history. We demonstrate and test it out of sample on synthetic minority and majority games as well as on real financial time series. The surprising large frequency of these prediction days implies a collective organization of agents and of their strategies which condense into transitional herding regimes.