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.

Understanding complexity - the palliative care situation as a complex adaptive system.

Abstract: The concept of complexity is used in palliative care (PC) to describe the nature of patients’ situations and the extent of resulting needs and care demands. However, the term or concept is not clearly defined and operationalised with respect to its particular application in PC. As a complex problem, a care situation in PC is characterized by reciprocal, nonlinear relations and uncertainties. Dealing with complex problems necessitates problem-solving methods tailored to specific situations. The theory of complex adaptive systems (CAS) provides a framework for locating problems and solutions. This study aims to describe criteria contributing to complexity of PC situations from the professionals’ view and to develop a conceptual framework to improve understanding of the concept of “complexity” and related elements of a PC situation by locating the complex problem “PC situation” in a CAS. Qualitative interview study with 42 semi-structured expert (clinical/economical/political) interviews. Data was analysed using the framework method. The thematic framework was developed inductively. Categories were reviewed, subsumed and connected considering CAS theory. The CAS of a PC situation consists of three subsystems: patient, social system, and team. Agents in the "system patient" are allocated to further subsystems on patient level: physical, psycho-spiritual, and socio-cultural. The "social system" and the "system team" are composed of social agents, who affect the CAS as carriers of characteristics, roles, and relationships. Environmental factors interact with the care situation from outside the system. Agents within subsystems and subsystems themselves interact on all hierarchical system levels and shape the system behaviour of a PC situation. This paper provides a conceptual framework and comprehensive understanding of complexity in PC. The systemic view can help to understand and shape situations and dynamics of individual care situations; on higher hierarchical level, it can support an understanding and framework for the development of care structures and concepts. The framework provides a foundation for the development of a model to differentiate PC situations by complexity of patients and care needs. To enable an operationalisation and classification of complexity, relevant outcome measures mirroring the identified system elements should be identified and implemented in clinical practice.

Linking sustainable business models to socio-ecological resilience through cross-sector partnerships: A Complex Adaptive Systems view

Abstract: A flourishing literature assesses how sustainable business models create and capture value in socio-ecological systems Nevertheless, we still know relatively little about how the organization of s

Resources Management in Transition

Abstract: In recent years, the prospects of severe climate change have increasingly focused attention on the long-term sustainability of current practices of resource management, which no longer appear robust to uncertainty from extreme weather events or trends. Increased awareness of uncertainties and the complexity of the systems to be managed highlight the need for some profound changes in resource management (Gleick 2000, Pahl-Wostl 2007). Uncertainties and complexity have always characterized water management. Water management traditionally emphasizes the reduction of uncertainties, often by designing systems that can be predicted and controlled. This has resulted in a strong emphasis on technical solutions to rather narrowly defined problems. However, human– technology–environment systems are more appropriately described as complex adaptive systems where unpredictable co-evolution makes uncertainty irreducible. Managing under inevitable uncertainty requires improved learning and adaptation, in addition to control. The goal of management should be to increase the adaptive capacity to learn from and better cope with uncertain developments, rather than to try to find optimum solutions. Watermanagement science must confront the main barriers to learning and adaptation: path dependence emerging from sunk costs in prior paradigms, infrastructure, and existing practices. Developing new paradigms and practices has gained increasing importance with the attempt to implement integrated management approaches.

Land Warfare and Complexity, Part I: Mathematical Background and Technical Sourcebook

Abstract: : The purpose of this paper is to provide the theoretical framework and mathematical background necessary to understand and discuss the various ideas of nonlinear dynamics and complex system theory to plant seeds for a later more detailed discussion (provided in Part II of this report) of how these ideas might apply to land warfare issues. This paper is also intended to be a general technical sourcebook of information. The main idea put forth in this paper is that significant new insights into the fundamental processes of land warfare can be obtained by viewing land warfare as a complex adaptive system. That is to say, by viewing a military "conflict" as a nonlinear dynamical system composed of many interacting semi-autonomous and hierarchically organized agents continuously adapting to a changing environment.