Complex Adaptive Systems

We develop and apply several novel methods quantifying dynamic multi-agent team interactions. These interactions are detected information-theoretically and captured in two ways: via (i) directed networks (interaction diagrams) representing significant coupled dynamics between pairs of agents, and (ii) state-space plots (coherence diagrams) showing coherent structures in Shannon information dynamics. This model-free analysis relates, on the one hand, the information transfer to responsiveness of the agents and the team, and, on the other hand, the information storage within the team to the teamʼs rigidity and lack of tactical flexibility. The resultant interaction and coherence diagrams reveal implicit interactions, across teams, that may be spatially long-range. The analysis was verified with a statistically significant number of experiments (using simulated football games, produced during RoboCup 2D Simulation League matches), identifying the zones of the most intense competition, the extent and types of interactions, and the correlation between the strength of specific interactions and the results of the matches.

The Internet of Things vision has recently emerged as a result of a proliferation of a large number of networked consumer electronic devices. There is a growing need to autonomously monitor power consumption of these devices. We present a self-organizing distributed algorithm for the dynamic approximation of power consumption in networked consumer electronic devices.

Packaperforma is a tool developed in order to increase the efficiency, effectiveness and
differen-
tiation in the future design of packaging systems. The tool is based on the theory Packaging
Logistics Per- formance. Packaperforma is a further development of Packaging Scorecard and it could
be utilized by pack- aging designers and supply chain managers to see the functions of the
packaging system in the logistics processes. This means that the gap between packaging decisions
and logistics decisions can be mitigated, as it can share the downstream information with the
upstream and the designers. Packaperforma is used to conduct comparative studies in multiple
Supply-Demand Chains. A study as such increases the quantity of data in the Packaperforma database
that could be used to indicate the performances of the packaging, the agent and the Supply Demand Chains. The paper presents a study on Packaging Logistics Performance, how to evaluate packaging performance; how to collect feedback information from different agents and efficiently solve packaging related problem. Further the paper describes a web system based tool, packaging performance indicators and packaging per- formance database.

In urban communities, infrastructures that support living are indispensable. There is increased interest in alternative ways of providing such support systems, including semi-autonomous infrastructures resulting from the self-organization of local actors. In this study, we analyze the emergence and management of such infrastructures in light of the theory of complex adaptive systems, within which they are called ‘inverse infrastructures’. Empirical evidence is drawn from the case of water cooperatives in the town of Ikaalinen, Finland. Our analysis shows that, with favorable preconditions in place, inverse infrastructures may contribute significantly to local infrastructure services and so also to the functioning of society.

Background: As our world becomes more global and competitive yet less predictable, the focus seems to be increasingly on looking to innovation activities to remain competitive. Although there is little doubt that a nation’s competitiveness is embedded in its innovativeness, the complex environment should not be ignored. Complexity is not accounted for in balance sheets or reported in reports; it becomes entrenched in every activity in the organisation. Innovation takes many forms and comes in different shapes.Objectives: The study objectives were, firstly, to establish the determinants for complexity and how these can be addressed from a design point of view in order to ensure innovation success and, secondly, to determine how this changes innovation forms and applications.Method: Two approaches were offered to deal with a complex environment – one allowing for complexity for organisational innovation and the other introducing reductionism to minimise complexity. These approaches we...

In this paper we explore the holonic enterprise as an example of the phenomenon of emergence. To conduct this exploration, we describe some of the development work now being carried out in the holonic enterprise field and examine anticipated near-future outcomes ...

Este texto presenta un marco para el análisis de las acciones, los logros, las limitaciones y los retos en torno al buen gobierno en el departamento de Bolívar. Con ello, se busca propiciar una profunda e innovadora reflexión sobre el papel de los gobiernos intermedios, utilizando como idea rectora el concepto de gobernanza policéntrica.

In this paper I will explore the perhaps counterintuitive relationship between reductive art, information, and emergent phenomena. In particular I will show how late modernist reductive painting, traditionally aimed at purging illusionistic elements, itself constituted a subtle, information-based mode of illusionism.

For example, Frank Stella’s so-called stripe paintings of the late 50s to mid-60s, and his description of them as “what you see is what you see,” would seem as straightforward as possible—the work is presented as itself, a paint-covered object and nothing more. Stella’s ostensibly simple claim, however, obscures the densely imbricated and historically specific discourses by which and within which an artwork could be claimed as “only” an object in the first place. I would argue such a direct, no-nonsense discourse of mere objecthood, allegedly shorn of both illusionism and discursive entanglement, is itself a form of illusionism: not the visual or representational illusionism so counter to American late modernism, but an illusionism of information, by which a complex nesting of discourses claims simply to operate outside of discursivity.

Furthermore, the apparent simplicity of Stella’s paintings and his description of them—“what you see is what you see”—if considered in terms of the deep reservoirs of compounded art world ideas necessary for an artist to create an artwork-as-nothing-more-than-an-object, reveals a fundamental disparity. Accordingly, in this paper I will show that, on the one hand, such ostensibly blank, object-based works of reductive abstract art constitute examples of what is called emergent simplicity, a phenomenon in which complex inputs yield simple outputs. Building on this idea, I will show that the disparity between reductive art’s emergent simplicity, relative to the complex nature of its potentiating discourses, catalyzes what I will describe as a mode of information generativity, a feedback-drenched process of triangulated and reciprocal incommensurabilities between art object, art statement, and art discourse.

The advancement of technology has substantially changed the way knowledge is created and transmitted. Modern interaction platforms allow information to expand at proportions and speeds without precedents, enhancing the potential to access and combine perspectives from different settings and shaping the mechanisms of collaboration and competition.  The evolution of modern business environments has made more evident the agent-based nature of knowledge creation and has challenged the linearity in traditional models where growth is visualized as the combined effect of aggregated contributions of agents, the efficiency of adequate organizational structures and the optimization of resources.  By building on the characteristics and dynamics of Networks, it is possible to engineer organizational architectures that induce transformation and dynamically capitalize on changes in the business environment, strategically adjusting structures and synchronizing organizational growth with the evolution of internal and external contexts. To achieve this, it is necessary to adopt an open-systems approach that allows visualizing the dynamics and permanent reconfiguration of organizational networks, understanding the role and contributions of agents in these reconfigurations and setting strategic initiatives to effectively orchestrate information flows and resources.

With the ambiguous link between innovation and gender, this paper explored Asian countries' complex adaptive behaviour in innovation amidst the global gender gap. Data sets from the Global Innovation Index 2019 the Global Gender Gap Report 2020 to represent innovation productivity and gender equality accordingly. Applying descriptive-analytic research, approaches like data mining, factor analysis, clustering, and complex adaptive systems were used. Factor analysis results revealed features of gender parity in innovation. Based on synergy count, there are more prevalent dissimilarities in innovation and gender equality characteristics among Asian. Highly innovative countries lead in synergy counts, while less innovative countries lag in it. However, moderately innovative countries have irregular results. Based on the clustering, Asian countries innovation appeared to behave in a non-linear upward trend amidst the global gender gap. Their complex adaptive behaviours show random, a...

Abstract: The specific problem addressed in this study was the low success rate of information technology (IT) projects in the US Due to the abstract nature and inherent complexity of software development, IT projects are among the most complex projects encountered. Most existing schools of project management theory are based on the rational systems view; however, for projects with a high degree of complexity, a complex adaptive systems view more effectively describes the full range of project behavior. To investigate ...

We investigate the impact of the supply chain interdependence structure on network-level trust in the supply chain (i.e., supply chain trust). We adopt an opportunism-based definition of trust, according to which trust and opportunism are the opposite of one another, and conceptualize the supply chain as a complex adaptive system (CAS). We thus employ the NK framework to model the supply chain network as a set of interdependent partners (and their decisions) interacting among each other according to a specific pattern reflecting the overall supply chain interdependence structure. In particular, we argue that supply chain networks can reveal in practice the 10 patterns identified by Rivkin and Siggelkow (2007) in a recent study on patterned interactions in complex systems. Thus, we perform computational analysis to evaluate, for each considered interdependence pattern, the risk of opportunism by the participating firms, which allows us to compare the patterns on the level of supply chain trust. We show that supply chain trust is a positive (negative) function of the number of uninfluenced (uninfluential) partners, that are, partner firms whose decisions are not influenced by (do not influence) the decisions made by the remaining partners. We also find that, for each examined pattern, the higher the degree of interdependence in the supply chain, the lower supply chain trust.

Social Legal Theory (SLT) has been heralded as the “third pillar” of jurisprudence, offering a social scientific alternative to the rational relativity of legal positivism and the moral determinism of natural law. Yet recently SLT’s most ardent champion, Professor Brian Tamanaha, appears to have broken ranks. Assuming a “holistic” perspective, Tamanaha now contends that law “emerges” from both social and naturalistic influences. This move not only undermines SLT, it seemingly transforms that view into the existing theory of jurisilience, which uses the holistic epistemology of consilience to provide a bio-socio-cultural account of law’s essence.

Despite outward appearances, however, these approaches are far from identical. Unlike the revamped version of SLT, which is ontologically constrained and conflicted, jurisilience explains law’s emergence through systems science and cutting-edge sociology. It shows that law is not a simple assemblage of social and/or natural forces. Instead, it is a complex information network of interdependent “jurisystems.” Grounded in our natural need for homeostasis, human legality originates in our genetic and neurobiological systems, scales up to our normative social systems, and becomes externalized as a supreme system of formal law. Once entrenched, law does not remain stagnant, but continuously coordinates human conflicts, relieves social stress, and reinforces social bonds. Over time, law’s dynamism changes social behavior and cultural memory, initiating a cycle of epigenetics and gene-culture coevolution that renews our biological disposition for legality. Given law’s systemic nature, any socio-centric jurisprudence now seems obsolete. The fact is, jurisilience and jurisystems do not just systematize SLT; they systematize SLT right out of existence.

Despite efforts to control fraud in public assistance programs, the perception and realities of the problem persist. Serious barriers related to data collection and research methods impede the understanding of how and why fraud occurs, thereby limiting options for improving program integrity. This paper argues that, based on a complex adaptive systems perspective, social welfare fraud can be understood as a collective outcome emerging from repeated interactions among stakeholders during the routinized business processes of public assistance programs. When dealing with fraud, great attention must be paid to how it occurs and persists, not just how serious the problem is or who commits these crimes.

A complexity-friendly, SenseMaker-based approach to understanding how to build sustainable livelihoods and communities in conditions of high uncertainty and change. The tool also detected underlying attitudinal change among participants in UNDP Yemen programmes.

The late American Historian, Barbara Tuchman-. II concluded that nothing much has changed. Yet, now, with the fate of the planet potentially hanging in the balance, we need wise leaders. And coaching, if done well, can foster the development of wisdom in leaders who can be better enabled to deal with the paradoxes of our times and take their organisations into the future. New research in the areas of decision making and applied wisdom psychology provides useful frameworks and techniques for coaches wishing to grow their practice and help build wiser leaders.

This primer serves as an introduction to the work of Longpath Labs, a futures think tank and innovations lab that seeks to leverage the transformative opportunities of the Intertidal—the complex adaptive space between paradigms—to help cultivate long-term ways of thinking, behaving, and being. With an aim toward collective flourishing and a concern for both immediate and far futures, Longpath asserts that a shift in mindset is essential. A Longpath Mindset is initiated by mindful self-awareness and three core practices: futures thinking, transgenerational empathy, and telos-alignment.

At first glance, Suzanne Simard's Finding the Mother Tree is an odd book to be reviewed in Cosmos and Taxis. It is largely about trees. Simard is a professor of Forest Ecology at UBC, Vancouver. She is best known for her initial extraordinary finding that many trees are connected together through mycorrhizal fungi, and these connections enable trees even of different species to support one another rather than simply existing as isolated individuals. Her Ph.D. dissertation detailing her research led to front page billing in Nature, one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals. It was there the term "wood wide web" was coined to describe her discovery. It caught on. Simard and others' subsequent discoveries demonstrate trees are far more interlinked with one another, and with other organisms, than scientists had ever imagined. In her research, Simard demonstrated trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, recognized neighbors,

Le recours contemporain à la notion de "complexité" renvoie fréquemment à des démarches ayant tendance à unifier sa définition. En langue anglaise, sa réduction à une forme singulière (complexity theory ou complexity science) s'avère ainsi susceptible de masquer la variété des théories permettant de rendre compte des implications inhérentes au recours à cette notion. Cet article, en prenant en considération à la fois les traditions de recherche latines et anglosaxonnes, associées à la notion de complexité, suggère une approche plus nuancée, évitant la simplification de cette notion à certaines des conceptions dominantes qui y sont associées. Partant d'une approche étymologique, cet article propose d'envisager de façon chronologique l'émergence de trois générations de théories de la complexité; ce faisant, certains de leurs enracinements épistémologiques et socio-culturels sont introduits. D'un point de vue épistémologique, la réflexion proposée met en évidence certaines des interprétations hétérogènes sous-jacentes à la définition de ce qui est perçu comme complexe. Suivant une perspective anthropologique, ce texte évoque également la portée à la fois émancipatrice et asservissante susceptible d'être associée à l'idée de complexité. Sur la base des ambiguitiés mises en évidence, cet article suggère finalement de concevoir les contributions renvoyant aux théories contemporaines de la complexité, au même titre que la remise en question de leur légitimité épistémologique et éthique, à partir des boucles et des dynamiques dont elles sont constitutives. Ce faisant, les chercheurs et les praticiens en Sciences de l'éducation devraient considérer leurs pratiques en tant que processus
d'apprentissage dont la complexité renvoie autant aux transformations qu'ils étudient ou provoquent, qu'aux transformations inhérentes aux systèmes de représentations
auxquels ils ont recours pour les conceptualiser.

Traffic congestion is a critical issue which must be resolved. The concept of adaptive traffic lights controller needs to be developed to improve the traffic flow. This paper presents the design of an adaptive traffic light controller using fuzzy logic control Sugeno Method. This fuzzy logic control is used to determine the length of green time at an intersection. The purpose of this paper is to design an adaptive traffic light controller with three inputs, namely the number of queues, waiting time, and the traffic flow of vehicles. The design was applied in a simulation to observe the number of queues, waiting time, and the number of vehicles passing an intersection. The simulation results show that the traffic light using fuzzy logic control performs better than using fixed time control. The number of queues and waiting time are lower, and the number of departures is higher than using the fixed time controller for a traffic light.

Literature on the modeling and simulation of complex adaptive systems (cas) has primarily advanced vertically in different scientific domains with scientists developing a variety of domain-specific approaches and applications. However, while cas researchers are inherently interested in an interdisciplinary comparison of models, to the best of our knowledge, there is currently no single unified framework for facilitating the development, comparison, communication and validation of models across different scientific domains. In this thesis, we propose first steps towards such a unified framework using a combination of agent-based and complex network-based modeling approaches and guidelines formulated in the form of a set of four levels of usage, which allow multidisciplinary researchers to adopt a suitable framework level on the basis of available data types, their research study objectives and expected outcomes, thus allowing them to better plan and conduct their respective research case studies. Firstly, the complex network modeling level of the proposed framework entails the development of appropriate complex network models for the case where interaction data of cas components is available, with the aim of detecting emergent patterns in the cas under study. The exploratory agent-based modeling level of the proposed framework allows for the development of proof-of-concept models for the cas system, primarily for purposes of exploring feasibility of further research. Descriptive agent-based modeling level of the proposed framework allows for the use of a formal step-by-step approach for developing agent-based models coupled with a quantitative complex network and pseudocode-based specification of the model, which will, in turn, facilitate interdisciplinary cas model comparison and knowledge transfer. Finally, the validated agent-based modeling level of the proposed framework is concerned with the building of in-simulation verification and validation of agent-based models using a proposed Virtual Overlay Multiagent System approach for use in a systematic team-oriented approach to developing models. The proposed framework is evaluated and validated using seven detailed case study examples selected from various scientific domains including ecology, social sciences and a range of complex adaptive communication networks. The successful case studies demonstrate the potential of the framework in appealing to multidisciplinary researchers as a methodological approach to the modeling and simulation of cas by facilitating effective communication and knowledge transfer across scientific disciplines without the requirement of extensive learning curves.

In the university setting, strategies take on a different configuration due to a permanent dispute between top administration and the academic sector. This triggers a conflict between macro intentions and micro actions at the academic level. In this study, we examined to what extent academic strategic actions are impacted by tensions triggered by the macro intentions of top management and micro actions in the academic management. This research is based on a comparative study involving three Brazilian universities. We identified key sources of tension between top managers and academic managers, such as organizational complexity, the political context, a loosely coupled structure and professional autonomy. The outcome revealed a difficult alignment between intentions and actions while relevant strategies were practiced in the academic sector. We concluded that managerial business models imported from the market led to dubious and controversial benefits in university management. Most s...

The basic premise of the "Beyond Strategy" approach is that in business we put up fantasy measures that we call business planning, such as budget planning and strategic planning, which Stacey claims is a political process, primarily as social defences against anxiety. This distorts what we are actually doing and distracts us from the actual direct experiences we are having of each other as what happens through conversation.
Another premise is that the most important things we do can't be measured. These are open-ended conversations around identity of "who are we?" or "What are we doing together?" This is the actual strategy we are involved in and is emergent strategy where we are endlessly searching for enough agreement to take the next steps. The next steps are iterative temporal processes, which are basic patterns of interactions moving recursively through time, of what we are doing together.
"Beyond Strategy" can be described as "Leadership, Futures and Ethics in a Complex World". Leadership because ultimately this is where courage and will resonates, Futures because of its epistemic challenges and Ethics because we are here talking about moral philosophy and its consequences on organisations and individuals. Complex, but not necessarily complicated, because complexity, by its very nature, is the consequence of human existence and behaviour experienced in the world.

"Patterns in War Dynamics. WARning 2020". In this study, complexity and network science are applied to the dynamics and development of the (International) System. This study shows that the System periodically becomes critical and produces "systemic wars". The typical dynamics that are revealed in this study are a consequence of laws of physics that apply also to the System. Systemic wars are instrumental in rebalancing the System, and in periodically producing "upgraded" international orders that allow for further growth and development. The patterns that can be observed in the war dynamics of the System, make it possible to predict these dynamics and the System's direction of development.
Data-analysis shows that the System will again become critical around 2020 (+/- two years).
This study shows that intensifying war dynamics pose an existential threat to human kind: Systemic wars will cause increasing damage and suffering and will put our climate system at (additional) risk: Fundamental change is a prerequisite for our survival.
This study was initially published in 2016. The publication "On the Thermodynamics of War and Social Evolution" (2019) provides a scientific explanation for the war dynamics that can be observed.

It is not possible to speak of a single systems approach. There are rather of a number of systems approaches, each loosely drawing on different aspects of a family composed mainly of, general system theory, cybernetics, information theory, chaos theory, and complexity theory. Systems approaches have been used in most of the social sciences, particularly sociology and management, but their use has extended into the arts and humanities.Creativity researchers have used systems approaches drawing on very different sources and in very different ways. The main focus has been to highlight creativity as a phenomenon that occurs in the context of multiple systems, and therefore involves a network of interactions.

Water symbolisms permeate Ifugao religion, rituals, and oral tradition. Water plays a part in death, rebirth, and cleansing in Ifugao cosmology. As such, Ifugaos consider water as sacred. However, water is also central in Ifugao economy and politics. As a culture that highly values intensive wet-rice production in a mountain environment, managing access to water is necessary to maintain stability. Ifugao practices follow what Richard O’Connor described as the “agro-cultural complex” in which agricultural practices, social systems, and political, historical, and, cultural changes are understood as interlocking processes (O’Connor 1995). In this paper, we focus on the relationship between Ifugao water and agricultural rituals with the synchronizing and sequencing of agricultural activities. Using the concept of self-organization, we argue that water and agricultural rituals in Ifugao are not only meant to reinforce community cohesion, they also synchronize the farming activities cruci...

ABSTRACT. Working out  reliable scientific – not ideologically-biased -  model of social evolution, defining the criteria for Natural Selection any any level of  complexity or Universal Darwinism, and  sociobiology theoretical  rethinking therefore

Creating natural forest landscapes for game environments require some basic knowledge of botany and ecology, without which the terrain may appear synthetic. While tools such as WYSIWYG level editors have made a scene designer’s job easier, manually
creating a natural-looking landscape is time consuming and, depending on the knowledge the artist possesses, often do not follow the principles of ecology. This research attempts to pilot an initial study of how lessons from research in ecological modelling can be adopted for growing vegetation for game scene design.
Early results are promising and show the potentials of such a venture in future more complex developments.

1.1 ABSTRACT:
The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively evaluate the statement in relation to the changing ideas of strategic thinking by explaining how it exists within an organization’s approach to strategic management. We will delve into what systems thinking is all about, discuss on it’s approaches, provide a perspective on complexity and how this should transform our view of thinking about strategy. In line with complex perspectives, this paper will discuss modelling complexity through complex adaptive systems as well as provide the practice perspective of strategic thinking.

1.2 INTRODUCTION:
"Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a changing environment to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations." - (Johnson, Scholes & Whittington, 2011)
In today’s dynamic world, the business environment is quite complex and multi-faceted and this environment has a far-reaching impact. Strategy as a whole has been a unique tool as every organization has systems and strategies in place in order to achieve their goals. Combined, the vision, mission and values statements provide the essential context for the development and execution of strategy.
According to Michael Porter, “Strategy means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value”. “It is extremely difficult to develop a unique strategy for a company, and if the strategy is truly different, it is probably highly risky. Execution really is the critical part of a successful strategy. Getting it done, getting it done right, getting it done better than the next person, is far more important than dreaming up new visions of the future” – Louis Gerstner, IBM.
Strategy is about being different. A firm’s strategy describes a way in which it will compete in the marketplace against rivals; for public sector and charitable/ NGO organizations, it serves as the road map to reach their ambitions. It is of course, the organization charts, the journey it imagines and the steps it will take. Strategy is built upon a range of insights, experiences, objectives, expertise and expectations. When ready, it sets forth the general direction as well as an action plan in pursuit of the identified goals.