Patterns of Interactions of the Complex City System:Emotional Urban Objects as Triggering Agents-A Secondary Publication

This article presents an analysis of the patterns of interactions resulting from the positive and negative emotional events that occur in cities,considering them as complex systems.It explores,from the imaginaries,how certain urban objects can act as emotional agents and how these events affect the urban system as a whole.An adaptive complex systems perspective is used to analyze these patterns.The results show patterns in the processes and dynamics that occur in cities based on the objects that affect the emotions of the people who live there.These patterns depend on the characteristics of the emotional charge of urban objects,but they can be generalized in the following process:(1)immediate reaction by some individuals;(2)emotions are generated at the individual level which begins to generalize,permuting to a collective emotion;(3)a process of reflection is detonated in some individuals from the reading of collective emotions;(4)integration/significance in the community both at the individual and collective level,on the concepts,roles and/or functions that give rise to the process in the system.Therefore,it is clear that emotions play a significant role in the development of cities and these aspects should be considered in the design strategies of all kinds of projects for the city.Future extensions of this work could include a deeper analysis of specific emotional events in urban environments,as well as possible implications for urban policy and decision making.

Complex Systems Theory: Some Considerations for Sociology

This essay presents a reflection on the main implications of Complexity Theory for science in general, redefining and dispelling myths of traditional science, and Sociology in particular, suggesting a redefinition of Parsons’ classic concept of Social System, articulated around the property of self-maintenance of order rather than on its possible discontinuity and instability. It argues that Complexity Theory has established the limits of Classic Science, leading to a more realistic awareness of working and evolution mechanisms of Natural and Social Systems and showing the limits of our capacity to predict and control events. Dissipative structures have shown the creative role of time. Instability, emergence, surprise, unpredictability are the rule rather than the exception when systems move away from equilibrium (entropy), even if these processes are generated from a system’s deterministic working mechanisms. Therefore, we have come to realize how constructive the contribution of Complexity is, in regards to the long lasting problem of the relationship between order and disorder. Today, the terms of this relationship have been re-specified in its new configuration of inter-relationship link, according to a unicum which finds its synthesis in self-organization and deterministic chaos concepts. From this perspective, as Prigogine suggested, studies on Complex Systems are heading toward a historical, biological conception of Physics, and a new alliance between natural systems and living, social systems. Non-linearity, far from equilibrium self-organization, emergence and surprise meet at all levels, as this paper attempts to highlight. In Sociology, insights of Complexity Theory have contributed to a new way of thinking about social systems, by re-addressing some fundamental issues starting to social system, emergence and change concepts. The current social system conception as complex dynamical systems is supported by a profitable use of non-liner models (in particular, the Logistic map) in the study of social processes.

Thinking in three's: Changing surgical patient safety practices in the complex modern operating room

The three surgical patient safety events, wrong site surgery, retained surgical items (RSI) and surgical fires are rare occurrences and thus their effects on the complex modern operating room (OR) are difficult to study. The likelihood of occurrence and the magnitude of risk for each of these surgical safety events are undefined. Many providers may never have a personal experience with one of these events and training and education on these topics are sparse. These circumstances lead to faulty thinking that a provider won't ever have an event or if one does occur the provider will intuitively know what to do. Surgeons are not preoccupied with failure and tend to usually consider good outcomes, which leads them to ignore or diminish the importance of implementing and following simple safety practices. These circumstances contribute to the persistent low level occurrence of these three events and to the difficulty in generating sufficient interest to resource solutions. Individual facilities rarely have the time or talent to understand these events and develop lasting solutions. More often than not, even the most well meaning internal review results in a new line to a policy and some rigorous enforcement mandate. This approach routinely fails and is another reason why these problems are so persistent. Vigilance actions alone havebeen unsuccessful so hospitals now have to take a systematic approach to implementing safer processes and providing the resources for surgeons and other stake-holders to optimize the OR environment. This article discusses standardized processes of care for mitigation of injury or outright prevention of wrong site surgery, RSI and surgical fires in an action-oriented framework illustrating the strategic elements important in each event and focusing on the responsibilities for each of the three major OR agents-anesthesiologists, surgeons and nurses. A Surgical Patient Safety Checklist is discussed that incorporates the necessary elements to bring these team members together and influence the emergence of a safer OR.

Comparing dynamical systems concepts and techniques for biomechanical analysis

Traditional biomechanical analyses of human movement are generally derived from linear mathematics.While these methods can be useful in many situations,they do not describe behaviors in human systems that are predominately nonlinear.For this reason,nonlinear analysis methods based on a dynamical systems approach have become more prevalent in recent literature.These analysis techniques have provided new insights into how systems(1) maintain pattern stability,(2) transition into new states,and(3) are governed by short-and long-term(fractal) correlational processes at different spatio-temporal scales.These different aspects of system dynamics are typically investigated using concepts related to variability,stability,complexity,and adaptability.The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast these different concepts and demonstrate that,although related,these terms represent fundamentally different aspects of system dynamics.In particular,we argue that variability should not uniformly be equated with stability or complexity of movement.In addition,current dynamic stability measures based on nonlinear analysis methods(such as the finite maximal Lyapunov exponent) can reveal local instabilities in movement dynamics,but the degree to which these local instabilities relate to global postural and gait stability and the ability to resist external perturbations remains to be explored.Finally,systematic studies are needed to relate observed reductions in complexity with aging and disease to the adaptive capabilities of the movement system and how complexity changes as a function of different task constraints.

Understanding Agricultural Heritage Sites as Complex Adaptive Systems: The Challenge of Complexity

In rural life,everything is connected to everything else.Seen as a complex adaptive system,the ＂rural＂ in most regions of the world has evolved over many centuries and is well known to have endured invasive predations and conflicts and to have adapted to changing conditions,both physical and human,many times.Such changes are recorded in the culture and in the landscapes which have continuously evolved and which characterize rural places today.These features of contemporary rural life-economy,culture and landscape-are the key elements of rural systems.Interestingly,they have also become the elements that attract tourists to rural areas.This theoretical paper,starts from the position that the rural world as a whole is complex and that systems adjust in the face of uncertainty,and a type of dynamism that is generated externally in the form of shocks and stresses.Complex Adaptive Systems theory provides an excellent opportunity to examine living systems such as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems （GIAHS） in China that can provide new perspectives on resilience and self-organizing capabilities of the system.The paper suggests that adopting such approaches in contemporary research will produce new insights of whole systems and stem the tide of mainstream scientific research that reduces systems to their component parts and studies them with micro-techniques,while mostly failing to reintegrate the component parts back into the system as a whole.By reviewing this approach in relation to GIAHS and by introducing tourism into the rural village system,as a perturbation,we can create new ways to understand the effects of rural development interventions in ancient landscapes such as those which cover many parts of rural China today.

STUDYING COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS

Complex adaptive systems （cas） - systems that involve many components that adapt or learn as they interact - are at the heart of important contemporary problems. The study of cas poses unique challenges： Some of our most powerful muthemutical tools, particularly methods involivng fixed points, attractors, and the like, are of limited help in understanding the development of cas. This paper suggests ways to modify research methods and tools, with an emphasis on the role of computer-based models, to increase our understanding of cas.

Desertification risk,economic resilience and social issues:From theory to practice

Land degradation and early forms of desertification in both advanced economies and emerging countries reflect complex socio-environmental processes driven by multiple interactions between biophysical and socioeconomic forces across different spatial scales.The present study investigates desertification risk,land degradation,and socio-demographic dynamics through the lens of“resilience,”adopting complex adaptive systems(CAS)thinking.The resilience of socio-environmental systems exposed to land degradation is defined as the capacity of a regional economy to respond to crises and reorganize by making changes to preserve functions,structure,and feedback,and to promote future development options.By reviewing the socioeconomic resilience of local socio-ecological systems exposed to land degradation,this study achieves a better comprehension of the multifaceted processes that lead to a higher risk of desertification and the intimate relationship with underlying population trends and demographic dynamics.A comprehensive approach based on resilience thinking was formulated to review both environmental and socio-demographic issues at the landscape scale,and provide a suitable foundation for sustainability science and regional development policies.

Emergence in cyber-physical systems:potential and risk

Cyber-physical systems(CPSs)are distributed assemblages of computing,communicating,and physical components that sense their environment,algorithmically assess the incoming information,and affect their physical environment.Thus,they share a common structure with other complex adaptive systems,and therefore share both the possible benefits and the probable harmful effects of emergent phenomena.Emergence is an often unexpected pattern that arises from the interactions among the individual system components and the environment.In this paper we focus on three major problems concerning emergence in the context of CPSs:how to successfully exploit emergence,how to avoid its detrimental effects in a single CPS,and how to avoid harmful emergence that arises due to unexpected interaction among several independently developed CPSs that are operating in the same environment.We review the state of the research with regard to these problems and outline several approaches that could be used to address them.

Governance interactions of spatial data infrastructures: an agent-based modelling approach

In order to facilitate and coordinate spatial data sharing and exchange,many organisations have developed spatial data infrastructures(SDIs).SDI governance plays a pivotal role in the development and evolution of an SDI,but as SDIs are complex adaptive systems,governing is a challenge.This research therefore proposes a complexity perspective to SDI governance by exploring the use of agent-based modelling to simulate and examine SDI governance interactions.In this agent-based simulation,we examine interactions between SDI stakeholders,data availability and the effects of different governance styles(hierarchical,network and laissez-faire governance)and budget policies.The simulation shows that it is possible to mimic SDI governance dynamics through agent-based modelling.By running different scenarios,it appears that a network approach is more successful compared to a hierarchical or laissez-faire approach.Expert validation shows that overall the results of the simulation are credible and insightful,although improvements can be made to make the model more realistic.With agent-based modelling,SDI governance becomes more tangible and visible,which facilitates discussion and understanding.Agent-based modelling therefore appears to be a helpful new approach in a better understanding of the complexities and dynamics of SDI governance.

Collective Computation,Information Flow,and the Emergence of Hunter-Gatherer Small-Worlds

Two key features of human sociality are anatomically complex brains with neuron-dense cerebral cortices,and the propensity to form complex social networks with non-kin.Complex brains and complex social networks facilitate flows of fitness-enhancing energy and information at multiple scales of social organization.Here,we consider how these flows interact to shape the emergence of macroscopic regularities in hunter-gatherer macroecology relative to other mammals and non-human primates.Collective computation is the processing of information by complex adaptive systems to generate inferences in order to solve adaptive problems.In hunter-gatherer societies the adaptive problem is to resolve uncertainty in generative models used to predict complex environments in order to maximize inclusive fitness.The macroecological solution is to link complex brains in social networks to form collective brains that perform collective computations.By developing theory and analyzing data,the author shows hunter-gatherers bands of~16 people,or~4 co-residing families,form the largest collective brains of any social mammal.Moreover,because individuals,families,and bands interact at multiple time scales,these fission-fusion dynamics lead to the emergence of the macroscopic regularities in hunter-gatherer macroecology we observe in cross-cultural data.These results show how computation is distributed across spatially-extended social networks forming decentralized knowledge systems characteristic of hunter-gatherer societies.The flow of information at scales far beyond daily interactions leads to the emergence of small-worlds where highly clustered local interactions are embedded within much larger,but sparsely connected multilevel metapopulations.