Unifying Themes in Complex Systems IV Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Complex Systems

In June of 2002, over 500 professors, students and researchers met in Boston, Massachusetts for the Fourth International Conference on Complex Systems. The attendees represented a remarkably diverse collection of fields: biology, ecology, physics, engineering, computer science, economics, psychology and sociology, The goal of the conference was to encourage cross-fertilization between the many disciplines represented and to deepen understanding of the properties common to all complex systems.

This volume contains 43 papers selected from the more than 200 presented at the conference. Topics include: cellular automata, neurology, evolution, computer science, network dynamics, and urban planning.

About NECSI: For over 10 years, The New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) has been instrumental in the development of complex systems science and its applications. NECSI conducts research, education, knowledge dissemination, and community development around the world for the promotion of the study of complex systems and its application for the betterment of society. NECSI hosts the International Conference on Complex Systems and publishes the NECSI Book Series in conjunction with Springer Publishers.

ALI MINAI is an Affiliate of the New England Complex Systems Institute and an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Cincinnati.

YANEER BAR-YAM is President and founder of the New England Complex Systems Institute. He is the author of Dynamics of Complex Systems and Making Things Work: Solving Complex Problems in a Complex World.

Methods.- A Complex Systems Perspective on Collaborative Design.- RAn (Robustness Analyser).- Invariant Subsets of the Search Space, and the Universality of a Generalized Genetic Algorithm.- Models.- Cell-like space charge configurations formed by self-organization in laboratory.- Local Complexity and Global Nonlinear Modes in Large Arrays of Elastic Rods in an Air Cross-Flow.- Self-organization in Navier-Stokes turbulence.- The Game (Introduction to Digital Physics).- Epsilon-Pseudo-Orbits and Applications.- On the “mystery” of differential negative resistance.- Dissipative Structures and the Origins of Life.- Reverse Engineering Neurological Disease.- A Multi-Level Synthesis of Dyslexia.- Emergent computation in CA: A matter of visual efficiency?.- Emergent Probability.- Virtual Stability: A Principle of Complex Systems.- Fungal Colony Patterning as an Example of Biological Self-Organization.- Production-rule complexity of recursive structures.- Iterons: the emergent coherent structures of IAMs.- Criticality of the Brain and Criticality of Art.- The Visual Complexity of Pollock’s Dripped Fractals.- Emergent Patterns in Dance Improvisation and Choreography.- A Stochastic Dynamics for the Popularity of Websites.- Design Patterns for the Generation and the Analysis of Chemical Reaction Networks.- On the adaptive value of Sex.- Optimal Sampling for Complexity in Soil Ecosystems.- Predator-Prey Dynamics for Rabbits, Trees, and Romance.- The Evolution of an Ecosystem: Pleistocene Extinctions.- The Accuracy of Auto-adaptive Models for Estimating Romanian Firms’ Cost of Equity.- Self-Organizing Geography.- City of Slums: self-organisation across scales.- Applications.- Programmable Pattern-Formation and Scale-Independence.- Amorphous Predictive Nets.- MultidimensionalNetwork Monitoring for Intrusion Detection.- Co-operative Agents in Network Defence.- An Algorithm for Bootstrapping Communications.- Intelligent Broadcast For Large-Scale Sensor Networks.- Self-Organization of Connectivity and Geographical Routing in Large-Scale Sensor Networks.- Managed Complexity in An Agent-based Vent Fan Control System Based on Dynamic Re-configuration.- Neural Net Model for Featured Word Extraction.- The distribution of agents to resources in a networked multi-player environment.- Customer Relationship Management in Banking Sector and A Model Design for Banking Performance Enhancement.- How Complex Systems Studies Could Help in Identification of Threats of Terrorism?.