scholarly journals A New Conceptual ‘Cylinder’ Framework for Sustainable Bioeconomy Systems and Their Actors

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo de Vries ◽  
Mechthild Donner ◽  
Monique Axelos
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Linear Chain ◽  
Outer Cylinder ◽  
Double Burden ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Social Organizational ◽  
Over Exploitation ◽  
Linear Product

AbstractConcepts for sustainable bioeconomy systems are gradually replacing the ones on linear product chains. The reason is that continuously expanding linear chain activities are considered to contribute to climate change, reduced biodiversity, over-exploitation of resources, food insecurity, and the double burden of disease. Are sustainable bioeconomy systems a guarantee for a healthy planet? If yes, why, when, and how? In literature, different sustainability indicators have been presented to shed light on this complicated question. Due to high degrees of complexity and interactions of actors in bioeconomy systems, trade-offs and non-linear outcomes became apparent. This fueled the debates about the normative dimensions of the bioeconomy. In particular, the behavior of actors and the utilization of products do not seem to be harmonized according to the environmental, social, and economic pillars of sustainability. Potential conflicts require a new conceptual framework that is here introduced. It consists of a ‘sustainability’ cylinder captured between an inner-cylinder, representing order, and an outer-cylinder for chaos, based on the laws of physics and complex adaptive systems. Such a framework permits (bioeconomy) systems to propagate in the sustainability zone only if they follow helical pathways serving as the new norms. Helices are a combination of two sinusoidal patterns. The first represents here the sustainable behavior of interacting actors and the second the balanced usage of resources and products. The latter counteracts current growth discourses. The applicability of the conceptual cylinder framework is positively verified via 9 cases in Europe, which encompass social-organizational and product-technological innovations. –

scholarly journals Understanding Complexity in Freshwater Management: Practitioners’ Perspectives in The Netherlands

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guido Rutten ◽  
Steve Cinderby ◽  
Jennie Barron
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Applied Research ◽  
Demand Management ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Freshwater Management

Ecosystems have been stabilized by human interventions to optimize delivery of certain ecosystem services, while at the same time awareness has grown that these systems are inherently dynamic rather than steady state. Applied research fields have emerged that try to increase adaptive capacity in these ecosystems, using concepts deriving from the theory of complex adaptive systems. How are these concepts of complexity interpreted and applied by practitioners? This study applies a mixed-methods approach to analyze the case of freshwater management in The Netherlands, where a management paradigm promoting nature-fixating interventions is recently being replaced with a new paradigm of nature-based solutions. We find that practitioners have widely varying interpretations of concepts and of how the ecosystems they work in have evolved over time when described with complex system attributes. This study allows for the emergence of key complexity-related considerations among practitioners that are not often discussed in literature: (i) the need for physical and institutional space for self-organization of nature; (ii) the importance of dependency and demand management; and (iii) trade-offs between robustness and flexibility. This study, furthermore, stresses the importance of using practitioners’ views to guide applied research and practice in this field.

Theories of Communication Networks

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter R. Monge ◽  
Noshir Contractor
Keyword(s):  
Communication Networks ◽  
Computer Simulations ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Network Decomposition ◽  
Network Computer ◽  
Social Theories ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Almost All

To date, most network research contains one or more of five major problems. First, it tends to be atheoretical, ignoring the various social theories that contain network implications. Second, it explores single levels of analysis rather than the multiple levels out of which most networks are comprised. Third, network analysis has employed very little the insights from contemporary complex systems analysis and computer simulations. Foruth, it typically uses descriptive rather than inferential statistics, thus robbing it of the ability to make claims about the larger universe of networks. Finally, almost all the research is static and cross-sectional rather than dynamic. Theories of Communication Networks presents solutions to all five problems. The authors develop a multitheoretical model that relates different social science theories with different network properties. This model is multilevel, providing a network decomposition that applies the various social theories to all network levels: individuals, dyads, triples, groups, and the entire network. The book then establishes a model from the perspective of complex adaptive systems and demonstrates how to use Blanche, an agent-based network computer simulation environment, to generate and test network theories and hypotheses. It presents recent developments in network statistical analysis, the p* family, which provides a basis for valid multilevel statistical inferences regarding networks. Finally, it shows how to relate communication networks to other networks, thus providing the basis in conjunction with computer simulations to study the emergence of dynamic organizational networks.

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