Viruses as Complex Adaptive Systems

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Sole ◽  
Santiago F. Elena
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Influenza A ◽  
Farm Animals ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Evolutionary Potential ◽  
Complex Systems Theory ◽  
Complex Adaptive

Viruses are everywhere, infecting all sorts of living organisms, from the tiniest bacteria to the largest mammals. Many are harmful parasites, but viruses also play a major role as drivers of our evolution as a species and are essential regulators of the composition and complexity of ecosystems on a global scale. This book draws on complex systems theory to provide a fresh look at viral origins, populations, and evolution, and the coevolutionary dynamics of viruses and their hosts. New viruses continue to emerge that threaten people, crops, and farm animals. Viruses constantly evade our immune systems, and antiviral therapies and vaccination campaigns can be powerless against them. These unique characteristics of virus biology are a consequence of their tremendous evolutionary potential, which enables viruses to quickly adapt to any environmental challenge. This book presents a unified framework for understanding viruses as complex adaptive systems. It shows how the application of complex systems theory to viral dynamics has provided new insights into the development of AIDS in patients infected with HIV-1, the emergence of new antigenic variants of the influenza A virus, and other cutting-edge advances. The book also extends the analogy of viruses to the evolution of other replicators such as computer viruses, cancer, and languages.

scholarly journals Sensing the City: Legibility in the Context of Mediated Spatial Terrains

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Wohl
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems Theory ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The City

Smartphones, with their “pervasive presence” in contact with our bodies, have come to act as sensory prosthetics that mediate our experience of the city. They activate new possibilities of navigating the urban, such that we can find exactly what we want, rather than what has been placed before us. This article argues that smartphone technologies produce a more fluid engagement with urban space: where space is not so much “given” as “enacted.” In this context, notions of “legibility” take on new algorithmic and virtual forms. Thus, according to Hamilton and colleagues, where “the legible city waited to be read, the transparent city of data waits to be accessed.” Here, stable features dissolve as urban space becomes increasingly fluid and contingent, no longer limited by static patterns of inhabitation. Instead, how we move and where we move shift in accordance with the kinds of urban resources being activated at any given location, at any given moment, and in conjunction with the shifting vicissitudes of the crowd. In this context, the virtual (in its technological definition of cyber-enabled or -enacted space) mediates and activates the virtual (in its philosophical definition pertaining to the capacities of an entity that may or may not be manifested depending on context). The article considers the implications of this novel spatial mediation using an ontological perspective informed by complex adaptive systems theory, which considers forms and objects not as absolutes but rather as contingent entities activated through interactions.

Complex Adaptive Systems Thinking Approach to Enterprise Architecture

2016 ◽  
pp. 339-389
Author(s):  
Marc Rabaey
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Systems Thinking ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Time Dynamic ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Unstable Environment ◽  
Systems Thinking Approach ◽  
High Degree

Complex systems interact with an environment where a high degree of uncertainty exists. To reduce uncertainty, enterprises (should) create intelligence. This chapter shows that intelligence has two purposes: first, to increase and to assess (thus to correct) existing knowledge, and second, to support decision making by reducing uncertainty. The chapter discusses complex adaptive systems. Enterprises are not only complex systems; they are also most of the time dynamic because they have to adapt their goals, means, and structure to survive in the fast evolving (and thus unstable) environment. Crucial for enterprises is to know the context/ecology in which they act and operate. The Cynefin framework makes the organization and/or its parts aware of the possible contexts of the organization and/or its parts: simple, complicated, complex, chaotic, or disordered. It is crucial for the success of implementing and using EA that EA is adapted to function in an environment of perpetual change. To realize this, the chapter proposes and elaborates a new concept of EA, namely Complex Adaptive Systems Thinking – Enterprise Architecture (CAST-EA).

Modularity and Complex Adaptive Systems

2008 ◽  
pp. 75-104
Author(s):  
David Cornforth ◽  
David G. Green
Keyword(s):  
Fault Tolerance ◽  
Complex Systems ◽  
Long Range ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Single Unit ◽  
Phase Changes ◽  
Critical Phase ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Different Levels

Modularity is ubiquitous in complex adaptive systems. Modules are clusters of components that interact with their environment as a single unit. They provide the most widespread means of coping with complexity, in both natural and artificial systems. When modules occur at several different levels, they form a hierarchy. The effects of modules and hierarchies can be understood using network theory, which makes predictions about certain properties of systems such as the effects of critical phase changes in connectivity. Modular and hierarchic structures simplify complex systems by reducing long-range connections, thus constraining groups of components to act as a single component. In both plants and animals, the organisation of development includes modules, such as branches and organs. In artificial systems, modularity is used to simplify design, provide fault tolerance, and solve difficult problems by decomposition.

Positioning Against Other Theories

2010 ◽  
pp. 135-161
Author(s):  
Lars Taxén
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Management ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Organizational Research ◽  
Complex Systems Theory ◽  
Turbulent Environments ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Complex Adaptive

Complex systems theory (e.g. Bar-Yam, 1997) is a rich and vital research area that has a huge potential for organizational research (Lewin, 1999). In particular, the study of complex adaptive systems (CASs) provides many insightful results concerning the adaptability and strategic management of organizations in turbulent environments (ibid). In the following, I will take this characterization of CASs as a starting point for exploring possible connections between CAS and ADT. This is done against the background of the previously reported complexity inherent in both telecom systems and projects developing these systems.

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