scholarly journals Analyzing Uncertainty in Complex Socio-Ecological Networks

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana D. Maldonado ◽  
María Morales ◽  
Pedro A. Aguilera ◽  
Antonio Salmerón
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Network ◽  
Network Structure ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Posterior Distribution ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Bayesian Network Structure ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Lower Entropy ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Class Variable

Socio-ecological systems are recognized as complex adaptive systems whose multiple interactions might change as a response to external or internal changes. Due to its complexity, the behavior of the system is often uncertain. Bayesian networks provide a sound approach for handling complex domains endowed with uncertainty. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of the Bayesian network structure on the uncertainty of the model, expressed as the Shannon entropy. In particular, three strategies for model structure have been followed: naive Bayes (NB), tree augmented network (TAN) and network with unrestricted structure (GSS). Using these network structures, two experiments are carried out: (1) the impact of the Bayesian network structure on the entropy of the model is assessed and (2) the entropy of the posterior distribution of the class variable obtained from the different structures is compared. The results show that GSS constantly outperforms both NB and TAN when it comes to evaluating the uncertainty of the entire model. On the other hand, NB and TAN yielded lower entropy values of the posterior distribution of the class variable, which makes them preferable when the goal is to carry out predictions.

scholarly journals Reframing hydrology education to solve coupled human and environmental problems

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 7739-7759 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. G. King ◽  
F. C. O'Donnell ◽  
K. K. Caylor
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Educational Approach ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Undergraduate Level ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Sustainability Challenges ◽  
Problem Solvers ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The impact of human activity on the biophysical world raises myriad challenges for sustaining earth system processes, ecosystem services, and human societies. To engage in meaningful problem-solving in the hydrosphere, this necessitates an approach that recognizes the coupled nature of human and biophysical systems. We argue that in order to produce the next generation of problem-solvers, hydrology education should ensure that students develop an appreciation and working familiarity in the context of coupled human-environmental systems. We illustrate how undergraduate-level hydrology assignments can extend beyond rote computations or basic throughput scenarios to include consideration of the dynamic interactions with social and other biophysical dimensions of complex adaptive systems. Such an educational approach not only builds appropriate breadth of dynamic understanding, but can also empower students toward assuming influential and effective roles in solving sustainability challenges.

Knowledge Management

2011 ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shamin Bodhanya
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Situated Action ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Process Perspective ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Epistemology Of Action ◽  
Organisational Intervention

This chapter demonstrates that despite a plurality of discourses related to knowledge, they are reduced to a single dominant discourse on knowledge management. It draws on systems thinking and complexity theory to reconceptualise organisations as complex adaptive systems within which knowledge ecologies may flourish. The focus thus shifts to knowing in situated action and on knowledge as a dynamic phenomenon. The chapter makes a contribution to strengthening the impact of the epistemology of action and that of a social-process perspective of knowledge. The approach presented has radical implications for knowledge management such that it becomes an enduring organisational intervention as opposed to a management fad. The implications for organisational practice and changes in managerial orientations are shown to be novel offering significant potential towards a second order knowledge management.

scholarly journals Decentralization and heterogeneity in complex adaptive systems

Kybernetes ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (6/7) ◽  
pp. 1082-1093 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Gonzalez-Rodriguez ◽  
Jose Rodolfo Hernandez-Carrion
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Group Behavior ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Artificial Society ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Genetic Information Processing ◽  
Peer Dynamics ◽  
The Impact

Purpose – Following a bacterial-based modeling approach, the authors want to model and analyze the impact of both decentralization and heterogeneity on group behavior and collective learning. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Inspired by bacterial conjugation, the authors have defined an artificial society in which agents’ strategies adapt to changes in resources location, allowing migration, and survival in a dynamic sugarscape-like scenario. To study the impact of these variables the authors have simulated a scenario in which resources are limited and localized. The authors also have defined three constraints in genetic information processing (inhibition of plasmid conjugation, inhibition of plasmid reproduction and inhibition of plasmid mutation). Findings – The results affirmed the hypothesis that efficiency of group adaptation to dynamic environments is better when societies are varied and distributed than when they are homogeneous and centralized. Originality/value – The authors have demonstrated that in a model based on free interactions among autonomous agents, optimal results emerge by incrementing heterogeneity levels and decentralization of communication structures, leading to a global adaptation of the system. This organic approach to model peer-to-peer dynamics in complex adaptive systems (CAS) is what the authors have named “bacterial-based algorithms” because agents exchange strategic information in the same way that bacteria use conjugation and share genome.

Missed nursing care and complexity theory: a conceptual paper

2021 ◽  
pp. 174498712110130
Author(s):  
Rania Ali Albsoul ◽  
Gerard FitzGerald ◽  
James A Hughes ◽  
Muhammad Ahmed Alshyyab
Keyword(s):  
Complexity Theory ◽  
Nursing Care ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Nurse Managers ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Missed Care ◽  
Missed Nursing Care ◽  
The Impact

Background Missed nursing care is a complex healthcare problem. Extant literature in this area identifies several interventions that can be used in acute hospital settings to minimise the impact of missed nursing care. However, controversy still exists as to the effectiveness of these interventions on reducing the occurrence of missed nursing care. Aim This theoretical paper aimed to provide a conceptual understanding of missed nursing care using complexity theory. Methods The method utilised for this paper is based on a literature review on missed care and complexity theory in healthcare. Results We found that the key virtues of complexity theory relevant to the missed nursing care phenomenon were adaptation and self-organisation, non-linear interactions and history. It is suggested that the complex adaptive systems approach may be more useful for nurse managers to inform and prepare nurses to meet uncertain encounters in their everyday clinical practice and therefore reduce instances of missed care. Conclusions This paper envisions that it is time that methods used to explore missed care changed. Strategies proposed in this paper may have an important impact on the ability of nursing staff to provide quality and innovative healthcare in the modern healthcare system.

Risk in Complex Systems

2019 ◽  
pp. 22-43
Author(s):  
Louise K. Comfort
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Dynamic Environment ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Impact Of Technology ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Administrative Theory

This chapter discusses the theoretical framework of complex adaptive systems. Risk is a social construct, one created by the human actors who seek to manage a stable world, and who, aware of potential catastrophe, seek to prevent or reduce it. The challenge is how to construct a mode of considering risk holistically, but systematically in a dynamic environment that is prone to recurring hazards. Over decades, inquiry into risk and strategies to manage it have reexamined and redefined risk in relation to changing environments. Three broad themes have shaped this continuing dialogue in administrative theory and public policy. The first theme focuses on the impact of technology on social institutions, and whether changes introduced by advances in technology exceeded human capacity to manage institutions in constructive ways. The second theme focuses on the organization of collective action as a strategy to counter risk. As a third theme, the continuing dialogue addressed the escalating impact of risk on social organizations and institutions.

scholarly journals Reframing hydrology education to solve coupled human and environmental problems

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 4023-4031 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. G. King ◽  
F. C. O'Donnell ◽  
K. K. Caylor
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Educational Approach ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Undergraduate Level ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Sustainability Challenges ◽  
Problem Solvers ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The impact of human activity on the biophysical world raises myriad challenges for sustaining Earth system processes, ecosystem services, and human societies. To engage in meaningful problem-solving in the hydrosphere, this necessitates an approach that recognizes the coupled nature of human and biophysical systems. We argue that, in order to produce the next generation of problem-solvers, hydrology education should ensure that students develop an appreciation and working familiarity in the context of coupled human-environmental systems. We illustrate how undergraduate-level hydrology assignments can extend beyond rote computations or basic throughput scenarios to include consideration of the dynamic interactions with social and other biophysical dimensions of complex adaptive systems. Such an educational approach not only builds appropriate breadth of dynamic understanding, but can also empower students toward assuming influential and effective roles in solving sustainability challenges.

Systemic preconditions and ontological modeling for peri-urban communities

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susu Nousala ◽  
Kim Blanca Galindo ◽  
David Romero ◽  
Xin Feng ◽  
Pedro Aibeo
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Ontological Modeling ◽  
Ontological Model ◽  
The Impact

PurposeThis research presents an ontological model, to communicate the impact of dynamic preconditions for peri-urban communities. As such, this paper approaches perturbation communities as social-complex-adaptive-systems.Design/methodology/approachPrevious assessment of dynamic preconditions have typically been based on top-down approaches. Through the lens of social-complex-adaptive and systemic design approaches (requiring a range of different disciplines), this work focuses on providing a broader view towards periurban research. The methodological approach involved academic literature, fieldwork observations, in-depth discussions with community, government, experts and research groups, focusing on a region called “Xochimilco” on the outskirts of Mexico City, a unique pre-Hispanic, Aztec ecosystem. This evolving man made agricultural/ecological structure of island plots, still provides environmental services to Mexico City. This region provides the basis of the research and subsequent ontological model. Ontology, in this instance, refers to the nature of being within a range of constraining dynamic forces relating to resilient behaviors of the current Xochimilco perturbation ecosystem.FindingsXochimilco can be considered as a longitudinal phenomenon that contributed to the understanding of observable resilient and precondition elements between the past and present of a living complex-adaptive-system.Practical implicationsThe research has provided a better understanding of community resilience through preconditions, contributing towards preparation of environmental change and future urbanization. To this end, the research focused on visualizing key dynamics elements for communities attempting to absorb new urban conditions (being continuously pushed into it).Originality/valueThe outcomes of this research have provided specific systemic, bottom up approaches with ontological modeling to assist with visualizing and understanding intangible dynamic conditions that impact high complex areas of perturbation regions.

scholarly journals A complex systems perspective of news recommender systems: Guiding emergent outcomes with feedback models

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. e0245096
Author(s):  
Shankar Prawesh ◽  
Balaji Padmanabhan
Keyword(s):  
Recommender Systems ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Online News ◽  
Emergent Properties ◽  
Feedback Model ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Systems Framework ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Self Organizing

Algorithms are increasingly making decisions regarding what news articles should be shown to online users. In recent times, unhealthy outcomes from these systems have been highlighted including their vulnerability to amplifying small differences and offering less choice to readers. In this paper we present and study a new class of feedback models that exhibit a variety of self-organizing behaviors. In addition to showing important emergent properties, our model generalizes the popular “top-N news recommender systems” in a manner that provides media managers a mechanism to guide the emergent outcomes to mitigate potentially unhealthy outcomes driven by the self-organizing dynamics. We use complex adaptive systems framework to model the popularity evolution of news articles. In particular, we use agent-based simulation to model a reader’s behavior at the microscopic level and study the impact of various simulation hyperparameters on overall emergent phenomena. This simulation exercise enables us to show how the feedback model can be used as an alternative recommender to conventional top-N systems. Finally, we present a design framework for multi-objective evolutionary optimization that enables recommendation systems to co-evolve with the changing online news readership landscape.

Conclusion: scaling down?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Needham ◽  
Kerry Allen ◽  
Kelly Hall
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
Enterprise Development ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Micro Enterprises

The concluding chapter considers the implications of the findings for the future of English social care services and for the broader health and welfare system. It suggests that local care economies are complex adaptive systems in which niche organisations like micro-enterprises can thrive but in which local authorities have weak coordinating tools to support micro-enterprise development. The employment of designated micro-enterprise coordinators within local authorities can enhance support for micro-enterprises, but even in localities with coordinators the micro-enterprises remain fragile. The chapter also considers whether the benefits of ‘smallness’ can be achieved through other means than micro-enterprises, discussing what can be learned from examples of large organisations which have found ways to nest smaller units within them. These discussions suggest opportunities for further research, particularly longitudinal and comparative research which stretch the impact of our findings beyond the timescale and geographical reach of our current study.

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