Digital Swarms

2017 ◽  
pp. 44-59
Author(s):  
Carlos M. Fernandes ◽  
Ivo Dias de Sousa
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Personal Communications ◽  
Network Nodes ◽  
Eusocial Insects ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
The Individual ◽  
New Generation

By converting a fixed network into a mobile system, personal communications technology radically transformed the way we interact with each other and with the environment. Recently, new generation mobile phones (known as smartphones) increased the capacity of the network nodes and added new properties to mobility, converting a once ordered system into a complex and perhaps adaptive network. In this paper, we argue that contemporary mobile phone networks are large-scale complex adaptive systems—with niches, hierarchy, recirculation of information, coevolutionary interactions, and sophisticated collective behavior—that display remarkable similarities with eusocial insects (ants, bees, wasps and termites). Under this framework, we will discuss the impact of personal communications networks in the urban life, without losing sight of the effects—either positive or negative—of the system's emergent patterns on the network itself and on the individual nodes (personal devices and users).

scholarly journals Organizing Theories for Disasters into a Complex Adaptive System Framework

Urban Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Annetta Burger ◽  
William G. Kennedy ◽  
Andrew Crooks
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Complex Adaptive System ◽  
Disaster Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Interacting Systems ◽  
Individual Actor ◽  
The Individual

Increasingly urbanized populations and climate change have shifted the focus of decision makers from economic growth to the sustainability and resilience of urban infrastructure and communities, especially when communities face multiple hazards and need to recover from recurring disasters. Understanding human behavior and its interactions with built environments in disasters requires disciplinary crossover to explain its complexity, therefore we apply the lens of complex adaptive systems (CAS) to review disaster studies across disciplines. Disasters can be understood to consist of three interacting systems: (1) the physical system, consisting of geological, ecological, and human-built systems; (2) the social system, consisting of informal and formal human collective behavior; and (3) the individual actor system. Exploration of human behavior in these systems shows that CAS properties of heterogeneity, interacting subsystems, emergence, adaptation, and learning are integral, not just to cities, but to disaster studies and connecting them in the CAS framework provides us with a new lens to study disasters across disciplines. This paper explores the theories and models used in disaster studies, provides a framework to study and explain disasters, and discusses how complex adaptive systems can support theory building in disaster science for promoting more sustainable and resilient cities.

The Dynamics of Risk

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise K. Comfort
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Seismic Risk ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Shared Awareness ◽  
Response And Recovery ◽  
Global Threat ◽  
Post Disaster

Earthquakes are a huge global threat. In thirty-six countries, severe seismic risks threaten populations and their increasingly interdependent systems of transportation, communication, energy, and finance. This book provides an examination of how twelve communities in nine countries responded to destructive earthquakes between 1999 and 2015. And many of the book's lessons can also be applied to other large-scale risks. The book sets the global problem of seismic risk in the framework of complex adaptive systems to explore how the consequences of such events ripple across jurisdictions, communities, and organizations in complex societies, triggering unexpected alliances but also exposing social, economic, and legal gaps. It assesses how the networks of organizations involved in response and recovery adapted and acted collectively after the twelve earthquakes it examines. It describes how advances in information technology enabled some communities to anticipate seismic risk better and to manage response and recovery operations more effectively, decreasing losses. Finally, the book shows why investing substantively in global information infrastructure would create shared awareness of seismic risk and make post-disaster relief more effective and less expensive. The result is a landmark study of how to improve the way we prepare for and respond to earthquakes and other disasters in our ever-more-complex world.

Patient Journey Record Systems (PaJR)

2011 ◽  
pp. 75-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmel M. Martin ◽  
Rakesh Biswas ◽  
Ankur Joshi ◽  
Joachim P. Sturmberg
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Explicit Knowledge ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Allied Health Professionals ◽  
Patient Journey ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Care Systems ◽  
The Individual

This chapter argues the need for a paradigm shift to focus health care from a top down fragmented process driven activity to a user-driven journey of the individual whose health is at stake. Currently many person/patients express needs that are often overlooked or not understood in the health system, and the frontline care workers express frustration in relation to care systems that prevent them from optimizing their care delivery. We argue that complex adaptive systems and social constructionist theories provide a link for knowledge translation that ultimately will lead to improved health care and better personal health outcomes/experiences. We propose the Patient Journey Record System (PaJR) as a conceptual framework to transform health care so that it supports and improves the experience of patients and improves the quality of care through adaptable and interconnected provider information and care systems. Information technology, social networking and digital democracy is proposed as a major solution to the need to put the patient and their journey at the centre of health and health care with real time shaping of care to this end. Placing PaJR at the centre of care would enable patients, caregivers, physicians, nurses, allied health professionals and students to contribute to improving care. PaJR should become a ‘discovery tool’ of new knowledge arising from different types of experiences ranging from the implicit knowledge in narratives through to the explicit knowledge that is formalized in the published peer reviewed literature and translated into clinical knowledge.

scholarly journals The World is More Than Complicated

2011 ◽  
Vol 133 (11) ◽  
pp. 30-35
Author(s):  
Ahmed K. Noor
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Emergent Behavior ◽  
Global Response ◽  
Emergent Complexity ◽  
Engineering Designs ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Engineered Systems ◽  
The Individual

This article discusses the need of complex systems to be adaptive, and various innovative technologies that are required to engineer these systems. Complex adaptive systems consist of several simultaneously interacting parts or components, which are expected to function in an uncertain, complex environment, and to adapt to unforeseeable contingencies. The defining characteristics of complex adaptive systems are that the components are continually changing, the systems involve many interactions among components, and configurations cannot be fully determined in advance. Studies have shown that complex systems of the future will require a multidisciplinary framework—an approach that has been called emergent (complexity) engineering. Emergent engineering designs a system from the bottom-up by designing the individual components and their interactions that can lead to a desired global response. Although significant effort has been devoted to understanding complexity in natural and engineered systems, the research into complex adaptive systems is fragmented and is largely focused on specific examples. In order to accelerate the development of future diverse complex systems, there is a profound need for developing the new multidisciplinary framework of emergent engineering, along with associated systematic approaches, and generally valid methods and tools for high-fidelity simulations of the collective emergent behavior of these systems.

The new intelligence leadership strategy for iCAS

2007 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thow Yick Liang
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Biological Species ◽  
Leadership Strategy ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Human Thinking ◽  
Knowledge Intensive ◽  
New Generation

As humanity becomes more dependent on information and knowledge, the current concepts, theories and practices associated with leadership strategy have to be transformed. Fundamentally, the influence of the knowledge-intensive, fast-changing and more complex environment has initiated a shift in the mindset, strategic thinking, ability and style in the new generation of leaders. In addition, for all categories of human organizations (economics, business, social, education and political) their members are becoming better educated and informed, and consequently they are more sophisticated interacting agents with modified expectations. Leading these new intelligent human organizations is drastically different from leading a traditional setup. Consequently, the introduction of a new leadership strategy is inevitable. Concurrently, in the new context, it is also highly significant to recognize that all human thinking systems and human organizations are indeed complex adaptive systems. In such systems, order and complexity co-exist, and they learn, adapt and evolve with the changing environment, similar to the behavior of any biological species in an ecological system. The complex and nonlinear evolving dynamic is driven by the intrinsic intelligence of the individuals and the collective intelligence of the group. Therefore, focusing and exploiting the bio-logic rather than machine-logic perspective is definitely more appropriate. In this respect, a better comprehension of leadership strategy and organizational dynamics can be acquired by “bisociating” the complexity theory and the concept of organizing around intelligence. The resulting evolutionary model of this analysis is the intelligence leadership strategy.

Integrated care communities: putting change theory into practice

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 132-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Bradbury
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Care ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Content Type ◽  
North West ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
Capability Building ◽  
Complex Adaptive

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the experience of the Advancing Quality Alliance's (AQuA) regional Integrated Care Discovery Community created to translate integrated care theory into practice at scale and to test ways to address the system enablers of integrated care. Design/methodology/approach – Principles of flexibility, agility, credibility and scale influenced Community design. The theoretical framework drew on relevant complexity, learning community and change management theories. Co-designed with stakeholders, the discovery-based Community model incorporated emergent learning from change in complex adaptive environments and focused bespoke support on leadership capability building. Findings – In total, 19 health and social care economies participated. Kotter's eight-step change model proved flexible in conjunction with large-scale change theories. The tension between programme management, learning communities and the emergent nature of change in complex adaptive systems can be harnessed to inject pace and urgency. Mental models and simple rules were helpful in managing participant's desire for a directive approach in the context of a discovery programme. Research limitations/implications – This is a viewpoint from a regional improvement organisation in North West England. Social implications – The Discovery Community was a useful construct through which to rapidly develop multiple integrated health and social care economies. Flexible design and bespoke delivery is crucial in a complex adaptive environment. Capability building needs to be agile enough to meet the emergent needs of a changing workforce. Collaborative leadership has emerged as an area requiring particular attention. Originality/value – Learning from AQuA's approach may assist others in structuring large-scale integrated care or complex change initiatives.

scholarly journals Which cultural interventions most effectively reduce retaliatory behavior within organizations

10.28945/4585 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 107-118
Author(s):  
Denise A Breckon ◽  
Juan C Cruz ◽  
Katherine Kemmerer ◽  
Bryce Adams
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Cultural Interventions

The purpose of this systematic review is to explore retaliation within organizations and their culture. Specifically, this research examines extant scholarly literature regarding retaliation and how senior leaders, managers, and workers can help reduce it. Further, this study provides organizations intervention recommendations to help mitigate retaliation in small and medium organizations. In this study, complex adaptive systems (CASs) theory was found to be an appropriate mechanism for exploring and understanding how to mitigate retaliation effectively in the workplace. CASs is a people-based, people-driven, and behaviorally focused framework that requires collaboration and shared responsibility among the individual agents and agent-groups sharing a particular system, rather than just the system’s leaders or workers. This qualitative systematic review presents consistent evidence that in organizations retaliation can be reduced by: (1) promoting a culture of collective identity and justice; (2) using structures that maintain and restore justice; and (3) using training and pro-social relations to reinforce the organization’s cultural values. Based on the themes found in the research, three recommendations emerge as cultural interventions that will effectively reduce retaliatory behavior within organizations: (1) institutionalize an organizational culture of collective identity and justice; (2) create a structure that maintains and restores justice; and (3) reinforce values and policies through training and positive social relations.

Thinking in groups

2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd M. Gureckis ◽  
Robert L. Goldstone
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Distributed Information ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Exclusive Property ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Group Structures ◽  
Level Of Analysis

Is cognition an exclusive property of the individual or can groups have a mind of their own? We explore this question from the perspective of complex adaptive systems. One of the principal insights from this line of work is that rules that govern behavior at one level of analysis (the individual) can cause qualitatively different behavior at higher levels (the group). We review a number of behavioral studies from our lab that demonstrate how groups of people interacting in real-time can self-organize into adaptive, problem-solving group structures. A number of principles are derived concerning the critical features of such “distributed” information processing systems. We suggest that while cognitive science has traditionally focused on the individual, cognitive processes may manifest at many levels including the emergent group-level behavior that results from the interaction of multiple agents and their environment.

Developing a Systems Mindset in Community-Based Prevention

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Bensberg
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Approach Method ◽  
Systems Thinking Approach

Background. A systems mindset is the ability to see problems in their wider context and in terms of their underlying structure. This research describes how a systems mindset was understood and applied by prevention practitioners in a large-scale community-based initiative that employed a systems thinking approach. Method. This qualitative research included 31 primary semistructured interviews. Deductive thematic analysis was based on Braun and Clarke’s analysis framework and was guided by Senge and Scharmer’s knowledge-creating system. Results. The practitioners had been introduced to systems theory and were aware of complex problems and the need for equally sophisticated solutions. Their knowledge was not in-depth, although this may be adequate, as a theoretical overview seemed to be sufficient to support practice. A range of tools was available to practitioners to guide their systems mindset; however, none were preferred. Practitioners’ awareness of the tools varied, as did their feelings toward them as some found them helpful and others did not. A narrower focus on tools could have benefited those who had not yet grasped systems theory. The use of projects within a systems approach confused some practitioners, yet others saw them as platforms to leverage change from. Implications for practice. With a systems mindset practitioners are able to develop systemic solutions to difficult problems. To do this, they require an overview of complex adaptive systems theory, an applied understanding of systems tools, and an experiential learning opportunity to shift their knowledge into practical know-how.

Favored Places in the Selfish Herd: Trading OS Food and Security

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bobbi S. Low ◽  
Douglas Finkbeiner
Keyword(s):  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Food Competition ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Selfish Herd ◽  
Simple Rules ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
The Individual

A key element in John Holland's approach to the study of complex adaptive systems has been the emergence of interesting macro-level phenomena from a number of simple rules at the micro level. Hamilton, an early member of the BACH brainstorming group that Holland thanks in his introduction to Emergence, used this approach to show that group formation could emerge naturally from individuals' "concerns" over predation in a one-dimensional environment. In this chapter, we use Holland's approach to extend Hamilton's study to include food competition, along with predation, in a two-dimensional world. In the spirit of Holland's approach, we combine empirical data, mathematical modeling, and computer simulation to understand more completely the behaviors that emerge at the group level from individual activities. Group living over extended time entails automatic and substantial costs: disease and parasite transmission, and constant competition for resources. It will, thus, evolve only when specific benefits outweigh the automatic costs [1, 4, 14, 16, 24, 26, 29, 35]. Yet many animals group together, under a variety of conditions. Determining the functionally important costs and benefits in any case is important, but often difficult. Hamilton's seminal paper "Geometry for the Selfish Herd" [4] used a functionally one-dimensional model in which extremely simple rules generated grouping: in a one-dimensional system with a random predator, a prey's domain of danger (the arc in which it was the individual closest to the predator) was reduced by having neighbors. Empirical work since has suggested a variety of particular ways in which heightened safety might arise; these are neither true alternatives, nor easy to distinguish empirically. Other benefits proposed have been: increased foraging efficiency under specified circumstances (i.e., patchily distributed food that is neither consumable nor economically defensible), and for fish, possibly efficiency of movement generated by use of vortices (see Parrish and Hamner [25] for a recent review). Here we examine groups of fish to focus our discussion of the costs and benefits of grouping in fish "congregations" [27]. Congregations typically (1) have distinct edges and relatively uniform densities, and (2) can show alignment and coordinated movement of individuals ("schooling" in fish).

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