Natural Complexity

Natural Complexity PDF Author: Paul Charbonneau
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400885493
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
This book provides a short, hands-on introduction to the science of complexity using simple computational models of natural complex systems—with models and exercises drawn from physics, chemistry, geology, and biology. By working through the models and engaging in additional computational explorations suggested at the end of each chapter, readers very quickly develop an understanding of how complex structures and behaviors can emerge in natural phenomena as diverse as avalanches, forest fires, earthquakes, chemical reactions, animal flocks, and epidemic diseases. Natural Complexity provides the necessary topical background, complete source codes in Python, and detailed explanations for all computational models. Ideal for undergraduates, beginning graduate students, and researchers in the physical and natural sciences, this unique handbook requires no advanced mathematical knowledge or programming skills and is suitable for self-learners with a working knowledge of precalculus and high-school physics. Self-contained and accessible, Natural Complexity enables readers to identify and quantify common underlying structural and dynamical patterns shared by the various systems and phenomena it examines, so that they can form their own answers to the questions of what natural complexity is and how it arises.

Natural Complexity

Natural Complexity PDF Author: Paul Charbonneau
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400885493
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Get Book

Book Description
This book provides a short, hands-on introduction to the science of complexity using simple computational models of natural complex systems—with models and exercises drawn from physics, chemistry, geology, and biology. By working through the models and engaging in additional computational explorations suggested at the end of each chapter, readers very quickly develop an understanding of how complex structures and behaviors can emerge in natural phenomena as diverse as avalanches, forest fires, earthquakes, chemical reactions, animal flocks, and epidemic diseases. Natural Complexity provides the necessary topical background, complete source codes in Python, and detailed explanations for all computational models. Ideal for undergraduates, beginning graduate students, and researchers in the physical and natural sciences, this unique handbook requires no advanced mathematical knowledge or programming skills and is suitable for self-learners with a working knowledge of precalculus and high-school physics. Self-contained and accessible, Natural Complexity enables readers to identify and quantify common underlying structural and dynamical patterns shared by the various systems and phenomena it examines, so that they can form their own answers to the questions of what natural complexity is and how it arises.

Computational Complexity and Natural Language

Computational Complexity and Natural Language PDF Author: G. Edward Barton
Publisher: Bradford Books
ISBN: 9780262524056
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
A nontechnical introduction to complexity theory: its strengths, its weaknesses, and how it can be used to study grammars.

The Evolution of Complexity by Means of Natural Selection

The Evolution of Complexity by Means of Natural Selection PDF Author: John Tyler Bonner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691222118
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
John Tyler Bonner makes a new attack on an old problem: the question of how progressive increase in the size and complexity of animals and plants has occurred. "How is it," he inquires, "that an egg turns into an elaborate adult? How is it that a bacterium, given many millions of years, could have evolved into an elephant?" The author argues that we can understand this progression in terms of natural selection, but that in order to do so we must consider the role of development--or more precisely the role of life cycles--in evolutionary change. In a lively writing style that will be familiar to readers of his work The Evolution of Culture in Animals (Princeton, 1980), Bonner addresses a general audience interested in biology, as well as specialists in all areas of evolutionary biology. What is novel in the approach used here is the comparison of complexity inside the organism (especially cell differentiation) with the complexity outside (that is, within an ecological community). Matters of size at both these levels are closely related to complexity. The book shows how an understanding of the grand course of evolution can come from combining our knowledge of genetics, development, ecology, and even behavior.

Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature

Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature PDF Author: Peter Godfrey-Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521646246
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
This book explains the relationship between intelligence and environmental complexity, and in so doing links philosophy of mind to more general issues about the relations between organisms and environments, and to the general pattern of 'externalist' explanations. The author provides a biological approach to the investigation of mind and cognition in nature. In particular he explores the idea that the function of cognition is to enable agents to deal with environmental complexity. The history of the idea in the work of Dewey and Spencer is considered, as is the impact of recent evolutionary theory on our understanding of the place of mind in nature.

The Formal Complexity of Natural Language

The Formal Complexity of Natural Language PDF Author: W.J. Savitch
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400934017
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
Ever since Chomsky laid the framework for a mathematically formal theory of syntax, two classes of formal models have held wide appeal. The finite state model offered simplicity. At the opposite extreme numerous very powerful models, most notable transformational grammar, offered generality. As soon as this mathematical framework was laid, devastating arguments were given by Chomsky and others indicating that the finite state model was woefully inadequate for the syntax of natural language. In response, the completely general transformational grammar model was advanced as a suitable vehicle for capturing the description of natural language syntax. While transformational grammar seems likely to be adequate to the task, many researchers have advanced the argument that it is "too adequate. " A now classic result of Peters and Ritchie shows that the model of transformational grammar given in Chomsky's Aspects [IJ is powerful indeed. So powerful as to allow it to describe any recursively enumerable set. In other words it can describe the syntax of any language that is describable by any algorithmic process whatsoever. This situation led many researchers to reasses the claim that natural languages are included in the class of transformational grammar languages. The conclu sion that many reached is that the claim is void of content, since, in their view, it says little more than that natural language syntax is doable algo rithmically and, in the framework of modern linguistics, psychology or neuroscience, that is axiomatic.

Embracing Complexity in the Built Environment

Embracing Complexity in the Built Environment PDF Author: Halim A. Boussabaine
Publisher: Earthscan
ISBN: 1844076407
Category : Architectural design
Languages : en
Pages : 73

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Book Description
First Published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

From Complexity in the Natural Sciences to Complexity in Operations Management Systems

From Complexity in the Natural Sciences to Complexity in Operations Management Systems PDF Author: Jean-Pierre Briffaut
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119610826
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Although complexity makes up the very fabric of our daily lives and has been more or less addressed in a wide variety of knowledge fields, the approaches developed in the Natural Sciences and the results obtained over the past century have not yet permeated Management Sciences very much. The main features of the phenomena that the Natural Sciences deal with are: non-linear behavior, self-organization and chaos. They are analyzed with the framing of what is called “systems thinking”, popularized by the mindset pertaining to cybernetics. All pioneers in systems thinking either had direct or indirect connections with Biology, which is the discipline considered complex par excellence by the public. When applying these concepts to Operations Management Systems and modeling organizations by BDI (Beliefs, Desires, Intentions) agents, the lack of predictability in the conduct of change management that is prone to bifurcations (tipping points) in terms of organizational structures and in forecasting future activities, reveals them to be ingrained in the interplay of complexity and chaos.

Network Science

Network Science PDF Author: Ernesto Estrada
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1849963967
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Network Science is the emerging field concerned with the study of large, realistic networks. This interdisciplinary endeavor, focusing on the patterns of interactions that arise between individual components of natural and engineered systems, has been applied to data sets from activities as diverse as high-throughput biological experiments, online trading information, smart-meter utility supplies, and pervasive telecommunications and surveillance technologies. This unique text/reference provides a fascinating insight into the state of the art in network science, highlighting the commonality across very different areas of application and the ways in which each area can be advanced by injecting ideas and techniques from another. The book includes contributions from an international selection of experts, providing viewpoints from a broad range of disciplines. It emphasizes networks that arise in nature—such as food webs, protein interactions, gene expression, and neural connections—and in technology—such as finance, airline transport, urban development and global trade. Topics and Features: begins with a clear overview chapter to introduce this interdisciplinary field; discusses the classic network science of fixed connectivity structures, including empirical studies, mathematical models and computational algorithms; examines time-dependent processes that take place over networks, covering topics such as synchronisation, and message passing algorithms; investigates time-evolving networks, such as the World Wide Web and shifts in topological properties (connectivity, spectrum, percolation); explores applications of complex networks in the physical and engineering sciences, looking ahead to new developments in the field. Researchers and professionals from disciplines as varied as computer science, mathematics, engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, neuroscience, epidemiology, and the social sciences will all benefit from this topical and broad overview of current activities and grand challenges in the unfolding field of network science.

Extreme Events and Natural Hazards

Extreme Events and Natural Hazards PDF Author: A. Surjalal Sharma
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118671848
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 693

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Book Description
Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 196. Extreme Events and Natural Hazards: The Complexity Perspective examines recent developments in complexity science that provide a new approach to understanding extreme events. This understanding is critical to the development of strategies for the prediction of natural hazards and mitigation of their adverse consequences. The volume is a comprehensive collection of current developments in the understanding of extreme events. The following critical areas are highlighted: understanding extreme events, natural hazard prediction and development of mitigation strategies, recent developments in complexity science, global change and how it relates to extreme events, and policy sciences and perspective. With its overarching theme, Extreme Events and Natural Hazards will be of interest and relevance to scientists interested in nonlinear geophysics, natural hazards, atmospheric science, hydrology, oceanography, tectonics, and space weather.

Chaos, Nonlinearity, Complexity

Chaos, Nonlinearity, Complexity PDF Author: Ashok Sengupta
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3540317570
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
This book explores non-extensive statistical mechanics in non-equilibrium thermodynamics, and presents an overview of the strong nonlinearity of chaos and complexity in natural systems, drawing on relevant mathematics from topology, measure-theory, inverse and ill-posed problems, set-valued analysis, and nonlinear functional analysis. It offers a self-contained theory of complexity and complex systems as the steady state of non-equilibrium systems, denoting a homeostatic dynamic equilibrium between stabilizing order and destabilizing disorder.