The study of complex systems has attracted a broad range of researchers from many disciplines spanning both the hard and soft sciences. In the Autumn of 1997, 300 of these researchers came together for the First International Conference on Complex Systems. The proceedings of this conference is the first book in the New England Complex Systems Institute Series on Complexity and includes more than 100 presentations and papers on topics like evolution, emergence, complexity, self-organization, scaling, informatics, time series, emergence of mind, and engineering of complex systems.

In recent years, scientists have applied the principles of complex systems science to increasingly diverse fields. The results have been nothing short of remarkable. The Third International Conference on Complex Systems attracted over 400 researchers from around the world. The conference aimed to encourage cross-fertilization between the many disciplines represented and to deepen our understanding of the properties common to all complex systems.

Unifying Themes in Complex Systems is a well-established series of carefully edited conference proceedings that serve to document and archive the progress made regarding cross-fertilization in this field. The International Conference on Complex Systems (ICCS) creates a unique atmosphere for scientists from all fields, engineers, physicians, executives, and a host of other professionals, allowing them to explore common themes and applications of complex systems science. With this new volume, Unifying Themes in Complex Systems continues to establish common ground between the wide-ranging domains of complex systems science.

The International Conference on Complex Systems (ICCS) creates a unique atmosphere for scientists of all fields, engineers, physicians, executives, and a host of other professionals to explore common themes and applications of complex system science. With this new volume, Unifying Themes in Complex Systems continues to build common ground between the wide-ranging domains of complex system science.

​Structural Methods in the Study of Complex Systems helps the reader respond to the challenge of mastering complexity in systems and control. The book details the fundamental control problems arising from complex dynamical systems and shows how they can be tackled effectively by means of methods developed from graph theory, differential algebra and geometric approaches. These “structural methods” produce abstractions that fit a wide variety of applications by taking advantage of their intrinsic focus on the essential characteristics of dynamical systems, their geometric perspective and visual representation, and their algebraic formalization and ability to generate algorithmic frameworks to complement the theoretical treatment. The original work and latest achievements of the contributors, expanding on material presented at a workshop organized to coincide with the 2018 European Control Conference will assist systems and control scientists interested in developing theoretical and computational tools to solve analysis and synthesis problems involving complex dynamical systems. The contributions provide a comprehensive picture of available results along with a stimulating view of possible directions for future investigations in the field. Emphasis is placed on methods with solid computational background and on specific engineering applications so that readers from both theoretical and practical backgrounds will find this collection of use.

This research monograph presents an inter-disciplinary study of the impact, and current status, of applications of complexity-related concepts in the early stages of development of Agile Project Management (APM). The results serve as an introduction for exploring more profound relations between complexity-related ideas and APM in the future. The increasing complexity of software projects and their environment in the 1990s constituted the main determinants of the development of the family of methodological frameworks called Agile Project Management. Development of APM has been shaped by a broadly defined area of research called complexity science or complexity theory based on complex adaptive systems (CAS) and on their characteristics: Complexity, chaos, the edge of chaos, emerging properties, non-linearity, self-organization, etc. In the 21st century, due to the expansion of Agile beyond software development, the challenges deriving from the complexity of projects and the environment are even more urgent or compelling. Such phenomena demand more profound inter- and multi-disciplinary studies. This book examines the impact of applications of complexity-related ideas deriving from intuitive complexity and from complexity science in the early stages of development of the Agile methodological frameworks in project management and considers the current status of those applications. It questions the usefulness of those applications for the practice and theory of APM, and then proposes a conceptual framework for further theoretical studies and several ways of improvement and refinement of the Agile Project Management necessary to deal with broadly defined complexity in project management. Requiring a medium-level knowledge of complexity studies and knowledge of project management, this book is written for the research community studying the links between the various methodological frameworks included in APM and complexity-related ideas. It will also be interesting for studies of the impact of complexity on modern management, and for master’s students on IT and management courses.

“Artfully integrates scholarship on both past and present migration. With its thematic focus on disruption, this volume develops unprecedented nuance in the treatment of migration.”—Graciela S. Cabana, coeditor of Rethinking Anthropological Perspectives on Migration “A significant contribution to the social sciences in general and a future staple for archaeologists and anthropologists. Migration and Disruptions demonstrates the importance of collaboration and constructive dialogues between the traditional subfields composing the umbrella title of anthropology.”—Stephen A. Brighton, author of Historical Archaeology of the Irish Diaspora: A Transnational Approach Migration has always been a fundamental human activity, yet little collaboration exists between scientists and social scientists examining how it has shaped past and contemporary societies. This innovative volume brings together sociocultural anthropologists, archaeologists, bioarchaeologists, ethnographers, paleopathologists, and others to develop a unifying theory of migration. The contributors relate past movements, including the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and the Islamic conquest of Andalucía, to present-day events, such as those in northern Ethiopia or at the U.S.-Mexico border. They examine the extent to which environmental and social disruptions have been a cause of migration over time and how these migratory flows have in turn led to disruptive consequences for the receiving societies. The observed cycles of social disruption, resettlement, and its consequences offer a new perspective on how human migration has shaped the social, economic, political, and environmental landscapes of societies from prehistory to today. Contributors:Brenda J. Baker | Christopher S. Beekman | George L. Cowgill | Jason De Leon | James F. Eder | Anna Forringer-Beal | Cameron Gokee | Catherine Hills | Kelly J. Knudson | Patrick Manning | Jonathan Maupin | Lisa Meierotto | James Morrissey | Rachel E. Scott | Christina Torres-Rouff | Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda | Sonia Zakrzewski