The European Conference on Complex Systems, held under the patronage of the Complex Systems Society, is an annual event that has become the leading European conference devoted to complexity science. ECCS'12, its ninth edition, took place in Brussels, during the first week of September 2012. It gathered about 650 scholars representing a wide range of topics relating to complex systems research, with emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches. More specifically, the following tracks were covered: 1. Foundations of Complex Systems 2. Complexity, Information and Computation 3. Prediction, Policy and Planning, Environment 4. Biological Complexity 5. Interacting Populations, Collective Behavior 6. Social Systems, Economics and Finance This book contains a selection of the contributions presented at the conference and its satellite meetings. Its contents reflect the extent, diversity and richness of research areas in the field, both fundamental and applied.

This edited book captures salient global security challenges and presents ‘design’ solutions in dealing with wicked problems. Through case studies and applied research this book reveals the many perspectives, tools and approaches to support security design. Security design thereby can support risk and threat analysis, risk communication, problem framing and development of interventions strategies. From the refugee crisis to economic slowdowns in emerging markets, from ever-rising numbers of terrorist and cyberattacks to global water shortages, to the proliferation of the Internet of Things and its impact on the security of our homes, cities and critical infrastructure, the current security landscape is diverse and complex. These global risks have been in the headlines in the last year (Global Risks Report) and pose significant security challenges both nationally and globally. In fact, national security is no longer just national. Non-state actors, cyber NGO, rising powers, and hybrid wars and crimes in strategic areas pose complex challenges to global security. In the words of Horst Rittel (1968):"Design is an activity, which aims at the production of a plan, which plan -if implemented- is intended to bring about a situation with specific desired characteristics without creating unforeseen and undesired side and after effects."

This book contains all refereed papers that were accepted to the third edition of the « Complex Systems Design & Management » (CSD&M 2012) international conference that took place in Paris (France) from December 12-14, 2012. (Website: http://www.csdm2012.csdm.fr) These proceedings cover the most recent trends in the emerging field of complex systems sciences & practices from an industrial and academic perspective, including the main industrial domains (transport, defense & security, electronics, energy & environment, e-services), scientific & technical topics (systems fundamentals, systems architecture& engineering, systems metrics & quality, systemic tools) and system types (transportation systems, embedded systems, software & information systems, systems of systems, artificial ecosystems). The CSD&M 2012 conference is organized under the guidance of the CESAMES non-profit organization (http://www.cesames.net).

Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Research Methods in Bolton, UK, on 28-29 June 2011

This book gives a wide-ranging description of the many facets of complex dynamic networks and systems within an infrastructure provided by integrated control and supervision: envisioning, design, experimental exploration, and implementation. The theoretical contributions and the case studies presented can reach control goals beyond those of stabilization and output regulation or even of adaptive control. Reporting on work of the Control of Complex Systems (COSY) research program, Complex Systems follows from and expands upon an earlier collection: Control of Complex Systems by introducing novel theoretical techniques for hard-to-control networks and systems. The major common feature of all the superficially diverse contributions encompassed by this book is that of spotting and exploiting possible areas of mutual reinforcement between control, computing and communications. These help readers to achieve not only robust stable plant system operation but also properties such as collective adaptivity, integrity and survivability at the same time retaining desired performance quality. Applications in the individual chapters are drawn from: • the general implementation of model-based diagnosis and systems engineering in medical technology, in communication, and in power and airport networks; • the creation of biologically inspired control brains and safety-critical human–machine systems, • process-industrial uses; • biped robots; • large space structures and unmanned aerial vehicles; and • precision servomechanisms and other advanced technologies. Complex Systems provides researchers from engineering, applied mathematics and computer science backgrounds with innovative theoretical and practical insights into the state-of-the-art of complex networks and systems research. It employs physical implementations and extensive computer simulations. Graduate students specializing in complex-systems research will also learn much from this collection./pp

As population growth accelerates, researchers and professionals face challenges as they attempt to plan for the future. Urban planning is a significant component in addressing the key concerns as the world population moves towards the city and leaves the rural environment behind, yet there are many factors to consider for a well rounded community. The Handbook of Research on Social, Economic, and Environmental Sustainability in the Development of Smart Cities brings together the necessary research and interdisciplinary discussion to address dilemmas created by population growth and the expansion of urban environments. This publication is an essential reference source for researchers, academicians, investors, and practitioners interested in the urban planning and technological advancements necessary for the creation of smart cities.

The book discusses the potential of higher-order interactions to model real-world relational systems. Over the last decade, networks have emerged as the paradigmatic framework to model complex systems. Yet, as simple collections of nodes and links, they are intrinsically limited to pairwise interactions, limiting our ability to describe, understand, and predict complex phenomena which arise from higher-order interactions. Here we introduce the new modeling framework of higher-order systems, where hypergraphs and simplicial complexes are used to describe complex patterns of interactions among any number of agents. This book is intended both as a first introduction and an overview of the state of the art of this rapidly emerging field, serving as a reference for network scientists interested in better modeling the interconnected world we live in.