Bücher der Reihe Understanding Complex Systems

This book is a collection of papers contributed by some of the greatest names in the areas of chaos and nonlinear dynamics.

The analysis of recurrences in dynamical systems by using recurrence plots and their quantification is still an emerging field.

This book gives the definitive mathematical answer to what thermodynamics really is: a variational calculus applied to probability distributions. Extending Gibbs's notion of ensemble, the Author imagines the ensemble of all possible probability distributions and assigns probabilities to them by selection rules that are fairly general. The calculus of the most probable distribution in the ensemble produces the entire network of mathematical relationships we recognize as thermodynamics. The first part of the book develops the theory for discrete and continuous distributions while the second part applies this thermodynamic calculus to problems in population balance theory and shows how the emergence of a giant component in aggregation, and the shattering transition in fragmentation may be treated as formal phase transitions.While the book is intended as a research monograph, the material is self-contained and the style sufficiently tutorial to be accessible for self-paced study by an advanced graduate student in such fields as physics, chemistry, and engineering.

The roles and applications of various modeling approaches, aimed at improving the usefulness of energy policy models in public decision making, are covered by this book.

This book presents the latest tools, techniques, and solutions that decision makers use to overcome the challenges faced by their sustainable supply chains.

It provides a unified view of nonlinear properties in many different systems and highlights many new developments.While volume 1 concentrates on mathematical theory and computational techniques and challenges, which are essential for the study of nonlinear science, this second volume deals with nonlinear excitations in several fields.

This edited volume presents chapters on the dynamics of global climate change and global warming in the Middle East. The audience for this volume includes policy makers, researchers, and students unified by the common goal of making better decisions in the sustainable production and consumption of energy.

The overall aim of this book, an outcome of the European FP7 FET Open NESS project, is to contribute to the ongoing effort to put the quantitative social sciences on a proper footing for the 21st century. A key focus is economics, and its implications on policy making, where the still dominant traditional approach increasingly struggles to capture the economic realities we observe in the world today - with vested interests getting too often in the way of real advances.Insights into behavioral economics and modern computing techniques have made possible both the integration of larger information sets and the exploration of disequilibrium behavior. The domain-based chapters of this work illustrate how economic theory is the only branch of social sciences which still holds to its old paradigm of an equilibrium science - an assumption that has already been relaxed in all related fields of research in the light of recent advances in complex and dynamical systems theory and related data mining.The other chapters give various takes on policy and decision making in this context. Written in nontechnical style throughout, with a mix of tutorial and essay-like contributions, this book will benefit all researchers, scientists, professionals and practitioners interested in learning about the 'thinking in complexity' to understand how socio-economic systems really work.

Social simulation is the study of natural and artificial society-like structures through the use of computational tools. This handbook comprehensively covers methodology, mechanisms and simulation tools. It also provides an introduction and extensive glossary.

The core of ths book presents a theory developed by the author to combine the recent insight into empirical data with mathematical models in freeway traffic research based on dynamical non-linear processes.

In the applications part a number of representative examples of really using CA in a broad range of disciplines is provided - this part will give the reader a good idea of the real strength of this kind of modeling as well as the incentive to apply CA in their own field of study.

The ?eld of applied nonlinear dynamics has attracted scientists and engineers across many different disciplines to develop innovative ideas and methods to study c- plex behavior exhibited by relatively simple systems.

Our contemporary understanding of brain function is deeply rooted in the ideas of the nonlinear dynamics of distributed networks. The second part introduces the currently available non-invasive technologies for measuring structural and functional connectivity in the brain.

This book explores the basics and the latest in the integration of sociology and complexity science. It offers an array of real-life applications and showcases a new method for studying social complexity called the Social Systems Toolbox.

This book offers an analytical framework based on activity theory, showing how systems thinking evolves and how it can support multidisciplinary teamwork in systems development and engineering. Explores WAVES (Work Activity for Evolution of Systems) strategy.

The concept is explored in depth, as are the ethical and legal implications of our understanding of free will.This book arises out of a workshop held in California in April of 2007, which was chaired by Dr. Christof Koch.

This book presents fundamental theory, methods, and practical applications of grey systems theory, absorbing recent theoretical and applied advances, and vividly presenting the overall picture of this new theory and its frontal research activities.

This title is included in the Springer Complexity Program.

Nonlinear Powerflow Control Design presents an innovative control system design process. The text compares the value of different energy resources, presents a new tool for power flow control, and examines the human factors involved with selling power into a distributed, decentralized electric power grid.

Cybernetical physics borrows methods from both theoretical physics and control engineering. It deals with the control of complex systems is one of the most important aspects in dealing with systems exhibiting nonlinear behavior or similar features that defy traditional control techniques. This book fully details this new discipline.

This book provides mathematical models of pedestrian movements that can be used specifically for designing feedback control laws for effective evacuation. It book uses the hydrodynamic hyperbolic PDE macroscopic pedestrian models since they are amenable to feedback control design.

This volume introduces new approaches to modeling strongly nonlinear behaviour of structural mechanical units: beams, plates and shells or composite systems. The text draws on bifurcation theory and chaos, emphasizing control and stability of objects and systems.

Models of Science Dynamics aims to capture the structure and evolution of science, the emerging arena in which scholars, science and the communication of science become themselves the basic objects of research.

This title is included in the Springer Complexity Program.

Building on the familiar "butterfly effect," this book examines the causes of emergent phenomena in real world settings, and their often negative impacts. Covers distributed innovation management, and leadership choices that can tame the innovation butterfly.

Bringing together over fifty contributions on all aspects of nonlinear and complex dynamics, this impressive topical collection is both a scientific and personal tribute, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, by many outstanding colleagues in the broad fields of research pursued by Prof.

Bringing together over fifty contributions on all aspects of nonlinear and complex dynamics, this impressive topical collection is both a scientific and personal tribute, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, by many outstanding colleagues in the broad fields of research pursued by Prof.

Mathematics provides the tools and ideas to formulate real-life problems mathematically and then help in solving them. This book deals with several different problems arising from many disciplines and offers some modern mathematical approaches to handle them.