Simplistic Complexity

This book is concerned with the theory of computability and complexity over the real numbers. This theory was initiated by Turing, Grzegorczyk, Lacombe, Banach and Mazur and has seen rapid growth in

Spatial planning is about dealing with our 'everyday' environment. In A Planner's Encounter with Complexity we present various understandings of complexity and how the environment is considered accord

"Complexity" has been part of the academic discourse for a decade or two. Texts on Complexity fall mainly in two categories: fairly technical and mathematical on the one hand, and fairly broad, vague

Natural selection is more than the survival of the fittest: it is a force engendering higher biological complexity. Presenting a new explanation for the tendency of life to become more complex through evolution, this book offers an introduction to the key debates in evolutionary theory, including the role of genes and sex in evolution, the adaptive reasons for senescence and death and the origin of neural information. The author argues that biological complexity increased through the process of 'modularity transfer': modular phenotypes (proteins, somatic cells, learned behaviours) evolved into new modular information carriers (regulatory proteins, neural cells, words), giving rise to new information systems and higher levels of biological organisation. Modular Evolution makes sense of the unique place of humans in evolution, both as the pinnacle of biological complexity and inventors of non-biological evolution.

Natural selection is more than the survival of the fittest: it is a force engendering higher biological complexity. Presenting a new explanation for the tendency of life to become more complex through evolution, this book offers an introduction to the key debates in evolutionary theory, including the role of genes and sex in evolution, the adaptive reasons for senescence and death and the origin of neural information. The author argues that biological complexity increased through the process of 'modularity transfer': modular phenotypes (proteins, somatic cells, learned behaviours) evolved into new modular information carriers (regulatory proteins, neural cells, words), giving rise to new information systems and higher levels of biological organisation. Modular Evolution makes sense of the unique place of humans in evolution, both as the pinnacle of biological complexity and inventors of non-biological evolution.

An ecosystem's complexity develops from the vast numbers of species interacting in ecological communities. The nature of these interactions, in turn, depends on environmental context. How do these com

An ecosystem's complexity develops from the vast numbers of species interacting in ecological communities. The nature of these interactions, in turn, depends on environmental context. How do these com

What do traffic jams, stock market crashes, and wars have in common? They are all explained using complexity, an unsolved puzzle that many researchers believe is the key to predicting - and ultimately

This book treats bounded arithmetic and propositional proof complexity from the point of view of computational complexity. The first seven chapters include the necessary logical background for the material and are suitable for a graduate course. Associated with each of many complexity classes are both a two-sorted predicate calculus theory, with induction restricted to concepts in the class, and a propositional proof system. The complexity classes range from AC0 for the weakest theory up to the polynomial hierarchy. Each bounded theorem in a theory translates into a family of (quantified) propositional tautologies with polynomial size proofs in the corresponding proof system. The theory proves the soundness of the associated proof system. The result is a uniform treatment of many systems in the literature, including Buss's theories for the polynomial hierarchy and many disparate systems for complexity classes such as AC0, AC0(m), TC0, NC1, L, NL, NC, and P.

"The Complexity of Proceduralized Tasks" deals with the problem of quantifying the complexity of a proceduralized task; in other words, a task written as a procedure. This book proposes a systematic f

Outlining state-of-the-art developments in the area of complexity and design, this book collates them into a unique and authoritative resource for both the design and complex systems communities. The

This book offers an introduction to the field of complexity and landscape ecology. It covers such topics as connectivity, criticality, feedback, and networks, as well as their impact on the stability

The leading theme of the book is complexity in quantum dynamics. This issue is addressed by comparison with the classical ergodic, information and algorithmic complexity theories.Of particular import

Mathematical Analysis of Evolution, Information, and Complexity deals with the analysis of evolution, information and complexity. The time evolution of systems or processes is a central question in sc

By now, most academics have heard something about the new science of complexity. In a manner reminiscent of Einstein and the last hundred years of physics, complexity science has captured the public i

The purpose of the science of complexity is to provide, if not a unified approach, at least useful tools to tackling complex problems in various scientific domains. Generally, complexity is considered

This beginning graduate textbook describes both recent achievements and classical results of computational complexity theory. Requiring essentially no background apart from mathematical maturity, the

In Romantic Complexity, Jack Stillinger examines three of the most admired poets of English Romanticism--Keats, Coleridge, and Wordsworth--with a focus on the complexity that results from the multiple

A collection of scholarly essays, Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of Education provides an accessible theoretical introduction to the topic of complexity theory while considering its broader impl

In recent years, agent-based simulation has become a widely accepted tool when dealing with complexity in economics and other social sciences. The contributions presented in this book apply agent-base

When the term "complexity" appears in architectural contexts, it is clear at once that it has more than one definition, more than one interpretation, more than one architectural conceptualization. Per

This book collects survey papers in the fields of entropy, search and complexity, summarizing the latest developments in their respective areas. More than half of the papers belong to search theory wh

The contributors of these 21 essays apply classical complexity science to the art of public policy making. They address the rising importance of complexity theory in leadership research, the parallel

Fusing two key concerns of contemporary sociology: globalization and its discontents, and the 'complexity turn' in social theory, authors Chesters and Welsh utilize complexity theory to analyze the sh

This book is a state-of-the-art introduction into both algorithmic techniques for fixed-parameter tractability and the structural theory of parameterized complexity classes. It presents detailed proof

This book is a state-of-the-art introduction into both algorithmic techniques for fixed-parameter tractability and the structural theory of parameterized complexity classes. It presents detailed proof

This book provides a challenging and stimulating introduction to the contemporary topics of complexity and criticality, and explores their common basis of scale invariance, a central unifying theme o

Recent critiques of neoevolutionary formulations that focus primarily on the development of powerful hierarchies have called for broadening the empirical base for complex society studies. Redressing the neglect of sub-Saharan examples in comparative discussions on complex society, this book considers how case material from the region can enhance our understanding of the nature, origins and development of complexity. The archaeological, historical and anthropological case materials are relevant to a number of recent concerns, revealing how complexity has emerged and developed in a variety of ways. Contributors engage important theoretical issues, including the continuing influence of deeply embedded evolutionary notions in archaeological concepts of complexity, the importance of alternative modes of complex organization such as flexible hierarchies, multiple overlapping hierarchies, and horizontal differentiation, and the significance of different forms of power. The distinguished list

Modern cryptology increasingly employs mathematically rigorous concepts and methods from complexity theory. Conversely, current research topics in complexity theory are often motivated by questions an

This work views urban dynamics in the context of complexity theory; models and examples in scales from the local to the regional.As urban planning moves from a centralized, top-down approach to a dece

Over the past two decades, no field of scientific inquiry has had a more striking impact across a wide array of disciplines–from biology to physics, computing to meteorology–than that known as chaos and complexity, the study of complex systems. Now astrophysicist John Gribbin draws on his expertise to explore, in prose that communicates not only the wonder but the substance of cutting-edge science, the principles behind chaos and complexity. He reveals the remarkable ways these two revolutionary theories have been applied over the last twenty years to explain all sorts of phenomena–from weather patterns to mass extinctions.Grounding these paradigm-shifting ideas in their historical context, Gribbin also traces their development from Newton to Darwin to Lorenz, Prigogine, and Lovelock, demonstrating how–far from overturning all that has gone before–chaos and complexity are the triumphant extensions of simple scientific laws. Ultimately, Gribbin illustrates how chaos and complexity perme

We live in a moment of unprecedented complexity, an era in which change and information can move faster than our ability to comprehend them. With The Moment of Complexity, Mark C. Taylor offers a map

The science of complexity is concerned with the study of complex, adaptive systems. Its insights have in recent decades been applied with gusto by social scientists and other thinkers.As research in a

An up-to-date and critical analysis of how archaeologists study past societies, Archaeologies of Complexity addresses the nature of contemporary archaeology and the study of social change, and debates

Lissack and Rivkin, along with a panel of distinguished academics and executives, identify critical topics in the study of complexity science.

The discrepancy method is the glue that binds randomness and complexity. It is the bridge between randomized computation and discrepancy theory, the area of mathematics concerned with irregularities in distributions. The discrepancy method has played a major role in complexity theory; in particular, it has caused a mini-revolution of sorts in computational geometry. This book tells the story of the discrepancy method in a few short independent vignettes. It is a varied tale which includes such topics as communication complexity, pseudo-randomness, rapidly mixing Markov chains, points on the sphere and modular forms, derandomization, convex hulls, Voronoi diagrams, linear programming and extensions, geometric sampling, VC-dimension theory, minimum spanning trees, linear circuit complexity, and multidimensional searching. The mathematical treatment is thorough and self-contained. In particular, background material in discrepancy theory is supplied as needed. Thus the book should appeal t

"The Moment of Complexity is a profoundly original work. In remarkable and insightful ways, Mark Taylor traces an entirely new way to view the evolution of our culture, detailing how information theor

A groundbreaking look at complexity theory and its implications in the world of finance Complexity theory tells us that processes with a large number of seemingly independent agents-such as free marke

The discrepancy method is the glue that binds randomness and complexity. It is the bridge between randomized computation and discrepancy theory, the area of mathematics concerned with irregularities in distributions. The discrepancy method has played a major role in complexity theory; in particular, it has caused a mini-revolution of sorts in computational geometry. This book tells the story of the discrepancy method in a few short independent vignettes. It is a varied tale which includes such topics as communication complexity, pseudo-randomness, rapidly mixing Markov chains, points on the sphere and modular forms, derandomization, convex hulls, Voronoi diagrams, linear programming and extensions, geometric sampling, VC-dimension theory, minimum spanning trees, linear circuit complexity, and multidimensional searching. The mathematical treatment is thorough and self-contained. In particular, background material in discrepancy theory is supplied as needed. Thus the book should appeal t

This advanced handbook presents a broad and up-to-date view of the computational complexity theory of Boolean circuits. It combines the algorithmic and the automata-theoretic approaches, and includes