Complexity Science Perspective Research Articles

Complex Network Analysis of Photovoltaic Plant Operations and Failure Modes

This paper presents a novel data-driven approach, based on sensor network analysis in Photovoltaic (PV) power plants, to unveil hidden precursors in failure modes. The method is based on the analysis of signals from PV plant monitoring, and advocates the use of graph modeling techniques to reconstruct and investigate the connectivity among PV field sensors, as is customary for Complex Network Analysis (CNA) approaches. Five month operation data are used in the present study. The results showed that the proposed methodology is able to discover specific hidden dynamics, also referred to as emerging properties in a Complexity Science perspective, which are not visible in the observation of individual sensor signal but are closely linked to the relationships occurring at the system level. The application of exploratory data analysis techniques on those properties demonstrated, for the specific plant under scrutiny, potential for early fault detection.

Evolution of regional low-carbon innovation systems with sustainable development: An empirical study with big-data

Based on the theory of low-carbon economy, this article introduces the theory and method of synergetics and puts forward an interdisciplinary theoretical framework based on the dynamic perspective of complexity science to analyze the evolution principles of regional low-carbon innovation system targeting sustainable development. Earlier studies tended to demonstrate a single variable, such as the role of R & D of low-carbon technologies in improving the output of regional low-carbon innovation systems, ignoring the impacts that interactions among variables may have on systems. Different from the existing literature, we rigorously identify multiple state variables that make up a regional low-carbon innovation system and establish a Logistics equation that describes the relationships among variables. Large quantities of data and simulations are used to make the order parameters, the nonlinear forms and evolution principles of different variables explicit. Our research confirms the impact of changes in government support on regional low-carbon innovation systems, clarifies the evolutionary trends of different state variables and their correlation with each other, and identifies the shortcomings in the evolution of regional low-carbon innovation systems. The results of this study provide the basis for managers to make more targeted policies to promote the evolution of regional low-carbon innovation systems. And the proposed interdisciplinary research framework is also applicable to other fields such as strategic alliances and complex networks.

Herbal medicine, radical scavenger and metal detoxification: bioinorganic, complexity and nano science perspectives

Developing Complexity Science and Nano Biological perspective giving the ideas of interfacing between modern physical and biological sciences for more comprehensive understanding of life. The study of bioinorganic is a trans-disciplinary, and will initiate the way to more comprehensive and better understanding life. We can talk about energy generation, motive forces and energy transfer at the level of macromolecules. We can then develop understanding biological behavior on nano size biological materials and its higher order using modern physics as well as thermodynamic law. This is a necessity to ovoid partial understanding of life that are not match with holism. In animal tissues, the accumulation or overwhelmed production of free radicals can damage cells and are believed to accelerate the progression of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and age-related diseases. Thus a guarded balance of radical species is imperative. Edward Kosower [1] proposed an idea of biradical in an aromatic organic compounds. Each of which having unpaired electrons. The magnetic force of this compound used for making agregation based on their magnetic characters. Bioinorganic low molecular weight complex compounds composing herbal medicine can bind toxic metals. This low molecular weight complex molecules then easily excerted the metals from the body, removing them from their either intracellular or extracellular existences. This bioinorganic chelation potential is now inspiring a new therapeutic strategies.

Evolution of the East Central Eurasian Hydrocarbon Energy Complex

Abstract This article analyzes the evolution of the East Central Eurasian energy triangle China-Kazakhstan-Russia. It treats in depth the behavior of Chinese national oil companies (nocs) regarding foreign direct investment (fdi) in Kazakhstan and Russia. The first section sets out the framework of geo-economics in a complexity-science perspective, in particular the key analytical categories of the ‘emergent coherence’ approach, and it defines a ‘hydrocarbon energy complex’ (hec). The second section analyzes the formation of the East Central Eurasian hec by examining Chinese energy investment in Kazakhstan and Russia since 1991, using the ‘emergent coherence’ framework as explained. The third section examines the geo-economics of Sino-Russian competition for energy resources in Central Asia, specifically in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, over the same timeframe. The fourth section presents conclusions about changes over time in the behavior of Chinese nocs regarding investment in Kazakhstan and Russia and cooperation with them in the energy sector. The fifth section, the conclusion, summarizes the findings, gives them geopolitical perspective, and concludes on the criteria determining the delimitation of the distinct chronological periods emerging from application of the ‘emergent coherence’ framework.

ECOLOGICAL DESIGN IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF COMPLEXITY — CONCEPTUAL DESIGN OF NOMADIC LANDSCAPE IN HULUNBUIR

As ecological design gradually goes beyond environmental protection or resource conservation towards an activity of creating and managing complex systems, researchers and designers have been increasingly looking for design methods from complexity science. Currently, complexity theories have been widely applied in generating complex forms and establishing design process models. Some designers have further integrated complexity theories with design culture through metaphors. In such context, this article attempts to explore application of ecological design methods under a perspective of complexity science. This article describes a conceptual design for Hulunbuir nomadic landscape①, which reveals potential relationships between multiple factors and helps define design strategies with a kind of datascape. The design process draws on complex system design methods featuring a bottom-up process through nested hierarchies and tries to apply an alternative selecting framework and a feedback-learning system for a more tangible implementation and management.

‘Complexity-compatible’ policy for integrated care? Lessons from the implementation of Ontario's Health Links

Complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory views healthcare as numerous sub-systems characterized by diverse agents that interact, self-organize, and continuously adapt. We apply this complexity science perspective to examine the extent to which CAS theory is a useful lens for designing and implementing health policies. We present the case of Health Links, a “low rules” policy intervention in Ontario, Canada aimed at stimulating the development of voluntary networks of health and social organizations to improve care coordination for the most frequent users of the healthcare system. Our sample consisted of stakeholders from regional governance bodies and organizations partnering in Health Links. Qualitative interview data were coded using the key complexity concepts of sensemaking, self-organization, interconnections, coevolution, and emergence. We found that the complexity-compatible policy design successfully stimulated local dynamics of flexibility, experimentation, and learning and that important mediating factors include leadership, readiness, relationship-building, role clarity, communication, and resources. However, we saw tensions between preferences for flexibility and standardization. Desirable developments occurred only in some settings and failed to flow upward to higher levels, resulting in a piecemeal and patchy landscape. Attention needs to be paid not only to local dynamics and processes, but also to regional and provincial levels to ensure that learning flows to the top and informs decision-making. We conclude that implementation of complexity-compatible policies needs a balance between flexibility and consistency and the right leadership to coordinate the two. Complexity-compatible policy for integrated healthcare is more than simply ‘letting a thousand flowers bloom’.

Lessons from complexity science for urban health and well-being

From a complexity science perspective, urban health and well-being challenges emerge due to the complexity of urban systems. Adverse urban health outcomes emerge from failing to respond to that complexity by taking a systems approach in knowledge and action which would open opportunity spaces for human agents to create benefits which in turn would generate salutogenic health and well-being outcomes. Lessons learned from complexity science suggest that adverse urban health outcomes emerge from a poor understanding of their complexity and from not engaging with them in a transdisciplinary, integrated fashion. A conceptual framework is presented which combines systems models from the natural and social sciences and explains how opportunities for advancing health and well-being can be co-created. The framework demonstrates that taking a systems approach is a necessary cognitive response from learning the lessons of complexity science and from understanding that humans are an inextricable part of the systems they aim at understanding and managing. Such response is at the core of systems intelligence. The implications are far reaching for the science of urban health and well-being.

Aging and efficiency in living systems: Complexity, adaptation and self-organization

Living systems are open, out-of-equilibrium thermodynamic entities, that maintain order by locally reducing their entropy. Aging is a process by which these systems gradually lose their ability to maintain their out-of-equilibrium state, as measured by their free-energy rate density, and hence, their order. Thus, the process of aging reduces the efficiency of those systems, making them fragile and less adaptive to the environmental fluctuations, gradually driving them towards the state of thermodynamic equilibrium. In this paper, we discuss the various metrics that can be used to understand the process of aging from a complexity science perspective. Among all the metrics that we propose, action efficiency, is observed to be of key interest as it can be used to quantify order and self-organization in any physical system. Based upon our arguments, we present the dependency of other metrics on the action efficiency of a system, and also argue as to how each of the metrics, influences all the other system variables. In order to support our claims, we draw parallels between technological progress and biological growth. Such parallels are used to support the universal applicability of the metrics and the methodology presented in this paper. Therefore, the results and the arguments presented in this paper throw light on the finer nuances of the science of aging.

Evolution of the Chinese Industry-University-Research Collaborative Innovation System

The goal of this study was to reveal the mechanism of the Chinese industry-university-research collaborative innovation (IURCI) and interactions between the elements in the system and find issues that exist in the collaborative innovation process. Based on the theoretical perspective of innovation and complexity science, we summarized the elements of the IURCI as innovation capability, research and development (R&D) configuration, and knowledge transfer and established a theoretical model to describe the evolution of the IURCI system. We used simulation technology to determine the interactions among variables and the evolution trend of the system. The results showed that the R&D configuration can promote the evolution of innovation capability and knowledge transfer and that innovation capacity is the current dominant factor in the evolution of the Chinese IURCI system and is highly positively correlated with R&D configuration. The evolutionary trend of knowledge transfer was gentler, and its contribution to the evolution of the Chinese IURCI system was less than that of R&D configuration. When innovation, R&D configuration, and knowledge transfer are relatively balanced, the collaborative innovation system can achieve high speed and stable evolution.

Grip on health: A complex systems approach to transform health care.

This article addresses the urgent need for a transition in health care to deal with the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases and associated rapid rise of health care costs. Chronic diseases evolve and are predominantly related to lifestyle and environment. A shift is needed from a reductionist repair mode of thinking, toward a more integrated biopsychosocial way of thinking about health. The aim of this article is to discuss the opportunities that complexity science offer for transforming health care toward optimal treatment and prevention of chronic lifestyle diseases. Health and health care is discussed from a complexity science perspective. The benefits of concepts developed in the field of complexity science for stimulating transitions in health care are explored. Complexity science supports the elucidation of the essence of health processes. It provides a unique perspective on health with a focus on the relationships within networks of dynamically interacting factors and the emergence of health out of the organization of those relationships. Novel types of complexity science-based intervention strategies are being developed. The first application in practice is the integrated obesity treatment program currently piloted in the Netherlands, focusing on health awareness and healing relationships. Complexity science offers various theories and methods to capture the path toward unhealthy and healthy states, facilitating the development of a dynamic integrated biopsychosocial perspective on health. This perspective offers unique insights into health processes for patients and citizens. In addition, dynamic models driven by personal data provide simulations of health processes and the ability to detect transitions between health states. Such models are essential for aligning and reconnecting the many institutions and disciplines involved in the health care sector and evolve toward an integrated health care ecosystem.

How to Grow Successful Social Entrepreneurship Firms? Key Ideas from Complexity Theory

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is increasingly popular in academia and practice, but unified theoretical explanations about the performance of social entrepreneurship firms (SEFs) is missing (Santos, 2012). This deficiency motivates us to theorize about SE from a complexity science perspective. We draw from complexity science to analyze and explain how SEFs emerge, achieve performance, and grow. We link complexity science with SE so as to add explanatory value as well as offering guidelines for better SEF performance toward achieving social objectives while avoiding the chasm of chaos. Our theoretical framework offers complexity insights for building effective networks, and accountability, as well as for improving trust, legitimacy, and sound governance. Drawing on complexity theory to better explain the key elements necessary for improving SEFs’ performance and growth, enhances the probability of meeting the challenge of the so-called ‘double bottom-line’: achieving continuous positive social impacts while attaining financial health.

Complexity and Organizational Communication

In recent years, a growing body of literature has emerged from the intersection of complex systems science and organizational communication. However, due to the incoherence and immaturity of complexity science, this body of research is slightly disorganized. This article explores this research node using a meta-paradigmatic framework to untangle and clarify the different paradigmatic assumptions in the field of organizational communication research that has adopted the complexity science perspective. Our analysis reveals five research clusters that differ from each other in their understanding of what complexity is and in how they define communication. Based on our analysis, we present suggestions for finding common ground and point the way towards a future research agenda in complexity-based research in the areas of organizational communication and human resource development (HRD). In addition, we discuss the implications and possibilities that the complexity perspective can offer for HRD in practice.

Managing Innovation Networks for Knowledge Mobility and Appropriability: A Complexity Perspective

AbstractDespite widespread recognition that an enterprise’s critical resources may extend beyond the enterprise’s traditional boundaries, with the focal enterprise drawing upon the resources of other firms and institutions through networks, there is a dearth of empirical research on knowledge mobility and appropriability patterns among innovative Australian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through the lens of complexity science. We address this gap, by examining what, how, and why innovation-related knowledge flows from networks into SMEs, and how SMEs protect intellectual property (IP) and appropriate value. Based on a survey of 838 SMEs, we find patterns of internal and external knowledge flows with SMEs searching for ideas internally, and via market-based networks, with internally sourced ideas having the strongest impact on innovativeness. The results also show SMEs are most likely to network with market-based agents relative to localised learning networks. Further, networking with suppliers increases innovativeness, as does sourcing knowledge as part of a package with the purchase of new equipment, underscoring the importance of the vertical supply chain network. Despite limited interaction with localised learning networks, outsourcing R&D to these networks increases innovativeness. We also find that informal IP, in particular, secrecy, complexity of product design, and frequent and rapid changes to products/services increases innovativeness, as do formal copyrights and trademarks. In addition to protecting IP, these practices are product market strategies, enabling SMEs to commercialise innovations and appropriate value. But while appropriability mechanisms provide innovation benefits to individual agents, from the perspective of complexity science, IP mechanisms act as barriers to effective knowledge flows (e.g. information sharing) preventing innovative networking through the mechanism of a positive feedback loop to evolve to the state where distributed intelligence comes into play and facilitates break-through innovations.

Gabriele Bammer (ed.): Disciplining interdisciplinarity: integration and implementation sciences for researching complex real-world problems (and the deeper science challenge to co-evolve with complexity)

This book’s major contribution to applying scientific knowledge to address complex problems is timely, as these problems are proliferating due in part to a history of reductive science, and because scientific thinking is changing rapidly. I appreciate the book’s motivating question: BHow can academic research enhance its contribution to addressing widespread poverty, global climate change, organized crime, escalating health care costs or the myriad of other major problems facing human society.^ I support the author’s focus on interdisciplinary thinking and her concern that interdisciplinary research remains at academic margins because it lacks substantial, wellestablished, internationally accepted methodology. I agree with her expressed need for methodological soundness, greater interaction among diverse groups, and managing of unknowns to help realize the potential of interdisciplinary research. The book proposes a framework grounded in theory, relevant research, broad exchange of ideas, and collection and evaluation of methodologies. It makes four arguments: a specific focus is required; research embracing multiple methods constitutes a style called integrative applied research; a new discipline, Integration and Implementation Sciences (I2S), can be an effective way to document and transmit integrative applied research concepts and methods; and given that today’s complex problems require urgent attention, the process should be accelerated through a Big Science-type project of the scale and power of the Human Genome Project. The book seeks to propose a structure for the I2S discipline, plant the seed for an I2S Development Drive as a new Big Science-type project to establish I2S, and start a worldwide discussion about I2S and the I2S Development Drive. This review is informed by my 40+-year evolving focus on systems, general systems theory, systems science, complexity science, and design science. In the review that follows, I first discuss each of the book’s four arguments in relation to object-, system-, and meta-levels of systems engagement. Agreeing strongly that today’s complex problems require urgent attention, I then discuss the system-level at which the challenge can best be addressed, as well as the nature and urgency of the challenge, from a complexity science perspective. Argument #1, TAKING A SPECIFIC FOCUS, targets research involving experts from multiple disciplines investigating common complex real-world social and environmental problems. By focusing on problems, this argument engages systems at the objectand system-level, in ways that help practitioners make more integrated and implementationinformed decisions. I see this argument focusing on symptomatic problems of complex systems whose functionality has been degraded, but not the meta-level engagement needed to re-empower complex systems to fully regenerate, co-adapt, and complexify. Argument #2, DEFINING A NEW RESEARCH STYLE; INTEGRATIVE APPLIED RESEARCH, seeks to identify unknowns, embrace multiple types of knowledge, and appreciate diverse methodologies. This focus helps diverse disciplines broaden their perceptions of problems, encourages processes to have methodological flexibility, and helps integrate diverse

Extending the theoretical framing for physics education research: An illustrative application of complexity science

The viability of using complexity science in physics education research (PER) is exemplified by (1) situating central tenets of student persistence research in complexity science and (2) drawing on the methods that become available from this to illustrate analyzing the structural aspects of students’ networked interactions as an important dynamic in student persistence. By drawing on the most cited characterizations of student persistence, we theorize that university environments are made up of social and academic systems, which PER work on student persistence has largely ignored. These systems are interpreted as being constituted from rules of interaction that affect the structural aspects of students’ social and academic network interactions from a complexity science perspective. To illustrate this empirically, an exploration of the nature of the social and academic networks of university-level physics students is undertaken. This is done by combining complexity science with social network analysis to characterize structural similarities and differences of the social and academic networks of students in two courses. It is posited that framing a social network analysis within a complexity science perspective offers a new and powerful applicability across a broad range of PER topics.Received 12 March 2014DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.10.020122This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical Society

Complexity and intransitivity in technological development

This paper investigates the existence of a fundamental link between two disciplines that emerged during last few decades: complexity science and advanced engineering. During this time many industries, especially those related to the high-tech end of technological development, have faced the problem of increasing complexity of design, production and operation. Industrial projects have grown to become multidisciplinary, tightly interconnected, costly and difficult to control and predict. Two trends can be identified in this respect: one is the consistent effort of systems engineering in reducing the uncertainties of complex industrial operations and the other is the effort undertaken in complexity studies to account for uncertainties present in the real world. In this work, we provide a brief overview of recent developments in advanced engineering and give a consistent interpretation of technological evolution from the perspective of complexity science in general and complex competitive systems (CCS) in particular. CCS is a general framework that was recently developed for analysis of complex systems involving competition. Transitivity of the decision-making process and the cyclic nature of technological progress are considered. Correctness of intransitive decisions is inherently relativistic: the same decisions can be seen as correct or incorrect when considered from different perspectives. When treated simplistically, intransitivity may seem to be illogical but, nevertheless, it is common in nature and needs to be studied. CCS provides a formalised scientific framework for analysis of intransitivity and establishes the existence of an important connection linking complexity and uncertainty with intransitivity. Implications of intransitivity for engineering decision-making and strategic planning are considered in the context of CCS. A working example of intransitivity in competition between major car manufacturers is presented.

Workarounds and Obstacles

Nurse leaders are aware that nurses are finding ways to adapt health information technology to patient care activities. Previous literature has presented nurses' response to technology obstacles as a work-around, characterized as a negative behavior. Using narrative inquiry, this article examines 9 direct care nurses' interactions on a medical/surgical/telemetry unit. Specifically, nurses' encounters with technology obstacles will be addressed from a complexity science perspective. Four support staff including the clinical nurse manager, pharmacist, quality nurse, and project manager who is also a nurse were interviewed as part of data collection. Complexity science provides nurse leaders' insight into nurses' behavior where outcomes emerge from tensions in the environment through multidirectional and self-organizing interactions. Innovation was found when nurses responded to health information technology obstacles with self-organizing interactions, sensitivity to initial conditions, and multidirectionality. Their actions were also influenced by many sets of rules. Nurses self-organized with coworkers to find better ways to deliver care to patients when using technology. Opportunities exist for nurse leaders to facilitate interactions among nurses and other members of the organization to realize better use of health information technology that improves the patient experience.

An approach for the accurate measurement of social morality levels.

In the social sciences, computer-based modeling has become an increasingly important tool receiving widespread attention. However, the derivation of the quantitative relationships linking individual moral behavior and social morality levels, so as to provide a useful basis for social policy-making, remains a challenge in the scholarly literature today. A quantitative measurement of morality from the perspective of complexity science constitutes an innovative attempt. Based on the NetLogo platform, this article examines the effect of various factors on social morality levels, using agents modeling moral behavior, immoral behavior, and a range of environmental social resources. Threshold values for the various parameters are obtained through sensitivity analysis; and practical solutions are proposed for reversing declines in social morality levels. The results show that: (1) Population size may accelerate or impede the speed with which immoral behavior comes to determine the overall level of social morality, but it has no effect on the level of social morality itself; (2) The impact of rewards and punishment on social morality levels follows the “5∶1 rewards-to-punishment rule,” which is to say that 5 units of rewards have the same effect as 1 unit of punishment; (3) The abundance of public resources is inversely related to the level of social morality; (4) When the cost of population mobility reaches 10% of the total energy level, immoral behavior begins to be suppressed (i.e. the 1/10 moral cost rule). The research approach and methods presented in this paper successfully address the difficulties involved in measuring social morality levels, and promise extensive application potentials.

Work-Arounds: A Matter of Perception

Most nurse leaders view work-arounds as negative behaviors to be corrected. New research examining these behaviors from a complexity science perspective has revealed a different perspective: nurses adapting to and learning from a challenging clinical situation to improve quality of care. Work-arounds, examined from two leadership perspectives, provide insight about the realities and management of nurses' behavior in the implementation of technology solutions. New leadership perspectives are identified to facilitate innovation, adaptability, and learning from work-around behaviors and improve the quality of patient care.

Exploring a Framework for Innovation from the Perspective of Complexity Science

In the economy of the twenty-first century, innovative organizations will play a major role in shaping a society that is more committed to the needs of a milieu subjected to forces of a diverse nature. This paper proposes an initial framework for conceptualizing innovation using the perspective of complexity science and its elements. There are challenges and questions to be answered even within this context; however, an overview from other angles and approaches can help expand our understanding of the implementation of the creative processes essential for organizations as they move towards the adoption of innovation as their modus operandi.