The New Forest Conference on Complex Systems 2016
1 - 3 June 2016
New Forest, UK
Introduction
The moto of the 2016 conference is "self-organisation versus control".
The Conference aims to bring together practitioners of a variety of disciplines interested in developing and discussing the new approaches for resolving complex issues that cannot be resolved using conventional mathematical or software models. Specialists in modelling complex issues using multi-agent technology and similar distributed approaches, which have achieved credible application results, are welcomed.
The Conference is particularly interested in methods for resolving complex issues that exhibit some of the following attributes:
CONNECTIVITY - A system consists of a large number of diverse components, referred to as Agents, which are richly interconnected.
AUTONOMY - Agents are not centrally controlled; they have a degree of autonomy but their behaviour is always subject to certain laws, rules or norms.
EMERGENCE - Global behaviour of a complex system emerges from the interaction of agents and is therefore unpredictable but not random; it generally follows discernible patterns.
NONEQUILIBRIUM - Global behaviour of a complex system is far from equilibrium because frequent occurrences of disruptive events do not allow the system to return to the equilibrium between two such events.
NONLINEARITY - Relations between agents are nonlinear, which occasionally causes an insignificant input to be amplified into an extreme event (butterfly effect).
SELF-ORGANISATION - A system is capable of self-organizing in response to disruptive events, a feature termed Adaptability. Self-organisation may also be initiated autonomously by the system in response to a perceived need, a feature termed Creativity.
CO-EVOLUTION - A system irreversibly co-evolves with its environment.
High level of dynamics of such systems, which is usually expressed through the frequent occurrence of unpredictable disruptive events, makes conventional optimizers, batch schedulers and resource planning systems unworkable.
Complex Systems occur in an infinite variety of problems encompassing fields as diverse as economy, the environment, humanities, social and political sciences, physical sciences and engineering. Further examples are given in the enclosed list of topics which although incomplete gives an idea of the themes to be covered by the Meeting.
The Conference objective is to bring together researchers, developers and users of complex systems, aiming to form a community directed at solving complex issues in novel ways.
In 2016 we shall focus on advantages, which could be gained by replacing control with self-organisation.
Conference Topics
The following list covers some of the topics to be presented at Complex Systems 2016. Papers on other subjects related to the objectives of the conference are also welcome.
- Complexity of the Internet-based Global Market
- Complex Business Processes
- Supply Chain Complexity
- Transportation Complexity
- Logistics Complexity
- Complex Adaptive Software
- Complexity of Big Data
- Management of Complexity
- Complexity in Social Systems
- Complex Political Systems
- Administrations as Complex Systems
- Complexity in Engineering
- Complex Issues in Biological and Medical Sciences
- Complex Ecological Systems
- Complexity Science and Urban Developments
- Complex Energy Systems
- Extreme Events: Natural and Human made Disasters
- Climate Change
- Complexity and Environment
- Complexity and Evolution
- Complexity in Linguistics, Literature and Arts
Find out more on the conference webpage.
