A Reductionist Approach to Hypothesis-Catching for the Analysis of Self-Organizing Decision-Making Systems

A difficulty in analyzing self-organizing decision-making systems is their high dimension-ality which needs to be reduced to allow for deep insights. Following the hypothesis that such a dimensionality reduction can only be usefully determined in an act of a low-scale scientific discovery, a recipe for a data-driven, iterative process for determining, testing, and refining hypotheses about how the system operates is presented. This recipe relies on the definition of Markov chains and their analysis based on an urn model. Positive and negative feedback loops operating on global features of the system are detected by this analysis. The workflow of this analysis process is shown in two case studies investigating the BEECLUST algorithm and collective motion in locusts. The reported recipe has the potential to be generally applicable to self-organizing collective systems and is efficient due to an incremental approach.

Las dinámicas de los sistemas nacionales de innovación

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, leída el 20-01-2014.Fac. de Ciencias Económicas y EmpresarialesTRUEunpu

Contrasting Views of Complexity and Their Implications For Network-Centric Infrastructures

There exists a widely recognized need to better understand and manage complex “systems of systems,” ranging from biology, ecology, and medicine to network-centric technologies. This is motivating the search for universal laws of highly evolved systems and driving demand for new mathematics and methods that are consistent, integrative, and predictive. However, the theoretical frameworks available today are not merely fragmented but sometimes contradictory and incompatible. We argue that complexity arises in highly evolved biological and technological systems primarily to provide mechanisms to create robustness. However, this complexity itself can be a source of new fragility, leading to “robust yet fragile” tradeoffs in system design. We focus on the role of robustness and architecture in networked infrastructures, and we highlight recent advances in the theory of distributed control driven by network technologies. This view of complexity in highly organized technological and biological systems is fundamentally different from the dominant perspective in the mainstream sciences, which downplays function, constraints, and tradeoffs, and tends to minimize the role of organization and design

Flocks, Swarms, Crowds, and Societies: On the Scope and Limits of Cognition

Traditionally, the concept of cognition has been tied to the brain or the nervous system. Recent work in various noncomputational cognitive sciences has enlarged the category of “cognitive phenomena” to include the organism and its environment, distributed cognition across networks of actors, and basic cellular functions. The meaning, scope, and limits of ‘cognition’ are no longer clear or well-defined. In order to properly delimit the purview of the cognitive sciences, there is a strong need for a clarification of the definition of cognition. This paper will consider the outer bounds of that definition. Not all cognitive behaviors of a given organism are amenable to an analysis at the organismic or organism-environment level. In some cases, emergent cognition in collective biological and human social systems arises that is irreducible to the sum cognitions of their constituent entities. The group and social systems under consideration are more extensive and inclusive than those considered in studies of distributed cognition to date. The implications for this ultimately expand the purview of the cognitive sciences and bring back a renewed relevance for anthropology and introduce sociology on the traditional six-pronged interdisciplinary wheel of the cognitive sciences

Education Reform at the "Edge of Chaos": Constructing ETCH (An Education Theory Complexity Hybrid) for an Optimal Learning Education Environment

EDUCATION REFORM AT THE "EDGE OF CHAOS":CONSTRUCTING ETCH (AN EDUCATION THEORY COMPLEXITY HYBRID) FOR AN OPTIMAL LEARNING EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT AbstractCurrently, the theoretical foundation that inspires educational theory, which in turn shapes the systemic structure of institutions of learning, is based on three key interconnected, interacting underpinnings -mechanism, reductionism, and linearity. My dissertation explores this current theoretical underpinning including its fallacies and inconsistencies, and then frames an alternative educational theoretical base - a hybrid complex adaptive systems theory model for education - that more effectively meets the demands to prepare students for the 21st century. My Education Theory Complexity Hybrid (ETCH) differs by focusing on the systemic, autopoietic nature of schools, the open, fluid processes of school systems as a dissipative structure, and nonlinearity or impossibility of completely predicting the results of any specific intervention within a school system.. In addition, I show how ETCH principles, when applied by educational system leaders, permit them to facilitate an optimal learning environment for a student-centered complex adaptive system.ETCH is derived from Complexity Theory and is a coherent, valid, and verifiable systems' framework that accurately aligns the education system with its goal as a student-centered complex adaptive system. In contrast to most dissertations in the School Leadership Program, which are empirical studies, mine explores this new theoretical orientation and illustrates the power of that orientation through a series of examples taken from my experiences in founding and operating the Lancaster Institute for Learning, a private state-licensed alternative high school in eastern Pennsylvania

Complexity: Theoretical and methodological applications for sociology

This thesis examines the usefulness of Complexity as a new tool for sociology. Complexity, as its own branch of study, developed from the new science of Chaos. Recent paradigmatic disputes occurring in the scientific community have been the force of a growing sense of change in the way many different disciplines view complex systems. Since it is evident that social systems are typically highly complex, it makes sense that a scientific paradigm, which investigates the nature of complex systems, should also be applicable to social systems. Science now argues that the old Newtonian clockwork mentalities and classical experimental models cannot adequately describe highly complex systems. Instead anti-reductionist and nonlinear theories and methods may be much better suited for the task. The sociological relevance of Complexity---both its conceptual framework and its methodologies---is important and timely as we reach the limits of our current knowledge using standard reductionist thinking and methods

Ecological cognition : expert decision-making behaviour in sport

Expert decision-making can be directly assessed, if sport action is understood as an expression of embedded and embodied cognition. Here, we discuss evidence for this claim, starting with a critical review of research literature on the perceptual-cognitive basis for expertise. In reviewing how performance and underlying processes are conceived and captured in extant sport psychology, we evaluate arguments in favour of a key role for actions in decision-making, situated in a performance environment. Key assumptions of an ecological dynamics perspective are also presented, highlighting how behaviours emerge from the continuous interactions in the performer-environment system. Perception is of affordances; and action, as an expression of cognition, is the realization of an affordance and emerges under constraints. We also discuss the role of knowledge and consciousness in decision-making behaviour. Finally, we elaborate on the specificities of investigating and understanding decision-making in sport from this perspective. Specifically, decision-making concerns the choice of action modes when perceiving an affordance during a course of action, as well as the selection of a particular affordance, amongst many that exist in a landscape in a sport performance environment. We conclude by pointing to some applications for the practice of sport psychology and coaching and identifying avenues for future research

Facilitating Emergence: Complex, Adaptive Systems Theory and the Shape of Change

This study used Principal Component Analysis to examine factors that facilitate emergent change in an organization. As organizational life becomes more complex, today’s dominant management paradigms no longer suffice. This is particularly true in a health care setting where multiple sources of disease interacting with each other meet with often-competing organizational priorities and accountabilities in a highly complex world. This study identifies new ways of approaching complexity by embracing the capacity of complex systems to find their own form of order and coherence. Based on a review of the literature, interviews with hospital CEOs, and my organization development practice experience in the health care sector, I identified nine constructs of interest: a strategic framework; organizational culture; work structures; CEO and executive team; leadership culture; quality control systems; accountability framework; learning structures; and feedback processes. One hundred and sixty-two senior leaders, managers, and staff at a hospital in Toronto, Canada, who had completed an eight-week leadership program, completed an Emergence Survey© based on the nine constructs of interest. The survey included Likert items representing the nine constructs, as well as opportunities to provide narrative feedback. In the initial analysis of the survey results, the items taken as a whole would not converge on a clear set of components. It was also clear that the mean for most of the items was very high. I theorized that the size of the sample and possibility that they were a favorably biased convenience sample because they had self-selected as leaders may have contributed to the lack of convergence and high mean. I then theorized three clusters of constructs, based on what appeared to be natural affinities. At that point I facilitated two focus groups with people who were among the survey group. Both focus groups affirmed the importance of each of the factors in improving organizational performance indicators such as patient satisfaction, staff engagement, and quality. I then completed a principal component analysis of each of the three clusters of constructs. From this analysis, seven components emerged. Five of these, executive engagement, safe-fail culture, collaborative decision-processes, a collaborative quality, and intentional learning processes had reliability \u3e.70; culture of experimentation and purposeful orientation had reliability \u3c .70. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/et

The Effects of Task Complexity on Knee Mechanics and Joint Coordination Variability During a Side-step Cutting Task

Injury to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is a very common and debilitating injury suffered by athletes of all ages, genders, and abilities. Practitioners attempt to minimize risks by implementing ACL prevention programs designed to physically prepare athletes for the demands of sport, however, the success of these programs is very inconsistent. The majority of past ACL prevention programs prioritize constrained run and cut activities, the removal of motor variability - attempting to “idealize” mechanics - and limited task complexity. Due to the inherent complexities that exist within sport, it is possible that more task complexity and motor variability is necessary for the transference of training, preparation of athletes, and minimization of ACL injury risk. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a lower limb dual motor task and reactivity on joint coordination variability, knee joint mechanics, and knee joint variability during a side-step cutting task. 15 soccer athletes (7 males, 8 females; age 21.3 ± 1.8 years; mass: 70.1 ±14.4 kg; height: 1.7 ± .1 m), high school or higher level, were recruited to complete a run-to-cut task in three different conditions (CUT, KICK, and RXN). The CUT condition required subjects to perform a simple 45 degree run-to-cut. The KICK condition required subjects to do the same, but immediately pass a stationary soccer ball into a goal following the cut. The RXN condition required participants to pass a moving soccer ball into a goal. The soccer ball would be passed or faked to the subjects on random trials within this third condition. Three-dimensional kinematics were collected during the cutting stride. Initial contact (IC) angles and deceleration range of motions (ROM) were reported in all three planes at the hip, knee, and ankle. Vector coding was utilized to measure joint coordination variability. Repeated measure ANOVAs were run for all variables of interest to determine significant differences across conditions (p \u3c .05). The CUT condition caused significantly different IC angles, relative to the KICK and RXN conditions, including greater hip flexion and greater hip internal rotation. Further, there was significantly greater knee sagittal plane and ankle frontal plane ROM during the deceleration phase. The KICK and RXN conditions produced significantly greater joint coordination variability, relative to the CUT condition, in two of the seven joint couplings tested. These two included 1) sagittal plane hip with frontal plane knee and 2) transverse plane hip with frontal plane knee. In general, motor behaviors emerged in the KICK and RXN conditions that were more in-line with those seen as mechanistic for ACL injury. Greater joint coordination variability in the KICK and RXN conditions could be due to the heightened complexity of the task, the external focus of attention the task elicited, and/or the greater perceptual-action demands. In conclusion, our findings indicate that motor behaviors become more consistent with ACL stress, and greater joint coordination variability is created within certain joint couplings, when shifting attentional focus externally. The addition of reactivity to an external focus of attention, as well as the lower limb dual task relative to past studies exploring upper limb dual tasks, did not change motor behaviors