CSSS 2006 Beijing-Readings

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Below are some readings that can provide some background for some of the lectures and/or that you can read after the lecturers to pursue some ideas further. These readings are not required. I will be updating this list fairly frequently. --Dpf 19:15, 26 June 2006 (MDT)

General Background

James Crutchfield, What Lies between Order and Chaos?, in Art and Complexity, J. Casti, editor, Oxford University Press (2002). An interesting, non-technical essay discussing how new patterns are discovered, and how complexity arises from the interplay between order and chaos. This is an excellent introduction to the notions of complexity and emergence, and history of one strand of the study of complex systems.

J.B. Rosser, On the Complexities of Complex Economic Dynamics. Journal of Economic Perspectives. 13:169-192. 1999. I've only read about half of this. It strikes me as a thorough, even-handed review of the applications of "complexity theory" to economics. Presents good spectrum of views, from those who think complexity is mostly hype, to those who believe it has contributed significant new understandings. Contains around 125 references. pdf format, for AEA members.

Cosma Shalizi, Methods and Techniques of Complex Systems Science: An Overview. Chapter 1 (pp. 33--114) in Thomas S. Deisboeck and J. Yasha Kresh (eds.), Complex Systems Science in Biomedicine (New York: Springer, 2006.) This is an excellent, thorough review of the "field" -- to the extent that there is such a thing -- of complex systems. Covers many tools: statistical learning and model selection; time series analysis; cellular automata; agent-based models; the evaluation of complex-systems models; information theory; and ways of measuring complexity. Contains over 250 references. Also available here.

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Readings Associated with Particular Lecturers

Lecturers are listed in order of appearance.

Andreas Wagner

Genome-scale Biological Networks. These are the slides that Andreas will use for his lectures. We will make hard copies available at the CSSS.

Henry Wright

This file introduces you to the web resources for Part 1 of Henry Wright's Presentation at the 2006 CSSS in Beijing. Here are some other readings associated with Henry Wright's talks:

Part One- Foragers

• Brief Syllabus of Sources on the “Forager” Project
• PowerPoint presentation of Part 1
• Boundary Conditions for Paleolithic Social Systems: A Simultaion Approach. Martin Wobst.
• Archaological Systems Theory and Early Mesoamerica, Kent V. Flannery. In Anthropological Archaeology in the Americas. The Anthropological Society of Washington. 1968.
• The Research Problem, Kent V. Flannery. In Guila Naquitz: Archaic Foraging and Early Agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico, Ken V. Flannery, ed..
• The Modeling of Foraging Strategy: An Introduction to Part IV, Robert Reynolds. In Guila Naquitz: Archaic Foraging and Early Agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico, Kent V. Flannery, ed.

Part Two- Villages

• Brief Syllabus of Sources on the “Village” Project
• PowerPoint presentation of Part 2
• Simulating Ancient Societies Kohler
• Agent-Based Modeling of Prehistoric Settlement Systems in the Northern American Southwest Kohler
• Cultural Algorithms: A Tutorial Kohler
• A Multi-Agent Simulation Using Cultural Algorithms: The Effect of Culture on the Resilience of Social Systems Kohler
• The Effects of Generalized Reciprocal Exchange on the Resilience of Social Networks: An Example from the Prehispanic Mesa Verde Region Kohler
• The Effect ofKinship Cooperation Learning Stategy and culture on the jResilience of Social Systems in the Village Mulit-Agent Simulation Kohler
• Agent-Based Modeling of Cultural Change in Swarm Using Cultural Algorithms Kohler
• Unraveling Ancient Mysteries: Reimagining the Past Using Evolutionary Computation in a Complex Gaming Environment Kohler

Part Three- States

• Brief Syllabus of Sources on the “States” Project
• PowerPoint presentation of Part 3
• A Theory of the Origin of the State Kohler
• Recent Research on the Origin of the State Kohler
• The Archaeology of Western Iran Kohler
• Uruk States in Southwestern Iran Kohler
• Cultural Action in the Uruk World Kohler
• Settlement Patterns, Chiefdom Variability, and the Development of Early States in North China Kohler
• Regional survey and the development of complex societies in southeastern Shandong, China Kohler
• control strategies and polity competition in the lower Yi-Luo Valley, North China Kohler
• System-dependent Selection, Ecological Feedback and the Emergence of Functional Struction in Ecosystems Kohler
• Digitizing 'Development' Kohler
• Foucault and the Water Temples Kohler

Dave Feldman

Annotated bibliography to accompany Dave's lectures. In addition to references specific to the lecture topics, there are also a number of general complex systems references.

• Lecture 1: Introduction to Chaos. Introductory Comments, Part I, Part II
• Lecture 2: Information Theory Part I, Part II
• Lecture 3: Computation Theory. Automata and Computation Theory, Computability and Computational Complexity

Cosma Shalizi

• Lecture 1: Power Laws, What They Mean, How to Tell If You Have One

M. E. J. Newman, Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf's law, Contemporary Physics 46, 323-351 (2005). An excellent paper. Good background for Cosma's lecture on power laws.

C. R. Shalizi and K. L. Klinkner, "Blind Construction of Optimal Nonlinear Recursive Predictors for Discrete Sequences", Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence: Proceedings of the Twentieth Conference (UAI 2004), pp. 504--511. Best description of the CSSR algorithm; helpful for third lecture. cs.LG/0406011

K. L. Klinkner, C. R. Shalizi and M. F. Camperi, "Measuring Shared Information and Coordinated Activity in Neuronal Networks", Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 18 (NIPS 2005), pp. 667--674. Using CSSR to measure information sharing in networks (not just neural ones). q-bio.NC/0506009

Herb Gintis

Herbert Gintis, A Framework for the Unification of the Behavioral Sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, forthcoming 2006. Parts of Herb's lectures will be based on this paper.

Lee Altenberg

• Altenberg, L. , 2004. Open Problems in the Spectral Analysis of Evolutionary Dynamics presents a mathematical framework for evolutionary optimization and some of its unsolved problems.
• Altenberg, L. , 2004. Modularity in Evolution: Some Low Level Questions deconstructs the concept of modularity in terms of spaces of variation, and discusses properties needed for modularity to enhance evolvability.