For several years, the National Academies has been engaged in a systemic study of the quality and cost of health care in the United States (IOM, 2000, 2001; National Academy of Engineering and Institute of Medicine, 2005). Clearly, substantial improvements in the delivery of health care are needed and, many have argued, achievable, via value-based competition (e.g., Porter and Teisberg, 2006). ...

In this paper, a decentralized group formation algorithm for task allocation in complex adaptive systems is proposed. Compared with current related works, this decentralized algorithm takes system architectures into account and allows not only neighboring agents but also indirect linked agents in the system to help with a task. A system adaptation strategy is also developed for discovering effe...

Artificial, neurobiological, and social networks are three distinct complex adaptive systems (CAS), each containing discrete processing units (nodes, neurons, and humans respectively). Despite the apparent differences, these three networks are bound by common underlying principles which describe the behaviour of the system in terms of the connections of its components, and its emergent properti...

Supporting the early phases of design requires, among others, support for the specification and use of multiple and evolving representations, and for the exchange of information between these representations. We consider a complex adaptive system as a model for the development of design representations, and present a semi-constructive algebraic formalism for design representations, termed sorts...

The Multinational Enterprise (MNE) is recognized as a Complex Adaptive System (CAS). General characteristics of a CAS are identified and explored as to their particular relevance to organizational processes associated with MNEs. The exploration suggests useful insights into the macro behavior of MNEs. Analysis supports CAS research as a potentially valuable model in understanding the macro proc...

The natural immune system is a subject of great research interests because it provides powerful and exible information processing capabilities as a complex adaptive system. This paper describes our extensible framework named iNet for building arti cial immune systems, particularly arti cial immune networks, which has been used in our several projects developing biologically-inspired intelligent...

Biology-Inspired techniques for Self-Organization in dynamic Networks (BISON) is a three-year Shared-Cost RTD Project (IST-2001-38923) funded by the Future and Emerging Technologies initiative of the Information Society Technologies Programme of the European Commission. It runs from January 2003 until December 2005. The objective of BISON is the design and implementation of algorithms for manag...

International collaboration as measured by co-authorship relations on refereed papers grew linearly from 1990 to 2005 in terms of the number of papers, but exponentially in terms of the number of international addresses. This confirms Persson et al.’s (2004) hypothesis of an inflation in international collaboration. Patterns in international collaboration in science can be considered as network...

Development of theoretically sound methods and strategies for informed science and innovation policy analysis is critically important to each nation's ability to benefit from R&D investments. Gaining deeper insight into complex social processes that influence the growth and formation of scientific fields and development over time of a diverse workforce requires a systemic and holistic view. A r...

This piece synthesizes the development strategies of Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam and draws some relevant lessons. Using a complex adaptive systems approach, strategic openness, a set of heterodox macroeconomic policies, creation of institutions for productive investment in both agriculture and industry, avoidance of severe inequalities and political conflict, special initial condition...