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Topic: Complexity

	What is complexity?
		Complexity can only exist if both aspects are present: neither perfect disorder (which can be described statistically through the law of large numbers), nor perfect order (which can be described by traditional deterministic methods) are complex.
		Complexity can then be characterized by lack of symmetry or "symmetry breaking", by the fact that no part or aspect of a complex entitity can provide sufficient information to actually or statistically predict the properties of the others parts.
		The complexity produced by differentiation and integration in the spatial dimension may be called "structural", in the temporal dimension "functional", in the spatial scale dimension "structural hierarchical", and in the temporal scale dimension "functional hierarchical".
	pespmc1.vub.ac.be /COMPLEXI.html (1887 words)

	Complexity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		In mathematics, Krohn-Rhodes complexity is an important topic in the study of finite semigroups and automata.
		Irreducible complexity is a term used in arguments against the generally accepted theory of biological evolution, being a concept popularized by the biochemist Michael Behe.
		"The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity" Jacob Burkhardt, Swiss historian.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Complexity (928 words)

	Computational complexity theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		In computer science, computational complexity theory is the branch of the theory of computation that studies the resources, or cost, of the computation required to solve a given problem.
		Complexity theory differs from computability theory, which deals with whether a problem can be solved at all, regardless of the resources required.
		The time complexity of a problem is the number of steps that it takes to solve an instance of the problem as a function of the size of the input (usually measured in bits), using the most efficient algorithm.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Computational_complexity_theory (1290 words)

	[No title]
		Technical complexity involves difficulties in fact finding, technical information, and the systematic identification and analyses of options and their likely consequences.
		Complex conflicts are likely to involve a long series of often overlapping dispute episodes addressing different aspects of the overall conflict.
		Complexity Theory as a model of interacting parts applicable to social situations is introduced.
	www.beyondintractability.org /m/complexity.jsp (2663 words)

	Complexity Theory (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Complexity is not a tool, but a way of thinking--a mental model for considering problems in new and revealing ways.
		Complexity applied to knowledge management by a veteran consultant who has seen a lot and knows a lot.
		A compelling historical account of the limitations of Newtonian science and the dynamics of complexity by a Nobel laureate in chemistry, with an emphasis on thermodynamics and dissipative structures.
	www.petzinger.com /complexity.shtml (933 words)

	Complexity Society
		It is a community that uses complexity science to rethink and reinterpret all aspects of the world in which we live and work.
		The society objectives are to promote the theory of complexity in education, government, the health service and business as well as the beneficial application of complexity in a wide variety of social, economic, scientific and technological contexts such as sources of competitive advantage, business clusters and knowledge management.
		Complexity includes ideas such as complex adaptive systems, self-organisation, co-evolution, agent based computer models, chaos, networks, emergence and fractals.
	www.complexity-society.com (230 words)

	Waldrop's Complexity
		Complexity is the science of understanding how independent agents are interacting with each other to influence each other and the whole.
		Complexity was the science of emergence and they needed to find the fundamental laws of emergence.
		Complex adaptive systems are constantly revising and rearranging their building blocks as they gain experience.
	www.tnellen.com /ted/tc/complexity.html (2935 words)

	Intelligent Design? A Special Report from Natural History Magazine
		Irreducibly complex systems appear very unlikely to be produced by numerous, successive, slight modifications of prior systems, because any precursor that was missing a crucial part could not function.
		Note that complexity in the sense of improbability is not sufficient to eliminate chance: flip a coin long enough, and you'll witness a highly complex or improbable event.
		In the evolutionary process, an increase in biological complexity does not represent a "free lunch" -- it is bought and paid for, because random genetic variation is subjected to natural selection by the environment, which itself is already structured.
	www.actionbioscience.org /evolution/nhmag.html (6274 words)

	Natural Selection & Complexity
		When we look at the gamut of increasing complexity that has evolved over geological time and how it has been molded by natural selection, and how it can be put together so that it works mechanically from generation to generation, we cannot avoid a feeling of awe.
		To use a metaphor, the complexity we have in mind is a complexity in the very fabric of the universe.
		That the pattern of physical law should change with scale, that is a complexity inherent in the fabric of the universe, that is a complexity which does not exist in a Newtonian universe.
	asweknowit.ca /evcult/Complexity.shtml (3545 words)

	Project Metrics Help - Complexity metrics for procedures
		This includes both the internal complexity of a single procedure and the complexity of the data flow in and out of a procedure.
		Cyclomatic complexity, also known as V(G) or the graph theoretic number, is calculated by simply counting the number of decision statements.
		The total cyclomatic complexity for a project or a class is calculated as follows.
	www.aivosto.com /project/help/pm-complexity.html (1257 words)

	A Theory of Power, Jeff Vail's Critique of Hierarchy & Empire
		Naturally, these systems increase their potential by becoming increasingly complex, always in the form of a stepwise progression (a biological system cannot radically redesign itself, eg the underlying flaw of the human eye: the blind spot).
		The earth's complexity reflects its ability to adapt to the sun's energy pressure by gathering in and storing some of that energy in the form complexity.
		We would remain in global competition with the sun for complexity supremacy and on a global scale the sun's energy input is so prodigious that we would lose the competition.
	www.jeffvail.net /2005/04/logic-of-collapse.html (4720 words)

	Redundant Complexity
		His central interpretative metaphor for biochemical complexity, that of the well-designed mousetrap that ceases to function if critical parts are absent, is undermined by the observation that typical biochemical systems exhibit considerable redundancy and overlap of function.
		An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.
		Redundant complexity is embodied in the discovery that biochemical processes frequently do not involve simple, linear sequences of reactions, with function destroyed by the absence of a given component in the sequence.
	www.asa3.org /ASA/topics/Apologetics/POS6-99ShenksJoplin.html (5559 words)

	Sequence Complexity
		Chemical complexity is the amount of DNA in a haploid cell, nucleus or organelle.
		Kinetic complexity is defined as the amount of DNA (in base pairs) required so that every sequence of a DNA is represented just once.
		values used for complexity calculations are obtained from the rate constant, correcting for the contribution of that component to the total genome.
	opbs.okstate.edu /~melcher/MG/MGW1/MG112283.html (230 words)

	Cyclomatic Complexity
		The complexity number is generally considered to provide a stronger measure of a program's structural complexity than is provided by counting lines of code.
		A low cyclomatic complexity contributes to a program's understandability and indicates it is amenable to modification at lower risk than a more complex program.
		By measuring the complexity before and after a proposed change, this buildup can be monitored and used to help decide how to minimize the risk of the change.
	www.sei.cmu.edu /str/descriptions/cyclomatic_body.html (1196 words)

	Halstead Complexity Measures
		The measures were developed by the late Maurice Halstead as a means of determining a quantitative measure of complexity directly from the operators and operands in the module [Halstead 77].
		A significant complexity measure increase during testing may be the sign of a brittle or high-risk module.
		In particular, the complexity of code with a high ratio of calculational logic to branch logic may be more accurately assessed by Halstead measures than by Cyclomatic Complexity, which measures structural complexity.
	www.sei.cmu.edu /activities/str/descriptions/halstead_body.html (1058 words)

	Complexity (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Complexity theory attempts to understand some of the surprising and paradoxical consequences which arise when complex systems are operating.
		The Introduction to Complexity and OD is an edited version of some lecture notes originally written to accompany a lecture at South Bank University.
		Chris Langton is one of the pioneers of the cellular automaton approach to complexity.
	www.new-paradigm.co.uk /complexity.htm (854 words)

	Complexity - O'Reilly Databases
		I have been poring over an Oracle procedure of death in which a loop over a complex cursor calls a no less complex function in which multiple SELECT statements set various ancillary variables before a row insert accompanied by an UPDATE of the corresponding row of one of the tables referenced in the initial cursor.
		But complexity isn't inherent to a language, whether it is SQL or a wrapper language to embed SQL statements.
		Complexity is born of business requirements, and usually made significantly worse by poor database design.
	www.oreillynet.com /databases/blog/2005/10/complexity.html (473 words)

	Complexity - seminar, Aalborg University, January 2004
		The Moment of Complexity while it was still in manuscript, we decided that the notion of complexity would be the perfect interdisciplinary nodule around which to arrange a whole conference, bringing together scholars and graduate students from a wide variety of disciplines.
		Jens’ sound bite was that “Complexity is what lies between that which is in a state of order and that which happens by accident”, mine was rather less pertinent and shall remain unquoted here.
		The purpose of the seminar is to gather voices that have attempted to theorize and analyse moments of complexity, both within their separate fields and across disciplinary boundaries.
	www.sprog.aau.dk /complexity (2546 words)

	Irreducible Complexity Demystified
		Irreducible complexity (also denoted IC) has gained prominence as the evidence for the intelligent design (ID) movement, which argues that life is so complicated that it must be the work of an intelligent designer (aka God) rather than the result of evolution.
		He simply asserts that evolution of irreducible complexity by an indirect route is so improbable as to be virtually out of the question, except in simple cases.
		Not one of the impressively complex biochemical systems said to be IC by IC/ID proponents has been shown to be in fact IC and several are known not to be.
	www.talkdesign.org /faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.html (9143 words)

	Complexity Theory page (of Oded Goldreich)
		Complexity Theory is a central field of the theoretical foundations of Computer Science.
		That is, a typical Complexity theoretic study looks at a task (or a class of tasks) and at the computational resources required to solve this task, rather than at a specific algorithm or algorithmic scheme.
		The first direction is aimed towards actually establishing concrete lower bounds on the complexity of problems, via an analysis of the evolution of the process of computation.
	www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il /~oded/cc.html (452 words)

	Irreducible Complexity and Michael Behe on Intelligent Design
		By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.
		An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.
		This article is rather technical and thus has a background file that links to introductory material, articles by intelligent design advocates on the flagellum, and rebuttals to their arguments.
	www.talkorigins.org /faqs/behe.html (910 words)

	Complexity, Innovation and Knowledge
		It aims to contribute to the discussion and development of the academic field that could be situated in between complexity theory, knowledge management, innovation and learning.
		In the News and Discussion sections, this BLOG is used to animate courses in the area of “Complexity and the Networked Economy”.
		Anyway, for me complexity is still deterministic and that means it is not random (otherwise, we could as well stop everything right away).
	euromed.blogs.com /baets (4856 words)

	Computational Complexity; Problem Hierarchy
		Problems of exponential complexity are "solved" using approximate methods that are of polynomial complexity.
		Theorem proving is an example of a problem of exponential complexity while proof checking is of linear (polynomial) complexity.
		Some problems are so complex and so far-reaching that their complete solution is unrealistic and partial solutions must be employed.
	cs.wwc.edu /~aabyan/Theory/complexity.html (1650 words)

	Aides for Complexity
		In the zone of complexity the traditional management approaches are not very effective but it is the zone of high creativity, innovation, and breaking with the past to create new modes of operating.
		Their story is still unfolding, but it showed how the matrix was a useful aide in opening up discussion and creating opportunities for them to examine the management approaches they often took for granted.
		Observe interactions between complex adaptive systems that are beyond the leader's ability to affect or convene.
	www.plexusinstitute.org /edgeware/archive/think/main_aides3.html (2085 words)

	The Complexity and Artificial Life Research Concept for Self-Organizing Systems
		We'll also pursue the wider social implications of these transdisciplinary theories of self-organization on mind, art, spirit and life as it could be...
		Yet everything here is pure science, with lots of art and philosophy thrown in free, reflecting what's striking and best in recent research (our own and that of others) in the new contextual sciences of Complexity Theory plus associated fields.
		CALResCo is a cosmopolitan non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting the wider aspects of the Complex System sciences by education, synthesis and by the integration of the theories into the mainstream viewpoints of arts, philosophy and science.
	www.calresco.org (580 words)

	Amazon.com: Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos: Books: M. Mitchell Waldrop (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Complexity theory most likely will receive other, more rigorous examinations than Waldrop's, but he provides a good grounding of what may indeed be the first flowering of a new science.
		This is a book about the science of complexity-a subject that's still so new and so wide-ranging that nobody knows quite how to define it, or even where its boundaries lie.
		Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos by M.
	www.amazon.com /Complexity-Emerging-Science-Order-Chaos/dp/0671872346 (1642 words)

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