Advances in Complex Systems Vol. 13, No. 3

ACS ��Advances in Complex Systems�aims to provide a unique medium of communication for multidisciplinary approaches, either empirical or theoretical, to the study of complex systems. The latter are seen as systems comprised of multiple interacting components, or agents. Nonlinear feedback processes, stochastic influences, specific conditions for the supply of energy, matter, or information may lead to the emergence of new system qualities on the macroscopic scale that cannot be reduced to the dynamics of the agents. Quantitative approaches to the dynamics of complex systems have to consider a broad range of concepts, from analytical tools, statistical methods and computer simulations to distributed problem solving, learning and adaptation. This is an interdisciplinary enterprise.
The goal of ACS, therefore, is to promote cross-fertilization of ideas among all the scientific disciplines having to deal with their own complex systems. These include, but are not limited to, biology, physics, engineering, computer sciences, economics, cognitive science and the social sciences. It is in fact the exchange of concepts and techniques � developed within areas as diverse as spin glass physics, game theory, molecular biology, evolutionary optimization, or psychology � which has proven itself to be a major driving force in complex systems research.