"Which Nursing Home Would You Put Your Mother In?"
Article/Report
Research suggests that the highest quality care in a long-term care institution is most dependent on the quality of the relationships among nursing home staff members. Quality of care outcomes in a nursing home need open, free-flowing, and meaningful conversations that occur between and among staff members. If the staff believes that their work and presence
matters, that their voices are important and are heard, it usually translates into better care for
patients. The two scholars who have led the charge in studying quality-of-care outcomes in U.S. nursing homes, and who - for over a decade - have questioned the use of conventional
management practices to manage health care organizations, are Reuben McDaniel, Jr. of the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas, Austin, and Ruth Anderson of Duke University's School of Nursing..
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A Complex Adaptive Systems Model of Organizational Change
Article/Report
A highly readable and informative exploration of how organizational change can be understood in terms of complex, adaptive systems theory. Moreover, the author brings together the essential theories touching on CAS in terms of organizational change including autopoiesis, system dynamics, chaos, and self-organization (dissipative systems). Then, the author presents a model of change based on a complexity framework derived from work in cellular automata..
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A Complexity Perspective on Researching Organizations
Book
One of the first works in the new series, Complexity as the Experience of Organizing, this book explores the implications of the theory of complex responsive processes for researching organizations..
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A Complexity Science Primer
Article/Report
A good first step in a painting project is to lay down a coat of primer. This prepares the surface, so the paint will go on better. The same is true in learning. This introductory paper prepares your mind with a context and a base-level understanding of complexity science and its relevance to human organizations. Later, the more challenging concepts are much more likely to stick..
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A fractal walk on Wall Street
Article/Report
Benoit Mandelbrot, the famous mathematician and the first to "see" and name fractals, examines stock market behavior through a fractal perspective and contrasts this orientation with more traditional views.
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A Model of Nursing As A Complex Adaptive System
Article/Report
An article that presents a basic overview of complex adaptive system, key principles of such systems, and a proposed model framework of nursing as a complex adaptive system..
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A New Kind of Science
Book
"A New Kind of Science is a book that simply cannot be ignored. It makes spectacular claims right from its title page onward. Whether the book's arguments convince you or not, it will force you to reconsider your notions of what constitutes the practice and content of science. Such a book appears only once every few decades." (from review by John Casti in Nature, May 23, 2002, pp. 381-382).
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A New Theoretical Foundation for Relationship-centered Care
Article/Report
Read about the new theory of complex responsive processes of relating written by a Anthony Suchman, a leader in the clinical philosophy of relationship-centered (health) care..
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A Random Walk Through Fractal Dimensions
Book
Probably the best introduction to the fascinating world of fractals, moreover, it doesn't demand a mathematical background at all. Wittily written, Kaye sprinkles his book with fascinating tidbits of word etymology that spur creative ideas in the reader.
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A Sand County Almanac And Sketches Here and There
Book
View this beautiful work as a gift from one of the first ecologists and the acknowledged father of wildlife conservation to all those seeking a deeper understanding of nature's complex living systems, our biota. Leopold's perceptive insights foretold many of the essential principles of complex adaptive systems..
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An Action Perspective: The Crux of the New Management
Article/Report
The search for rational, linear designs is not the point in a non-linear world. The identification and reliance on pragmatic action will suggest the direction of future actions. Designs are a part of action but are not given special privilege. This article compares and contrasts the design and action perspectives..
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An Introduction to Complex Responsive Process: Theory and Implications for Organizational Change Initiatives
Article/Report
Over the past 5 years, Ralph Stacey and his colleagues at the University of Hertfordshire's Complexity and Management Centre have been developing a new way to make sense of human interaction. Drawing on sources in sociology, psychoanalysis and group analysis, the theory of Complex Responsive Process (CRP) is the first complexity theory written specifically about human thought and communication (in contrast to other complexity theories which are based on natural or biological sciences and applied to humans by means of analogy or metaphor). It offers a powerful new account of how patterns form in the thinking, feeling and behavior of both individuals and groups, and how both continuity and novelty emerge spontaneously in those patterns as a result of self-organizing processes (that is, without anyone's intentional design or control). In this paper, I briefly describe the theory of CRP, discuss its implications for organizations, and derive from this theory a set of questions for reflecting on organizational change initiatives.
Feedback on this reading draft is welcomed and appreciated! Note: this is and Adobe Acrobat (TM) file and requires a free reader that can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html.
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An Introduction to Complexity
Speech/presentation
Looking for a short audio clip on an introduction to complexity science? At a recent conference put on by the University of Liverpool Complexity Network, Professor Peter Allen from Cranfield University presented this introduction. It's a great presentation that illustrates well principles of complexity..
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An Invitation to Social Construction
Book
Sure to become a classic in the literature on social construction..
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Ancient Practice of Chinese Social Networking: Guanxi and Social Network Theory
Article/Report
The Chinese concept of Guanxi is a form of social network theory that defines one's place in the social structure and provides security, trust and a prescribed role. These authors say Eastern Guanxi and Western social network theory overlap in three ways. Both imply that information is essential to maintaining a network, and define behavior that regulates the flow of information and defines insiders and outsiders. Both offer a way to accommodate change and while maintaining stability, and both recognize the inevitability of both randomness and order. .
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And/Both - Order and Disorder
Other audio/visual
A simple diagram to explain the mental model of overlapping order and Disorder. A picture of what the edge of chaos might look like and why it is an interesting place. The creativity of Paradox, Tension and Diversity..
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Antichaos and Adaptation
Article/Report
A very accessible summation of Kauffman's important major ideas, with nary an equation in it. Read this one first..
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Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet)
Website
Interested in complexity in action. Learn about the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet),a community economic development organization located in rural southeastern Ohio. The mission of ACEnet is to build the capacity of local communities to network, innovate, and work together to create a strong, sustainable regional economy that has opportunities for all. ACEnet uses a sectoral strategy, currently focusing on the food and technology sectors of the economy. Complexity science and network theory guide the work of the innovative, and very successful, organization..
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Applying Complexity Science to Health and Healthcare
Article/Report
Read an engaging summary of the 2003 Plexus Institute International Summit - Complexity Science in Practice: Understanding and Acting to Improve Health and Healthcare, cosponsored by Mayo Clinic and the Center for the Study of Healthcare Management at the University of Minnesota..
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Association for the Spirit at Work
Website
The association is devoted to improving the workplace by creating a sense of community and care, very much in the spirit of Plexus. The site has many resources for linking to other, like-minded organizations..
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At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity
Book
The layperson's version of The Origins of Order - fresh insights into strategy making, system building from nature's viewpoint. Tom Petzinger annotation - "A bit daunting in spots, it goes further than other books in exploring what complexity theory might mean for the future of economics and organizations. And Kauffman's speculations on the origins of life are thrilling."
If you would like to review this text further or purchase it from Amazon.com, please click on the following link for: At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity
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Beyond Structural Reductionsim in Biology: Complex Routes to Medical Applications
Article/Report
The authors explore why the promise of structural reductionism in molecular biology has yielded few benefits for patient care and suggest an alternative "integrative paradigm focusing on biocomplexity and systems biology" that may yield more meaningful results. Howard Petty is a leading reseacher in physiologic dynamics..
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Beyond Toxicity: Human Health and the Natural Environment
Article/Report
This landmark review article explores a wide variety of research findings that support the hypothesis that interaction with the natural environment - specifically with animals, plants, landscapes and wilderness has a positive effect on human health. This hypothesis is based on the fact that for the great majority of human existence, human biology has been embedded in the natural environment. The author suggests that the field of environmental health needs to move beyond its present focus on toxicity to explore more deeply health benefits of contact with the nature..
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Bibliography on Complexity, Nursing, Medicine & Healthcare
Article/Report
A helpful bibliography on complexity science related learning material of special interest to nurses, physicians and healthcare managers..
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Biological Oscillators, Circadian Clocks, and Sacred Time: Prayer and Caregiving in Neurosociological Perspective
Article/Report
Research into the biology of caregivinghas has shown that atachment and synchronization between infant and caregiver are governed by innate hormonal mechanisms. These mechanisms have regular cyclic features that are correlated to circadian clocks. The authors say that suggests these mechanisms evolved against a background of the same circadian forces that are associated with oscillatory patterns in many natural systems.
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Birth of the Chaordic Age
Book
Dee Hock, the founder and CEO Emeritus of VISA, tells his engaging and wonderfully written story about the creation of VISA, an international organization based more on biological concepts (he calls them chaordic) than on traditional management thinking. While weaving this story, a parallel one is told. It is about his search for fundamental principles of healthy and more natural human organizations and his personal reflections on VISA's development..
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Boids
Website
In 1986 Craig Reynolds created a computer model of coordinated animal motion such a bird flocks and fish schools. He called the software boids. This simulation has become well-known in complexity for its graphic illustration of the principle that complex behavior emerges from simple rules. Boids is an example of individual-based model, a class of simulation used to capture the global behavior of la large number of interacting autonomous agents..
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Bordering on Chaos
Article/Report
The article tells the story of a Mexican cement company, Cemex, which has put complexity theory in action and has grown over ten years to become the world's third largest cement company, with over 20,000 employees, and 486 plants..
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Bridge Under Water: The Dilemma of the Chinese Petition System
The Chinese petition system has been a way for people to seek redress and air grievances since ancient times. But in modern times, ecnomic reforms have generated tensions and corruption, as well as allowing more personal and political freedom, and an increasing awarenes that individual interests are often separate from and in conflict with the state. Corruption itself has increased the losses and injustices which have inspired increasing numbers of petitions. Dr. Shao, a scholar of ancient and modern Chinese social history, concludes that institutional corruption in China has created a dysfunctinal petition system that leaves government and petitioner frustrated but dependent on each other. .
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Broken Asymmetry of the Human Heartbeat: Loss of Time Irreversibility in Aging and Disease
Article/Report
Time irreversibility, a fundamental property of nonequilibrium systems, should be of importance in assessing the status of physiologicalprocesses that operate over a wide range of scales. But measurement of this property in living systems has been limited. Authors provide a computatinoal method to quantify time asymmetry and apply it to human heartbeat time serries in health and disease..
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Building Smart Communities through Network Weaving
Resource within a website
This paper describes how Smart Networks (networks that support innovation and collaboration) emerge and how Network Weavers can accelerate this shift..
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Case Study Research: The View From Complexity Science
Book
This article "brings together the case study method and complexity science to suggest new ways to stduy health care organizations. It is written by leading scholars of complexity science and health care quality..
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Catastropic shifts in ecosystems
Article/Report
This fine review article by distinguished ecology scholars from around the world explores the dynamics of ecosystem changes, emphasizing that sudden, unanticipated shifts (bifurcations) in ecosystem states can occur when systems are degraded by gradual changes, resulting in what the authors call a loss of resilience. The article concludes with this advice - "Prevention of perturbations is often a major goal of ecosystem management, not surprisingly. This is unfortunate, not only because disturbance is a natural component of ecosystems that promotes diversity and renewal processes, but also because it distracts attention from the underlying structural problem of resilience.".
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Change: The 10 Laws of Change That Never Change
Article/Report
An article which offers some lessons on organizational change primarily from the perspective of the "change agent." Provides a number of company examples. Many of the 10 laws (i.e., "create tension, there is information in opposition, the informal network is as powerful as the formal chain of command, and you get to design your informal network") are consistent with complexity theory..
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Changing Conversations in Organizations: A complexity approach to change
Book
One can mount a strong case that at its essence an organization is simply many conversations, conversations which produce both stable and novel patterns. Changing an organization then is necessarily dependent upon changing the conversations..
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Chaos
Book
This bestseller hardly needs an introduction. It's a model of science writing, both in form and content. Although a small industry of chaos books has followed its worldwide success, this one is still worth rereading as a delightful way to glimpse the implications of complex systems..
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Chaos and Complexity In A Bioterrorism Future
Article/Report
"Preparing for potential bioterrorism is a difficult task for health care leaders because of the fundamental unpredictability of bioterrorist acts. Complexity science thinking is presented as an approach that can help in this task. Basic concepts from complexity science, especially the role of relationships, are presented. Specific recommendations for action including sensemaking, learning, and improvisation are made" (from abstract).
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Chaos and Complexity: Frontiers of Organization Science
Article/Report
An early call by the author for organizational theorists and practitioners to tap chaos and complexity science to advance understanding of life in organizations. James Begun is Professor of Healthcare Management and Director of the Master of Healthcare Administration Program at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota..
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Chaos and Fractals in Human Physiology
Article/Report
This pioneering work was among the first to suggest how developments in nonlinear dynamics, fractal geometry and chaos theory could lead to advances in understanding of human physiology..
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Chaos and Nonequilibrium: The Flip Side of Strategic Processes
Article/Report
A paper that contrasts the assumptions of equilibrium and nonequilibrium, or chaos theory, and develops the implications of the two world views for strategic management..
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Chaos and the Evolving Ecological Universe
Book
A work that covers the parallel cultural and scientific shift away from a machine like vision of the universe to a view that understands the universe as living and evolving ecological universe, what the author calls the ecological transformation. While covering the changes in science, called the nonlinear revolution, Goerner also explores the human implications of these scientific advancements along four dimensions: power; re-enchantment; reconciliation; and empowerment.
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Chaos and the Limits of Modern Medicine
Article/Report
A provocative short piece which suggests that chaos and complexity theory can contribute to advancing the practice of medicine by viewing people as complex systems and going beyond traditional scientific medicine.
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Chaos Under Control: The Art and Science of Complexity
Book
One of the best introductions to complexity sciences covering the whole gamut of the field including complex, adaptive systems, nonlinear dynamics and chaos, fractals, cellular automata, neural nets, and genetic algorithms. This book is extremely clear and well-written but it does require college level mathematics. Probably has the best description of the logistic map, fractals, and cellular automata in the literature.
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Chaos, Catastrophe, and Human Affairs: Applications of Nonlinear Dynamics to Work, Organizations, and Social Evolution
Book
Stephen Guastello, a professor of psychology internationally known for his pioneering work in the application of nonlinear dynamics to psychological research, offers a very useful review of his major research. Some of the material requires some element of mathematical and research methodology sophistication.
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Clinical evaluation: constructing a new model for post-normal medicine
Article/Report
Science certainly has certainly made some spectacular technical advances. The media and politicians, for example, have all hailed the achievements of many scientific projects: the human genome project is no exception. In this paper, Sweeney and Kernicj argue that "neither reductionism nor linearity is sufficient to explain the nature of a world which is relentlessly non-linear and complex". In particular, the authors take up the idea that science deals in generalities whereas, clinical medicine is about the individual. The authors take up the complexity sciences as a basis for a different explanatory model of medicine, defining the characteristics of such a model and illustrating its applications..
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Cognitive Edge, SenseMaker
Article/Report
SenseMaker Software supported by methods and an international network for managing uncertain and complex environments.
Condensed from Dave Snowden's description
The ideas behind the software originated in knowledge management, the work of Cognitive Edge in the use of narrative and in understanding the basic patterns through which human beings make decisions....We will always know more than we can tell and we will always tell more than we can write.
The development has been funded by the US and Singapore governments in the context of risk assessment, horizon scanning and the detection of weak signals. A basic assumption of applications of the software is that there is little difference, from an organizational point of view, between a terrorist, an ordinary citizen, an employee or a customer. They all represent the problem of asymmetry, in which an organization has to understand multiple interactions and decisions from large populations which cannot be predicted or controlled by that organization.
The software and linked methods allow a collection of multiple sense making items, which can be anecdotes, web sites, pictures, or blogs. They can be tagged, or labeled, to provide sophisticated metadata. This data is combined with visualization tools linked with methods and models that permit users to sense complex patterns and anomalies that would not be otherwise visible. It is a 'pre-hypothesis low-cost research tool, a knowledge repository, and a decision support system' in one package.
This is one of the few software systems built on the basis of natural science rather than management science. It is designed to accompany, not replace, human decision making. "it enables serendipitous un-biased encounters with data in the context of need."
This is designed to enable a symbiosis of machine and human decision making.
It enables a quantitative approach to motivations and others issues that have traditionally been handled by qualitative approaches.
It provides for "identity marketing" and "ethical and cultural auditing."
It is base3don complex adaptive systems theory and an understanding of non-causal, unpredictable systems..
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Collaboration: Aligning Resources to Create and Sustain Partnerships
Article/Report
This articles explores a new paradigm for partnerships and collaboration between academic organizations and nurse service organizations based on the scholarship of Ralph Stacey, the prominent organizational scholar..
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Combating AIDS: Communication Strategies in Action
Book
An important new contribution to our understanding of AIDS by the communication scholars Singhal and Rogers explores the many interacting factors that contribute to both the spread, treatment and prevention of this devasting disease. The authors draw lessons for successful AIDS initiatives from their research in five developing countries..
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Commentary on Sweeney & Kernick (2002), Clinical evaluation: constructing a new model for post-normal medicine
Article/Report
Here is a response piece to Sweeney and Kerwick on constructing a new model for "post-normal" medicine. Andras and Charlton question the author's lack of concreteness in their paper as well as an underdeveloped form of analysis of complex systems theory. Nevertheless, the authors of this piece find complexity science to be appealing in spite of the fact that Sweeney and Kernick's work remains vague, unsupported by practicla guidelines and relevant examples.
Why not read Sweeney and Kernick's work for yourself. You'll be able to find it in our e-library..
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Communities of Practice: The Social Fabric of a Learning Organization
Article/Report
Some fresh ideas about how to foster genuine learning in organizations. Many of the suggestions are consistent with complexity principles..
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Competing on the Edge: Strategy As Structured Chaos
Book
Explores various strategies for employing complexity concepts in organizations from using time pacing to foster creativity, harnessing synergies across large organizations, to improvising and building strategy through small strategic probes..
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Complex Responsive Processes in Organizations: Learning and Knowledge Creation
Book
The second book in the Complexity and Emergence in Organizations series develops the concept of complex responsive processes as an alternative way of understanding knowledge development and learning in organizations. In contrast to systems thinking, Stacey argues that organizational knowledge is in the relationships between people in an organization and related to the qualities of these relationships. Insights from complexity science, sociology and psychology, especially the work of G. H. Mead and N. Elias, are tapped to develop this new and challenging perspective..
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Complex Systems Analysis: A Tool For Shock Research
Article/Report
This clincal article begins by noting that the treatment of shock induced multiple organ system failure continues to challenge physicians and researchers. Despite extensive efforts, little progress has been made in identifying therapies directed at specific mediators, challenging the notion that multiple organ dysnfunction is "due to a malfunction of a specfic regulator, pathway or molecule. This article suggests that the search for understanding and effective therapies to treat shock and multiple organ failure may be found "through the prism of complex systems science.".
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Complexity - The Science of Relationships; Nursing - The Profession of Relationships
Speech/presentation
Presentation on complexity science and its implications for nursing education and leadership given at the 38th Bienniel Convention of Sigma Theta Tua International, November 2005..
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Complexity and Creativity in Organizations
Book
Ralph Stacey, one of the world's pioneering thinkers and scholars on complexity science and management lays out his thinking on complexity, the nature of human networks, creativity in individuals and groups, and the implications for complexity in organizational practice and research. If you want to stay current in this field, keep up with Stacey..
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Complexity and Group Processes: A Radically Social Understanding of Individuals
Book
If you are interested in human organizations and complexity science, you'll want to know what Ralph Stacey is thinking. His new book presents the fullest explication to date of his theory of complex responsive processes, (CRP), a human-centered, complexity inspired perspective on life in groups and organizations. In this new work he deals with three fundamental questions:
Who am I and how have I come to be who I am?; Who are we and how have we come to be who we are?; How are we all changing, evolving and learning?
While Stacey examines these questions from a group psychotherapy viewpoint, readers interested in the therapeutic process and managing organizations also will find much of value. The more scholarly inclined reader will appreciate the effort Stacey makes to place the development of complex responsive processes in historical perspectives of contrasting streams of Western thought..
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Complexity and Management: Fad or Radical Challenge To Systems Thinking
Book
The authors challenge the simple importation of complexity concepts into the human realm of conventional management and systems thinking. The alternative they argue is to tap complexity as a source of analogies and relationship psychology to build a new understanding of organizations as complex responsive processes of relating. You'll want to keep up with Stacey as he is provoking and stimulating, in a healthy manner, advancements in the young field of complexity-based management. This work is the first in a series..
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Complexity and Organisational Learning Research
Website
The Complexity and Organisational Learning Research Programme at the London School of Economics, UK, focuses on organizations as complex social systems. The program works with industrial and academic partners on several research projects, runs seminars for the business..
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Complexity and the Experience of Leading Organizations
Book
One of the first works in the new series, Complexity as the Experience of Organizing, this work explores the implications of the theory of complex responsive processes for leadership and details experiences of leaders who are working to make sense of their organizational experiences using this theory..
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Complexity as a Management Tool
Article/Report
In the September 1, 2004 issue of the online journal Hospitals and Health Networks, long-standing Plexus members John Tobin and James Taylor explore their insights into nonlinear dynamics in organizations and how these insights inform their management views and practices..
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Complexity Digest
Website
A free online complexity digest, available online and via email. The mission of Complexity Digest is to collect and disseminate online complexity science related information to anybody interested in the topic.
Use the nature of connections about complexity to:
Speed up its evolutionary development;
Extend its interactions crossing over disciplines, levels of knowledge and geography to find new research and new applications.
Complexity Digest is edited by Dr. Gottfried Mayer, a member of the complexity community since his residence at the Santa Fe Institute fifteen years ago. The sponsor and publisher is Dean LeBaron, trustee of SFI and investment commentator. Contributors are welcome to send submissions to editor@comdig.de
For individual free e-mail subscriptions send requests to: subscriptions@comdig.org..
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Complexity for Clinicians
Book
This book sets the principles of nonlinear dynamics and complexity theory into the context of clinical healthcare, covering areas such as cardiology, diabetes, mental health, consultation dynamics, decision making and health informatics..
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Complexity in Primary Care Group
Website
The Complexity in Primary Care Group is an informal association of UK-based practitioners and researchers from a wide range of disciplines related to primary care. Group members share an interest in exploring the use of complexity and related theories to increase our understanding of primary healthcare..
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Complexity Science & Health Care Research
Speech/presentation
As the final plenary speaker at the First Annual Plexus Institute Summit Conference, Reuben McDaniel takes center stage with his own unusual mix of storytelling, humor and some more serious insights in using and applying complexity science prinicples in research..
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Complexity Science and Chronic Disease
Article/Report
A reflective report written by prominent science journalist on the Plexus conference held in December 2004 "Improving Health of the Chronically Ill: Insights From Complexity Science"..
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Complexity Science and Health Care Management
Article/Report
This article provides a comprehensive overview of complexity science and its implications for leadership in healthcare organizations. A terrific primer for healthcare professionals interested in new ways of understanding dynamics in healthcare organizations and new approaches to management of these complex organizations..
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Complexity Science Series
Article/Report
Plsek P.E. and Greenhalgh T., The challenge of complexity in health care, pp. 625-628. Online at http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7313/625
Wilson T., Holt T, and Greenhalgh T., Complexity and clinical care, pp. 685-688. online at http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7314/685
Plsek P.E. and Wilson T., Complexity, leadership, and management in healthcare organizations., pp, 746-749. Online at http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7315/746
Fraser S.W. and Greenhalgh T., Coping with complexity: educating for capability, pp. 799-803. Online at http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7316/799
A thoughtful, timely series from the prestigious British Medical Journal that introduces health care leaders and practitioners to complexity science and it's widespread implications for clinical care improvement, leadership, and education..
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Complexity, Chaos & Nonlinear Dynamics in Health and Disease: Homeostasis Revisited
Speech/presentation
Take a look at the presentation material used by Ary L. Goldberger, MD, at the December 2004 Plexus Conference - Improving Health of the Chronically Ill: Insights from Complexity Science..
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Complexity, Chaos and Creativity
Website
This Masters Program introduces you to the powerful and exciting approaches of Complexity and Chaos that are indispensable for understanding the complex and dynamic world of the 21st Century..
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Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos
Book
(A wonderful introduction to complexity told by one of the best science writers around. This work chronicles the author's search for deeper understanding of this developing field through fascinating conversations with leading scientists in many fields - biology, computer science, psychology, ecology, physics. Don't miss it.).
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Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos
Book
(This one of the best introductions to complexity. Told through the stories of some of the leading contributors to this new science-engineer and psychologist John Holland, economist Brian Arthur, biologist Stuart Kauffman, and computer scientist Chris Langton. These contributors come from a variety of disciplines and have come together through the Santa Fe Institute.).
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Complicated and Complex Systems: What Would Successful Reform of Medicare Look Like?
Article/Report
Authors Glouberman and Zimmerman have written a discussion paper on health care reform in Canada in response to the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada. The paper presents a history of the Canadian health system, and suggests how an alternative theoretical frame is needed for viewing and understanding the complexities of health care. They take a look at some of the "intractable choices" or opposing views appearing in the health care debates, and present a few case studies to highlight governmental approaches to health care concerns: first, through a study of France's ranking in WHO health care systems; the second, is a look at Brazil's attempts to address HIV/AIDS. The final section of the paper addresses how complexity might be taken up in reforming Canada's health care system..
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Conditions for Self-Organizing in Human Systems
Book
This study introduces and investigates a model, The CDE Model, which integrates the diverse theoretical and practical approaches to self-organizing human systems..
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Consilience: Unity of Knowledge
Book
Another groundbreaking endeavor by one of the most respected and broadest thinking scientists of our time. This Pulitzer Prize winning author and world famous biologist showcases his argument for what he calls consilience - proof that everything in our world is governed by a small number of fundamental natural laws..
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Coping with Chaos: Seven Simple Tools
Article/Report
A complexity-science pioneer since the late-1980s, Glenda Eoyang has been applying principles from chaos and complexity to her work in a number of different areas, including organizational development and management practices. This book represents her efforts to show people in places and positions of management, among others, what these principles are and how they might be taken up to transform the working organization..
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Creating Healthcare Environments Where Nurses Thrive
Article/Report
On Sepember 30 and October 1, 2004 Plexus Institute sponsored a workshop that explored what complexity science and the experiences of nursing leaders and scholars can contribute to the creation of better working envrionments for nurses and hence, improvement in the quality of patient care.
Proceedings from this workshop attended by nursing leaders, nursing researchers, nursing school faculty, complexity scientists, PhD students in nursing, and organizational leaders were prepared by Susan Hull and are presented below as an associated document. Also shown for those interested in more backgroud is the conference brochure.
The workshop was hosted by Hunterdon Medical Center, Flemington, New Jersey and cosponsored by The College of New Jersey School of Nursing..
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Creativity, Innovation, and Quality
Book
Though not written explicitly from a complexity perspective, you will find complexity concepts throughout. The book introduces DirectedCreativity, taking the reader all the way from first principles to application..
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Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century
Book
An important report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences that suggests the US health care system can be better understood from a complex adaptive system perspective. Included in the recommendations are a series of new simple rules for guiding improvements in the health care system..
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Currents of Change: Exploring relationships between teaching, learning and development
Book
Read about insights that emerged on learning, teaching, and transformation from a workshop hosted by the Institute of
Development Studies at the University of Sussex..
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Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity
Book
An engaging book on complexity by the astrophysicist and well-known science writer John Gribbin. Serves as a fine introduction to complexity science.
From the book jacket - "Why do traffic jams seem to happen for no apparent reason? Can major earthquakes be predicted? Why does the stock market have its ups and downs? How do species evolve? Where do galaxies come from? What is the origin of life on Earth? What if all these questions had a single answer?.
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Diabetes Control: A Complexity Perspective
Speech/presentation
Take a look at a presentation given by Tim Holt on complexity and diabetes given at the December 2004 Plexus Conference - Improving Health of the Chronicially Ill: Insights From Complexity Science..
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Diffusion of Innovations
Book
Everett Rogers and his classic book literally established a new field - the study of how new ideas and technologies spread (or don't) through social networks. Now in its 5th edition, this landmark work is the second most highly cited book in the social sciences. You've undoubtedly been exposed to some of the concepts Rogers has developed - early adopters, the diffusion curve, critical mass, the role of social networks, etc. If you don't have this book, your library is awaiting its arrival..
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Diversity as a Management Strategy: A View Through the Lenses of Chaos and Quantum Theories
Article/Report
The authors demonstrate the inherent value of a diverse workforce as a source of strategic advantage and organizational health. They state, "diverse organizations are better able to cope with complexity in the relationships they face because diverse organizations are better able to learn in ways that will enable them to cope with the unknowablility of the world." McDaniel and Walls contrast this approach with that of traditional, Newtonian-based management thinking which views prediction and control as essential and diversity as a barrier to organizational success..
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Do What You Can, With What You Have, Where You Are: A Quest to Eliminate MRSA at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System
Article/Report
Hospital acquired infections are a serious and growing threat to patients. Read about the successful efforts of one hospital, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, to stem the tide of infections using a social change process called Positive Deviance. This process fosters engagement of staff at all levels and builds on what is working.
The authors of this story, one in a new series of Plexus publications called Deeper Learning, are the distinguished communications scholar Arvind Singhal, PhD, Samuel Shirley and Edna Holt Marston Professor, University of Texas El Paso, Karen Greiner, a PhD student at Ohio University, and Prucia Buscell, Plexus Publications Editor. .
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Dynamic Patterns: The Self-Organization of Brain and Behavior
Book
While contemporary neurophysiology and molecular biology tends to look at brain activity as the action of individual neurons and chemical neurotransmitters, Dr. Kelso's book looks at brain activity as the coordinated behavior and interactions of all components that make up the brain. The renowned scientist Hermann Haken calls the book a fascinating work filled with Dr. Kelso's ingeniously designed experiments and the application of the concepts of synergetics, a field of interdisciplinary research that Haken himself founded and developed. .
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Dynamical" Vs. "Genetic" Disease: What Do Complex Rhythms Reveal About Pathophysiology
Other audio/visual
A Powerpoint presentation prepared by Leon Glass for use in conjunction with his PlexusCalls..
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Dynamics and correlates of microscopic changes in affect
Article/Report
How are momentary microscopic assessments of behavioral dynamics related to traditional macroscopic, static measures? Emotion is generally measured with paper and pencil self-report instruments; affect dynamics have been studied over weeks or months, usually sampling daily, or at 30- or 15-minute intervals. The present study uses Vallacher's (1994) computerized "mouse paradigm" to assess near-instantaneous changes in affect over a short time. Dynamic indices are computed from approximately 1400 measurements from the last 2.5 minutes of a 3-minute assessment.
Subjects monitored and reported emotional states by moving a cursor along a dimension from "Sadder" to "Happier." They also completed self-report measures: Scales 2 (Depression) and 9 (Mania) of the MMPI-2, the Positive and Negative Affect Scale, and the Wisconsin scales of Physical Anhedonia and Hypomanic traits. The instantaneous data yield a summary measure of mean affect, as well as indices of variability. Complexity indices are derived and examined.
Mean affect ratings correlated in expected directions with the paper and pencil measures. Measures of variability such as Standard Deviation are generally unrelated to traditional self-report. There is evidence for low-dimensional chaos in short-term affect dynamics. Importantly and as hypothesized, greater complexity is associated with Pleasant Affect and Hypomania, but negatively correlated with Anhedonia..
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Edgeplace
Website
Edgeplace.com is a site designed to acquaint healthcare leaders with complexity concepts and leadership principles, resources, and examples of the ideas in practice. Much of the content of Edgeplace.com is contained in the book Edgeware: Insights From Complexity Science for Health Care Leaders written by Brenda Zimmerman, Curt Lindberg and Paul Plsek. Copies of the book can be ordered by going to this website (be sure to scroll to the right to capture entire URL) thihttp://www.createspace.com/Customer/EStore.do;jsessionid=D1F57B1F5BCF684878B9A424F16A1F7F.cspworker01?id=3335814
Volume discounts and orders by bookstores can be secured by contacting Curt Lindberg at Curt@PlexusInstitute.org..
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Edgeware: Lessons From Complexity Science for Health Care Leaders
Book
Annotation by Tom Petzinger – "At last. Authors who reveal the clarity in complexity. As a journalist and business author myself, I've read virtually every book seeking to apply complexity science to strategy, work, and economics. None, I assure you, comes close to EDGEWARE in terms of sheer clarity and utility. Though solid on the theory of complexity, this book's real breakthrough in its tremendous practicality for leaders. The pages are brimming with case after case--episodes of complexity in action that inspire as well as inform. For leaders (in hospitals and anywhere else) who ask, 'What do I do on Monday morning?' EDGEWARE provides literally dozens of suggestions. Don't get me wrong. Applying complexity is hard work. No book will ever make it easy to abandon command-and-control leadership or to let organizations 'play' their way into the future. But with EDGEWARE as your guide, the work will be joyous.".
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Emergence: A Journal of Complexity Issues in Organizations and Management
Website
Emergence publishes articles of a qualitative nature relating complex systems, sensemaking, psychology, philosophy, semiotics, and cognitive science to the management of organizations both public and private.
The readers of Emergence are managers, academics, consultants, and others interested in the possibility of applying the insights of the science of complex systems to day-to-day management and leadership problems.
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Emergence: From Chaos to Order
Book
The latest book by one of the founders of complexity science demonstrates how a small number of rules can generate systems of great complexity and novelty. In understanding the patterns generated, like in board games such as chess, Holland shows how we can gain deeper understanding of complex systems in life.
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Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
Book
An engaging new book by a skilled science writer that explores, through engaging and understandable examples ranging from ant colonies to cities, the concepts of self-organization and emergence and how they are being more consciously used to shape our world. Esther Dyson says "Emergence will make understanding "emerge in your own head.".
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Ending the End-of-Life Communication Impasse: A Dialogic Intervention
Article/Report
Provocative book chapter designed to help healthcare providers stimulate a shift in the pattern of conversation with patients near the end of life from a curative to a palliative, care-giving orientation..
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Engaging Minds: Learning and Teaching in a Complex World
Book
Structured by recent insights from theory, practice and personal experience, Davis and his colleagues consider what it might mean to think about teaching and learning in a complex world - where schools are complex learning organizations. Their work considers and questions some of the more prominent views of past and current thinking on many topics covering cognition, culture and complexity. Drawing from recent educational and scientific research, the book is an accessible work for those interested in educational issues writ large addressing both theoretical and practical aims for educationists, teacher educators, and teachers..
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Enhancing the Informal Curriculum of a Medical School: A Case Study in Organizational Change-For Baltimore Conference Attendees
Article/Report
The Indiana University School of Medicine initiated a school-wide culture change project usingan alternative, participatory approach built oninterets, strengths, and values of individuals and microsystems. Student satisfaction with their educational experience rose sharply a nd reflective narratives describe changes in their work and learning environment..
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Experiencing Emergence in Organizations: Local interaction and the emergence of global pattern
Book
One of the first works in the new series, Complexity as the Experience of Organizing, this book explores the implications of the theory of complex responsive processes for understanding how widespread patterns, such as policies and practices, emerge through local everyday interactions between people..
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Facilitating Organization Change: Lessons From Complexity Science
Book
Looking for a highly effective alternative to traditional change models?
Finally, an alternative to traditional change models-the science of complex adaptive systems (CAS). The authors explain how, rather than focusing on the macro "strategioc" level of the organization system, complexity theory suggests that the most powerful change processes occur at the micro level where relationship, interaction and simple rules shape emerging patterns.
* Details how the emerging paradigm of a CAS affects the role of change agents
* Tells how you can build the requisite skills to function in a CAS
* Provides tips for thriving in that new paradigm
"Olson and Eoyang do a superb job of using complexity science to develop numerous methods and tools that practitioners can immediately use to make their organizations more effective."
--Kevin Dooley, Professor of Management and Industrial Engineering, Arizona State University .
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Familiarity breeds content: The impact of the exposure to change on employee openness and well-being
Article/Report
This article describes a longitudinal study of how openness to change, job satisfaction, anxiety and depression are affected by exposure to a change situation - in this case, the implementation of new technology and work practices. Measures were taken before the change was fully implemented and again several months later. Employees fell into two groups: those with high exposure to the change and those with low exposure. Longitudinal analysis revealed that greater exposure was directly related to subsequent improvements in openness to change for operational employees, but not for managers and engineers. Exposure was associated with improvements in job satisfaction and depression, irrespective of job type. The effect on job satisfaction, however, could be accounted for by the increased job complexity experienced on the new technology rather than exposure to change per se. Although the impact of exposure on depression became non-significant after controlling for job complexity, the result was marginal. Implications of the role of exposure in the management of change are discussed..
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Family Interventions for Physical Disorders
Article/Report
Dr. Campbell has written numerous articles, books and book chapters, including Family Intervention for Physical Disorders, and is coauthor of Family Oriented Primary Care, a medical textbook now in its second edition on the need for doctors to involve families in care. He also co-edits, with Susan McDaniel, PhD, Families, Systems and Health: The Journal of Collaborative Family Healthcare. He is a recognized authority on the biopsychosocial model of medical care, and therole of families in health..
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Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Book
Tom Petzinger annotation - "A wondrous examination of consciousness and happiness as emergent phenomena, based on research by the University of Chicago psychologist. The only self-help book I recommend.".
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Fractal Geometry: A Design Principle For Living Organisms
Article/Report
A fascinating article that explores the possibility that fractal geometry is a design principle in biological systems. It calls into question the current view that biological structure is "precisely determined by the genetic program of an organism".
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Fractal Physiology
Book
One of the first books to explore the implications of fractal patterns and dynamics for understanding human physiology. Written by pioneers in the field of nonlinear dynamics and complexity science..
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Fractal Response of Physiological Signals to Stress Conditions, Environmental Changes, and Neurodegenerative Diseases
Article/Report
In the last two decades, the biomedical community has witnessed the development of nonlinear and fractal physiology. The application of nonlinear system theory to the analysis of biomedical time series and the development of nonlinear dynamic model have been useful in understanding how biological systems respond to peculiar altered conditions caused by internal; stress, environmental stress and disease. .
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Fractal Variability Versus Pathologic Periodicity: Complexity Loss and Stereotypy In Disease
Article/Report
This comprehensive article proffers new complexity-based definitions of health and disease. Goldberger develops the case that healthy physiologic systems are characterized by fractal complexity, while unhealthy systems are marked by highly periodic (regular) dynamics and a concomitant loss of adaptability. A must read for anyone interested in complexity and human health..
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Fractals: The Colors of Infinity
Video
This delightful video introduces the concept of fractals by exploring the Mandelbrot set, which someone has called the thumbprint of God. This set, named after the mathematician, Benoit Mandelbrot, who first "saw" fractals is one of the most beautiful and remarkable discoveries in the entire history of mathematics..
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Fractals: The Patterns of Chaos
Book
This beautiful book is the visual way into chaos theory and nonlinear dynamics. It tells the story with wonderful fractal images from artists, computers, nature, space, and physiology. The matching prose covers basic concepts of the science in an engaging, elegant manner. You will definitely be glad you added this to your collection..
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From Control to Participation via a Science of Qualities
Article/Report
Brian Goodwin is a very prominent complexity scientist, with a strong background in biology and mathematics and a deep interest in health. This sweeping article explores the development of science, the emergent properties of living systems, and cautions against efforts to control and manipulate nature. He augers for a science of qualities and the cultivation of our intuition "as a vehicle of understanding and participating in emergent creativity of natural processes.".
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From Life Cycle to Ecocycle: A New Perspective on the Growth, Maturity, Destruction, and Renewal of Complex Systems
Article/Report
A fresh view of cycles of development and decline of organizations that goes beyond the S curve concept. The authors, using the complexity framework, explore strategies for helping organizations adapt and remain relevant in light of the ecocycle metaphor..
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From the Science of Complexity To Leading In Uncertain Times
Article/Report
An article that introduces the science of complexity to managers and explores the implications of the science for leadership and the role of the executive..
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Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed
Book
A book filled with stories of social and organizational and insights from complexity science by three notable scholars in the field - Francis Westley, Brenda Zimmerman and Michael Quinn Patton.
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Harvest Associates
Website
This organization brings complexity principles to enhancing the efficacy of organizations. Its approach is very relationship oriented. The web site has many resources, including articles on complexity and the human-oriented approach to management and leadership..
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Health Care Organizations as Complex Adaptive Systems
Article/Report
The authors introduce complexity science concepts and suggest its value in understanding and leading healthcare organizations. .
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Heart-Rate Recovery After Exercise as a Predictor of Mortality
Article/Report
This article documents the importance of physiologic variability and adaptability, specifically recovery after exercise, as a predictor of mortality..
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Heart-rate turbulence after ventricular premature beats as a predictor of mortality after acute myocardial infarction
Article/Report
A new risk factor, heart rate turbulence (defined as the acceleration and subsequent deceleration of sinus rhythm after a single ventricular premature beat) has been found to be a better predictor of post-MI mortality as compared to traditional predictive factors. This is an important advance since accurate prediction of risk for repeat infarction is critical in determining which individuals are appropriate for prophylactic intervention. Patients showing an acceleration/deceleration pattern in heart rate after ventricular premature beats are more likely to survive than patients with no such adaptive response. See related articles by Dardik and Goldberger.
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Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity
Book
Tom Petzinger annotation - "This book is pure science - no history, no flag-waving - but it is startlingly clear and thoughtfully concise at 172 pages. John Holland is the father of genetic algorithms....you'll find much here that explains how systems adapt in both nature and the man-made world.".
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High-performing and low-performing nursing homes: A view from complexity science
Article/Report
This article examines performance of two low-performing and two high-performing nursing homes, using complexity science principles to add "richness" to the analysis. It provides a well-devloped overview of the complexity science framework used in the research and focuses on the degree of connectivity, information flow and cognitive diversity found in the nursing home. Thoughtful implications for practice are then explored..
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How Complexity Science Can Inform a Reflective Process for Improvement in Primary Care Practices
Article/Report
An article, based on a string of ongoing research, that proposes a complexity science informed process for fostering improvement in primary care practices..
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How the Leopard Changed Its Spots: The Evolution of Complexity
Book
Tom Petzinger annotation - "A layman's guide to how complexity science may explain the forms and structures of life.".
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How to Invest in Social Capital
Article/Report
A worthwhile introduction to the concept of social capital, first introduced to the social sciences through the writings of Robert Putnam. Social capital, the nature of the relationships in a human organization, the authors suggest is being undermined in today's virtual and volatile business environment. And relationships are taken for granted by many managers. To counter these trends, they suggest a number of strategies to build social capital – foster personal conversations and durable networks, promote from within, build trust by showing trust yourself, foster cooperation and authenticity..
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Human Systems Dynamics Institute
Website
We are a non-profit, membership organization that is commited to providing a number of opportunities for interactions between and among researchers and practitioners in the field of human systems dynamics. We believe that this emerging field of study holds potential to help us move toward greater understanding of our relationships at home, at work, and in our communities..
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Hyperstructures and the Biology of Interpersonal Dependence
Article/Report
This articles explores brain activity associated with attachment and separation behaviors, and thus patterns of interdependency among people. As such, Smith and Stevens explore connections between behavior at several levels - the neurological, the psychological and the sociological..
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Images of Organization
Book
The newly revised edition of this classic work in the management literature demonstrates through metaphors the multiple ways, realities and dimensions of organizations. The new edition contains expanded chapters, "Unfolding Logics of Change - Organization as Flux and Transformation" and "Learning and Self-Organization: Organizations as Brains" which deal with chaos and complexity theory in organizations..
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Images of Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity
Other audio/visual
A visually attractive Powerpoint slide show filled with fractal images from nature and thought-provoking quotations on life and complexity..
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Implementation of a Novel Cyclic Exercise Protocol in Healthy Women
Article/Report
Read about the encouraging results of the first clinical trials of HeartWaves, a novel approach to physical activity designed to increase physiologic variability and health invented by Irving Dardik. These trials were led by Rochelle Goldsmith (division of circulatory physiology and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons) and Ary Goldberger (Rey Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics in Physiology and Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School).
The trials involved a test of the efficacy of a cyclic exercise protocol designed to generate a series of parabolic-like waves of cardioacceleration (lasting one minute or less) followed by recovery to a steady state..
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In Nature, Animals that Stop and Start Win the Race
Article/Report
New research shows that animals in the wild move in cycles-short bursts of movement followed by rest (intermittent locomotion). This article explores the benefits of such a variable approach to movement. This has led physiologists to speculate about the value of intermittent locomotion for humans with compromised physiological functioning. The consonance of these findings with the HeartWaves Program of Dr. Irving Dardik is noteworthy. See Dardik's "The Origin of Disease and Health, Heart Waves: The Single Solution to Heart Rate Variability and Ischemic Preconditioning").
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Increasing Returns and the Two Worlds of Business
Article/Report
There are two worlds of business: the decreasing returns world is the processing of bulk goods (the "Halls of Production") and products with little incorporated knowledge; the increasing returns business has to do with knowledge based-industry (the "Casino of Technology") and interlinked webs of technologies. This award-winning author argues that different organizational orientations, skills, and approaches to planning are required for these two worlds..
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Insights from Complexity Science for the Practice of Medicine
Speech/presentation
An introduction for clinicians to complexity science and its relevance to medicine and understanding of human physiology. Explores heart rate variability in some depth, referencing the extensive medical literature and demonstrating its value as a powerful diagnostic marker and connection to morbidity and mortality..
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Integrating Complexity Science Into an Existing MSN Curriculum
Speech/presentation
A presentation about integration of complexity science concepts into graduate nursing curriculum made at a February 2005 meeting of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing..
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Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet
Book
Denise Caruso, an experienced science and technology writer and founder of the Hybrid Vigor Institute, an organization devoted to facilitating interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches to scientific problem solving, says we should all be concerned about the unintended consequences of contemporary biotechnological industrial research. The problem, she writes, is that even among the most sophisticated scientists, there are daunting unknowns in the genetic complexities of life. .
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It's a Jungle Out There
Article/Report
A view of businesses, markets and economics as ecosystems and complex systems presented by a well-known science writer. This perspective, supported by examples from the business world, helps us see differently.
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Jazz and the Art of Medicine: Improvisation in the Medical Encounter
Article/Report
Dr.Paul Haidet, an internist, educator and researcher at the Michael DeBakey VA Medical Center and an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX, has reseaerched cross cultural communication in the medical encounter, the culture of medical education, and active learnign strategies in medical education. An avid jazz fan,former disc jocket and amateur jazz historian, he applies his understanding of jazz improv to the esdsentials of the doctor-patient encounter. .
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John Stelling Presentation on Antimicrobial Resistance
Article/Report
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Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
Book
An examination of science and the ways it affects what we know about the world and organizations; helped usher in a much greater appreciation for what nature and modern science can teach us about management. Work is a bit dated now and a little weak in the science, but nevertheless a very important and well-written book..
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Let's Talk
Other audio/visual
Check out this beautiful show!.
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Life at the Edge of Chaos - Health Care Applications of Complexity Science
Article/Report
This article seeks to introduce health care practitioners tot he science of complexity and show how it can be helpful in dealing with both medical and health care organizational issues.
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Linearity, Complexity and Well-being
Article/Report
Excessive and inappropriate use of linear thinking contributes to an enormous amount of anxiety and suffering for healthcare professionals. A non-linear perspective helps us embrace paradox and unpredictability; as we let go of expectations of control, there's room for more spontanetity, curious observation, discovery and delight. Complexity reminds us to pay attention to our surroundings and our relationships. It helps us set realistic expectations for ourselves, reducing shame and fear, thus improving well-being..
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Linked: The New Science of Networks
Book
Information, disease, knowledge and just about everything else is disseminated through a complex series of networks made up of interconnected hubs, argues University of Notre Dame physics professor Barabasi. These networks are replicated in every facet of human life: "There is a path between any two neurons in our brain, between any two companies in the world, between any two chemicals in our body. Nothing is excluded from this highly interconnected web of life.".
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Little Hope: How Common Sense Thinking Can Lead to a Mess
Speech/presentation
Read the well-received Plenary Address by Paul Plsek at the Institute for Healthcare's 12th Annual Forum. It is an engaging and informative introduction to complexity science and complexity-based strategies for leadership and health care improvement..
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Loss of 'Complexity' and Aging: Potential Applications of Fractals and Chaos Theory to Senescence
Article/Report
New views of the aging by two leading researchers suggest that it is related to the loss of complex patterns in physiologic systems..
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Low Heart Rate Variability in a 2-Minute Rhythm Strip Predicts Risk of Coronary Heart Disease and Mortality From Several Causes
Article/Report
The authors hypothesize from the results of this large study that low heart rate variability (HRV) is a marker of ill health and suggest that low HRV "precedes manifest disease". Such findings suggest that HRV may be a general marker of the vitality of human physiology..
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Managing Emergent Phenomena: Nonlinear Dynamics in Work Organizations
Book
Organizational science has been transformed by concepts from nonlinear dynamical systems theory, especially where self-organization processes are involved. This book integrates nonlinear theory with empirical studies on work motivation, personnel selection, creative problem solving, organizational change, the formation of networks, group coordination, leadership emergence, behavior in hierarchies, the management and forecasting of dynamical systems, and emergency management. MEP also contains chapters on basic dynamics and empirical analysis with nonlinear regression and related statistics..
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Managing for Success in Health Care Delivery
Speech/presentation
Take a look at powerpoint slides used by Ruth Anderson in her presentation at the December 2004 Plexus Conference, Improving Health of the Chronically Ill: Insights From Complexity Science. Her remarks focused on complexity science informed management practices in health care and their impact on patient outcomes..
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Managing Health Care Organizations: Where Professionalism Meets Complexity Science
Article/Report
This araticle provides an introduction to complexity science, suggests some management implications of the science, and recommends that healthcare organizations be viewed as complex adaptive systems. .
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Managing the Unexpected: Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity
Book
"One of the great challenges any...organization can face is how to deal the with unexpected. While traditional managerial practices such as planning are designed to managed unexpected events, they often makes things worse." (book jacket)
Learn about the mindsets and practices developed by two prominent organizational researchers about managing the unexpected..
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Managing the Unknowable: Strategic Boundaries Between Order and Chaos in Organizations
Book
This is one of the first books, perhaps the first, to introduce managers to complexity-inspired leadership thinking and practice. Stacey maintains that the old maps are no good because we are sailing through uncharted waters. It is impossible to predict long term changes in the future of a system. Answers and direction emerge..
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Mergers versus Emergers: Structural Change in Health Care Systems
Resource within a website
Structural changes are commonplace in modern health care systems. Mergers, alliances, networks and other forms of structural change are being undertaken to reduce costs, improve utilization and service breadth, and reduce variation in demand. While some of these changes have provided benefits to both the health care provider and consumers, many have failed to reach their full potential, or worse. In this paper we propose that mergers and other structural changes are a rational response to market pressures, under the assumptions of the currently dominant, mechanistic business model of health care. Most mergers are primarily aimed at exploiting existing knowledge and capability. Synergy is thought of only as a deterministic phenomenon, something that can be created and managed. We next present a biologically based model using complexity science that illustrates the broader, explorative role that mergers based on the principles of self-organization could have. First, these self-organizing mergers-we call them emergers-could focus on much broader objectives than merely reducing costs. Second, emergers could be used to innovate radically different configurations of our health care system. Building on the first two roles, we see a third role that challenges the fundamental assumptions of what health care is, what it could be and how it could be delivered..
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Merging, De-merging, and Emerging at Deaconess Billings Clinic
Article/Report
This is an encouraging story about an emergent approach to health care system creation, involving the merger of the Deaconess Medical Center and the Billings Clinic. From the abstract: "By squarely surfacing the distinct cultures of the organizations through abundant interaction, relationship building and information flow, differences can be creatively transformed, resulting in deep-seated change and the emergence of a genuine, shared health care system culture.".
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Metapatterns: Across Space, Time, and Mind
Book
Not specifically arising out of complexity science per se, this book offers a remarkable journey through "metapatterns" of nature and society that are in many ways congruent with similar patterns being revealed in complexity theory. A very exciting and inspiring read!.
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Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) in the School Setting
Resource within a website
Resources for parents, students, teachers and schools for the prevention of community associated MRSA.
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Microbes.info
Website
A microbiology information portal containing a vast collection of resources including articles, news, frequently asked questions, and links pertaining to the field of microbiology..
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Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution
Book
A gem of a book by one of the country's leading scientists Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor, University of Massachusetts. From the Foreward by Dr. Lewis Thomas –"Microcosmos is nothing less than the saga of life of the planet. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan have put it all together, literally, in this extraordinary book, which is unlike any treatment of evolution for a general readership that I have encountered before. A fascinating account that we humans should be studying now for clues to our own survival.".
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Monetary Policy under Uncertainty
Speech/presentation
In August 2003 Alan Greenspan spoke about uncertainty and monetary policy at a symposium sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas.
The speech seems to mark a bit of a shift in Greenspan's thinking about on economic planning and forecasting in a world that is inherently uncertain. He explicity deals with nonlinearity..
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More We Than Me: How the Fight Against MRSA Led to a New Way of Collaborating at Albert Einstein Medical Center
Article/Report
Hundreds of people at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia are using the social change process Positive Deviance to fight Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA). Their work has forged new relationships, expanded adherance to infection control ptorocol, and encouraging results in declining infection rates.
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MRSA Issue of emerging
Article/Report
Every year, two million patients acquire infections while being treated in US hospitals, and a growing number of the infection-causing microbes are resistant to antibiotics. In this special issue of emerging read about MRSA, the cause of 126,000 hospitalizations and thousands of deaths every year, and what a pioneering group of hospitals is doing, using the social change process Positive Deviance, to prevent the spread of MRSA..
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Multifractality in human heartbeat dynamics
Article/Report
The article by a world-wide team of scientists in the internationally respected science journal presents evidence of the fractal nature of healthy human heart rate dynamics. This is contrasted with the discovery of the loss of fractality in the life-threatening condition, congestive heart failure. The following statement is presented in the closing paragraph of the article - "the detection of robust multi-fractal scaling in the heart-rate dynamics is of interest because it indicates that the control mechanisms regulating the heartbeat might interact as part of a coupled cascade of feedback loops in a system operating far from equilibrium.".
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Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome: Exploring the paradigm of complex nonlinear systems
Article/Report
This article proposes that the paradigm of complex nonlinear systems be used in critical care research regarding the systemic host response and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS). It is suggested that "understanding the host response as a complex nonlinear system offers innovative means of studying critical care patients, specifically by suggesting a greater focus on systemic properties. We hypothesize that analysis of variability and connectivity of individual variables offer a novel means of evaluating and differentiating the systemic properties of complex nonlinear systems.".
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Multiscale Entropy Analysis of Biological Signals
Article/Report
Traditionl approaches to measuring the complexity of biological signals fail to account for the multiple time scales inherent in such time series. These algorithms have yielded contradictory findings when applied to real-world datasets obtained in health and disease states. Authors details the basis and implemenetation of themultiscale entropy (MSE) method used. The method consistently indicates a loss of complexity with aging, and a results support a general "complexity-loss" theory of agng and disease..
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Multiscale Entropy Analysis of Complex Physiologic Time Series
Article/Report
Ary Goldberger, MD, a member of the Science Advisory Board of Plexus Institute, published, with colleagues, an important article on the dynamics of health, disease and aging in the internationally respected physics journal, Physical Review Letters.
They developed a measure, multiscale entropy, which consistently differentiates healthy people from those with a variety of diseases. (Entropy is a measure of the degree of disorder and variability in a system.) This finding provides additional evidence that "physiologic complexity is fundamentally related to the adaptive capacity of the organism" and that sustained loss of complexity is a generic feature of disease and aging.
Their research was guided by the far from equilibrium principle of complexity – "complex physical and biologic systems exhibit dynamics that are far from the extrema of perfect regularity and complete randomness."
The prestigious journal Nature covered this research in its news and views section (Volume 419, September 19, 2002) in a feature called "Unhealthy Surprises." The author, Dante R. Chialvo, reports that "A measurement, based on entropy, of how "surprising" the [heart] beat irregularity is, distinguishes healthy hearts from those suffering common forms of illness..
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Naturalist
Book
Edward Wilson tells the story of his life and his many path-breaking scientific discoveries, a number of which (i.e. self-organization, simple rules, biodiversity) were central to the development of the science of complexity..
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New Hope for Prevention and Control of Healthcare-Associated MRSA Infections
Speech/presentation
John A. Jernigan, MD, MS, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shared this background presentation on MRSA during kick-off meetings for the Plexus initiative led PD/MRSA Prevention Partnership..
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New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World
Book
Kelly, executive editor of Wired, offers his thoughts on making your way in an economy increasingly driven by networks, providing 10 rules. Here are a few of them: No Harmony, All Flux; Seeking Sustainable Disequilibrium; Let Go at the Top; Embrace the Swarm; The Power of Decentralization. As in his previous book, Out of Control, Kelly shows a remarkable ability to capture, synthesize and present in memorable ways the essence of important new trends and developments in science, technology, economics, and communications..
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New York: A Documentary Film, Episode Seven: 1945 to Present
Video
A significant portion of the epidsode seven of this series, directed by the famous documentary film-maker, Ric Burns, deals with the tremendously positive impact Jane Jacobs had on city planning in New York City. Through her insights and activism she successfully fought the large scale plans of Robert Moses, helped people appreciate the dynamics of healthy neighborhoods, and in so doing revolutionized the field of urban planning. See her classic book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, for more on her work and thinking..
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Nexsus
Website
NEXSUS is dedicated to developing a collaborative network of research projects working around the common theme of sustainability. The research is concerned with the application of complex systems thinking and approaches to increase understanding of sustainability in socio-economic systems.
The network is being coordinated by the
Complex Systems Management Centre,
Cranfield School of Management, UK..
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Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks
Book
As Chaos explained the science of disorder, Nexus reveals the new science of connection and the odd logic of six degrees of separation. How can geometry explain the puzzles of human behavior? In this incisive, insightful work Mark Buchanan presents the fundamental principles of the emerging field of "small worlds" theory-the idea that a hidden pattern is the key to how networks interact and exchange information, whether that network is the information highway or the firing of neurons in the brain. (Book Description.
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Nine Emerging and Connected Organizational and Leadership Principles
Article/Report
"Theory is fine. But what am I supposed to do?" Good question. That's where this article comes in. Here you will find summaries of nine specific, action-oriented heuistics (or rules of thumb) for leading in a complex environment. Each principle is accompanied by insights from some of th eleading thinkers in complexity science..
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Nonlinear Conversations
Article/Report
Complex interactions through nonlinear conversations. The author, a physician, proposes an alternative to the traditional medical interview..
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Non-linear dynamics for clinicians: chaos theory, fractals, and complexity at the bedside
Article/Report
A wonderful introductory article for medical personnel by a physician who has delved deeply into human health and physiology from the complexity and chaos perspectives. Suggests new definitions for health and ill-health, and new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. Contains comprehensive reference list of other medically related articles.
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Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences
Research/study
This is a refereed journal of original research on all areas of nonlinear dynamics (attractors, bifurcations, fractals, chaos, self-organization, complexity, evolutionary computations) and their applications ranging from microbiology to macroeconomics, with psychology topics as the central focus. NDPLS is abstracted in PsycINFO, MEDLINE, and JEL/Econlit. A sample issue is available through the SCTPLS web site. Potential authors are encouraged to submit manuscripts; see web site for further instructions. Individual subscriptions are available with membership in the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences. Institutional subscriptions are available in both hard copy and on-line form through the publisher, Human Sciences Press/Kluwer Academic Publishers..
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Nonprofit Governance: The Next Generation – Evolution of Structure and Function
Article/Report
This paper recognizes that governance has been an important aspect of our nonprofit organizations for over a century. In the recent past as the environment has changed dramatically and governance has become a focus of study, an evolution is occurring. There is no agreement in the field on the best way to structure a board for effectiveness. There is instead an evolution of diversity of thinking about governance models, structures and functions. Four governance models are described within a framework and analyzed to suggest that choosing a hybrid model to suit an organization's specific characteristics has merit. Whatever hybrid model is chosen, structural forms such as committees, information, agendas and board meetings must be in alignment with the board's function, culture and strategy. A discussion of these structural forms suggests a v