AVXXX: Introduction to Complex Systems

Credits: 3

Complex systems refer to collections or networks of interconnected components or agents

that, through their interactions, exhibit emergent behaviours and properties that cannot be
easily understood by solely analysing the individual components. Understanding complex
systems is crucial in today's interconnected world. It aids in understanding ecosystems,
cellular interactions, and evolutionary processes, offering insights into disease spread and
ecological balance. In economics, it explains market behaviours, financial networks, and socio-
economic dynamics, guiding policy-making and risk assessment. In technology, it shapes our
understanding of networks, AI systems, and emergent behaviours in digital platforms. From
urban planning to healthcare, from climate modelling to social dynamics, the application of
complex systems modelling and analysis offers insights into complex adaptive behaviours,
and interconnected dynamics.

This course on complex systems provides the tools to decipher the emergent properties,
adaptive behaviours, and interconnected dynamics that define these systems. The course will
cover dynamical systems theory for continuous and discrete time, network dynamics, cellular
automata simulations, agent-based modelling for analysis of complex systems. It explores
complex behaviours across natural, social, and engineered domains, using programming
languages and tools for implementing models.

Prerequisites:

Basic knowledge of Linear Algebra, calculus, and computer programming [C or Python or

MATLAB].

Course Outcomes:

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

1. Acquire a foundational understanding of dynamical systems.

2. Identify complex systems in various domains, including natural, social, and
engineered systems.
3. Utilize agent-based modelling (ABM) and Cellular Automata (CA) to simulate and
analyse complex systems.
4. Apply computational models to describe and predict real-world complex systems'
behaviours.
Syllabus:
Fundamentals of Dynamical Systems and complexity: Discrete and Continuous time
modelling, Equilibrium points, Phase space visualization, stability analysis, Bifurcations and
Chaos; Dynamical Network Models: spreading phenomena, clustering and diffusion on
networks; Systems with large number of variables and Complexity, defining complex systems
and their characteristics, Emergence, self-organization, and adaptive behaviours, equation
based modelling (EBMs) and agent based modelling (ABM).

Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) and Cellular Automata (CA): The Components of ABM,
agent-agent interaction, agent-environment interaction, building and simulating basic ABMs,
analysing ABMs, verification, validation, and replication techniques in ABMs, introduction to
Cellular Automata (CA), Examples of Simple Binary CA Rules and simulations, Rule Space
and Phase Space analysis, Mean-Field Approximation in CA modelling, Self-Organized and
Criticality.

Case studies exploring real-world complex systems: Some Case studies of complex system
models in ecology, biology, Social science and economics - Schelling’s Segregation model,
Forest fire model, the El Farol Model for economics, contagion model for the spread of disease,
information, and behaviour; opinion dynamics for consensus, differentiation, and
polarization, Social cooperation models, evolutionary dynamics, Biological Cellular
Automata Models.

Text Books:

1. Sayama, Hiroki. Introduction to the Modeling and Analysis of Complex Systems.

2. Macal, Charles M., and Michael J. North. Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling: Modeling
Natural, Social, and Engineered Complex Systems with NetLogo.
3. Paul E. Smaldino. Modeling Social Behavior: Mathematical and Agent-Based Models of
Social Dynamics and Cultural Evolution

References:

1. Mitchell, Melanie. Complexity: A Guided Tour.

2. Miller, John H., and Scott E. Page. Complex Adaptive Systems: An Introduction to
Computational Models of Social Life.
3. Flake, Gary William. Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals,
Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation.
4. Francesco Bullo. Lectures on Network Systems.
5. Mehran Mesbahi and Magnus Egerstedt. Graph Theoretic Methods in Multiagent
Networks
6. Railsback, Steven M., and Volker Grimm. Agent-Based and Individual-Based Modeling: A
Practical Introduction.
7. Strogatz, Steven H. Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos: With Applications to Physics, Biology,
Chemistry, and Engineering.
8. Ilachinski, Andrew. Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe.
9. Wolfram, Stephen. A New Kind of Science.

Assessment:

Programming assignments and project: 40 marks

Quiz 1 and Quiz 2: 30 Marks

End Semester Exam: 30 Marks