--Overview--

The Conference aims to bring together practitioners of a variety of disciplines interested in developing and discussing the new approaches for resolving complex issues that cannot be formulated using conventional, mathematical or software models. Applications in modelling complex issues using multi-agent technology and similar distributed approaches, which have achieved credible results, are welcomed.

The Conference is particularly focused on methods for resolving complex issues that exhibit some of the following attributes:

Connectivity - A system consists of a large number of diverse components, referred to as Agents, which are richly interconnected.

Autonomy - Agents are not centrally controlled; they have a degree of autonomy but their behaviour is always subject to certain laws, rules or norms.

Emergence - Global behaviour of a complex system emerges from the interaction of agents and is therefore unpredictable but not random; it generally follows discernible patterns.

Nonequilibrium - Global behaviour of a complex system is far from equilibrium because frequent occurrences of disruptive events do not allow the system to return to the equilibrium between two such events.

Nonlinearity - Relations between agents are nonlinear, which occasionally causes an insignificant input to be amplified into an extreme event (butterfly effect).

Self-Organisation - A system is capable of selforganizing in response to disruptive events, a feature termed Adaptability. Self-organisation may also be initiated autonomously by the system in response to a perceived need, a feature termed Creativity.

Co-Evolution - A system irreversibly coevolves with its environment.

High level dynamics of such systems, which are usually expressed through the frequent occurrence of unpredictable disruptive events, make conventional optimizers, batch schedulers and resource planning systems unworkable.

Complex Systems occur in an infinite variety of problems, not only in the realm of physical sciences and engineering, but encompassing fields as diverse as the economy, environment, humanities, social and political sciences. Further examples are given in the list of topics which although incomplete gives an idea of the themes to be covered by the meeting.

The conference objective is to bring together researchers, developers and users of complex systems, aiming to form a community directed at solving complex issues in novel ways.

--Conference Topics--

A complete list of topics related to complexity issues would be infinitely long. Below are some examples. Papers on other topics related to the Conference will also be considered.

Complex ecological systems
Complexity science and urban developments
Complex energy systems
Complex issues in biological and medical sciences
Extreme events: natural and human made disasters
Climate change
Complexity of the internetbased global market
Complex business processes
Supply chain complexity
Transportation complexity
Logistics complexity
Closed and open systems
Attractions and chaotic systems
Complex adaptive software
Complexity of big data
Management of complexity
Global economy as a complex system
Complexity in social systems
Complex political systems
Administrations as complex systems
Complexity in engineering
Complexity and environment
Complexity and evolution
Complexity in linguistics, literature and arts