“Understanding innovation dynamics”


Aug 3, 2018

New ideas in complexity science

 

On May 24th, 2018, the First External Faculty Meeting of the Hub started with a public conference.

 

In short talks complexity scientists from all around globe shared their visions on the question “Complexity: Where do we go from here?”

 

What are the open, the most pressing, the most promising questions to an understanding of complexity and Big Data?

 

Find the talks of all conference participants (in order of appearance) on our Youtube channel in the playlist of the conference.

 

An overview with photographs of the event and links to all available slides can be found here.

 

Francesca Tria

 

“We often have to deal with open systems.”

 

 

Francesca Tria, a researcher at the physics department of Sapienza University of Rome, speaks about the challenge to deal with change, that is, with the continuous entering of new, not-yet known, elements to the system.

 

When we make an observation, Francesca begins, it can happen in two ways. In one case we observe something that we have observed before. In the other case though, we come across something completely new: something that is not covered by any previous knowledge.

 

This continuous entering of new elements to a system is the rule rather than the exception, as “Life is change,” says Francesca. Although quite trivial as a statement, this fact is very important from a mathematical and theoretical point of view, she adds. That is, when it comes to make (rather: to compute) predictions.

 

Francesca distinguishes between novelty and innovation.

 

“A novelty is an innovation at an individual or local scale,” she explains: “For instance the first time that I listen to a song.” A true innovation, on the other hand, is the first time a song is written, that is, “when something new appears that was not in the world before.”

 

Why is it important to make this distinction?

 

“Because we found out that in many respects for many statistical properties, novelties and innovations follow the same dynamics,” Francesca points out. “This gives us a great opportunity, because novelties are much more common than innovations. So we can hope to have good statistics for novelties.”

 

This means, looking at novelties could eventually help to understand true innovation, too.

 

Francesca mentions the adjacent possible, a concept once introduced by Stuart Kauffman. “The adjacent possible consists of all those things that are one step away from what actually exists,” Francesca explains. “The important thing about it is that it is not a fixed space, but is something that modifies and enlarges when we touch its boundaries. For instance, if I meet a new friend, all his friends become a new possibility for me.”

 

It is very difficult to characterize this space. But today we have new tools at hand to approach it, Francesca says. “We have the Web!” The Web allows to conduct experiments involving large numbers of humans. “The Web is something that people started and something that is complex by itself,” Francesca concludes. “This opens new perspectives and new questions.”

 

 

Click for Francesca’s slides.

 

 

See the video in full lenght here:

 

 

 

 

 


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S. Juhász, G. Pintér, et al.

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B. Méro, A. Borsos, et al.

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Sep 18, 2023

Why do some environmental shocks lead to disaster while others don't?

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Sep 21, 2023

Curbing the Violence by Mexican Cartels

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Sep 21, 2023

Curbing the Violence by Mexican Cartels

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Sep 18, 2023

Unlocking Urban Diversity: The Magnetism of Complex Amenities

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Sep 18, 2023

Why do some environmental shocks lead to disaster while others don't?

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Aug 31, 2023

New study uncovers the Causes of the Qing Dynasty's Collapse

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Aug 28, 2023

CSH hosts workshop on visualizing complexity science

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Aug 22, 2023

Wallet 2.0: What Does the Future of Money Look Like?

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Open Arms Grant: How conferences can ensure global participation

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Aug 1, 2023

Scientists develop method to spot the spread of armed conflicts

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Jul 27, 2023

A lot of exchanges and discussions at NetSci

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Jul 20, 2023

Prenatal malnutrition increases diabetes incidence later in life

Spotlight

Jun 29, 2023

CSH Spin-Off Iknaio receives aws seed funding

Press

175.000 personas al servicio de los cárteles mexicanos, según estudio


CNN, Sep 22, 2023

Press

Study reveals organized crime is the fifth-largest employer in Mexico


El Pais, Sep 22, 2023

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Es gibt auch gute Klima-Nachrichten


SZ, Sep 22, 2023

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Kindesmissbrauch: Wie Kriminelle die Anonymität des Darknets nutzen


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L'effondrement de la dernière dynastie chinoise des Qing, un avertissement pour le futur ?


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Warum Saudi-Arabiens ehrgeizige Stadt der Zukunft nicht optimal ist


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Qing Dynasty’s Collapse Driven By Three Things, And They Could Happen To Us


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Warum die Qing-Dynastie unterging


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There are thousands of cities in the world, and there’s a reason none is in the shape of a line


Fast Company, Aug 12, 2023

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R. Prieto-Curiel, G. M. Capedelli, A. Hope

Reducing cartel recruitment is the only way to lower violence in Mexico

Science 381(6664) (2023) 1312-1316

Publication

B. Méro, A. Borsos, et al.

A High-Resolution, Data-Driven Agent-Based Model of the Housing Market

Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (2023) 104738

Publication

S. Juhász, G. Pintér, et al.

Amenity complexity and urban locations of socio-economic mixing

EPJ Data Science 12 (2023) 34

Publication

R. Hanel, S. Thurner

Equivalence of information production and generalised entropies in complex processes

PLOS ONE 18(9) (2023) e0290695

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K. Frenken, F. Neffke, A. van Dam

Capabilities, institutions and regional economic development: a proposed synthesis

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society (2023) rsad021

Publication

G. Orlandi, D. Hoyer, et al.

Structural-demographic analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) collapse in China

PLoS ONE 18(8) (2023) e0289748

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N. Kushwaha, E.D. Lee

Discovering the mesoscale for chains of conflict

PNAS Nexus 2(7) (2023) pgad228

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H. Metzler, D. Garcia

Social Drivers and Algorithmic Mechanisms on Digital Media

Perspectives on Psychological Science (2023)

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M. Laber, P. Klimek, et al.

Shock propagation from the Russia–Ukraine conflict on international multilayer food production network determines global food availability

Nature Food (2023) doi: 10.1038/s43016-023-00771-4

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M. Kaleta, et al.

Diabetes incidence in Austria: The role of famines on diabetes and related NCDs

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D. R. Lo Sardo, S. Thurner, et al.

Systematic population-wide ecological analysis of regional variability in disease prevalence

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Scaling of the morphology of African cities

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