Readings, etc. - Complex
Systems Summer School
Tom Carter
These are some readings, etc., related to the SFI Complex Systems
Summer School.
Many of these are things I've developed over the years for CSSS
(and other classes I teach), as
"lecture notes" for lectures I've given. During many Summer Schools,
I was available for discussion of various of these . . .
My home page is here:
Tom Carter.
These are lecture notes on Information Theory:
Information theory and entropy.
Here are some lecture notes on linear algebra (including a section on
eigenvalues / eigenvectors),
which in the past have been part of a "Math review" for the Summer School.
Brief Survey of Linear Algebra
Here are some lecture notes on nonlinear systems and chaos -- I use these in a class I teach at
my home campus (the notes are "in progress" . . . )
Nonlinear systems (and chaos . . .)
Here are some lecture notes on random walks, with some additional material,
including some biological examples
Random walks
Here are some lecture notes on economics, high finance, and Black-Scholes . . .
High finance (Black-Scholes, etc.)
Here is a page linking to several models:
models (NetLogo and RePast)
Here is a pdf of the "What shape is a circle" notes:
Circles.pdf
Here are a powerpoint and a pdf of the "Interdisciplinary" notes:
Interdisciplinary.ppt
Interdisciplinary.pdf
Here are some notes on Computation Theory, which may come in handy for various
lectures. These are notes from some lectures I have given during previous
Summer Schools:
Computation theory.
and also some notes on quantum computation:
Quantum computation.
Here are some brief notes on "fractional derivatives" -- one way to define them:
fractional_deriv.pdf
Here are some notes on "symbolic dynamics"
Symbolic Dynamics.pdf
Here are some notes on "Simpson's Paradox"
Simpsons-Paradox.pdf
Here are some notes on assessing risk (and the so-called "doomsday argument")
risks.pdf
Here are some notes on voting (related to Arrow's Theorem . . .)
voting
Here is a short path through some parts of my "entropy"
notes focusing on the "economic" (also ideal gas . . .) models, but
there is also an additional section on power laws
A short trip through entropy to power laws
Speaking of power laws (and economics), here is some stuff I wrote
a while back about "social insurance" of various forms, tax policy, and
economic issues . . .
social insurance
Here is a pdf on fractal dimension (including a couple of examples with
fractal dimension exactly 1 . . .):
Fractal-Dimension.pdf
This is the current version of the "Theories and Models" material (it's
rough -- I'm still working on it . . .):
Theories and Models (Making sense)
Here is MatLab code for some of the Takens' embedding process. This code
was written by a CSSS 2003 project group (that included Aaron Clauset) to
analyze data from a water wheel experiment. It is largely derived from
material in a book by H. Abarbanel ("Analysis of Observed Chaotic Data" --
a very good book, definitely worth looking into if you are analyzing time series
or other large data sets),
and includes false nearest neighbor / embedding dimension code, etc.
FNN.m (false nearest neighbor)
analwheel.m (some other analysis tools)
This is Claude Shannon's classic 1948 paper on
information, entropy, and communication theory.
Claude Shannon's paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication"
(and also a
site with some background.)
A chaos/nonlinear systems explorer - written in java:
Chaos explorer.
I'll also put here links to a couple of books that I have found to
be useful resources for exploring/understanding complex systems, with
an emphasis on dynamics. Both are fairly technical, but definitely worth
exploring . . . :
Dynamics of Complex Systems by Yaneer Bar Yam.
Complex and Adaptive Dynamical Systems by Claudius Gros
Questions or comments may be mailed to:
tom at csustan.csustan.edu