{"product_id":"9780262304979","title":"Signals and Boundaries: Building Blocks for Complex Adaptive Systems","description":"Complex adaptive systems (cas), including ecosystems, governments, biological cells, and markets, are characterized by intricate hierarchical arrangements of boundaries and signals. In ecosystems, for example, niches act as semi-permeable boundaries, and smells and visual patterns serve as signals; governments have departmental hierarchies with memoranda acting as signals; and so it is with other cas. Despite a wealth of data and descriptions concerning different cas, there remain many unanswered questions about \"steering\" these systems. In \u003ci\u003eSignals and Boundaries\u003c\/i\u003e, John Holland argues that understanding the origin of the intricate signal\/border hierarchies of these systems is the key to answering such questions. He develops an overarching framework for comparing and steering cas through the mechanisms that generate their signal\/boundary hierarchies.Holland lays out a path for developing the framework that emphasizes agents, niches, theory, and mathematical models. He discusses, among other topics, theory construction; signal-processing agents; networks as representations of signal\/boundary interaction; adaptation; recombination and reproduction; the use of tagged urn models (adapted from elementary probability theory) to represent boundary hierarchies; finitely generated systems as a way to tie the models examined into a single framework; the framework itself, illustrated by a simple finitely generated version of the development of a multi-celled organism; and Markov processes.","brand":"MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47101928636656,"sku":"9780262304979","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780262304979_p0.jpg?v=1763681677","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780262304979","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}