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Given a language, which in this article is a set of strings of some fixed length, we study the problem of producing its elements by a procedure in which each position has its own local rule. We introduce a way of measuring how much…
Cooperation is ubiquitous ranging from multicellular organisms to human societies. Population structures indicating individuals' limited interaction ranges are crucial to understand this issue. But it is still at large to what extend…
As the current thermo-industrial civilization expands, its technological and societal complexities increase. We suggest that physical power, economic activity and societal complexity are linked. A simple, intuitive model based on Systems…
We offer a very simple model of how collective memory may form. Agents keep signalling within neighbourhoods, and depending on how many support each signal, some signals "win" in that neighbourhood. By agents interacting between different…
While modern physics and biology satisfactorily explain the passage from the Big Bang to the formation of Earth and the first cells to present-day life, respectively, the origins of biochemical life still remain an open question. Since…
The social brain hypothesis postulates the increasing complexity of social interactions as a driving force for the evolution of cognitive abilities. Whereas dyadic and triadic relations play a basic role in defining social behaviours and…
We explore a simplified class of models we call swarms, which are inspired by the collective behavior of social insects. We perform a mean-field stability analysis and perform numerical simulations of the model. Several interesting types of…
Complexity is an interdisciplinary concept which, first of all, addresses the question of how order emerges out of randomness. For many reasons matrices provide a very practical and powerful tool in approaching and quantifying the related…
From bird flocking to neural dynamics, complex systems generate fascinating structures and correlations. Often, seemingly simple dynamics lead to intricate emergent properties. Despite their visceral appeal, defining complex systems lacks…
Many complex systems satisfy a set of constraints on their degrees of freedom, and at the same time, they are able to work and adapt to different conditions. Here, we describe the emergence of this ability in a simplified model in which the…
Most conspicuous organisms are multicellular and most multicellular organisms develop somatic cells to perform specific, non-reproductive tasks. The ubiquity of this division of labor suggests that it is highly advantageous. In this paper,…
Biological organisms adapt to changes by processing informations from different sources, most notably from their ancestors and from their environment. We review an approach to quantify these informations by analyzing mathematical models of…
Many living and non-living complex systems can be modeled and understood as collective systems made of heterogeneous components that self-organize and generate nontrivial morphological structures and behaviors. This chapter presents a brief…
Systems of dynamical interactions between competing species can be used to model many complex systems, and can be mathematically described by {\em random} networks. Understanding how patterns of activity arise in such systems is important…
A continuous-time Markov process is proposed to analyze how a group of humans solves a complex task, consisting in the search of the optimal set of decisions on a fitness landscape. Individuals change their opinions driven by two different…
Modular structure is pervasive in many complex networks of interactions observed in natural, social and technological sciences. Its study sheds light on the relation between the structure and function of complex systems. Generally speaking,…
We study the spatial patterns formed by a system of interacting particles where the mobility of any individual is determined by the population crowding at two different spatial scales. In this way we model the behavior of some biological…
We present a method for logical specification of the behavior of a system based on the specification of its components and for representing and specifying the effect of a class of communication "signaling pathways" among them. Variations in…
Human language and its governing rules present a number of analogies with the organization and structure of communication and information management in living organisms. This chapter will provide a short general introduction about grammar,…
The emergence of multicellularity and developmental programs are among the major problems of evolutionary biology. Traditionally, research in this area has been based on the combination of data analysis and experimental work on one hand and…