Related papers: Managing catastrophic changes in a collective

Many complex systems are representable as macroscopic set of elements which interact by simple rules. The complex macroscopically relevant phenomena are then the result of the generic emergence of a space-time multi-scale dynamics. Critical…

Temporal prediction is critical for making intelligent and robust decisions in complex dynamic environments. Motion prediction needs to model the inherently uncertain future which often contains multiple potential outcomes, due to…

Understanding the phase behavior of mixtures with many components is important in many contexts, including as a key step toward a physics-based description of intracellular compartmentalization. Here, we study the instabilities of a mixture…

Over the last decade new technologies for making large numbers of fine-grained measurements have led to the surprising discovery that many biological systems sit near a critical point. These systems are potentially more adaptive in that…

We propose in the paper a novel framework for using a common control input to simultaneously steer an infinite ensemble of networked control systems. We address the problem of co-designing information flow topology and network dynamics of…

Changes in human behavior are increasingly recognized as a major determinant of epidemic dynamics. Although collective activity can be modified through imposed measures to control epidemic progression, spontaneous changes can also arise as…

We consider a model for Darwinian evolution in an asexual population with a large but non-constant populations size characterized by a natural birth rate, a logistic death rate modelling competition and a probability of mutation at each…

We analyze a simple model of deterministic diffusion. The model consists of a one-dimensional periodic array of scatterers in which point particles move from cell to cell as defined by a piecewise linear map. The microscopic chaotic…

Sampling the collective, dynamical fluctuations that lead to nonequilibrium pattern formation requires probing rare regions of trajectory space. Recent approaches to this problem based on importance sampling, cloning, and spectral…

Applying multi-agent reinforcement learning methods to realistic settings is challenging as it may require the agents to quickly adapt to unexpected situations that are rarely or never encountered in training. Recent methods for…

We analyze the long-term stability of a stochastic model designed to illustrate the adaptation of a population to variation in its environment. A piecewise-deterministic process modeling adaptation is coupled to a Feller logistic diffusion…

A structural causal model is made of endogenous (manifest) and exogenous (latent) variables. We show that endogenous observations induce linear constraints on the probabilities of the exogenous variables. This allows to exactly map a causal…

Self-organization is frequently observed in active collectives, from ant rafts to molecular motor assemblies. General principles describing self-organization away from equilibrium have been challenging to identify. We offer a unifying…

Pairwise interactions between individuals are taken as fundamental drivers of collective behavior responsible for group cohesion and decision-making. While an individual directly influences only a few neighbors, over time indirect…

This contribution shortly outlines and reviews a theoretical and computational approach for a theory of change concerning systems where it is not possible to apply the laws of motion ab initio. The concept of meta-structure relates to the…

Humans have been able to tackle biosphere complexities by acting as ecosystem engineers, profoundly changing the flows of matter, energy and information. This includes major innovations that allowed to reduce and control the impact of…

Many of the world's most pressing issues, such as climate change and global peace, require complex collective problem-solving skills. Recent studies indicate that diversity in individuals' behaviors is key to developing such skills and…

Social ecological systems are often difficult to investigate and manage because of their inherent complexity1. Small variations in external drivers can lead to abrupt changes associated with instabilities and bifurcations in the underlying…

We investigate a model of high-dimensional dynamical variables with all-to-all interactions that are random and non-reciprocal. We characterize its phase diagram and show that the model can exhibit chaotic dynamics. We show that the…

Control schemes for dynamical systems typically involve stabilizing unstable periodic orbits. In this paper we introduce a new paradigm of control that involves `trapping' the dynamics arbitrarily close to any desired trajectory. This is…