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Natural selection is the mechanism of evolution originally proposed by Charles Darwin. This process is driven by mutation and death. Therefore, “individual death” is a critical event for evolution of species. Analogous to the significance of individual death in species evolution, recent biological observations have revealed that “cell death” is an important event for maintenance of individuals and offspring. Cell death is caused not only by injuries and pathological conditions, but also by programed intracellular signals. This type of programed cell death is called “apoptosis.” Apoptosis signals are regulated in mitochondria, eukaryotic organelles of symbiotic origin, and play a critical role in survival of individuals by eliminating some cells.

This chapter introduces readers to a complex adaptive systems approach for integrating research on genes, behavior, and social structures/institutions. Until recently, scientists have resorted to reductionism as a decoding and epistemological strategy for understanding human health. The complex bonds among health’s biological, behavioral, and social dimensions, however, cannot be fully grasped with reductionist schemas. Moreover, because reducing and simplifying can lead to incomplete understanding of phenomena, the resulting deficient knowledge has the potential to be harmful.

To achieve its purpose, this primer will: (1) introduce fundamental notions from complexity science, useful for inquiry and practice integrating research on genes, behavior, and social structures; (2) outline selected methodological strategies employed in studying complex adaptive/dynamic systems; (3) address the question, “Specifically, how can a dynamic systems approach be helpful for integrating research on genes, behavior, and social structures/institutions, to improve the public’s health?”; and (4) provide examples of studies currently deploying a complexity perspective.

The originality/value of this primer rests in its critique of the research status quo and the proposition of an alternative lens for integrating genomic, biomedical, and sociological research to improve the public’s health. The topic of complex adaptive/dynamic systems has begun to flourish within sociology, medicine, and public health, but many researchers lack exposure to the topic’s basic notions and applications.

Due to the increasing size and complexity of construction projects, construction engineering and management involves the coordination of many complex and dynamic processes and relies on the analysis of uncertain, imprecise and incomplete information, including subjective and linguistically expressed information. Various modelling and computing techniques have been used by construction researchers and applied to practical construction problems in order to overcome these challenges, including fuzzy hybrid techniques. Fuzzy hybrid techniques combine the human-like reasoning capabilities of fuzzy logic with the capabilities of other techniques, such as optimization, machine learning, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) and simulation, to capitalise on their strengths and overcome their limitations. Based on a review of construction literature, this chapter identifies the most common types of fuzzy hybrid techniques applied to construction problems and reviews selected papers in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique to illustrate their capabilities for addressing construction challenges. Finally, this chapter discusses areas for future development of fuzzy hybrid techniques that will increase their capabilities for solving construction-related problems. The contributions of this chapter are threefold: (1) the limitations of some standard techniques for solving construction problems are discussed, as are the ways that fuzzy methods have been hybridized with these techniques in order to address their limitations; (2) a review of existing applications of fuzzy hybrid techniques in construction is provided in order to illustrate the capabilities of these techniques for solving a variety of construction problems and (3) potential improvements in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique in construction are provided, as areas for future research.

Why open innovation? Imagine having a fortress or a bunker for innovation: what would be the impact? Imagine further that to be open is to focus on the growing tips of the roots of a tree to see what new ground they penetrate. The essential space for open innovation is that liminal space between the roots and the new ground to be penetrated. This space might be seen as the ‘Twilight Zone’, the zone for open flow innovation. As is the case for the developing areas within a nation, it is often what is happening at the periphery that is most dynamic. According to Tone Ringstad, a founder of Culturengine, innovation builds on values like curiosity, creativity, flexibility and diversity. The ‘open’ dimension requires values such as openness, trust, responsibility, authenticity and sustainability. A key prerequisite is an altruistic culture with ‘capacity givers’, who form a bridge between brains – for smart alliance building or brain circulation. To support these cultural innovation drivers, there is a need for a space. In response to this need, the first Future Center was established in Sweden in 1996, known as the Skandia Future Center. The Center later mutated into Mind Lab, Media Evolution Hub, Living Labs, LEF, etc., marking the evolution of these capacity-giver spaces. The most recent mutation is Wise Place, a creation of the Future Center Alliance Japan and now in its third iteration. It is a place, or cultural space, for mind evolution and is based on, among other things, Zen cultural insights.

My purpose is to describe for strategic management scholars in Africa, particularly graduate students and new faculty members, dynamic analysis and its significance in the African context so as to assist in the study of dynamic phenomena.

I discuss various types and methods of dynamic analysis. Dynamic analysis has been used extensively in such fields as cognitive psychology, social psychology, and management in Western countries.

I illustrate the various dynamics by reviewing four illustrative studies. I also provide procedures for studying dynamics in the African context.

I discuss the strengths and limitations of dynamic analysis and suggest ways of maximizing its potential.

The technique is a source particularly for graduate students of strategy in Africa. They can use it to supplement other approaches in studying strategic management phenomena.

This chapter discusses a typology of dynamic analysis consistent with empirical or variable modeling approaches. The lack of such a typology in the context of Africa makes it a valuable contribution. Thus, it fills a contextual gap in the research methodology literature.

The chapter uses a comparative case study design to address the mutations and trajectories of transparency in two organizations. We chose organizations that are similar in that they favor extensive forms of self-disclosure, but also different in terms of which sector they inhabit, audiences, and organization type: the Pirate Party of Germany and the lobby organization Epsilon. The findings, in close dialog with different threads in the transparency literature, unveil three crucial dimensions in which transparency regimes are likely to trigger unintended consequences: first, organizations have to cope with the tension between the disclosure of internal information on the one hand, and the need to appear consistent in public on the other. Second, transparency strategies can, however, turn into surveillance and trigger new forms of data ordering, sorting, and aggregating practices. Third, disclosure practices create and undermine complex hierarchies and power relations for organizational members. The comparison of the cases demonstrates that it is crucial to observe the practical implications and multiple trajectories of transparency practices.

Against the grain of the paradigmatic postcolonial analytics of the colonial state, this chapter presents a non-dichotomous comparison of two regimes within the late 18th century Danish empire, which are commonly presumed to be of essentially different kinds – namely the colonial state in Tranquebar in South East India and the metropolitan government of rural Danish society. By focusing, firstly, on practices of policing and, secondly, on the general technology of power that targeted these significantly different socio-political spheres, it is argued that these regimes were governing according to similar strategies: seeking, on one hand, to deploy societal mechanisms of self-regulation and, on the other, to provide a balance and order to the otherwise chaotic forces of the population. On the basis of a Foucauldian vocabulary of government, it is thereby argued that colonialism, at this time and place, had not yet clearly constituted itself as a particular form of rule.

We model international short-term capital flow by identifying technical trading rules in short-term capital markets using Genetic Programming (GP). The simulation results suggest that the international short-term markets was quite efficient during the period of 1997–2002, with most GP generated trading strategies recommending buy-and-hold on one or two assets. The out-of-sample performance of GP trading strategies varies from year to year. However, many of the strategies are able to forecast Taiwan stock market down time and avoid making futile investment. Investigation of Automatically Defined Functions shows that they do not give advantages or disadvantages to the GP results.