Self-propelled objects (particles, droplets) are autonomous agents that can convert energy from the environment into motion. These motions include nonlinear behaviour such as oscillations, synchronization, bifurcation, and pattern formation. In recent years, there has been much interest in self-propelled objects for their potential role in mass transport or their use as carriers in confined spaces. An improved understanding of self-organized motion has even allowed researchers to design objects for specific motion. This book gives an overview of the principles of self-propelled motion in chemical objects (particles, droplets) far from their thermodynamic equilibrium, at various spatial scales. Theoretical aspects, the characteristics of the motion and the design procedures of such systems are discussed from the viewpoint of nonlinear dynamics and examples of applications for these nonlinear systems are provided. This book is suitable for researchers and graduate students interested in physical and theoretical chemistry as well as soft matter.

An autonomous agent is a computational system that acquires sensory data from its environment and decides by itself how to relate the external stimulus to its behaviors in order to attain certain goals. Responding to different stimuli received from its task environment, the agent may select and exhibit different behavioral patterns. The behavioral patterns may be carefully predefined or dynamically acquired by the agent based on some learning and adaptation mechanism(s). In order to achieve structural flexibility, reliability through redundancy, adaptability, and reconfigurability in real-world tasks, some researchers have started to address the issue of multiagent cooperation. Broadly speaking, the power of autonomous agents lies in their ability to deal with unpredictable, dynamically changing environments. Agent-based systems are becoming one of the most important computer technologies, holding out many promises for solving real-world problems.The aims of this book are to provide a guided tour to the pioneering work and the major technical issues in agent research, and to give an in-depth discussion on the computational mechanisms for behavioral engineering in autonomous agents. Through a systematic examination, the book attempts to provide the general design principles for building autonomous agents and the analytical tools for modeling the emerged behavioral properties of a multiagent system.

This is the second of two volumes offering the very first comprehensive treatise of self-organization and non-linear dynamics in electrochemical systems. The first volume covers general principles of self-organization as well as temporal instabilities. The content of both volumes is organized so that each description of a particular electrochemical system is preceded by an introduction to basic concepts of nonlinear dynamics, in order to help the reader unfamiliar with this discipline to understand at least fundamental concepts and the methods of stability analysis. The presentation of the systems is not limited to laboratory models but stretches out to real-life objects and processes, including systems of biological importance, such as neurons in living matter. Marek Orlik presents a comprehensive and consistent survey of the field.

This book integrates the theories of complex self-organizing systems with the rich body of discourse and literature developed in what might be called ‘social theory of cities and urbanism’. It uses techniques from dynamical complexity and synergetics to successfully tackle open social science questions.

Self-organization of matter is observed in every context and on all scales, from the nanoscale of quantum fields and subatomic particles to the macroscale of galaxy superclusters. This book analyzes the wide range of patterns of organization present in nature, highlighting their similarities rather than their differences. This unconventional approach results in an illuminating read which should be part of any Physics student's background.

The 2014 International Conference on Economics and Management Engineering (ICEME2014) is held in Hangzhou, China from October 18–19, 2014. The conference aims to provide an excellent international academic forum for all the researchers, practitioner, students and teachers in related fields to share their knowledge and results in theory, methodology and application on economics, management science and management engineering. ICEME2014 features unique mixed topics of Economics, Management Science, Management Engineering and other related ones. ICEME2014 proceeding tends to collect the most up-to-date, comprehensive, and worldwide state-of-art knowledge on economics, management science and management engineering. All the accepted papers have been submitted to strict peer-review by 2–4 expert referees, and selected based on originality, significance and clarity for the purpose of the conference. The conference program is extremely rich, profound and featuring high-impact presentations of selected papers and additional late-breaking contributions. We sincerely hope that the conference would not only show the participants a broad overview of the latest research results on related fields, but also provide them with a significant platform for academic connection and exchange.