Complexity and Emergence in Engineering Systems

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the key concepts of complexity and emergence, and to give an overview of the state of the art techniques used to study and engineer systems to exhibit particular emergent properties. We include theories both from complex systems engineering and from the physical sciences. Unlike most reviews, which usually focus solely on one of these, we wish to analyse the ways in which they relate to one another, as well as how they differ, since there is often a lack of clarity on this.

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