Editorial - Modeling Socio-Technical Complexity

An important and significant trend in the field of complex systems, which is currently unfolding: the quest for a quantitative and predictive understanding of socioeconomic phenomena, offering a rich and, to a certain extent, alternative path to traditional social sciences and economics. These efforts in understanding collective phenomena are carried out through novel ways in data analysis, numerical simulations, model building and statistical testing. This topical issue of ACS is devoted to reflect these trends. The themes covered in this issue range from the analysis of social interactions, agent based models, evolutionary mechanisms in societies, opinion formation, and econophysics. Some of the papers in this topical issue of ACS have been presented at the European Conference on Complex Systems (ECCS), held on September 12–16, 2011 in Vienna, and at the Cultural and Opinion Dynamics: Modeling, Experiments and Challenges for the Future (CODYM) workshop. Prior to publication in this issue, they have undergone considerable extensions and revisions.