This book is a comprehensive introduction to quantitative approaches to complex adaptive systems. Practically all areas of life on this planet are constantly confronted with complex systems, be it ecosystems, societies, traffic, financial markets, opinion formation, epidemic spreading, or the internet and social media. Complex systems are systems composed of many elements that interact with each other, which makes them extremely rich dynamical systems showing a huge range of phenomena. Properties of complex systems that are of particular importance are their efficiency, robustness, resilience, and proneness to collapse. The quantitative tools and concepts needed to understand the co-evolutionary nature of networked systems and their properties are challenging. The intention of the book is to give a self-contained introduction to these concepts so that the reader will be equipped with a conceptual and mathematical toolset that allows her to engage in the science of complex systems. Topics covered include random processes of path-dependent processes, co-evolutionary dynamics, the statistics of driven nonequilibrium systems, dynamics of networks, the theory of scaling, and approaches from statistical mechanics and information theory. The book extends well beyond the early classical literature in the field of complex systems and summarizes the methodological progress over the past twenty years in a clear, structured, and comprehensive way. The book is intended for natural scientists and graduate students.
In this paper, an exploratory mixed-method study is presented examining the video-related behavior of participants of a massive open online course (MOOC; N=1.238). Firstly, detailed log-file analysis of six videos has been carried out to compare clickstreams of videos with and without integrated H5P quiz integration. It shows quite different seeking and watching pattern behavior in video with H5P quizzes. In a second step, learners participated in an online questionnaire (N=707): Most of them see the quizzes in videos as always or mostly helpful (67%). The survey also shows that for many, taking notes, turning on subtitles, using the transcripts or even increasing the speed are important activities when learning with the videos in the MOOC. In a third step, interviews with ten MOOC participants are a source for qualitative insights in how the learners use the learning videos.
The science of complex systems is not an offspring of physics, biology, or the socialsciences, but a unique mix of all three. By recalling what these diciplines are, wedevelop an intuitive feel for complex systems and for how this science differs from otherdisciplines. This chapter aims to show that the science of complex systems combinesphysics, biology, and the social sciences in a unique blend that is a new discipline in itsown right. We review a few classical concepts of the science of complex systems andemphasize the importance of co-evolution of states of components and their interaction.The chapter clarifies the structure of the book.
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