Cambridge Scholars Publishing Understanding Interactions in Complex Systems: Toward a Science of Interaction

Since human activities are embedded in interactions, they are at the very center of the modeling of any form of social life, shaping societies, groups and interpersonal relationships. All theories of social, cognitive and cultural life are thus associated with explicit or tacit models of the nature of interactions and relations. This book proposes a multifaceted exploration of the complex nature of interactions, and of the modeling of complex interactional systems. It shows that all disciplines can be enriched by exploring alternative paradigms in the modeling of interactions, and that if discipline-bound studies tend to underestimate the multi-dimensional nature of interactions, ignoring it is not an option. It will be of great interest for anyone involved in disciplines such as economics, geography, linguistics, communication studies, education sciences and sociology, and in fields such as the study of networks, interactional systems, relations between agents, and mathematical and computational modeling. About the Author Nicolas Debarsy is Research Fellow in Economics at the CNRS, France, and is affiliated to the Laboratoire d’Economie d’Orléans, France. His main field of research is spatial econometrics, and his publications include articles in Journal of Econometrics and Regional Science and Urban Economics. Stéphane Cordier is full Professor in Applied Mathematics at the University of Orléans, France. His research focuses on mathematical modelling and numerical methods for partial differential equation in interdisciplinary collaborations. He published 41 articles in various peer-reviewed journals and five edited volumes. Cem Ertur, was full Professor of Economics at University of Orléans, France. His research focused on structural spatial econometrics with contributions in macroeconomics and international trade on the first hand and methodological contributions in spatial econometrics on the other hand. He published 17 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 3 book chapters. François Nemo is full Professor in Language Sciences at the University of Orléans, France. His research covers polysemy, pragmatic interfaces, pragmatics of utterances, pragmatics of interaction, lexicography, field linguistics and economics. He has published 65 contributions in various books, journals and conference proceedings. Déborah Nourrit is Associate Professor at the University of Montpellier, France. Her research focuses on non-linear dynamic systems, motor learning and job strain and personality. She published 16 articles in peer-reviewed journals and two book chapters. Gérard Poisson is full Professor in Robotics at the University of Orléans, France. His research interests lie in various areas of robotics, including mechatronics integration, and mechanical systems design and optimisation for robots. He has authored more than 100 publications. Christel Vrain is full Professor in Computer Science at the University of Orléans, France. Her fields of research cover machine learning and data mining. She is also interested in supervised and unsupervised learning. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in journals, books and international conferences.