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PaperRequirements

CSCS 501 Paper requirements

Grades will be based on in class participation and on two papers. The papers are due:

• 2 Nov 2009
• 18 Dec 2009

Papers should be in the 10-12 page range; a little longer is ok, but not real long, please! Please turn in a word.doc, pdf, ps or hardcopy version, on time (unless you have some really exceptional circumstances to plead).

The papers should involve an in-depth look at some complex (adaptive) system related topic, author, model, etc. As such, a paper may cover some material we have read in class, but it also must involve mostly readings we have not done in class, i.e., either more in depth readings of something we did read, or something we did not read. Most importantly, the paper should include YOUR thoughts and ideas, that is, NOT just describe what the authors of the papers covered had to say.

The paper may be one of a number of types, including:

• a summary and critique of a model or models, a particular author's book(s), a set of papers/books that cover some particular CAS phenomena or system, etc.
• a synthesis of ideas, models, concepts, etc., from different authors or different disciplines; or
• a comparison of several authors' ideas about some particular CAS system or important concepts (e.g., emergence).;
• an "application" of ideas from the Complex Systems literature to some particular area of study, e.g., analyze/critique the work of some author or authors on some system/phenomena using CAS concepts and methodology.

But these are not the only possible papers: Be creative! If you want to do some other kind of paper, make a proposal to me and we'll see what is possible.

Some example topics from past terms:

• Edge of Chaos in the dynamics of walking;
• A summary/comparison of definitions of emergence (with application to particular examples);
• A summary/comparison of definitions of CAS (with application to particular examples in various fields of study);
• Comparisons of classifier systems and neural nets and symbolic AI systems;
• Critique of "standard" epidemiology models from a CAS perspective;
• Network analysis of real neural networks (i.e., brains), of particular social systems, etc.
• Edge of Chaos in the dynamics of food webs;
• Summary of evidence for increasing complexity in natural systems;
• In depth look at original Edge of Chaos work (Langton, Packard, Kauffman) and recent critiques (Mithcell etal);
• HOT and traditional approaches to engineering design;
• an in depth look at some literature on power laws;

and many more.

In summary: What I want is for you to do some in-depth reading and thinking about some C(A)S topic of interest to you, and then have you write a summary of what you read and what you thought. Some speculation is encouraged, as long as it is grounded in something you have read and supported by some reasoning about CAS properties.

If you have additional questions, please feel free to ask.