This proceedings volume contains talks and poster presentations from the International Symposium "Self-Organization in Complex Systems: The Past, Present, and Future of Synergetics", which took place at Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg, an Institute of Advanced Studies, in Delmenhorst, Germany, during the period November 13 - 16, 2012. The Symposium was organized in honour of Hermann Haken, who celebrated his 85th birthday in 2012. With his fundamental theory of Synergetics he had laid the mathematical-physical basis for describing and analyzing self-organization processes in a diversity of fields of research. The quest for common and universal principles of self-organization in complex systems was clearly covered by the wide range of interdisciplinary topics reported during the Symposium. These extended from complexity in classical systems and quantum systems over self-organisation in neuroscience even to the physics of finance. Moreover, by combining a historical view with a present status report the Symposium conveyed an impression of the allure and potency of this branch of research as well as its applicability in the future.

Complex systems are ubiquitous, and practically all branches of science ranging from physics through chemistry and biology to economics and sociology have to deal with them. In this book we wish to present concepts and methods for dealing with complex systems from a unifying point of view. Therefore it may be of inter est to graduate students, professors and research workers who are concerned with theoretical work in the above-mentioned fields. The basic idea for our unified ap proach sterns from that of synergetics. In order to find unifying principles we shall focus our attention on those situations where a complex system changes its macroscopic behavior qualitatively, or in other words, where it changes its macroscopic spatial, temporal or functional structure. Until now, the theory of synergetics has usually begun with a microscopic or mesoscopic description of a complex system. In this book we present an approach which starts out from macroscopic data. In particular we shall treat systems that acquire their new structure without specific interference from the outside; i. e. systems which are self-organizing. The vehicle we shall use is information. Since this word has several quite different meanings, all of which are important for our purpose, we shall discuss its various aspects. These range from Shannon information, from which all semantics has been exorcised, to the effects of information on receivers and the self-creation of meaning.

The spontaneous formation of well organized structures out of germs or even out of chaos is one of the most fascinating phenomena and most challenging problems scientists are confronted with. Such phenomena are an experience of our daily life when we observe the growth of plants and animals. Thinking of much larger time scales, scientists are led into the problems of evolution, and, ultimately, of the origin of living matter. When we try to explain or understand in some sense these extremely complex biological phenomena it is a natural question, whether pro cesses of self-organization may be found in much simpler systems of the un animated world. In recent years it has become more and more evident that there exist numerous examples in physical and chemical systems where well organized spatial, temporal, or spatio-temporal structures arise out of chaotic states. Furthermore, as in living of these systems can be maintained only by a flux of organisms, the functioning energy (and matter) through them. In contrast to man-made machines, which are to exhibit special structures and functionings, these structures develop spon devised It came as a surprise to many scientists that taneously-they are self-organizing. numerous such systems show striking similarities in their behavior when passing from the disordered to the ordered state. This strongly indicates that the function of such systems obeys the same basic principles. In our book we wish to explain ing such basic principles and underlying conceptions and to present the mathematical tools to cope with them.

This unique resource explains the fundamental physics of semiconductor nanolasers, and provides detailed insights into their design, fabrication, characterization, and applications. Topics covered range from the theoretical treatment of the underlying physics of nanoscale phenomena, such as temperature dependent quantum effects and active medium selection, to practical design aspects, including the multi-physics cavity design that extends beyond pure electromagnetic consideration, thermal management and performance optimization, and nanoscale device fabrication and characterization techniques. The authors also discuss technological applications of semiconductor nanolasers in areas such as photonic integrated circuits and sensing. Providing a comprehensive overview of the field, detailed design and analysis procedures, a thorough investigation of important applications, and insights into future trends, this is essential reading for graduate students, researchers, and professionals in optoelectronics, applied photonics, physics, nanotechnology, and materials science.

Using a research-based approach, this book examines the critical connections between writing and reading, and it explains how to encourage early literacy in the classroom and library. How can teachers and librarians support true literacy in young learners? Are very young children guided by meaning in constructing their reality and their relationship to the world? What is the value of championing writing at the kindergarten level? Guided by Meaning in Primary Literacy: Libraries, Reading, Writing, and Learning answers these questions and many more, providing best practices in early literacy through explicit lessons in writing and reading and demonstrating how the library can extend learning in deep and powerful ways. While some books emphasize reading, others emphasize writing, and still others focus on library instruction, this profound resource brings all of the components of literacy together in a meaningful way. Throughout the book, the authors highlight examples of student writing, anecdotes from the real world, and connections between theory and what happens in practical application. Unique in its thoroughness of content for this age group, this text is essential reading for all early childhood teachers and librarians working in schools and in public libraries with young children. The book also serves trainers working with teachers and librarians to increase their effectiveness in working with young children to promote early literacy.

This book, based on a selection of invited presentations from a topical workshop, focusses on time-variable oscillations and their interactions. The problem is challenging, because the origin of the time variability is usually unknown. In mathematical terms, the oscillations are non-autonomous, reflecting the physics of open systems where the function of each oscillator is affected by its environment. Time-frequency analysis being essential, recent advances in this area, including wavelet phase coherence analysis and nonlinear mode decomposition, are discussed. Some applications to biology and physiology are described. Although the most important manifestation of time-variable oscillations is arguably in biology, they also crop up in, e.g. astrophysics, or for electrons on superfluid helium. The book brings together the research of the best international experts in seemingly very different disciplinary areas.

All of us are confronted with complex phenomena occurring in daily life and in the living and inanimate nature surrounding us. Our scientific curiosity strives to unravel the mechanisms at work to create such complexity. Among various approaches to solve this problem, the field of synergetics, developed by Hermann Haken, has proven very successful as a general and interdisciplinary concept for describing and explaining complex phenomena that appear in systems under non-equilibrium conditions. These comprise dynamical states in evolving systems, spatial structure-forming processes, synchronization of states and regulatory mechanisms, and many other examples. The encompassing concepts have been applied to many disciplines, like physics, chemistry, biology, and beyond those also from synergetics to information theory, brain science, economics, and others. Starting from basic methods of complexity research and synergetics, this volume contains thirty contributions on complex systems that exhibit spontaneous pattern formation far from thermal equilibrium. Written by international experts and young researchers assembled under one roof, this volume reflects state of the art research from a variety of scientific fields and disciplines where complexity theory and synergetics are important or even indispensable tools today and in the future.

This encyclopedia provides an authoritative single source for understanding and applying the concepts of complexity theory together with the tools and measures for analyzing complex systems in all fields of science and engineering. It links fundamental concepts of mathematics and computational sciences to applications in the physical sciences, engineering, biomedicine, economics and the social sciences.

This text will be replaced by the correThis book is aimed to a broad audience of researchers and students who are interested in questions of structure formation in complex systems in nature and society. When we think of synergetics, impressive images of complex structures immediately come to mind. Such images serve us as starting point and guide for understanding structure formation in chemical, biological, physical, geological, and social systems. Many fascinating pictures of new experimental results illustrate the imagery of synergetics and at the same time enable precise statements about the underlying laws based on precise and discussed measurements. In this way, for example, the famous Runge pictures are accessible to a physico-chemical description, and it turns out that the well-known disintegration of the beer foam satisfies a consecutive kinetics with feedback. The modeling by means of cellular automata and iterated function systems enables us to study the cooperative character of pattern formation on sea shells on the one hand but also to show that creativity is a cooperative effect.ct back cover text / information text as soon as we get it.