Bifurcation Analysis

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

   PDF

2. Principles

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Self-Organisation in Nonequilibrium Systems: Towards A Dynamics of Complexity

      • I. Prigogine, G. Nicolis

      Pages 3-12

   3. Bifurcation Phenomena. A Short Introductory Tutorial with Examples

      • Michiel Hazewinkel

      Pages 13-30

   4. Bifurcation and Choice Behaviour in Complex Systems

      • André de Palma

      Pages 31-48

3. Applications

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 49-49

      PDF

   2. Some Remarks on the Nature of Structure and Metabolism in Living Matter

      • B. Leijnse

      Pages 51-66

   3. The Analysis of Bifurcation Phenomena Associated with the Evolution of Urban Spatial Structure

      • M. Clarke, A. G. Wilson

      Pages 67-99

   4. Bifurcation Sets — An Application to Urban Economics

      • M. Prévot

      Pages 101-114

   5. Nerves and Switches in Conflict Control Systems

      • Doede Nauta Jr.

      Pages 115-140

   6. Bifurcation as a Model of Description — A Means of Making the Historiography of Philosophy More Historical?

      • Frank Vleeskens

      Pages 141-147

   7. Space and Order Looked at Critically. Non-Comparability and Procedural Substantivism in History and the Social Sciences

      • Frank Perlin

      Pages 149-197

4. Synthesis

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 199-199

      PDF

   2. Symmetry, Bifurcations and Pattern Formation

      • Michiel Hazewinkel

      Pages 201-232

   3. Synergetic and Resonance Aspects of Interdisciplinary Research

      • Jean H. P. Paelinck, Thijs ten Raa

      Pages 233-239

   4. Bifurcation: Implications of the Concept for the Study of Organisations

      • Ray Jurkovich

      Pages 241-253

5. Back Matter

   Pages 255-259

   PDF

Bifurcation theory has made a very fast upswing in the last fifteen years. Roughly speaking it generalises to dynamic systems the pos­ sibility of mUltiple solutions, a possibility already recognised in static systems - physical, chemical, social - when operating far from their equilibrium states. It so happened that quite a few staff members of the Erasmus University Rotterdam were thinking along those lines about certain aspects of their disciplines. To have a number of specialists and potential "fans" convene to discuss various aspects of bifurcation­ al thinking, seemed a natural development. The resulting papers were judged to be of interest to a larger public, and as such are logically regrouped in this volume, one in a series of studies resulting from the activities of the Steering Committee on Interdisciplinary Studies of the Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Although the volume is perhaps multidisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary - the interdisciplinary aspect being only "latent" -, as a "soft" interdisciplinary exercise (the application of formal structures of one discipline to another) it has a right to interdisciplinary existence! This book could not have been published without a generous grant of the University Foundation of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, which allowed the conference to be held and the resulting papers to be published; that generosity is gratefully acknowledged.

• bifurcation
• calculus
• complex system
• complex systems
• complexity
• economics
• equilibrium
• philosophy

• Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

  M. Hazewinkel, R. Jurkovich, J. H. P. Paelinck

Policies and ethics