Saving Human Lives: What Complexity Science and Information Systems can Contribute

Open access
Date
2015-02Type
- Journal Article
Citations
Cited 381 times in
Web of Science
Cited 400 times in
Scopus
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
We discuss models and data of crowd disasters, crime, terrorism, war and disease spreading to show that conventional recipes, such as deterrence strategies, are often not effective and sufficient to contain them. Many common approaches do not provide a good picture of the actual system behavior, because they neglect feedback loops, instabilities and cascade effects. The complex and often counter-intuitive behavior of social systems and their macro-level collective dynamics can be better understood by means of complexity science. We highlight that a suitable system design and management can help to stop undesirable cascade effects and to enable favorable kinds of self-organization in the system. In such a way, complexity science can help to save human lives. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000084554Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Journal of Statistical PhysicsVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
SpringerSubject
Crowd disasters; Crime; Terrorism; War; Disease spreading; Complexity scienceOrganisational unit
03784 - Helbing, Dirk / Helbing, Dirk
03388 - Tröster, Gerhard (emeritus)
Notes
It was possible to publish this article open access thanks to a Swiss National Licence with the publisher.More
Show all metadata
Citations
Cited 381 times in
Web of Science
Cited 400 times in
Scopus
ETH Bibliography
yes
Altmetrics