Collectives and the Design of Complex Systems

With the advent of extremely affordable computing power, the world is becoming filled with distributed systems of computationally sophisticated components. However, no current scientific discipline offers a thorough understanding of the relation of such "collectives" and how well they meet performance criteria. "Collectives and Design of Complex Systems" lays the foundation for the study of collective intelligence and how these entities can be developed to yield optimal performance. Using an approach that integrates key theoretical principles with applications in real-world scenarios, the author surveys the latest research on the dynamics of collectives, their artificial intelligence aspects, and critical design issues pertaining to them.