Entropy methods in guided self-organisation

Mikhail Prokopenko*, Carlos Gershenson

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)
56 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Self-organisation occurs in natural phenomena when a spontaneous increase in order is produced by the interactions of elements of a complex system. Thermodynamically, this increase must be offset by production of entropy which, broadly speaking, can be understood as a decrease in order. Ideally, self-organisation can be used to guide the system towards a desired regime or state, while "exporting" the entropy to the system's exterior. Thus, Guided Self-Organisation (GSO) attempts to harness the order-inducing potential of self-organisation for specific purposes. Not surprisingly, general methods developed to study entropy can also be applied to guided self-organisation. This special issue covers a broad diversity of GSO approaches which can be classified in three categories: information theory, intelligent agents, and collective behavior. The proposals make another step towards a unifying theory of GSO which promises to impact numerous research fields.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5232-5241
Number of pages10
JournalEntropy
Volume16
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2014

Bibliographical note

Copyright the Author(s) 2014. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

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