Complexes

Cities are changing constantly. All urban systems face different conditions from day to day. Even when averaged regularities can be found, urban systems will be more efficient if they can adapt to changes at the same speeds at which these occur. Technology can assist humans in achieving this adaptation. Inspired by cybernetics, we propose a description of cities as adaptive systems. We identify three main components: information, algorithms, and agents, which we illustrate with current and future examples. The implications of adaptive cities are manifold, with direct impacts on mobility, sustainability, resilience, governance, and society. Still, the potential of adaptive cities will not depend so much on technology as on how we use it. Adaptive Cities: A Cybernetic Perspective on Urban Systems Carlos Gershenson, Paolo Santi, Carlo Ratti http://arxiv.org/abs/1609.02000

Urban mobility systems are composed multiple elements with strong interactions, i.e. their future is co-determined by the state of other elements. Thus, studying components in isolation, i.e. using a reductionist approach, is inappropriate. I propose five recommendations to improve urban mobility based on insights from the scientific study of complex systems: use adaptation over prediction, regulate interactions to avoid friction, use sensors to recover real time information, develop adaptive algorithms to exploit that information, and deploy agents to act on the urban environment. Improving Urban Mobility by Understanding its Complexity Carlos Gershenson http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.04267

On November 10th, a day after the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall , our team Living Mobilities from Mexico City was declared winner of the third edition of the Audi Urban Future Award . Together with José Castillo (team leader, watch the video from his final presentation ) from Arquitectura 911 and Gabriella Gómez-Mont from the Laboratorio para la Ciudad , we were proud and delighted to be declared winners by an international jury , considering the great proposals presented by the teams from Berlin, Boston, and Seoul. Audi Urban Future Award 2014 - Data collectors from Mexico City win the Award 2014 from THE AUDI URBAN FUTURE INITIATIVE on Vimeo . Our project proposes to create a new social contract, assisted by technology, to improve mobility not only in terms of efficiency, but also in terms of quality of life. This focusses on Mexico City, but has the potential to be extended to other megacities in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. We have a big city wi...

The  Computer Science Department  of the  Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y en Sistemas  (IIMAS) of the  Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México  (UNAM) has a  open call  for a research professor in big data . This position, aimed at young researchers, consists of renewable one-year contracts with the possibility of tenure after three years. Located in the heart of the UNAM's Ciudad Universitaria, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the IIMAS has been the leader in computer science in Mexico since the first computer in the country was acquired by UNAM. Researchers at UNAM have a privileged position for several reasons. UNAM is the highest ranked spanish speaking higher education institution in the world and produces half of the research in Mexico and is the largest in the continent (300K+ students). Professors in faculties do more teaching than research, while researchers in institutes (such as IIMAS) do more research than teachi...