Dynamic Complexity of Cooperation-Based Self-Organizing Commercial Networks in the First Global Age (DynCoopNet)

该合作研究项目（CRP）通过研究第一个全球时代（1400-1800）的自组织商业网络的合作演变来解决“合作与贸易的演变”（TECT）的问题。CRP将产生新的理论见解合作的动态复杂系统的背景下，这些不断发展的网络的一部分。通过融合历史社会科学中不寻常的方法，CRP将揭示合作机制，使商人和其他人能够建立和维持这些通常是长途贸易网络。在社会科学文献中，人们经常断言，随着国家或类似机构的效率不断提高，人类在贸易中的合作也越来越多。然而，这些网络的特点是权力分散，经常绕过这一时期政府特有的分裂的政治等级制度。此外，这些网络还提供了必要的创造力和创新，以灵活应对时代对运输和资本流动的普遍干扰。有重点的档案研究和对已公布信息的广泛审查将建立一个共享数据库，提供给公共档案馆，其中有关于在第一个全球化时代被忽视的合作主题的足够种类和数量的数据，以增加对国家档案室分析的信心。CRP采用地理信息系统作为数据整合引擎和可视化工具，汇集了解高级别合作所需的信息层。CRP使用空间统计和数学建模来补偿由于源的零碎存活而导致的不完整数据，并辨别几乎没有存活痕迹的相互作用层的可能影响。它还利用各种类型的数学建模来探索新形式和因果关系的出现，验证或证实假设，并确定意想不到的趋势或趋势。为这些目的确定的数学表达式将形成创建一个时间GIS的基础，以促进发现和理解一个复杂的非线性系统中的动态。DynCoopNet解决的最大的当代研究挑战之一是找到一种方法来理解这样一个动态的，非线性的，复杂的系统在四个世纪的时间。此外，由于维持这些联系的贸易合作很难解释，合作研究将提供一系列历史和人种学数据，并由此对合作的演变进行经验总结，这些数据可用于评估现有理论。通过DynCoopNet在GIS和数学建模方面的进步，欧文斯将通过采用历史社会科学普遍不熟悉的抽象和可视化概念和技术，为他的学科做出原创性贡献。DynCoopNet CRP在研究、出版和数据库分发方面促进了大量的国际、多学科合作。它推出了爱达荷州州立大学的创新的新实习和地理信息系统为基础的硕士学位课程，在地理综合历史，硕士。历史资源管理（MHRM），其中欧文斯是共同创建者。通过DynCoopNet资助的学生将在其他国家获得实习机会，并将参加欧洲的网络会议，这将有助于在该学科中培养一批变革型领导者。 此外，由于妇女和少数民族在历史专业中所占比例较高，国家科学基金会的资助将有助于吸引这些学生进入技术丰富的教育和就业环境，而这些群体目前在这些环境中的代表性不足。

This collaborative research project (CRP) addresses the program "The Evolution of Cooperation and Trading" (TECT) through an examination of the evolution of cooperation tying together the self-organizing commercial networks of the first global age (1400-1800). The CRP will produce new theoretical insights about cooperation in the context of the dynamic complex system of which these evolving networks were a part. Through a convergence of methods unusual in the historical social sciences, the CRP will reveal the mechanisms of cooperation that permitted merchants and others to establish and sustain these often long-distance trading networks. In the social science literature, it is often asserted that greater human cooperation in trading became possible with the increasing effectiveness of state or similar institutions. However, these networks were characterized by a diffusion of authority and frequently by-passed the segmented political hierarchies characteristic of the period's governments. Moreover, these networks served as the source of the creativity and innovation necessary to respond in a flexible manner to the era's endemic disruptions to transportation and capital flows. Focused archival research and an extensive review of published information will create a shared database, provided to public archives, with a sufficient variety and quantity of data about the neglected topic of cooperation during the first era of globalization to increase confidence in the CRP's analyses. The CRP employs Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a data integration engine and visualization tool to bring together layers of information necessary to understand the high levels of cooperation. The CRP uses spatial statistics and mathematical modeling to compensate for incomplete data due to the fragmentary survival of sources and to discern the possible impact of layers of interaction of which there are few surviving traces. It also utilizes various types of mathematical modeling to explore the emergence of new forms and cause-and-effect relationships, to validate or corroborate hypotheses, and to identify unexpected tendencies or trends. The mathematical expressions identified for these purposes will form the basis for the creation of a temporal GIS to facilitate the discovery and understanding of dynamics in a complex, non-linear system. One of the great contemporary research challenges, which DynCoopNet addresses, is to find a way to understand such a dynamic, non-linear, complex system over a period of four centuries. Moreover, because so much of the cooperation in trading that sustained these connections cannot be easily explained, the collaborative research will make available a body of historical, ethnographic data and resulting empirical generalizations of the evolution of cooperation, which can be used to evaluate available theories. Through DynCoopNet's advances in GIS and mathematical modeling, Owens will make an original contribution to his discipline by employing concepts and techniques of abstraction and visualization with which the historical social sciences are generally unfamiliar. The DynCoopNet CRP promotes considerable international, multi-disciplinary collaboration for research, publication, and database distribution. It has launched Idaho State University's innovative new internship- and GIS-based Master's degree program in geographically-integrated history, the M.A. in Historical Resources Management (MHRM), of which Owens is co-creator. The students funded through DynCoopNet will have internship opportunities in other countries and will participate in networking meetings in Europe, which will help create a cohort of transformative leaders in the discipline. Moreover, because of the higher percentage of women and minorities among history majors, NSF funding will help attract such students into a technologically rich educational and employment environment in which these groups are currently underrepresented.