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

该合作研究项目（CRP）通过考察将第一个全球化时代（1400-1800年）的自组织商业网络联系在一起的合作的演变，解决了“合作与贸易的演变”（TECT）这个项目。CRP将在动态复杂系统的背景下产生关于合作的新理论见解，这些不断发展的网络是其中的一部分。通过对历史社会科学中不同寻常的方法的融合，CRP将揭示允许商人和其他人建立和维持这些通常长距离贸易网络的合作机制。在社会科学文献中，人们经常断言，随着国家或类似机构效率的提高，人类在贸易方面的合作变得越来越大。然而，这些网络的特点是权力的分散，并经常绕过该时期政府所特有的分割的政治等级制度。此外，这些网络作为创造性和创新的源泉，以灵活的方式应对这个时代对交通和资本流动的普遍破坏。集中的档案研究和对已发表信息的广泛审查将建立一个共享数据库，提供给公共档案，其中有关于全球化第一个时代被忽视的合作主题的足够种类和数量的数据，以增加对方案分析的信心。CRP采用地理信息系统（GIS）作为数据集成引擎和可视化工具，将了解高水平合作所需的信息层汇集在一起。CRP使用空间统计和数学建模来补偿由于来源的零碎生存而导致的不完整数据，并辨别存在很少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，并识别意想不到的趋势或趋势。为这些目的而确定的数学表达式将构成创建时序地理信息系统的基础，以促进在复杂的非线性系统中发现和理解动力学。DynCoopNet所面临的当代研究挑战之一是找到一种方法来理解四个世纪以来这样一个动态的、非线性的、复杂的系统。此外，由于维持这些联系的贸易合作中有如此多的合作无法轻易解释，因此合作研究将提供一系列历史、人种学数据和由此产生的合作演变的经验概括，这些数据可用于评估现有理论。通过DynCoopNet在地理信息系统和数学建模方面的进步，Owens将通过使用历史社会科学通常不熟悉的抽象和可视化的概念和技术，为他的学科做出原创性的贡献。在研究、出版和数据库分发方面，DynCoopNet CRP促进了相当多的国际、多学科合作。它推出了爱达荷州立大学创新的基于实习和gis的地理整合历史硕士学位课程，即历史资源管理硕士（MHRM），欧文斯是该课程的联合创始人。通过DynCoopNet资助的学生将有机会在其他国家实习，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具有变革意义的领导者。此外，由于历史专业中女性和少数族裔的比例较高，国家科学基金会的资助将有助于吸引这些学生进入一个技术丰富的教育和就业环境，而这些群体目前的代表性不足。

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.