Closing remarks: novel approaches to complex societal change and sustainability.

This paper summarizes some personal impressions of the 7th conference of the International Complex Systems Society, co-organized with "Future Earth", held in Stockholm on August 24-26, 2017. The main point is that it is urgent and important to consider the sustainability conundrum as long-term, society-driven one, and to place societal dynamics at the core of how we, as a global society, came to this point, how ongoing dynamics are driving us towards a tipping point, and which role the Information and Communication Technology revolution plays in that process. A much wider involvement of the social sciences is essential.

Regional paleoclimates and local consequences: Integrating GIS analysis of diachronic settlement patterns and process-based agroecosystem modeling of potential agricultural productivity in Provence (France).

Holocene climate variability in the Mediterranean Basin is often cited as a potential driver of societal change, but the mechanisms of this putative influence are generally little explored. In this paper we integrate two tools-agro-ecosystem modeling of potential agricultural yields and spatial analysis of archaeological settlement pattern data-in order to examine the human consequences of past climatic changes. Focusing on a case study in Provence (France), we adapt an agro-ecosystem model to the modeling of potential agricultural productivity during the Holocene.

The minimal clinically important difference of the Control of Allergic Rhinitis and Asthma Test (CARAT): cross-cultural validation and relation with pollen counts.

Background: The Control of Allergic Rhinitis and Asthma Test (CARAT) monitors control of asthma and allergic rhinitis.

Aims: To determine the CARAT's minimal clinically important difference (MCID) and to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Dutch CARAT.

Methods: CARAT was applied in three measurements at 1-month intervals.

Tipping toward sustainability: emerging pathways of transformation.

This article explores the links between agency, institutions, and innovation in navigating shifts and large-scale transformations toward global sustainability. Our central question is whether social and technical innovations can reverse the trends that are challenging critical thresholds and creating tipping points in the earth system, and if not, what conditions are necessary to escape the current lock-in. Large-scale transformations in information technology, nano- and biotechnology, and new energy systems have the potential to significantly improve our lives; but if, in framing them, our globalized society fails to consider the capacity of the biosphere, there is a risk that unsustainable development pathways may be reinforced.

Urban transitions: on urban resilience and human-dominated ecosystems.

Urbanization is a global multidimensional process paired with increasing uncertainty due to climate change, migration of people, and changes in the capacity to sustain ecosystem services. This article lays a foundation for discussing transitions in urban governance, which enable cities to navigate change, build capacity to withstand shocks, and use experimentation and innovation in face of uncertainty. Using the three concrete case cities--New Orleans, Cape Town, and Phoenix--the article analyzes thresholds and cross-scale interactions, and expands the scale at which urban resilience has been discussed by integrating the idea from geography that cities form part of "system of cities" (i.

Climate and society: lessons from the past 10,000 years.

This paper distinguishes three major "revolutions" in the socio-environmental interactions that reflect growth in the extent to which human beings invest in and modify their environments. As people settled in villages during the Neolithic, interactions between more people became an important element in survival strategies, shifting the emphasis in survival strategies from mobility to sociality. The emergence of cities changed human societies by: i) creating dependencies between more and more distant regions, ii) increasing the degree of aggregation of human populations, iii) narrowing the range of subsistence resources on which people depended, and iv) increasing further their investment in the natural environment and in material culture.

Biology is only part of the story ..

The origins and development of human cognition constitute one of the most interesting questions to which archaeology can contribute today. In this paper, we do so by presenting an overview of the evolution of artefact technology from the maker's point of view, and linking that development to some hypotheses on the evolution of human cognitive capacity. Our main hypothesis is that these data indicate that, in the first part of the trajectory, biological limits to cognitive capacity were a major constraint that limited technology, whereas, in the second part, this biological constraint seems to have been lifted and others have come in its place.