UNITARY AUTOMATA ARE INSUFFICIENT FOR PORTRAYING
SELF-ORGANIZATION PHENOMENA IN GEOGRAPHIC SYSTEMS

Urban systems contain “self-organizing” ensembles, which emerge and vanish through spatial assembling and disassembling of unitary automata - e.g, urban slums and prestigious area, business centers, traffic jams.

Ensembles emerge and vanish as unitary automata change their state and/or location; in turn, behavior of unitary automata change depending on whether they are able to ‘recognize’ these ensembles.

The processes of self-organization cannot be fully formalized and we do not include them into the definition of GAS.

In a simple form, which nonetheless is sufficient for all urban models we are aware of, ensembles and the rules of ensembles' management are introduced in the software implementation of GAS.

GLOBAL DYNAMICS OF THE GEOGRAPHIC SYSTEM DEPENDS ON
THE SYNCHRONIZATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL AUTOMATA BEHAVIOR

The dynamics of the geographic systems, including the phemomena of emergence and self-organization, depend on the order in which transition rules are applied to unitary automata. The transition rules in GAS can be applied in synchronous or asynchronous modes. GAS software implements synchronous and different modes of asynchronous behavior of geographic automata.