Overview: Synchronization and patterns in complex systems

The theory of complex systems, such as neural assemblies or lattices of chaotic oscillators has generated many new problems including the synchronization or regularization of the cooperative behavior of systems consisting of chaotic elements, regular spatial patterns in "chaotic" lattices, and so on. A number of these problems were discussed at the International School in Nonlinear Science-95 (Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia). In this overview we try to formulate some of the most interesting problems that were discussed at that meeting. (c) 1996 American Institute of Physics.