Universal Features of Multiparameter Models: From Systems Biology to Critical Phenomena

非技术总结：该项目开展复杂系统的教育活动和理论研究，范围从生物系统到复杂的技术过程。这些复杂系统依赖于大量的参数，但研究表明，它们往往表现出一般的潜在特征，这些特征可以使复杂系统作为简单系统来理解。该项目将增加我们对复杂性固有特征的一般理解，从而超越构成特定复杂系统的详细特征。虽然复杂的系统几乎总是需要大量的参数作为规范，但大多数参数通常是不重要的，即系统操作，因此将术语“草率模型通用性”分配给该特性。研究者将使用这种草率模型通用性的概念来开发新的方法，使模型更简单，更容易理解，而不会丢失它们所包含的基本科学信息，并开发计算机算法来更快地解决模型。不仅是模型，就连像生物一样的复杂系统也应该分享这种超越行为；这个项目将探索进化的含义。这项研究的广泛影响源于其高度跨学科的特点。它将在不同的领域之间架起桥梁，将生物学与材料物理学、统计学与统计力学、微分几何与数据分析联系起来。它将产生对与人类社会直接相关的模型行为的基本见解。研究小组正在开发SloppyCell，这是一个公共领域的软件环境，供系统生物学家快速采用他们的新技术，用于与人类健康和药物设计相关的实际研究；他们将开发一个类似的环境来研究雪崩和噼啪声，帮助研究地震和电网的级联故障。最后，研究者是一名教育工作者和导师，他定期从代表性不足的群体中招募学生加入这些研究项目。

NONTECHNICAL SUMMARY:This project carries out educational activity and theoretical study of complex systems, ranging from biological systems to complex technological processes. These complex systems depend on a large number of parameters, but study has indicated that they often exhibit general underlying characteristics that can make complex systems understandable as simple systems. The project will add to our general understanding those features which are intrinsic to complexity and thus transcend the detailed features that make up a particular complex system. While complex systems nearly always have a very large number of parameters needed as specifications, most are often unimportant is system operation, hence the assignment of the term ``Sloppy Model Universality'' to this feature.The investigator will use this notion of sloppy model universality to develop new methods for making models simpler and more understandable without losing the essential scientific information they contain, and to develop computer algorithms to solve models faster. Not only models, but complex system, like living things, should also share in this transcendent behavior; this project will explore implications for evolution. The Broader Impact of this research derives from its highly interdisciplinary character. It will build bridges between disparate fields, linking biology to materials physics, statistics to statistical mechanics, and differential geometry to data analysis. It will yield fundamental insights into the behavior of models with direct relevance to human society. The investigator's group is developing SloppyCell, a public domain software environment for systems biologists to allow rapid adoption of their new techniques into practical studies relevant to human health and drug design; they will develop a similar environment for studies of avalanches and crackling noise, aiding studies of earthquakes and cascading failures in the power grid. Finally, the investigator is an educator and mentor who regularly recruits students from underrepresented groups to join these research projects.