EAGER: Analyzing Multi-scale and Multi-unit Methodologies

这一早期概念探索性研究补助金项目的目标是创建新的方法和方法，以揭示困扰包括多规模和多层次项目在内的各种工程项目的困难的根源，并创造出缓解困难的方法。发现的答案将确定多学科优化(MDO)项目、计算机模拟甚至工业生产的融合所需的关键信息如何以及为什么会受到项目效率低下甚至失败的阻碍。一旦确定了这些标准工程方法的答案，就将探索绕过困难的方法(事实证明，这些困难在许多工程领域都是昂贵的)。虽然这项研究的重点是针对常用工程方法(如以多尺度和多层次方法为特征的方法)的隐藏结构缺陷所造成的问题和困难，但这些分而治之的方法也被用于在从工程到物理到生物科学甚至到经济学和社会科学的许多其他学科中“驯服复杂性”。因此，这项研究发现的基本结果预计将对所有这些领域产生影响。例如，天文学中的暗物质问题似乎是工程学之外的一个自然领域，在这个领域中，这个项目产生的结果可以得到检验。

The objective of this Early-Concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project is to create new methodologies and approaches that will uncover the source of difficulties that plague a wide spectrum of engineering projects including multiscale and multilevel projects and to create ways that will provide relief for the difficulties. The discovered answers will identify how and why crucial information needed for convergence of, say, multidisciplinary optimization (MDO) projects, or computer simulations, or even industrial production can be hampered by inefficiencies and even failure of projects. Once the answers of these standard engineering approaches are identified, ways will be explored to circumvent the difficulties (that have proved to be costly in many areas of engineering). While the focus of this research is directed toward questions and difficulties caused by hidden structural defects of commonly used engineering methodologies (such as those characterized by multiscale and multilevel approaches), these divide-and-conquer approaches also are being used to "tame complexity" in many other disciplines ranging from engineering to physics to the biological sciences and even to economics and social sciences. As a result, fundamental results found by this research are expected to have an impact on all of these areas. As an example, the question of dark matter in astronomy appears to be a natural area outside of engineering in which results developed in this project can be tested.