EAGER: Developing a Unified Framework for the Dynamics and Structure of Organisms, Cities and Companies

该项目的主要目的是建立一个定量和可预测的统一框架，以了解从细胞和多细胞生物体到生态系统、城市和公司等所有规模的生物和社会系统的粗粒度结构和动态。来自数学和物理的技术，如网络理论、场论和非线性动力学、标度和重整化群以及数值模拟，将在适当的地方使用，但关键是必须与工作重叠的多个领域的理论家、实验者和实践者进行融合合作。迫切需要发展一门城市科学，以补充传统的、更定性的方法，以解决全球可持续性问题。我们能否保持一个由思想和财富创造驱动的充满活力、创新的社会，还是注定要走向一个充满贫民窟、冲突和破坏的星球？由社交网络中的积极反馈机制驱动的不断加快的生活节奏和越来越快的变化速度给生活的各个方面带来了严重的压力。这是可持续的，还是我们将对社会经济结构造成重大破坏？为了解决这些问题，需要一个新的概念框架，包括一个城市的量化理论，一个整合了我们面临的多种挑战的可持续发展的大统一理论。这是一个雄心勃勃的计划，超越了传统的学科界限，涵盖了数学、物理、生物和社会科学，对解决老龄化、癌症、城市化和全球可持续发展等社会问题具有潜在的重要影响。将探索的两个主要类别是：i)衰老、损伤、睡眠和修复的一般理论；以及(Ii)发展关于城市、城市化和全球可持续发展的科学。虽然总的目标将是探索开发一个潜在的统一框架，以便定量地理解如何从一套简明的、数学上可量化的基本原理和概念来理解这些多样化、高度复杂的进化系统，但这将在重点关注几个具体问题的背景下进行，例如：以年为尺度的寿命如何从与基因和呼吸酶相关的微观分子时间尺度产生？为什么美国上市公司的半衰期约为10年？为什么平均而言，所有的公司和有机体都停止增长并消亡，而几乎所有的城市都在继续增长并保持生存？从婴儿到成年人的睡眠时间比例是否概括了从老鼠到大象的比例？是否有城市的最大或最佳规模？这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The major thrust of this project is to develop a quantitative and predictive unified framework for understanding the coarse-grained structure and dynamics of biological and social systems across all scales from cells and multicellular organisms to ecosystems, cities and companies. Techniques from mathematics and physics such as network theory, field theory and non-linear dynamics, scaling and the renormalization group, as well as numerical simulations, will be used where appropriate but crucially and necessarily in convergent collaboration with theorists, experimentalists, and practitioners in the multiple fields with which the work overlaps. Developing a science of cities to complement traditional, more qualitative approaches is urgently required to address global sustainability. Can we maintain a vibrant, innovative society driven by ideas and wealth creation or are we destined to a planet of slums, conflict and devastation? The ever-increasing pace of life and increasingly rapid rate of change driven by positive feedback mechanisms in social networks induces serious stress across all aspects of life. Is this sustainable or are we headed for major disruptions to the socio-economic fabric? To address these issues a new conceptual framework is needed, encompassing a quantitative theory of cities, a Grand Unified Theory of Sustainability that integrates across the multiplicity of challenges we face.This is an ambitious program that transcends conventional disciplinary boundaries, ranging across the mathematical, physical, biological and social sciences, with potentially important implications for addressing societal issues such as aging, cancer, urbanization and global sustainability. The two main categories to be explored are i) a generic theory of aging, damage, sleep and repair; and (ii) developing a science of cities, urbanisation and global sustainability. Although the overall goal will be to explore the development of a potential unified framework for quantitative understanding of how these diverse, highly complex evolving systems can be understood from a parsimonious mathematically quantifiable set of underlying principles and concepts, this will be carried out in the context of focusing on several specific problems such as: how are lifetimes whose scale is years generated from microscopic molecular time scales associated with genes and respiratory enzymes? Why is the half-life of US publicly-traded companies about 10 years? Why, on average, do all companies and organisms stop growing and die but almost all cities keep growing and remain viable? Does the scaling of sleep times from babies to adults recapitulate how it scales from mice to elephants? Is there a maximum or optimum size of cities?This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.