Scaling in Complex Systems

这项研究将解决的问题是什么性质的相互作用的许多组件系统负责经常观察到的非常强大的缩放。鲁棒性例如由以下事实指示：尽管当从层级中的一个级别到下一个级别时功能发生变化，缩放仍然有效，例如从细胞器到器官到有机体等。将解决的其他明显的开放问题包括：1）为什么像生物有机体和人类城市一样不同的系统都表现出缩放定律？2)为什么这些标度律经常表现出相反的趋势。例如，一个大型生物体中的细胞比一个小型生物体中的细胞消耗更少的能量，而一个大城市中的人比一个小城镇中的人消耗更多的能量，更有创造力。牛津小组主要关注社会系统的社会物理学建模，而帝国小组则使用统计力学来开发进化生态学模型。在与韦斯特教授的合作中，我们的目标是发展我们对尺度律在异质复杂系统中的广泛应用以及它们背后的原理的理解。韦斯特教授将由帝国理工学院伦敦和牛津大学的复杂性小组主持。韦斯特教授将在该计划的头两年每年访问英国，为期两个半月。在West教授访问英国期间，他将参加公开会议并举办研讨会，以确保整个英国复杂性社区有可能从West教授的专业知识中受益。

The research will address the question concerning what properties of an interacting many components system are responsible for the often observed very robust scaling. The robustness is e.g. indicated by the fact that the scaling remains valid despite the change in functionality as one crosses from one level in the hierarchy to the next, say from organelles to organs to organism etc. Other obvious open questions that will be addressed include: 1) Why systems as different as biological organisms and human cities both exhibit scaling laws?2) Why these scaling laws often exhibit opposite trends. E.g. a cell in a large organism consumes less energy than a cell in a small organism, whereas a person in a big city consumes more energy and is more creative than a person in a small town? The Oxford group is mainly concerned with socio-physics modelling of social systems, whereas the Imperial group uses statistical mechanics to developed models of evolutionary ecology. In collaboration with Prof West we aim to develop our understanding of how widespread scaling laws are in heterogeneous complex systems and what principles are behind them. Professor West will be hosted by the complexity groups at Imperial College London and Oxford University. Prof West will visit the UK for a total of two and a half months each year during the first two-years of the proposal. During Prof West's visit to UK he will participate in open meetings and give seminars to ensure that the entire UK complexity community will have the possibility to benefit from Prof West's expertise.