COMPLEXITY SCIENCE & MANAGEMENT

Ⅰ. SCIENCE IS FACING A SHARP TURN Complexity science is a new scientific category that made its debut in the 1980s. It is a newly emerging discipline concerning research into complexity itself, and its application to complex systems. Although it is still in its infancy, it has been hailed by some leading scientists as "the science for the 21st century."

Research approaches to mass casualty incidents response：development from routine perspectives to complexity science

Objective To review the research methods of mass casualty incident （MCI） systematically and introduce the concept and characteristics of complexity science and artificial system,computational experiments and parallel execution （ACP） method.Data sources We searched PubMed,Web of Knowledge,China Wanfang and China Biology Medicine （CBM） databases for relevant studies.Searches were performed without year or language restrictions and used the combinations of the following key words：“mass casualty incident”,“MCI”,“research method”,“complexity science”,“ACP”,“approach”,“science”,“model”,“system” and “response”.Study selection Articles were searched using the above keywords and only those involving the research methods of mass casualty incident （MCI） were enrolled.Results Research methods of MCI have increased markedly over the past few decades.For now,dominating research methods of MCI are theory-based approach,empirical approach,evidence-based science,mathematical modeling and computer simulation,simulation experiment,experimental methods,scenario approach and complexity science.Conclusions This article provides an overview of the development of research methodology for MCI.The progresses of routine research approaches and complexity science are briefly presented in this paper.Furthermore,the authors conclude that the reductionism underlying the exact science is not suitable for MCI complex systems.And the only feasible alternative is complexity science.Finally,this summary is followed by a review that ACP method combining artificial systems,computational experiments and parallel execution provides a new idea to address researches for complex MCI.

Precision Medicine:Towards Complexity Science Age

Precision medicine （PM） refers to the tailoring of the prevention and treatment strategies to the individual characteristics of each patient. Following the vigorous advocacy of the U.S. President Obama and China＇s President Xi, PM has now become a hot topic of common concern worldwide. PM does not merely refer to the skill set level but rather a comprehensive medical methodology. Hence, there is PM that builds on the analytical methodology of Western medical system as well as PM that builds on Chinese medicine （CM）. The differences between the two systems, fundamentally speaking, are the differences in methodology to describe the body constitution that based on reductionism and holism. Today, as science advances to complex systems, the mainstream analytical reductionism advances to the holistic synthesis era, it is imperative to introduce CM＇s holistic body constitution to the modern medical system in order to progress to PM. PM with its foundation on holistic body constitution, is a medical system that integrates Western medicine and CM, is the highest attainment of ＂PM＂ in the future.

好消息!Journal of Systems Science and Complexity被Ei收录!

从美国工程信息公司(Ei)中国信息部网站获悉,Journal of Systems Science and Com- plexity(《系统科学与复杂性学报》(英文版))被《工程索引》(Ei Compendex)

Empirical topological investigation of practical supply chains based on complex networks

The industrial supply chain networks basically capture the circulation of social resource, dominating the stability and efficiency of the industrial system. In this paper, we provide an empirical study of the topology of smartphone supply chain network. The supply chain network is constructed using open online data. Our experimental results show that the smartphone supply chain network has small-world feature with scale-free degree distribution, in which a few high degree nodes play a key role in the function and can effectively reduce the communication cost. We also detect the community structure to find the basic functional unit. It shows that information communication between nodes is crucial to improve the resource utilization. We should pay attention to the global resource configuration for such electronic production management.

耦合魔方——一个分析人地系统耦合机理的多维框架

Understanding the interactions between humans and nature in the Anthropocene is central to the quest for both human wellbeing and global sustainability.However,the time-space compression,long range interactions,and reconstruction of socio-economic structures at the global scale all pose great challenges to the traditional analytical frameworks of human-nature systems.In this paper,we extend the connotation of coupled human and natural systems(CHANS)and their four dimensions—space,time,appearance,and organization,and propose a novel framework:“Coupled Human and Natural Cube”(CHNC)to explain the coupling mechanism between humans and the natural environment.Our proposition is inspired by theories based on the human-earth areal system,telecoupling framework,planetary urbanization,and perspectives from complexity science.We systematically introduce the concept,connotation,evolution rules,and analytical dimensions of the CHNC.Notably there exist various“coupling lines”in the CHNC,connecting different systems and elements at multiple scales and forming a large,nested,interconnected,organic system.The rotation of the CHNC represents spatiotemporal nonlinear fluctuations in CHANS in different regions.As a system continually exchanges energy with the environment,a critical phase transition occurs when fluctuations reach a certain threshold,leading to emergent behavior of the system.The CHNC has four dimensions—pericoupling and telecoupling,syncoupling and lagcoupling,apparent coupling and hidden coupling,and intra-organization coupling and inter-organizational coupling.We mainly focus on the theoretical connotation,research methods,and typical cases of telecoupling,lagcoupling,hidden coupling,and inter-organizational coupling,and put forward a human-nature coupling matrix to integrate multiple dimensions.In summary,the CHNC provides a more comprehensive and systematic research paradigm for understanding the evolution and coupling mechanism of the human-nature system,which expands the analytical dimension of CHANS.The CHNC also provides a theoretical support for formulating regional,sustainable development policies for human wellbeing.

Evolution of airports from a network perspective--An analytical concept

Analyzing airports＇ role in global air transportation and monitoring their development over time provides an additional perspective on the dynamics of network evolution.In order to understand the different roles airports can play in the network an integrated and multidimensional approach is needed.Therefore,an approach to airport classification through hierarchical clustering considering several parameters from network theory is presented in this paper.By applying a 29 year record of global flight data and calculating the conditional transition probabilities the results are displayed as an evolution graph similar to a discrete-time Markov chain.With this analytical concept the meaning of airports is analyzed from a network perspective and a new airport taxonomy is established.The presented methodology allows tracking the development of airports from certain categories into others over time.Results show that airports of equal classes run through similar stages of development with a limited number of alternatives,indicating clear evolutionary patterns.Apart from giving an overview of the results the paper illustrates the exact data-driven approach and suggests an evaluation scheme.The methodology can help the public and industry sector to make informed strategy decisions when it comes to air transportation infrastructure.

How Do Precision Medicine and System Biology Response to Human Body's Complex Adaptability？

In the field of life sciences, although system biology and ＂precision medicine＂ introduce some complex scientific methods and techniques, it is still based on the ＂analysis–reconstruction＂ of reductionist theory as a whole. Adaptability of complex system increase system behaviour uncertainty as well as the difficulties of precise identification and control. It also put systems biology research into trouble. To grasp the behaviour and characteristics of organism fundamentally, systems biology has to abandon the ＂analysis–reconstruction＂ concept. In accordance with the guidelines of complexity science, systems biology should build organism model from holistic level, just like the Chinese medicine did in dealing with human body and disease. When we study the living body from the holistic level, we will find the adaptability of complex system is not the obstacle that increases the difficulty of problem solving. It is the ＂exceptional＂, ＂right-hand man＂ that helping us to deal with the complexity of life more effectively.

CAS and ABM-based Demolition Waste Management Research in the AEC Industry

With the increase of the urban population and the rapid development of urbanization in China,a large number of old buildings will be demolished and produce a huge amount of waste.Currently the recycling ratio of old building materials is very low,which results in the problems of resource waste and environment pollution.This greatly challenges urban sustainable development.With respect to the continual growth of demolition waste quantities,it is urgent to research how to implement effective management of demolition wastes by focusing on the demolition agents' behavior.Based on the theory of complexity,this paper analyzes the demolition waste management from the perspective of complex adaptive system.Taking into account the "green" demolition(building dismantling) and conventional demolition(building demolished) methods,the agent-based modeling method with Repast Simphony platform is applied to simulate interactions between demolition agents.The longitudinal trend of demolition waste quantities is forecasted.

适用于全流域非平衡流动的统一波-粒子方法研究进展

在近空间飞行器、超低轨道航天器和微机电系统(MEMS)等大量工程应用中,对从连续流到自由分子流的跨流域流动实现精确预测在相关气动设计中具有重要价值.跨流域流动的本质是一个由不同尺度和机理组成的复杂科学系统,因此对跨流域流动的建模和数值预测在理论和实践层面都具有很大的挑战性.此外,单一流场中的跨流域流动将使问题变得极其复杂.然而,这种典型的流场在高超声速流动应用中却十分常见,因此,尽快发展并完善跨流域空气动力学具有至关重要的意义.另一方面,建设高焓低密度风洞和进行高空飞行试验在现阶段也非常具有挑战性.因此,对跨流域流动及相关复杂系统的研究在世界范围内遇到了瓶颈.本文回顾了近十年来由我国科研人员主导在跨流域流动计算方法领域取得的突破,这些方法可以作为研究跨流域多尺度流动机理的数值实验工具,并同时为气动设计和热防护工作提供数据.本文重点介绍了近年来建立的统一波-粒子方法的研究进展,此方法被证明对极端高速的跨流域多尺度流动准确且高效.