Related papers: Fundamental Complexity Measures of Life
We will review some of the theoretical progresses that have been in the study of complex systems in physics and of their applications to biology.
We explore a definition of complexity based on logic functions, which are widely used as compact descriptions of rules in diverse fields of contemporary science. Detailed numerical analysis shows that (i) logic complexity is effective in…
Concepts used in the scientific study of complex systems have become so widespread that their use and abuse has led to ambiguity and confusion in their meaning. In this paper we use information theory to provide abstract and concise…
Evolution has fascinated quantitative and physical scientists for decades: how can the random process of mutation, recombination, and duplication of genetic information generate the diversity of life? What determines the rate of evolution?…
As urban critic Jane Jacobs conceived, a city is essentially the problem of organized complexity. What underlies the complexity refers to a structural factor, called living structure, which is defined as a mathematical structure composed of…
I describe a new method of estimating the prevalence of life in the Universe, based on the fact that more chemically complex environments are more rare. The paper makes three main claims: (1) There is a statistically significant (inverse)…
Software implements a significant proportion of functionality in factory automation. Thus, efficient development and the reuse of software parts, so-called units, enhance competitiveness. Thereby, complex control software units are more…
Complex systems are characterized by specific time-dependent interactions among their many constituents. As a consequence they often manifest rich, non-trivial and unexpected behavior. Examples arise both in the physical and non-physical…
This paper introduces a qualitative measure of ambiguity and analyses its relationship with other measures of uncertainty. Probability measures relative likelihoods, while ambiguity measures vagueness surrounding those judgments. Ambiguity…
Motility is an essential factor for an organism's survival and diversification. With the advent of novel single-cell technologies, analytical frameworks and theoretical methods, we can begin to probe the complex lives of microscopic motile…
The standard assumptions that underlie many conceptual and quantitative frameworks do not hold for many complex physical, biological, and social systems. Complex systems science clarifies when and why such assumptions fail and provides…
Biological systems reach hierarchical complexity that has no counterpart outside the realm of biology. Undoubtedly, biological entities obey the fundamental physical laws. Can today's physics provide an explanatory framework for…
Classic economic science is reaching the limits of its explanatory powers. Complexity science uses an increasingly larger set of different methods to analyze physical, biological, cultural, social, and economic factors, providing a broader…
The paper reviews two prominent approaches for the measurement of technological complexity: the method of reflection and the assessment of technologies' combinatorial difficulty. It discusses their central underlying assumptions and…
Quantifying the evolution and complexity of materials is of importance in many areas of science and engineering, where a central open challenge is developing experimental complexity measurements to distinguish random structures from evolved…
An extrapolation of the genetic complexity of organisms to earlier times suggests that life began before the Earth was formed. Life may have started from systems with single heritable elements that are functionally equivalent to a…
There are many dimensions of software complexity. In this article, we explore how structural complexity is measured and used to study and control evolving software systems. We also present the current research challenges and emerging trends…
If a concept is not well defined, there are grounds for its abuse. This is particularly true of complexity, an inherently interdisciplinary concept that has penetrated very different fields of intellectual activity from physics to…
A measure called Physical Complexity is established and calculated for a population of sequences, based on statistical physics, automata theory, and information theory. It is a measure of the quantity of information in an organism's genome.…
Context dependence is central to the description of complexity. Keying on the pairwise definition of "set complexity" we use an information theory approach to formulate general measures of systems complexity. We examine the properties of…