Ageing as a price of cooperation and complexity: Self-organization of complex systems causes the ageing of constituent networks

The analysis of network topology and dynamics is increasingly used for the description of the structure, function and evolution of complex systems. Here we summarize key aspects of the evolvability and robustness of the hierarchical network-set of macromolecules, cells, organisms, and ecosystems. Listing the costs and benefits of cooperation as a necessary behaviour to build this network hierarchy, we outline the major hypothesis of the paper: the emergence of hierarchical complexity needs cooperation leading to the ageing of the constituent networks. Local cooperation in a stable environment may lead to over-optimization developing an ‘always-old’ network, which ages slowly, and dies in an apoptosis-like process. Global cooperation by exploring a rapidly changing environment may cause an occasional over-perturbation exhausting system-resources, causing rapid degradation, ageing and death of an otherwise ‘forever-young’ network in a necrosis-like process. Giving a number of examples we explain how local and global cooperation can both evoke and help successful ageing. Finally, we show how various forms of cooperation and consequent ageing emerge as key elements in all major steps of evolution from the formation of protocells to the establishment of the globalized, modern human society. Thus, ageing emerges as a price of complexity, which is going hand-in-hand with cooperation enhancing each other in a successful community

Modularity in support of design for re-use

We explore the structuring principle of modularity with the objective of analysing its current ability to meet the requirements of a 're-use' centred approach to design. We aim to highlight the correlation's between modular design and 're-use', and argue that it has the potential to aid the little-supported process of 'design-for-re-use'. In fulfilment of this objective we not only identify the requirements of 'design-for-re-use', but also propose how modular design principles can be extended to support 'design-for-re-use'

The Provision of Public Goods with Positive Group Interdependencies

This article examines the nature of human behavior in a nested social dilemma referred to as the Spillover Game. Players are divided into two groups with positive production interdependencies. Based on theoretically derived opportunistic, local, and global optima, our experimental results demonstrate the importance of in-group beneficiaries over global efficiency. We find that the observed behavior is primarily determined by an imperfect conditional cooperation that prioritizes local level feedback. Results stress the importance of building strong local level commitment to encourage the provision of public goods with positive externalities.Public good, experiment, groups, Spillover Game, social dilemma

Towards resilience through systems-based plant breeding. A review

How the growing world population can feed itself is a crucial, multi-dimensional problem that goes beyond sustainable development. Crop production will be affected by many changes in its climatic, agronomic, economic, and societal contexts. Therefore, breeders are challenged to produce cultivars that strengthen both ecological and societal resilience by striving for six international sustainability targets: food security, safety and quality; food and seed sovereignty; social justice; agrobiodiversity; ecosystem services; and climate robustness. Against this background, we review the state of the art in plant breeding by distinguishing four paradigmatic orientations that currently co-exist: community-based breeding, ecosystem-based breeding, trait-based breeding, and corporate-based breeding, analyzing differences among these orientations. Our main findings are: (1) all four orientations have significant value but none alone will achieve all six sustainability targets; (2) therefore, an overarching approach is needed: “systems-based breeding,” an orientation with the potential to synergize the strengths of the ways of thinking in the current paradigmatic orientations; (3) achieving that requires specific knowledge development and integration, a multitude of suitable breeding strategies and tools, and entrepreneurship, but also a change in attitude based on corporate responsibility, circular economy and true-cost accounting, and fair and green policies. We conclude that systems-based breeding can create strong interactions between all system components. While seeds are part of the common good and the basis of agrobiodiversity, a diversity in breeding approaches, based on different entrepreneurial approaches, can also be considered part of the required agrobiodiversity. To enable systems-based breeding to play a major role in creating sustainable agriculture, a shared sense of urgency is needed to realize the required changes in breeding approaches, institutions, regulations and protocols. Based on this concept of systems-based breeding, there are opportunities for breeders to play an active role in the development of an ecologically and societally resilient, sustainable agriculture

The Chain of Quality through Integrated Product Development

Today, it is almost impossible to find a manufacturer who has not been significantly influenced by the quality culture, but it is evident that some are doing more to improve their product quality than others are. The so-called "Chain of Quality" through integrated product development is a useful metaphor since it recognises that quality is a continuing topic of attention throughout the product development process and that discrete, quality related activities in the process are inter-linked. Depending upon how the product development process is modelled, the chain can be viewed as open or closed with single or parallel threads. In this paper, the overall purpose of the chain, the nature and identity of its many links and the relationship of the chain to the product development process will be discussed. In so doing, this paper will present an overall picture of important product development strategies and practices that can have a key impact on product quality

The role of Computer Aided Process Engineering in physiology and clinical medicine

This paper discusses the potential role for Computer Aided Process Engineering (CAPE) in developing engineering analysis and design approaches to biological systems across multiple levels—cell signalling networks, gene, protein and metabolic networks, cellular systems, through to physiological systems. The 21st Century challenge in the Life Sciences is to bring together widely dispersed models and knowledge in order to enable a system-wide understanding of these complex systems. This systems level understanding should have broad clinical benefits. Computer Aided Process Engineering can bring systems approaches to (i) improving understanding of these complex chemical and physical (particularly molecular transport in complex flow regimes) interactions at multiple scales in living systems, (ii) analysis of these models to help to identify critical missing information and to explore the consequences on major output variables resulting from disturbances to the system, and (iii) ‘design’ potential interventions in in vivo systems which can have significant beneficial, or potentially harmful, effects which need to be understood. This paper develops these three themes drawing on recent projects at UCL. The first project has modeled the effects of blood flow on endothelial cells lining arteries, taking into account cell shape change resulting in changes in the cell skeleton which cause consequent chemical changes. A second is a project which is building an in silico model of the human liver, tieing together models from the molecular level to the liver. The composite model models glucose regulation in the liver and associated organs. Both projects involve molecular transport, chemical reactions, and complex multiscale systems, tackled by approaches from CAPE. Chemical Engineers solve multiple scale problems in manufacturing processes – from molecular scale through unit operations scale to plant-wide and enterprise wide systems – so have an appropriate skill set for tackling problems in physiology and clinical medicine, in collaboration with life and clinical scientists

Climbing Atop the Shoulders of Giants: The Impact of Institutions on Cumulative Research

While the cumulative nature of knowledge is recognized as central to economic growth, the microeconomic foundations of cumulativeness are less understood. This paper investigates the impact of a research-enhancing institution on cumulativeness, highlighting two effects. First, a selection effect may result in a high correlation between "high-quality" institutions and knowledge of high intrinsic quality. Second, an institution may have a marginal impact -- an incremental influence on cumulativeness, conditional on the type and quality of knowledge considered. This paper distinguishes these effects in the context of a specific institution, biological resource centers (BRCs). BRCs are "living libraries" that authenticate, preserve, and offer independent access to biological materials, such as cells, cultures, and specimens. BRCs may enhance the cumulativeness of knowledge by reducing the marginal cost to researchers of drawing on prior research efforts. We exploit three key aspects of the environment in which BRCs operate to evaluate how they affect the cumulativeness of knowledge: (a) the impact of scientific knowledge is reflected in future scientific citations, (b) deposit into BRCs often occurs with a substantial lag after initial research is completed and published, and (c) "lagged" deposits often result from shocks unrelated to the characteristics of the materials themselves. Employing a difference-in-differences estimator linking specific materials deposits to journal articles, we find evidence for both selection effects and the marginal impact of BRCs on the cumulativeness of knowledge associated with deposited materials. Moreover, the marginal impact increases with time and varies with the economic and institutional conditions in which deposit occurs.