Constructing minimal models for complex system dynamics

Baruch Barzel, Yang-Yu Liu () and Albert-László Barabási
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Baruch Barzel: Bar-Ilan University
Yang-Yu Liu: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Albert-László Barabási: Center for Cancer Systems Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract One of the strengths of statistical physics is the ability to reduce macroscopic observations into microscopic models, offering a mechanistic description of a system’s dynamics. This paradigm, rooted in Boltzmann’s gas theory, has found applications from magnetic phenomena to subcellular processes and epidemic spreading. Yet, each of these advances were the result of decades of meticulous model building and validation, which are impossible to replicate in most complex biological, social or technological systems that lack accurate microscopic models. Here we develop a method to infer the microscopic dynamics of a complex system from observations of its response to external perturbations, allowing us to construct the most general class of nonlinear pairwise dynamics that are guaranteed to recover the observed behaviour. The result, which we test against both numerical and empirical data, is an effective dynamic model that can predict the system’s behaviour and provide crucial insights into its inner workings.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8186

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