Towards a general tool for studying threshold effects across diverse domains

Abstract

Most interesting phenomena in natural and social systems include transitions and oscillations among their various phases. A new phase begins when the system reaches a threshold that marks the point of no return. These threshold effects are found all around us. In economics, this could be movement from a bull market to a bear market; in sociology, it could be the spread of political dissent, culminating in rebellion; in biology, the immune response to infection or disease as the body moves from sickness to health. Complex Adaptive Systems has proven to be a powerful framework for exploring these and other related phenomena. Our hypothesis is that by modeling differing complex systems we can use the known causes and mechanisms in one domain to gain insight into the controlling properties of similar effects in another domain. To that end, we have created a general Complex Adaptive Systems model so that it can be individually tailored and mapped to phenomena in various domains. Here we describe how this model applies to two domains: cancer/ immune response and political dissent. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.