Scale-free networks: properties and applications

Headline: Leverage points: Places to intervene in a system by Donella Meadows

The Sustainability Institute

Leverage points are areas within a system where small changes can generate seismic, system-wide effects. For example, contrary to expectations, having more low-income housing actually results in poorer outcomes for poverty-stricken residents of urban areas if the housing is not matched simultaneously with employment opportunities. To change systems requires an understanding of negative and positive feedback loops, information flows, and other system parameters, rather than merely trying to change what is obvious. Rather than attaching one's self to a single paradigm, it is better to use systems analysis because it allows the analyst to retreat from the dominant paradigm and to change his or her whole approach. Instead of changing the players of the system (such electing new political representatives), it is more important to step back and change ideas about the system itself (such what constitutes equity in taxation or parity in terms of residents' ways of life).

Link: http://www.donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/

Global Issue: Sustainable development

How does it relate to design? Design (such as creating a new housing project) takes place within a system and the impact the design may have upon the larger system must be taken into account. Designs will have an impact on how people move, live, and conduct their lives in a healthy or an unhealthy manner.

Does it relate to other disciplines? Systems analysis is a concept that affects a wide range of disciplines, spanning from economics to nursing to organizational psychology. Systems are analyzed as entities that are larger than the sum of their parts. This can be seen in the work of the sculptor and conceptual artist Jeff Koons: Koons has created massive works that resemble large lumps of Play-Dough stuck together or balloon dogs (Saltz 1). They are not conventionally 'artistic' or pleasant to look at but because of their meaning and location within a larger systemic fabric, they take on meaning for the gazer. By decentering and making the viewer uncomfortable about he or she sees objects in daily life and constructing them as 'art,' the viewer emerges from a Koons exhibit both uncomfortable and changed by the experience.

Headline: Scale-free networks

Date: 2003

Source: Scientific American

Abstract (no more than 150 words): Networks are common to both human organizations and also to entities found in nature. But until recently, scientists have tended to treat networks as relatively random entities. This article specifically focuses on 'scale-free' networks. Scale-free networks (versus random networks) are relatively impervious to accidental failures but can be highly vulnerable to outside attacks. Scale-free network can be found everywhere, from the biological to the environmental realm. They can be understood as a series of nodes and links. The stronger the ties between networks, the more likely contagion in the form of pathogens or ideas will spread: hence the need for ensuring the dissemination through the network is positive rather than negative.

Link: http://www.barabasilab.com/pubs/CCNR-ALB_Publications/200305-01_SciAmer-ScaleFree/200305-01_SciAmer-ScaleFree.pdf

Global Issue: Systems analysis