A ubiquitous transfer function links interacting elements to emerging property of complex systems

Abstract

In the field of complex systems, self-organization magnifies the compounding effects of element interactions by propagating, modifying, and enhancing functionality, ultimately leading to emergent system properties. The intricacies of self-organization make unveiling the elusive link between element interactions and emergent system properties akin to finding the proverbial Holy Grail. In the search for identifying a method to predict system-level properties, we used an inductive approach to bypass the self-organization. By observing drug interactions within biological complex system, system property, efficacy, emerged as a smooth response surface in the multi-dimensional space of drug-system interactions, which can be represented by the Complex System Response (CSR) function. This CSR function has been successfully validated across diverse disease models in cell lines, animals, and clinical trials. Notably, the CSR function reveals that biological complex systems exhibit second-order non-linearity. In this study, we generalized the CSR function to physical complex systems, linking maximum compressive yielding stress to impactful manufacturing parameters of the Selective Laser Melting (SLM) process. Remarkably though anticipated, the CSR function reveals the connection between the macroscale system property (compressive yielding stress) and the microstructure during self-organizing process. In addition, the second-order non-linear CSR functions ensure a single global optimum in complex systems.