Statistical Physics of Evolving Systems

Evolution is customarily perceived as a biological process. However, when formulated in terms of physics, evolution is understood to entail everything. Based on the axiom of everything comprising quanta of actions (e.g., quanta of light), statistical physics describes any system evolving toward thermodynamic balance with its surroundings systems. Fluxes of quanta naturally select those processes leveling out differences in energy as soon as possible. This least-time maxim results in ubiquitous patterns (i.e., power laws, approximating sigmoidal cumulative curves of skewed distributions, oscillations, and even the regularity of chaos). While the equation of evolution can be written exactly, it cannot be solved exactly. Variables are inseparable since motions consume driving forces that affect motions (and so on). Thus, evolution is inherently a non-deterministic process. Yet, the future is not all arbitrary but teleological, the final cause being the least-time free energy consumption itself. Eventually, trajectories are computable when the system has evolved into a state of balance where free energy is used up altogether.

Continuous Negotiation in Climate Adaptation: The Challenge of Co-Evolution for the Capability Approach to Justice

The capability approach is increasingly presented as a promising approach to address questions of justice in local climate adaptation. In an attempt to integrate environmental protections into the capability approach, Breena Holland developed the meta-capability Sustainable Ecological Capacity to establish substantive ecological limits. This article, however, empirically demonstrates that defining ecosystem thresholds in co-evolving systems is subject to conflict and continuous negotiation. Taking the Haringvliet dam in the Dutch South-West Delta as an illustrative case, this paper shows how people uphold different views about the Haringvliet’s most desirable ecosystem state. Future shifts in the socio-ecological system, such as decreased fresh water availability and sea-level rise, are expected to uproot today’s compromise about chloride levels in the Haringvliet. This suggests that anticipatory water management should not only address climate impacts, but also prepare for re-negotiations of established ecological thresholds. The associated politics of climate adaptation deals with questions about which functions to protect, at what costs and for whom. Hence, it is critical to integrate procedural justice and attention to political inequalities in capabilities-based adaptation justice frameworks.

The Scaling of Blood Pressure and Volume

The cardiovascular system is an apparatus of mass convection, and changes in organismic size impart changes in variables of this system, namely scaling effects. Blood flow depends on pressure and conductance, and the maintenance of flow results in entropy production, that is, loss of available work. In terms of scaling, it is well known that blood pressure is kept constant while blood volume varies linearly with body mass. Yet, such expected rules have never been proven. The present study shows that these scaling rules derive from the simultaneous optimization of blood flow and entropy production in circulation and how these impact the transition from ecto- to endotermy. Thus, for the first time in almost a century of data collection, these observed relationships are explained from a theoretical standpoint. The demonstration presented herein is a building block to form a solid basis for the other scaling rules of the cardiovascular system as well as of other organic systems. The approach is of wide interest in any area where generalized flow is analyzed in terms of system optimization, giving a broad perspective on change in either engineered or naturally evolving systems.

Identifying Cultural Traits of the Historic Kampong Ayer of Brunei Darussalam using Biomimetic Analysis

Kampong Ayer is the cultural hearth of Brunei Darussalam. Once described as the Venice of the East, modernization has transformed this capital of the Brunei Sultanate into just another urban settlement, but located within the Sungai Brunei estuary. Its largely modern architecture and built environment has raised the question of whether it still holds any heritage value. This paper aims to provide an answer using the UNESCO World Heritage Site enlistment criteria as a guide. The study focusses on the relationship between people and environment (Criteria 5) to determine if they could be regarded as an outstanding example that is vulnerable to irreversible change. It employs a biomimetic approach to analysis as field surveys suggest the environment to be a prominent factor. The information used was gathered over the past decade through field work and dialogue with current and former residents. The study found a good degree of congruence between residents of Kampong Ayer and mangroves, the ‘genius of place’ in the Sg Brunei estuary. It also found processes and patterns typical of organismic, evolving systems. The study elucidated cultural traits that have survived through the evolution of Kampong Ayer over half a millennium. The paper also addresses sustainability issues using findings from biomimetic analysis.

A Decolonial Race-Centered Case Analysis of Bottom-up System Change

The Degrowth movement strives to address the grave and adverse social and ecological conditions that currently disrupt life across our planet and that are chiefly caused by evolving systems of colonial capitalism. A core strategy of colonial capitalism is to socially divide peoples, especially through racial classifications. This social dividing has a long history and continues to occur spatially and socially in localities across the globe today. Many movements countering colonial capitalism are adopting horizontal, translocal strategies. Such strategies are promulgated as a way of building horizontal counter knowledge and counter power. A case example of an effort to build a North American Confederation for bottom-up democracy will be presented. A decolonial, race centered analysis will show how a decolonial opening occurred and will then propose three themes for carrying decoloniality further in the case situation.

Cognitive Decision-Making in Dynamic Systems: When the Objectivity (of the Processing) Does Not Guarantee the Validity (of the Choice of Action)

Since around 1970, academic studies on decision-making have changed in nature. Whereas they used to be laboratory studies of selected situations giving rise to the expression of individual choices, nowadays studies focus on real situations. These situations are processed in their natural contexts at the time they occur. The decisions to be made concern generally social problems (for instance forest fires, maritime pollution or global warming). This mutation in the nature of situations studied requires a paradigm shift, which leads to elaborate decisions in complex, dynamic and evolving systems, even sometimes resilient to human actions implemented to control them. This chapter analyses, at individual and group level (crisis units), cognitive difficulties encountered by decision-makers in handling such situations. These situations consist in treating information by assigning them, from the outset, meanings (sometimes personal). This is done by looking for temporary interactions, while respecting the global nature of the situation, by focusing on knowing the properties of context as well as those of the temporal evolution of the system concerned. This chapter analyses a case study for which urgent and fundamental decisions could not be taken and proposes an interpretation in terms of paradigms. Previous studies noted that the decision in complex systems, could entail paradoxes. This study on the decision-making dynamic shows that seeking objectivity, as defined under its current intangible form, does not produce a significant increase in the validity of choices made.

The Fornax 3D project: PNe populations and stellar metallicity in edge-on galaxies

Context. Extragalactic planetary nebulae (PNe) are useful distance indicators and are often used to trace the dark-matter content in external galaxies. At the same time, PNe can also be used as probes of their host galaxy stellar populations and to help understand the later stages of stellar evolution. Previous works have indicated that a specific number of PNe per stellar luminosity can vary across different galaxies and as a function of stellar-population properties, for instance increasing with decreasing stellar metallicity. Aims. In this study we further explore the importance of stellar metallicity in driving the properties of the PNe population in early-type galaxies, using three edge-on galaxies in the Fornax cluster offering a clear view into their predominantly metal-rich and metal-poor regions near the equatorial plane or both below and above it, respectively. Methods. Using very large telescope-multi unit spectroscopic explorer (VLT-MUSE) integral-field observations and dedicated PNe detection procedures, we constructed the PNe luminosity function and computed the luminosity-specific number of PNe α in both in- and off-plane regions of our edge-on systems. Results. Comparing these α values with metallicity measurements also based on the same MUSE data, we find no evidence for an increase in the specific abundance of PNe when transitioning between metal-rich and metal-poor regions. Conclusions. Our analysis highlights the importance of ensuring spatial consistency to avoid misleading results when investigating the link between PNe and their parent stellar populations, and suggest that in passively evolving systems variations in the specific number of PNe may pertain to rather extreme metallicity regimes found either in the innermost or outermost regions of galaxies.

Unifying fluctuation-dissipation temperatures of slow-evolving nonequilibrium systems from the perspective of inherent structures

For nonequilibrium systems, how to define temperature is one of the key and difficult issues to solve. Although effective temperatures have been proposed and studied to this end, it still remains elusive what they actually are. Here, we focus on the fluctuation-dissipation temperatures and report that such effective temperatures of slow-evolving systems represent characteristic temperatures of their equilibrium counterparts. By calculating the fluctuation-dissipation relation of inherent structures, we obtain a temperature-like quantity TIS. For monocomponent crystal-formers, TIS agrees well with the crystallization temperature Tc, while it matches with the onset temperature Ton for glass-formers. It also agrees with effective temperatures of typical nonequilibrium systems, such as aging glasses, quasi-static shear flows, and quasi-static self-propelled flows. From the unique perspective of inherent structures, our study reveals the nature of effective temperatures and the underlying connections between nonequilibrium and equilibrium systems and confirms the equivalence between Ton and Tc.