06/09/2016, 16:20 — 17:00 — Amphitheatre Pa2, Mathematics Building
Henrique Oliveira, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa

The sensitivity of evolutionary entropy to perturbations in the micro-local variables

A large class of biological and socioeconomic dynamical systems have a hierarchical structure with time and energy values ranging from the molecular level to the macroscopic level. A macroscopic variable which has come to play a role in understanding the relation between the different scales in the hierarchy is evolutionary entropy. This statistical parameter, a function of the interaction at the micro-level, describes the diversity of pathways of energy flows between the elements that compose the micro-level. Evolutionary entropy characterize the robustness or stability of the hierarchy, that is the rate at which macroscopic variables that describe the system return to their steady state condition after a random perturbation.

This talk is concerned with an analysis of the response or sensitivity of evolutionary entropy to perturbations in the microscopic parameters that describe the hierarchy.

The problem we address is an elaboration of studies which originally began in the study of demographic networks. We will appeal to the methods explored in those studies to derive a general expression for the response of entropy to changes in the microscopic variables that describe the interaction that defines the hierarchy.

Joint work with Lloyd Demetrius, Harvard University and Max Planck, Berlin.