Highly optimized tolerance (HOT) is a mechanism that relates evolving structure to power laws in interconnected systems. HOT systems arise where design and evolution create complex systems sharing common features, including (1) high efficiency, performance, and robustness to designed-for uncertainties, (2) hypersensitivity to design flaws and unanticipated perturbations, (3) nongeneric, special...

We consider a polymerization (fragmentation) model with size-dependent parameters involved in prion proliferation. Using power laws for the different rates of this model, we recover the shape of the polymerization rate using experimental data. The technique used is inspired from [30], where the fragmentation dependence on prion strains is investigated. Our improvement is to use power laws for t...

We consider a polymerization (fragmentation) model with size-dependent parameters involved in prion proliferation. Using power laws for the different rates of this model, we recover the shape of the polymerization rate using experimental data. The technique used is inspired from [30], where the fragmentation dependence on prion strains is investigated. Our improvement is to use power laws for t...

The following presents a review of power laws in financial economics. It is a chapter from a preliminary draft of a very long review article called “Beyond equilibrium and efficiency”. While some of the discussion is specific to economics, most of it applies to power laws in general – the nouns may change, but the underlying questions are similar in many fields. This draft is still highly preli...

Recent research in biology has clarified many features of the global organization of metabolic networks, including the biochemical mechanisms responsible for power laws in metabolite degrees. The primary aim of this Letter is to give the simplest possible biochemical explanations and minimal toy models based on a highly optimized tolerance perspective, which show where and why metabolic network...

Highly optimized tolerance (HOT) is a mechanism that relates evolving structure to power laws in interconnected systems. HOT systems arise where design and evolution create complex systems sharing common features, including (1) high efficiency, performance, and robustness to designed-for uncertainties, (2) hypersensitivity to design flaws and unanticipated perturbations, (3) nongeneric, special...

The constraint-based approach to analysis of biochemical systems has emerged as a useful tool for rational metabolic engineering. Flux balance analysis (FBA) is based on the constraint of mass conservation; energy balance analysis (EBA) is based on non-equilibrium thermodynamics. The power of these approaches lies in the fact that the constraints are based on physical laws, and do not make use ...