Niels Bohr Institute/CMOL, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Phys Rev Lett. 2012 Sep 7;109(10):100602. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.100602. Epub 2012 Sep 5.
Complex dynamical systems often show multiple metastable states. In macroevolution, such behavior is suggested by punctuated equilibrium and discrete geological epochs. In molecular biology, bistability is found in epigenetics and in the many mutually exclusive states that a human cell can take. Sociopolitical systems can be single-party regimes or a pluralism of balancing political fractions. To introduce multistability, we suggest a model system of D mutually exclusive microstates that battle for dominance in a large system. Assuming one common intermediate state, we obtain D+1 metastable macrostates for the system, one of which is a self-reinforced mixture of all D+1 microstates. Robustness of this metastable mixed state increases with diversity D.
复杂动力系统通常表现出多种亚稳态。在宏观进化中，间断平衡和离散地质时期表明了这种行为。在分子生物学中，表观遗传学和人类细胞可以采取的许多互斥状态中都发现了双稳态。社会政治制度可以是一党制政权，也可以是多种平衡政治派别的多元化。为了引入多稳定性，我们提出了一个由 D 个互斥微状态组成的模型系统，这些微状态在一个大系统中争夺主导地位。假设存在一个共同的中间状态，我们得到系统的 D+1 个亚稳态宏观状态，其中一个是所有 D+1 个微状态的自我强化混合物。这种亚稳态混合状态的稳健性随着多样性 D 的增加而增加。
