Psu Sysc-334U Summer

Front 1

In the past 150 years, humans have used up __% of the planets oil reserves?

Back 1

40%

Front 2

Close to __% of land surface has been domesticated, reducing biodiversity, changing oil biology, and altering the carbon and nitrogen scales.

Back 2

50%

Front 3

More than __% of the earths freshwater is being used by humans, altering the hydrological scale.

Back 3

50%

Front 4

Human activity has signifigantly increased the concentratons of what? (2 chemicals)

Back 4

CO2 and CH4

Front 5

What is Open Access as described by Hardin?

Back 5

No regulation over who uses the pasture, and how much.

Front 6

What is the Goulburn-Broken Catchment?

Back 6

Area in Australia producing 1 billion in revenue annually, and at risk of losing its entire productivity due to overuse.

Front 7

Complex Systems (Characteristics)

Back 7

a. Consist of many heterogeneous components

b. include many processes operating at diffrent leveles

c. have the ability to change abruptly

Front 8

Complex Adaptive Systems (Characteristics)

Back 8

a. Consist of many heterogeneous components

b. include many processes operating at diffrent leveles

c. have the ability to change abruptly

d. the ability to adapt

Front 9

Two Dimensions of Organized Complexity

Back 9

a. Combinatorial Complexity - A large number of interacting parts

b. Dynamic Complexity - Can arise even in simple non-linear systems with low combinatorial complexity

Front 10

First law of Thermodynamics

Back 10

Energy is neither created or destroyed, only changing form

Front 11

Second law of Thermdynamics

Back 11

In the process of changing form, some of the energy is degraded in quality and loses its ability to do work

Front 12

Autocatalytic Cycle

Back 12

Self-enhancing process that simulates aggregate activity, allowing a positive or negitive change to be its own catalyst in a feedback loop of change.

Front 13

Self-organization

Back 13

Organisms organize without external interference

Front 14

Self-organized criticality

Back 14

Entities can self-organize into critical states.  Has to do with fragile equilibriums.

Front 15

Adaptation

Back 15

The process through which a thing or grouping changes in a way that improves its well being.

Front 16

4 stages of the adaptive cycle

Back 16

Alpha, R phase, K phase, and Omega phase

Front 17

Alpha phase

Back 17

First stage of development, initial self organization.  At this stage, a systems adaptive capacity is at the highest

Front 18

R phase

Back 18

Exponential growth phase, charcterized by competition and adaptation.  Adaptive capacity starts high and declines.

Front 19

K phase

Back 19

Increase in resource scarcity, and a focus on efficiency and concervation.  Dominated by mutualism.  Capacity declines, and critical threshold is approached.

Front 20

Omega phase

Back 20

Critical threshold is reached, and adaptive capacity is lost.  After this phase, a system will reorganize, and this phase represents death of the cycle.

Front 21

Nested Hierarchies

Back 21

Expected emergent properties in groupings where complexity evolves from simplicity.

Front 22

Punctuated equilibrium

Back 22

Long periods of stasis intermittently punctuated with reletively short periods of signifigant evolutionary change.

Front 23

Nearly Decomposable

Back 23

a. inter-grouping interaction is weak, but not insignifigant

b. intra-grouping connectedness is higher than inter-grouping contectedness

c. while short-run behavior of each grouping is independant, long term behavior is not