Periodic and chaotic dynamics in childhood infections. (English) Zbl 0665.92014
From chemical to biological organization, Springer Ser. Synergetics, 331-347 (1988).
[For the entire collection see Zbl 0659.00017.]
Most biologists, when confronted with a time series, assume that the dynamical possibilities are quite limited. Either a system sits still, presumably at equilibrium, or it may oscillate with a fixed period. Anything else, they will probably tell you, is evidence of noise - observational error or chance perturbations from without. By these criteria, most biological systems, especially at the population level, are extremely noisy.
Our own approach to this problem has been somewhat different. On the one hand, we recognize the value of looking for periodicities in the data and have done so ourselves (see below). At the same time, we also believe it important to consider a broader range of possible dynamics. This includes various kinds of chaos, in which the irregularities are inherent, rather than the result of chance vagaries.
Most biologists, when confronted with a time series, assume that the dynamical possibilities are quite limited. Either a system sits still, presumably at equilibrium, or it may oscillate with a fixed period. Anything else, they will probably tell you, is evidence of noise - observational error or chance perturbations from without. By these criteria, most biological systems, especially at the population level, are extremely noisy.
Our own approach to this problem has been somewhat different. On the one hand, we recognize the value of looking for periodicities in the data and have done so ourselves (see below). At the same time, we also believe it important to consider a broader range of possible dynamics. This includes various kinds of chaos, in which the irregularities are inherent, rather than the result of chance vagaries.
MSC:
| 92D25 | Population dynamics (general) |
