complex systems and the technology of variability analysis复杂系统和可变性分析技术.pdfVIP

Available online /content/8/6/R367 December 2004 Vol 8 No 6 Open Access Research Complex systems and the technology of variability analysis 1 2 Andrew JE Seely and Peter T Macklem 1Assistant Professor, Thoracic Surgery and Critical Care Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 2Professor Emeritus, Respiratory Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Corresponding author: Andrew JE Seely, aseely@ottawahospital.on.ca Received: 21 May 2004 Critical Care 2004, 8:R367-R384 (DOI 10.1186/cc2948) Revisions requested: 7 July 2004 This article is online at: http :///content/8/6/R367 Revisions received: 5 August 2004 © 2004 Seely et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. Accepted: 9 August 2004 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Published: 22 September 2004 Creative Commons Attribution License (thhp:/// licences/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Characteristic patterns of variation over time, namely rhythms, represent a defining feature of complex systems, one that is synonymous with life. Despite the intrinsic dynamic, interdependent and nonlinear