Статья опубликована в журнале из списка RSCI Web of Science
Статья опубликована в журнале из перечня ВАК
Статья опубликована в журнале из списка Web of Science и/или Scopus
Дата последнего поиска статьи во внешних источниках: 28 мая 2015 г.
Аннотация:The currently popular interdisciplinary concept of network structures (networks) has been defined in two different ways in the literature: (i) networks as “ sets of items, which we will call vertices or sometimes nodes, with connections between them, called edges” or links (Newman, 2003, p.2) and (ii) in a more specific meaning used in this work: networks as systems of objects that lack a central pace-maker (leader, boss, etc.) and are characterized by cohesion and predominantly cooperative interactions among their components (nodes). Such sensu stricto networks are contrasted with structures that contain a single centre (hierarchies) as well as with those whose elements predominantly compete with one another (market-type structures). Many networks have a multilevel structure that accounts for their fractal properties (a part of a sensu stricto network is a network per se).
Network structures in biological systems can be subdivided into a number of types involving different organizational mechanisms. Biological networks can be classified into two main subgroups: (i) flat (leaderless) network structures typical of systems that are composed of uniform elements and represent modular organisms or at least possess manifest integral properties and (ii) three-dimensional, partly hierarchical, structures characterized by significant individual and/or intergroup (intercaste) differences between their elements.
All network structures include an element that performs structural, protective, and communication-promoting functions. In an analogy to cell structures, this element is denoted herein as the matrix of a network structure. The matrix includes a material and an immaterial component. The material component comprises various structures that belong to the whole structure and not to any of its elements per se. The immaterial (ideal) component of the matrix includes social norms and rules regulating network elements’ behavior. These behavioral rules can be described in terms of algorithms that enable modeling the behavior of various network structures, particularly of neural networks and their artificial analogs.
The diversity of network structure types in biological systems gives food for thought not only to biologists but also to scholars in the social sciences and the humanities. The implication is that “network structures”, a popular cliché in present-day society, can be subdivided into a number of substantially different organizational variants. Before promoting network structures in various areas ranging from the World Wide Web to networked businesses, we should decide what kind of networls should be more useful in terms of our specific goals.