Shima BeigiUniversity of Oxford | OX · Department for Continuing Education
Shima Beigi
BSc, MSc, MSc, PhD
About
25
Publications
11,135
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62
Citations
Introduction
I am resilience and complexity scientist and engineer. My research is focused on resilience and sustainability of complex adaptive systems. I am particularly passionate about the links between resilience, self-organisation, and evolution of agents or subsystems and how these dynamics lead to creation and removal of trajectories through which agents and systems can enhance their synergy, coordination and fitness (e.g. Regime shifts, critical transitions, path-dependency, memory effect,etc)
Additional affiliations
October 2015 - October 2017
October 2015 - September 2017
February 2015 - July 2015
Publications
Publications (25)
This paper summarizes and reviews Chemical Organization Theory (COT), a formalism for the analysis of complex, self-organizing systems across multiple disciplines. Its elements are resources and reactions. A reaction maps a set of resources onto another set, thus representing an elementary process that transforms resources into new resources. React...
We characterize living systems as resilient “chemical organizations”, i.e. self-maintaining networks of reactions that are able to resist a wide range of perturbations. Dissipative structures, such as flames or convection cells, are also self-maintaining, but much less resilient. We try to understand how life could have originated from such self-or...
Reaction network is a promising framework for representing complex systems of diverse and even interdisciplinary types. In this approach, complex systems appear as self-maintaining structures emerging from a multitude of interactions, similar to proposed scenarios for the origin of life out of autocatalytic networks. The formalism of chemical organ...
We define the noosphere as the conscious level of the web, where global conversations are being held about collective challenges. To understand its dynamics, we review three neuroscientific theories of consciousness: information integration, adaptive resonance, and global workspace. These suggest that conscious thoughts are characterized by a “reso...
In this research essay, with the example of an iconic street in the Capital City of Tehran, I argue that the degree to which place-breaking activities can affect the making or breaking of an urban place highly depends on a complex range of factors of which history, time, the collective memories of people, memes, vision of policy makers, understandi...
We aproach the problem of the extended mind from a radically non-dualist perspective. The separation between mind and matter is an artefact of the outdated mechanistic worldview, which leaves no room for mental phenomena such as agency, intentionality, or feeling. We propose to replace it by an action ontology, which conceives mind and matter as as...
In this article, inspired by the movement of open spaces in cities across the world and resilience theory1, I argue that city and human resilience are tightly interlinked and it is possible to positively influence both through utilising the transformative power of open spaces in novel ways.
Over the past three decades resilience has been increasingly recognised as a property that enables systems to become better at responding to change. However, most published work on resilience focuses on linking the concept to the previously existing concepts in rather an isolated way. No one has yet offered a systemic perspective that spans across...
In 2003 the historical city of Bam in Iran demonstrated that lack of resilience before the onset of shocks can push a city toward disastrous outcomes. The outcome of the 2003 magnitude 6.6 earthquake placed Bam on a critical pitchfork of transformation. How can cities and communities that have suffered from similar events in Bam, revitalise themsel...
Given the growing pace of urbanisation and the need for developing cohesive, and resilient communities, it is crucial to discuss how we can better design the space of our future cities. Inspired by the movement of open spaces in cities across the world, resilience theory and the concept of smart cities, I demonstrate that city and human resilience...
Following recent extreme events in New Zealand, Haiti, and Japan, and other parts of the world, infrastructure systems have copiously been identified as lifelines of cities and essential to the smooth functioning of modern societies . Therefore, resilience of these systems cannot be defined based on mere infrastructure’s physical attributes. Rather...
Various infrastructure scholars share their concerns on the need for developing: 1. Better approaches to risk management. 2. More effective vulnerability analysis. 3. Transparent resilient-focused frameworks. To respond to these concerns, for better analysis of the interconnections between technical systems and exploration of the interdependencies...
Learning to re-imagine space has a transformational power in the way we perceive and relate to our surroundings. Space whether we call it a space of a city, the void of a meditative mind, the space of a womb, or the space of galaxies; 'provides a chance for change, growth and manifestation'.
The ever-increasing range of interactions in global organizations creates a wicked situation that is often described as "Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous" (VUCA). This is often reflected in the challenges to build highly effective multicultural teams, and even more, in the approaches to developing leaders for those multicultural, virtuall...
This article presents an Anthropocene citizen-cantered framework by
incorporating the neuroscience of sustainability related stressors, the biology
of collaboration in multi-agent ecosystems such as urban systems, and by
emphasising on the importance of harnessing the collective intelligence of the
crowd in addressing wicked challenges of sustainab...
Ross Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety [1] is used as a mental model to operationalize the concept of resilience in coupled complex adaptive systems. One way to deal with complexity and surprise is to increase the diverse range of capabilities that can be called upon when different stressful conditions arise. A resilient system is a system capable o...
Following various disasters across the world, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers issued a comprehensive report on resilience and disaster management [15]. The report called for the development of an integrating framework for resilience that incorporates the societal dimension as an integral part of engineering. This research attempts to provid...
In this presentation, I discussed the need for rethinking the role of socio-technical systems in developing resilience cities. With the examples of natural disasters as well as instances of nonlinear changes in ecological systems, I attempt to propose an interdisciplinary outlook for critical infrastructure systems. This presentation was presented...
Questions
Question (1)
I am wondering whether the way in which sustainability (focus on carrying capacity) is framed somehow hindering any improvement on the likelihood of steering the 1960s model of gentrification that is focused on class and land toward building more resilient cities. I appreciate dissuasion, ideas, articles or any personal experience from case studies, etc.
