2022/08/18 by Neil G. MacLaren, MacLaren, Neil G., Prosenjit Kundu +3 · 1 citation
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Environmental Science · Psychology · #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis #Complex network #Computer science #Distributed computing #Ecosystem dynamics and resilience #FOS: Physical sciences #Mental Health Research Topics #Network structure #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Telecommunications #Transition (genetics) #Warning system
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2208.08961
openalex publication_date 2022/08/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Successfully anticipating sudden major changes in complex systems is a practical concern. Such complex systems often form a heterogeneous network, which may show multistage transitions in which some nodes experience a regime shift earlier than others as an environment gradually changes. Here we investigate early warning signals for networked systems undergoing a multistage transition. We found that knowledge of both the ongoing multistage transition and network structure enables us to calculate effective early warning signals for multistage transitions. Furthermore, we found that small subsets of nodes could anticipate transitions as well as or even better than using all the nodes. Even if we fix the network and dynamical system, no single best subset of nodes provides good early warning signals, and a good choice of sentinel nodes depends on the tipping direction and the current stage of the dynamics within a multistage transition, which we systematically characterize.