Catastrophic Cascades of Events
In Blood Circulation System
Alexander Liss
There is a phenomenon of Cascades of Events
leading to catastrophic failures in systems with flow, flow of electric
current, flow of blood, flow of water in plumbing system, etc.
Recent blackouts caused by deficiencies in
various electric transmission systems are examples in case.
Problems can happen, when a part of the
system is made suddenly unavailable for the flow - part of the grid is turned
off, blockage in blood vessel, water valve is closed, etc. Artificially
designed systems or bio-systems, which survived test of time, have built-in
protection from rapid interruptions of flow. For example, in plumbing valves
close slowly, that system can adjust and there is no hydraulic shock, which can
break pipes and valves.
In addition, in well-designed systems,
there is a buffer, which can absorb a sudden excess of energy in the system,
when a part of it is cut off. In plumbing, it is an open tank on the roof, or a
closed tank, which has air in it serving as a spring accumulating energy of
water suddenly expending into it.
Absences of such fast reacting energy
accumulating and releasing buffers in an electric grid inevitably leads to
catastrophic chains of disconnections from the grid of its recipients by
automatic systems, protecting energy recipients from energy overflow.
Problems
in such systems arise from their hybrid nature - they are analog (continuous
flow of liquid, electromagnetic energy, etc.) and they are discrete (blockages
in plumbing cause change of state and shockwaves in the system, etc.). An
unlucky change of the system state (temporary blockage of liquid flow, for
example) can cause cascading effects (increased flow in other parts of the
system and consequent temporary blockage).
This
is a generic weakness of any hybrid system. A well-designed system compensates
for this with a "buffer", which absorbs shocks. As long this buffer
is efficient, cascading events dissipate fast, when it looses its efficiency,
cascading events affect large portions of the system and could reach vital
parts of it.
The Blood Circulation System has
characteristics similar to plumbing or power distribution grid and it has
similar problems.
The Blood Circulation System consists of:
- a Recipient Module (muscles, etc.),
- a Gasses Exchange Module (lungs),
- two coordinated Pumps (heart),
- and Plumbing (blood vessels).
The
entire system is hydraulic-chemical-electromagnetic.
Hydraulic
Pumps in a heart push and pull blood through blood vessels, some of which serve
as a Distribution system for a Recipient (muscles, organs, etc.) or for a
Gasses Exchange facility (lungs), other serve as a Collection system for the
Recipient or the Gasses Exchange facility. The system moves oxygen and other
chemical compounds. Electromagnetic field, pulsating in concert with Pumps,
organizes the blood allowing its passing through the system with lower
hydraulic pressures.
Pumps
work by isolating a portion of liquid and making breaks in the flow of liquid
and electromagnetic energy. This itself introduces discrete characteristics to
the system in additional to occasional blockage.
In
the Blood Circulation System, the buffer compensating for occasional increase
in flow is in vessels.
From
hydraulic point of view, blood vessels are elastic and expend and contract to
absorb hydraulic shocks.
Scarring
of vessels and insufficiently elastic artificial additions to vessels look
beneficial, as long the view is limited to local effects, but they make this
buffer inefficient and jeopardize the system as a whole.
Vessels
work also as chemical buffers. Molecules in a bloodstream permeate walls of
vessels when there is high concentration of them in the stream and move back
into stream, when there is low concentration of them in the stream. This
compensates for refusal of a part of the system to "consume" this
type of molecule. Otherwise, it is possible to a cascade effect to emerge -
refusal to consume in one part of the system causes increase of concentration
of this type of molecule in the stream, and refusal to consume in adjacent part
of the system due to excess of these molecules, and so on.
When
vessels are saturated with cholesterol immobilized by macrophages, they are
less efficient as chemical buffer and random chemical cascades emerge.
Regular
mild stressing of the Blood Circulation System with physical exercise, sports,
games, etc. should improve elasticity of vessels. Exercises leading to growth
of muscle mass should lead to grows of new elastic vessels and creation new
buffers in the system, where old once became ineffective.