Professor Duan Chao at the School of Electrical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU), has made important progress in complex network dynamics.

He and collaborative researchers are the first to use the nonnormality and reactivity of large complex systems to explain the relationship between system complexity and system stability. In their paper, they have revealed the network-structural roots of the systems' nonnormality and reactivity.

Based on the Chung–Lu–Vu stochastic network model, Duan and collaborative researchers have proved that the probability of large-scale network dynamics systems having nonnormality and reactivity tends to 1. They have also offered the quantitative estimation formulas.

These conclusions lay the theoretical foundation for the analysis, design and control of complex dynamic networks, and have potential application values in engineering, such as power systems.

Network structure origin and quantitative estimation of system nonnormality and reactivity

The thesis titled Network structural origin of instabilities in large complex systems was published in Science Advances, a top-tier multidisciplinary journal that carries studies and impactful reviews on science.