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Figure 1 | Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling

Figure 1

From: Networked buffering: a basic mechanism for distributed robustness in complex adaptive systems

Figure 1

Illustration of degeneracy and related concepts. Components (C) within a system have a functionality that depends on their context (E) and can be functionally active (filled nodes) or inactive (clear nodes). When a component exhibits qualitatively different functions (indicated by node color) that depend on the context, we refer to that component as being functionally plastic (panel a). Pure redundancy occurs when two components have identical functions in every context (panels b and c). Functional redundancy is a term often used to describe two components with a single (but same) function whose activation (or capacity for utilization) depends on the context in different ways (panel d). Degeneracy describes components that are functionally plastic and functionally redundant, i.e. where the functions are similar in some situations but different in others (panel e).

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