This dissertation is devoted to study of complex systems in human physiology particularly heartbeats and brain dynamics. We have studied the dynamics of heartbeats that has been a subject of investigation of two independent groups. The first group emphasized the multifractal nature of the heartbeat dynamics of healthy subjects, whereas the second group had established a close connection between healthy subjects and the occurrence of crucial events. We have analyzed the same set of data and established that in fact the heartbeats are characterized by the occurrence of crucial and Poisson events. An increase in the percentage of crucial events makes the multifractal spectrum broader, thereby bridging the results of the former group with the results of the latter group. The crucial events are characterized by a power index that signals the occurrence of 1/f noise for complex systems in the best physiological condition. These results led us to focus our analysis on the statistical properties of crucial events. We have adopted the same statistical analysis to study the statistical properties of the heartbeat dynamics of subjects practicing meditation. The heartbeats of people doing meditation are known to produce coherent fluctuations. In addition to this effect, we made the surprising …

This dissertation is an attempt at establishing a bridge between biology and physics leading naturally from the field of phase transitions in physics to the cooperative nature of living systems. We show that this aim can be realized by supplementing the current field of evolutionary game theory with a new form of self-organized temporal criticality. In the case of ordinary criticality, the units of a system choosing either cooperation or defection under the influence of the choices done by their nearest neighbors, undergo a significant change of behavior when the intensity of social influence has a critical value. At criticality, the behavior of the individual units is correlated with that of all other units, in addition to the behavior of the nearest neighbors. The spontaneous transition to criticality of this work is realized as follows: the units change their behavior (defection or cooperation) under the social influence of their nearest neighbors and update the intensity of their social influence spontaneously by the feedback they get from the payoffs of the game (environment). If units, which are selfish, get higher benefit with respect to their previous play, they increase their interest to interact with other units and vice versa. Doing this, …

Various nanostructured materials display unique and interesting optical properties. Specific nanoscale objects discussed in an experimental perspective in this dissertation include optical metamaterials, surface plasmon sensors, and two-dimensional materials. These nanoscale objects were fabricated, investigated optically, and their applications are assessed. First, one-dimensional magnetic gratings were studied, followed by their two-dimensional analog, the so-called "fishnet." Both were fabricated, characterized, and their properties, such as waveguiding modes, are examined. Interestingly, these devices can exhibit optical magnetism and even negative refraction; however, their general characterization at oblique incidence is challenging due to diffraction. Here, a new method of optical characterization of metamaterials which takes into account diffraction is presented. Next, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) was experimentally used in two schemes, for the first time, to determine the transition layer characteristics between a metal and dielectric. The physics of interfaces, namely the singularity of electric permittivity and how it can be electrically shifted, becomes clearer owing to the extreme sensitivity of SPR detection mechanisms. Finally, ultra-thin two-dimensional semiconducting materials had their radiative lifetime analyzed. Their lifetimes are tuned both by number of atomic layers and applied voltage biasing across the surface, and the changes in lifetime are suspected to be due to quenching …