Whilesciencecontinuestoextendtotwoextremes-micro-scaletowardsdimensionsevensmallerthanelementalparticlesandmega-scaleevenbeyondtheuniverse,onerecognizesthatreductionismisnotsufficienttosolvemanyproblemsweencounterinengineering,whicharelikelycharacterizedbynonlinearity,nonequilibdumanddissipativemulti-scalestructures.Ontheotherhand,thecommonfeaturesofthesenonlinearsystems,suchasbifurcation,statemultiplicityandself-organization,haveattractedmuchattention,leadingtotheapproachesoftheso-calledcomplexitysciencewhichhasbecomeafocusnotonlyinnaturalscienceandengineeringscience,butalsoinsocialscience.