1993 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 37-43
System analysis of Biosphere-J is carried out within the framework of the systematic method for analyzing closed ecologicallife support systems (CELSS), named CELSS Theory. A detailed investigation of the logarithmic gains (the percentage change in a dependent variable resulting from an 1% increase in an independent variable) of the water circulation system in the habitat module reveals that their larger values appear at the pools with small volume and/or with small numbers of incoming and outgoing fluxes. In the CELSS having nonlinear fluxes, the logarithmic gains becomes larger at the pools with higher degrees of flux fixation. It is concluded that the CELSS theory can characterize the closed ecological systems throughout the logarithmic gains more easily and accurately than do the conventional methods and is very useful.
