Interaction
Encyclopedia
Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction, as opposed to a one-way causal
effect. A closely related term is interconnectivity
, which deals with the interactions of interactions within systems: combinations of many simple interactions can lead to surprising emergent
phenomena. Interaction has different tailored meanings in various science
s.
Casual examples of interaction outside of science include:
s work with a number of different genetic interaction modes to characterize how the combination of two mutation
s affect (or does not affect) the phenotype
:
noninteractive, synthetic, asynthetic, suppressive, epistatic, conditional, additive, single-nonmonotonic and double-nonmonotonic.
Further characterizations is enhancement interaction and nonadditive interaction. Biosemioticists investigate sign-mediated interactions within and between organisms that underlie syntactic, pragmatic and semantic rules.
The word epistasis
is also used for genetic interaction in some contexts.
, the knowledge on gene
/protein
interaction among themselves and with their metabolite
s is referred to as molecular pathways.
, most medication
s can be safely used with other medicine
s, but particular combination
s of medicines need to be monitored for interactions, often by the pharmacist
. Interactions between medications (drug interaction
s) fall generally into one of two main categories:
In terms of efficacy, there can be three types of interactions between medications: additive, synergistic, and antagonistic. Additive interaction means the effect of two chemicals is equal to the sum of the effect of the two chemicals taken separately. This is usually due to the two chemicals acting on the body in the same way. Examples would be Aspirin and Motrin, Alcohol and Depressant, Tranquilizer and Painkiller. Synergistic interaction means that the effect of two chemicals taken together is greater than the sum of their separate effect at the same doses. An example is Pesticide and Fertilizer, the biological effect is devastating. Antagonistic interaction means that the effect of two chemicals is actually less than the sum of the effect of the two drugs taken independently of each other. This is because the second chemical increases the excretion of the first, or even directly blocks its toxic actions. Antagonism forms the basis for antidotes of poisonings.
, interactivity
is a feature of the media in question and as digital technology becomes more accessible to the masses interest in interactivity is increasing and becoming a cultural trend especially in the arts.
, a fundamental interaction or fundamental force is a process by which elementary particle
s interact with each other. An interaction is often described as a physical field
, and is mediated by the exchange of gauge boson
s between particles. For example, the interaction of charged
particles takes place through the mediation of electromagnetic field
s, whereas beta decay
occurs by means of the weak interaction
. An interaction is fundamental when it cannot be described in terms of other interactions. There are four known fundamental interactions in Nature: The electromagnetic
, strong
, weak, and gravitational
interactions. The weak and electromagnetic interactions are unified in electroweak theory
, which is unified with the strong force in the Standard Model
.
, social interaction is a dynamic, changing sequence of social actions between individuals (or groups) who modify their actions and reactions due to the actions by their interaction partner(s). Social interactions can be differentiated into accidental, repeated, regular, and regulated. Social interactions form the basis for social relation
s.
, an interaction is a term in a statistical model
in which the effect of two, or more, variables is not simply additive.
, on health outcomes, we would describe any difference in health outcome scores between genders as a main effect
. Similarly any difference in scores of full term/premature birth would be described as a main effect
. The presence of an interaction effect implies that the effect of gender on health outcome varies as a function of premature birth status.
Causality
Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....
effect. A closely related term is interconnectivity
Interconnectivity
Interconnectivity is a concept that is used in numerous fields such as cybernetics, biology, ecology, network theory, and non-linear dynamics. The concept can be summarized as that all parts of a system interact with and rely on one another simply by the fact that they occupy the same system, and...
, which deals with the interactions of interactions within systems: combinations of many simple interactions can lead to surprising emergent
Emergence
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....
phenomena. Interaction has different tailored meanings in various science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
s.
Casual examples of interaction outside of science include:
- communicationCommunicationCommunication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
of any sort, for example two or more people talking to each other, or communication among groupsGroup (sociology)In the social sciences a social group can be defined as two or more humans who interact with one another, share similar characteristics and collectively have a sense of unity...
, organizationOrganizationAn organization is a social group which distributes tasks for a collective goal. The word itself is derived from the Greek word organon, itself derived from the better-known word ergon - as we know `organ` - and it means a compartment for a particular job.There are a variety of legal types of...
s, nations or states: trade, migration, foreign relationsInternational relationsInternational relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...
, transportation, - the feedbackFeedbackFeedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...
during the operation of machineMachineA machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...
s such as a computer or tool, for example the interaction between a driver and the position of his or her car on the road: by steering the driver influences this position, by observation this information returns to the driver.
Biology and genetics
GeneticistGeneticist
A geneticist is a biologist who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a researcher or lecturer. Some geneticists perform experiments and analyze data to interpret the inheritance of skills. A geneticist is also a Consultant or...
s work with a number of different genetic interaction modes to characterize how the combination of two mutation
Mutation
In molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...
s affect (or does not affect) the phenotype
Phenotype
A phenotype is an organism's observable characteristics or traits: such as its morphology, development, biochemical or physiological properties, behavior, and products of behavior...
:
noninteractive, synthetic, asynthetic, suppressive, epistatic, conditional, additive, single-nonmonotonic and double-nonmonotonic.
Further characterizations is enhancement interaction and nonadditive interaction. Biosemioticists investigate sign-mediated interactions within and between organisms that underlie syntactic, pragmatic and semantic rules.
The word epistasis
Epistasis
In genetics, epistasis is the phenomenon where the effects of one gene are modified by one or several other genes, which are sometimes called modifier genes. The gene whose phenotype is expressed is called epistatic, while the phenotype altered or suppressed is called hypostatic...
is also used for genetic interaction in some contexts.
Chemistry
Biochemistry
In molecular biologyMolecular biology
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...
, the knowledge on gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
/protein
Protein
Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...
interaction among themselves and with their metabolite
Metabolite
Metabolites are the intermediates and products of metabolism. The term metabolite is usually restricted to small molecules. A primary metabolite is directly involved in normal growth, development, and reproduction. Alcohol is an example of a primary metabolite produced in large-scale by industrial...
s is referred to as molecular pathways.
Medicine and pharmacology
In medicineMedicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, most medication
Medication
A pharmaceutical drug, also referred to as medicine, medication or medicament, can be loosely defined as any chemical substance intended for use in the medical diagnosis, cure, treatment, or prevention of disease.- Classification :...
s can be safely used with other medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
s, but particular combination
Combination
In mathematics a combination is a way of selecting several things out of a larger group, where order does not matter. In smaller cases it is possible to count the number of combinations...
s of medicines need to be monitored for interactions, often by the pharmacist
Pharmacist
Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...
. Interactions between medications (drug interaction
Drug interaction
A drug interaction is a situation in which a substance affects the activity of a drug, i.e. the effects are increased or decreased, or they produce a new effect that neither produces on its own. Typically, interaction between drugs come to mind...
s) fall generally into one of two main categories:
- pharmacodynamic : Involving the actions of the two interacting drugs.
- pharmacokinetic : Involving the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of one or both of the interacting drugs upon the other.
In terms of efficacy, there can be three types of interactions between medications: additive, synergistic, and antagonistic. Additive interaction means the effect of two chemicals is equal to the sum of the effect of the two chemicals taken separately. This is usually due to the two chemicals acting on the body in the same way. Examples would be Aspirin and Motrin, Alcohol and Depressant, Tranquilizer and Painkiller. Synergistic interaction means that the effect of two chemicals taken together is greater than the sum of their separate effect at the same doses. An example is Pesticide and Fertilizer, the biological effect is devastating. Antagonistic interaction means that the effect of two chemicals is actually less than the sum of the effect of the two drugs taken independently of each other. This is because the second chemical increases the excretion of the first, or even directly blocks its toxic actions. Antagonism forms the basis for antidotes of poisonings.
Media art
In mediaMass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, interactivity
Interactivity
In the fields of information science, communication, and industrial design, there is debate over the meaning of interactivity. In the "contingency view" of interactivity, there are three levels:...
is a feature of the media in question and as digital technology becomes more accessible to the masses interest in interactivity is increasing and becoming a cultural trend especially in the arts.
Physics
In physicsPhysics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, a fundamental interaction or fundamental force is a process by which elementary particle
Elementary particle
In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a particle not known to have substructure; that is, it is not known to be made up of smaller particles. If an elementary particle truly has no substructure, then it is one of the basic building blocks of the universe from which...
s interact with each other. An interaction is often described as a physical field
Quantum field theory
Quantum field theory provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanical models of systems classically parametrized by an infinite number of dynamical degrees of freedom, that is, fields and many-body systems. It is the natural and quantitative language of particle physics and...
, and is mediated by the exchange of gauge boson
Gauge boson
In particle physics, gauge bosons are bosonic particles that act as carriers of the fundamental forces of nature. More specifically, elementary particles whose interactions are described by gauge theory exert forces on each other by the exchange of gauge bosons, usually as virtual particles.-...
s between particles. For example, the interaction of charged
Electric charge
Electric charge is a physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when near other electrically charged matter. Electric charge comes in two types, called positive and negative. Two positively charged substances, or objects, experience a mutual repulsive force, as do two...
particles takes place through the mediation of electromagnetic field
Electromagnetic field
An electromagnetic field is a physical field produced by moving electrically charged objects. It affects the behavior of charged objects in the vicinity of the field. The electromagnetic field extends indefinitely throughout space and describes the electromagnetic interaction...
s, whereas beta decay
Beta decay
In nuclear physics, beta decay is a type of radioactive decay in which a beta particle is emitted from an atom. There are two types of beta decay: beta minus and beta plus. In the case of beta decay that produces an electron emission, it is referred to as beta minus , while in the case of a...
occurs by means of the weak interaction
Weak interaction
Weak interaction , is one of the four fundamental forces of nature, alongside the strong nuclear force, electromagnetism, and gravity. It is responsible for the radioactive decay of subatomic particles and initiates the process known as hydrogen fusion in stars...
. An interaction is fundamental when it cannot be described in terms of other interactions. There are four known fundamental interactions in Nature: The electromagnetic
Quantum electrodynamics
Quantum electrodynamics is the relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quantum mechanics and special relativity is achieved...
, strong
Quantum chromodynamics
In theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics is a theory of the strong interaction , a fundamental force describing the interactions of the quarks and gluons making up hadrons . It is the study of the SU Yang–Mills theory of color-charged fermions...
, weak, and gravitational
General relativity
General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...
interactions. The weak and electromagnetic interactions are unified in electroweak theory
Electroweak interaction
In particle physics, the electroweak interaction is the unified description of two of the four known fundamental interactions of nature: electromagnetism and the weak interaction. Although these two forces appear very different at everyday low energies, the theory models them as two different...
, which is unified with the strong force in the Standard Model
Standard Model
The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory concerning the electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear interactions, which mediate the dynamics of the known subatomic particles. Developed throughout the mid to late 20th century, the current formulation was finalized in the mid 1970s upon...
.
Sociology
In sociologySociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, social interaction is a dynamic, changing sequence of social actions between individuals (or groups) who modify their actions and reactions due to the actions by their interaction partner(s). Social interactions can be differentiated into accidental, repeated, regular, and regulated. Social interactions form the basis for social relation
Social relation
In social science, a social relation or social interaction refers to a relationship between two , three or more individuals . Social relations, derived from individual agency, form the basis of the social structure. To this extent social relations are always the basic object of analysis for social...
s.
Statistics
In statisticsStatistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
, an interaction is a term in a statistical model
Statistical model
A statistical model is a formalization of relationships between variables in the form of mathematical equations. A statistical model describes how one or more random variables are related to one or more random variables. The model is statistical as the variables are not deterministically but...
in which the effect of two, or more, variables is not simply additive.
An example from statistics applied to health science
If we were examining the effect of two variables, gender and premature birthPremature birth
In humans preterm birth refers to the birth of a baby of less than 37 weeks gestational age. The cause for preterm birth is in many situations elusive and unknown; many factors appear to be associated with the development of preterm birth, making the reduction of preterm birth a challenging...
, on health outcomes, we would describe any difference in health outcome scores between genders as a main effect
Main effect
In the design of experiments and analysis of variance, a main effect is the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable averaging across the levels of any other independent variables...
. Similarly any difference in scores of full term/premature birth would be described as a main effect
Main effect
In the design of experiments and analysis of variance, a main effect is the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable averaging across the levels of any other independent variables...
. The presence of an interaction effect implies that the effect of gender on health outcome varies as a function of premature birth status.
See also
- Drug interactionDrug interactionA drug interaction is a situation in which a substance affects the activity of a drug, i.e. the effects are increased or decreased, or they produce a new effect that neither produces on its own. Typically, interaction between drugs come to mind...
- Game semanticsGame semanticsGame semantics is an approach to formal semantics that grounds the concepts of truth or validity on game-theoretic concepts, such as the existence of a winning strategy for a player, somewhat resembling Socratic dialogues or medieval theory of Obligationes. In the late 1950s Paul Lorenzen was the...
- Gordon PaskGordon PaskAndrew Gordon Speedie Pask was an English cybernetician and psychologist who made significant contributions to cybernetics, instructional psychology, experimental epistemology and educational technology....
Conversation and Interactions of Actors Theory - Interaction63rd World Science Fiction ConventionThe 63rd World Science Fiction Convention was called Interaction, and was held in Glasgow, Scotland 4–8 August 2005. The event was also the Eurocon. The Venue for the 63rd Worldcon was the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre with the attached Clyde Auditorium and Moat House Hotel...
, the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention, held in GlasgowGlasgowGlasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, ScotlandScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, in 2005 - InterAction: American Council for Voluntary International Action
- Interactive computationInteractive computationIn computer science, interactive computation is a mathematical model for computation that involves communication with the external world during the computation...
- Interaction designInteraction designIn design, human–computer interaction, and software development, interaction design, often abbreviated IxD, is "the practice of designing interactive digital products, environments, systems, and services." Like many other design fields interaction design also has an interest in form but its main...
- Interaction design patternInteraction design patternInteraction design patterns are a way to describe solutions to common usability or accessibility problems in a specific context. They document interaction models that make it easier for users to understand an interface and accomplish their tasks.-History:...
- Interaction frequencyInteraction frequencyInteraction frequency is a sociological concept referring to the total number of social interactions per unit time. Interactions, or what Georg Simmel in his pioneering work called Wechselwirkungen, are the basis for society itself, according to Herbert Blumer....
- InterconnectivityInterconnectivityInterconnectivity is a concept that is used in numerous fields such as cybernetics, biology, ecology, network theory, and non-linear dynamics. The concept can be summarized as that all parts of a system interact with and rely on one another simply by the fact that they occupy the same system, and...
- TransactionFinancial transactionA financial transaction is an event or condition under the contract between a buyer and a seller to exchange an asset for payment. It involves a change in the status of the finances of two or more businesses or individuals.-History:...