Jinshan's homepage at BNU

I am a professor of physics and systems science in the School of Systems Science at Beijing Normal University. Currently I am working in quantum transport, game theory, scientometrics, general input-output analysis, Chinese characters and more general learning theory (The latter three might be seen as applications of network science to problem solving in various disciplines).

Supervising actively graduate students and post-docs.

Here are my CV (in doc and pdf format) and a list of publications,

and their Chinese versions: 简历 (in doc and pdf format) and 期刊论文。

Or you may take a look at the Chinese version (中文版) of this website: 吴金闪在北京师范大学的主页.

Research Interests and miscellaneous ideas

First major theme that I am working on is theoretical and computational foundations of statistical physics: why the Boltzmann distribution is valid for equilibrium statistical systems and what is the correspondence for non-equilibrium but still stationary systems, especially when the system has quantum nature and is interacting?

Second, beyond physics objects, there are other interacting systems, can the theories and computational techniques from statistical physics be applied to them, such as interactions among rational (full or partial) and intellectual agencies. This is where I started to look into game theory, a theory about agencies, which are quite often human being, with conflicting interests.

There are other more general interacting systems too, such as a collection of Chinese characters (they are different from a collection of light bulbs), a set of research papers, a set of all kinds of industrial products, a set of science concepts. This drives me into the third topic that I am actively working on now and hopefully for the future: network science and its application to (also back action from) scientometrics, knowledge management, meaningful learning and input-output analysis.

Recently, inspired and developed from our previous studies on applications of network science, or big physics, or systems science, to scientometrics, knowledge management, meaningful learning, and input-output analysis, we have established the Institute of Educational System Science (IESS) to work a new model of education and also a new model of scientometrics. Please visit the IESS website for more details.

Sometimes, my thoughts get stuck in foundations of quantum mechanics too. It is such a fascinating field and it drives me into excited states all the time.

I enjoy reading and working on creative questions which also have fundamental importance -- those might improve our understanding of the world, natural or social. I like those even more if results/methods developed from those investigations have some practical potential.

Here are the more detailed description of each topic.

• A new model of Education, to help teachers to teach better and to help students to learn better (IESS website）
• The task and methods to construct a human knowledge highway (concepts and links between concepts extracted from textbooks and research papers, levels of knowledge annotated）
• Algorithms over the human knowledge highway for optimal learning orders and for efficient diagnostical tests
• Behaviral studies and neuroscience studies of meaningful learning in Lab
• Experimental studies of meaningful learning in classrooms
• The task, methods and system of annotating the levels of teaching and learning
• The final product "Lynkage Academy": learning resources (textbooks, course vidoe, homework questions, projects) attached to the human knowledge highway, algorithms aided, plus personalized help from teaching and learning experts, for teachers/students to teach/learn better
• A new model of Scientometrics, to help scientists to perform better researches (A more detailed description currently in Chinese）
• The task and methods to construct a human knowledge highway (concepts and links between concepts extracted from textbooks and research papers, levels of knowledge annotated, papers attached to concepts and links of the human knowledge highway, also including information on academic genealogy and citations）
• Algorithms over the human knowledge highway to help scientists to identify research questions and methods
• Algorithms over the human knowledge highway to help R&D administrators to do better management of science and technology researches and development
• Test the algorithms via possible experiments or retrospective historical studies
• The final product “Lynkage Research”:Scientisits, scientific data and publications attached to human knowledge highway, algorithms aied, for scientists to perform better researches
• Quantum Transport (projects overview, started from my PH.D. project with Mona Berciu at phas@UBC)
• BBGKY-like method for solving the open-system master equation(one paper on the first-order form published by NJP, or PDF on the local server, currently finishing up the second-order form)
• Coherent-state representation approach (Manuscript in preparation)
• Kubo formula for open systems(one paper published by EPL, or PDF on the local server)
• Thermal transport of spin chains (one paper published by PRB, or a PDF on the local server)
• Evolution of open systems from only the first principle?(not started yet)
• Comparison between this open-system approach and the NEGF method(not started yet)
• Jinshan's PH.D. dissertation (a PDF file on the local server, or a link to UBC Library ).
• A review paper in Chinese: Progress in Studies of Foundation of Statistical Physics (a PDF file on the local server, or a link to the journal website)
• Game Theory and Quantum Game (projects overview)
• A theory of games that can be used to compare with real observations and experiments, the Ultimatum game as an example, currently working on, together with Nick Vriend from Queen Mary University of London, Keqiang Li, Ya Zhou, Liujun Chen, Zengru Di from School of Systems Science at BNU
• The problem of cooperation in Prisoner's Dilemma and the meaning of infinite in math/physics (not yet started as a project)
• Evolutionary stability of Quantal Response Equilibrium of classical games (a link to the published paper)
• Changes on outcomes of games on networks with slightly modified evolution process (a link to the published paper)
• Exact solution of the social learning game (a link to the published paper)
• Operator Representation, also named as Hamiltonian Formalism, of Game Theory (PDF file of the revised manuscript): The old but detailed version of this general framework: A new mathematical representation of Game Theory, I, exemplified (PDF); A new mathematical representation of Game Theory, II, mathematical version, Definition and proof of Nash Equilibrium in the operator representation, and Quantum Nash Proposition (PDF)
• a brief history of Quantum Game
• A general proof of the existence of NE in quantum game in the operator representation (not started yet)
• Let a quantum entangle system to be the game object(not started yet)
• Could the state of players be an entangle state? Entangle between players, not objects (not started yet)
• General input-output analysis: concept network and learning, Learning of Chinese characters, Scietometric, input-output analysis in Economics, Flux Balance Analysis
• Input-output analysis and Scietometrics, published by Journal of Informetrics here, here is a Audioslide of this work,
• The correlation between editorial delay and number of recieved citations (a link to the published paper)
• Do scientists, in math, physics, life science and economics, trace hot topics?, published by Scientific Reports here and highlighted by Nature here
• Do mathematicians, economists and biomedical scientists trace large topics more strongly than physicists?, published by Journal of Informetrics here
• Network of Chinese characters and its implication to teaching and learning of Chinese characters, published by PLOS ONE, covered by a BBC commentary. A system of “Meaningful Learning of Chinese Characters” has been established based on this research
• Complex Networks(projects overview)
• A review paper on networks (in Chinese)
• Weighted Networks: Construction and exploration (one paper published by International Journal of Modern Physics B or a PDF file on the local server)
• How significantly weight changes properties of networks (one paper published by Physica A or PDF file on the local server)
• Community Structure of Weighted Networks (one paper published by Physica A or PDF file on the local server)
• Evolution model of Weighted Networks using only local rules (one paper published by New Journal of Physics or PDF file on the local server)
• Preferential attachment emerged from local rules (one paper published by New Journal of Physics or PDF file on the local server)
• Quantum foundation: Validity of Hidden variable theory(PDF, together with Prof. Shouyong Pei)
• Econophysics (projects and a review paper, together with Yougui Wang and Zengru Di)
• Miscellaneous ( ^_^, no review and no projects, just idea, let me wish they will become projects one day )
• Structural Chinese: Chinese is a language with many structures at all levels, from radicals to Chinese characters and from characters to words. We may discover them through the network analysis and make use of them in teaching Chinese via designing better textbooks.
• Times Series Analysis of Music: Times series analysis of sounds and songs gives us pitches and notes, what we can see from a time series analysis of those sequences of pitches?
• Thinking in Universal Language: Computers speak machine-dependent binary languages. But they communicate and we communicate with them too via high-level programming languages. Human being speaks different languages and every individual thinks in its own languages, which sometimes appears to be its native language. Thinking in its own does not pick up which language to use, but most time it relies on certain languages. This seems very much like the relation between the abstract vectors in Hilbert space and their explicit representations whenever we write them down to manipulate them. So could human being think and communicate via a common language, the one corresponding to the abstract vectors, not any representations? If possible, what are the features of such common language, which carries thoughts directly not via any social languages?