Complexity remains one of the central challenges in science and technology. Although several approaches at defining and/or quantifying complexity have been proposed, at some point each of them seems to run into intrinsic limitations. Two are the main objectives of the present work: (i) to review some of the main approaches to complexity; and (ii) to suggest a cost-based approach that, to a great extent, can be understood as an integration of the several facets of complexity. More specifically, it is poised that complexity, an inherently relative and subjective concept, can be summarized as the cost of developing a model, plus the cost of its respective operation. The proposal is illustrated respectively to several applications examples, including a real-data base situation.

中文翻译：

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量化复杂性

复杂性仍然是科学和技术领域的主要挑战之一。尽管已经提出了几种定义和/或量化复杂性的方法，但在某些时候，它们中的每一个似乎都遇到了内在的局限性。目前工作的主要目标有两个：(i) 审查一些解决复杂性的主要方法；(ii) 提出一种基于成本的方法，该方法在很大程度上可以理解为复杂性的几个方面的整合。更具体地说，复杂性是一个固有的相对和主观的概念，可以概括为开发模型的成本，加上其各自操作的成本。该建议分别针对几个应用示例进行了说明，包括一个真实的数据库情况。