Evolving artificial cell signaling networks: perspectives and methods
Decraene, James, Mitchell, George G. and McMullin, BarryORCID: 0000-0002-5789-2068
(2007)
Evolving artificial cell signaling networks: perspectives and methods.
In: Dressler, Falko and Carreras, Iacopo, (eds.)
Advances in Biologically Inspired Information Systems.
Studies in Computational Intelligence, 69
.
Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, pp. 165-184.
ISBN 978-3-540-72692-0
Nature is a source of inspiration for computational techniques which have been successfully applied to a wide variety of complex application domains. In keeping with this we examine Cell Signaling Networks (CSN) which are chemical
networks responsible for coordinating cell activities within their environment. Through evolution they have become highly efficient for governing critical control processes such as immunological responses, cell cycle control or homeostasis. Realising (and evolving) Artificial Cell Signaling Networks (ACSNs) may provide new computational paradigms for a variety of application areas. In this paper we introduce
an abstraction of Cell Signaling Networks focusing on four characteristic properties distinguished as follows: Computation, Evolution, Crosstalk and Robustness. These properties are also desirable for potential applications in the control systems, computation and signal processing field. These characteristics are used as a guide for the development of an ACSN evolutionary simulation platform. Following this we describe a novel class of Artificial Chemistry named Molecular Classifier Systems (MCS) to simulate ACSNs. The MCS can be regarded as a special purpose
derivation of Hollands Learning Classifier System (LCS). We propose an instance of the MCS called the MCS.b that extends the precursor of the LCS: the broadcast language. We believe the MCS.b can offer a general purpose tool that can assist
in the study of real CSNs in Silico The research we are currently involved in is part of the multi disciplinary European funded project, ESIGNET, with the central question of the study of the computational properties of CSNs by evolving them using methods from evolutionary computation, and to re-apply this understanding in developing new ways to model and predict real CSNs.
Metadata
Item Type:
Book Section
Refereed:
Yes
Additional Information:
The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com