AuthorWฤgrzyn, Stefan. author
TitleDevelopmental System [electronic resource] : At the Crossroads of System Theory, Computer Science, and Genetic Engineering / by Stefan Wฤgrzyn, Jean-Charles Gille, Pierre Vidal
ImprintNew York, NY : Springer New York, 1990
Connect tohttp://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3438-8
Descript VII, 120 p. online resource

SUMMARY

Many facts were at the origin of the present monograph. The ftrst is the beauty of maple leaves in Quebec forests in Fall. It raised the question: how does nature create and reproduce such beautiful patterns? The second was the reading of A. Lindenmayer's works on L systems. Finally came the discovery of "the secrets of DNA" together with many stimulating exยญ changes with biologists. Looking at such facts from the viewpoint of recursive numerical systems led to devise a simple model based on six elementary operations organized in a generating word, the analog of the program of a computer and of the genetic code of DNA in the cells of a living organism. It turned out that such a model, despite its simplicity, can account for a great number of properties of living organisms, e.g. their hierarchical structure, their ability to regenerate after a trauma, the possibility of cloning, their sensitivity to mutation, their growth, decay and reproduction. The model lends itself to analysis: the knowledge of the generating word makes it possible to predict the structure of the successive developmental stages of the system; and to synthesis: a speciftc type of structure can be obtained by systematically constructing a generating word that produces it. In fact the model here proposed is coherent with the fundamental assumptions of cellular biology and in particular with recent discoveries concerning DNA, which in the light of our model behaves like a very elaborate generating word


CONTENT

1 Proem: The model -- 1.1 General -- 1.2 Introductory examples -- 1.3 General definition -- References -- 2 Synchronous developmental systems without feedback -- 2.1 Generating word and system development: analysis and synthesis -- 2.2 Structural properties -- 2.3 Quantitative growth -- References -- 3 Synchronous developmental systems with feedback -- 3.1 General -- 3.2 Analysis and synthesis -- 3.3 Structural properties -- 3.4 Quantitative growth -- References -- 4 Developmental systems with operating system -- 4.1 General -- 4.2 Sensitivity to external context -- 4.3 Sensitivity to internal context -- 4.4 Dwindling and regrowth -- 4.5 Multilevel development -- 4.6 On global operating systems -- 4.7 Conclusion -- References -- Other Books by the Same Authors


SUBJECT

  1. Mathematics
  2. Science
  3. Cell biology
  4. System theory
  5. Applied mathematics
  6. Engineering mathematics
  7. Control engineering
  8. Robotics
  9. Mechatronics
  10. Electrical engineering
  11. Mathematics
  12. Systems Theory
  13. Control
  14. Science
  15. general
  16. Electrical Engineering
  17. Appl.Mathematics/Computational Methods of Engineering
  18. Control
  19. Robotics
  20. Mechatronics
  21. Cell Biology