Complex Adaptive Systems Approach for Investigating Genetic Epistasis
Thomas Goth · Digital Commons - Colby (Colby College) · 2007
This project focuses on developing a novel approach for finding patterns in complex data. Specifically, the computational approach used is a complex adaptive system (CAS), which models complex phenomena as the emergent result of simple interacting components. The focus of the work is to develop a system to study epistasis, the non-linear interactions among genes. The research goals for this project were first to design and implement a complex adaptive system and to learn firsthand about this approach. Second, my goal was to explore the use of this system for investigating genetic epistasis (non-linear interactions among genes) and to apply the system to a specific genetic data set. Both parts of my research need significant explanation and justification, which will be the topic of the next three chapters. For now I will briefly outline this paper.