Searching for Rhythms in Asynchronous Random Boolean Networks
Ezequiel Alejandro Di Paolo · The MIT Press eBooks · 2000
Many interesting properties of Boolean networks, cellular automata, and other models of complex systems rely heavily on the use of synchronous updating of the individual elements. This has motivated some researchers to claim that, if the natural systems being modelled lack any clear evidence of synchronously driven elements, then asynchronous rules should be used by default. Given that standard asynchronous updating precludes the possibility of strictly cyclic attractors, does this mean that asynchronous Boolean networks, cellular automata, etc., are inherently bad choices at the time of modelling rhythmic phenomena ? In this paper we focus on this subsidiary issue for the case of Asynchronous Random Boolean Networks (ARBNs). We nd that it is rather simple to dene measures of pseudo-periodicity by using correlations between states and suciently relaxed statistical constraints. These measures can be used to guide an evolutionary search process to nd appropriate exam...