Journal of Computer Science & Systems Biology

Kirk Dombrowski

Publications

• Research Article
  Attractor-Based Obstructions to Growth in Homogeneous Cyclic Boolean Automata
  Author(s): Bilal Khan, Yuri Cantor and Kirk DombrowskiBilal Khan, Yuri Cantor and Kirk Dombrowski
  
  We consider a synchronous Boolean organism consisting of N cells arranged in a circle, where each cell initially takes on an independently chosen Boolean value. During the lifetime of the organism, each cell updates its own value by responding to the presence (or absence) of diversity amongst its two neighbours’ values. We show that if all cells eventually take a value of 0 (irrespective of their initial values) then the organism necessarily has a cell count that is a power of 2. In addition, the converse is also proved: if the number of cells in the organism is a proper power of 2, then no matter what the initial values of the cells are, eventually all cells take on a value of 0 and then cease to change further. We argue that such an absence of structure in the dynamical properties of the organism implies a lack of adaptiveness, and so is evolutionarily disadvantageous. It foll.. Read More»
  

  Abstract PDF