Modelling morphogenesis as an amorphous computation

This thesis presents a programming-language viewpoint for morphogenesis, the process of shape formation during embryological development. We model morphogenesis as a self-organizing, self-repairing amorphous computation and describe how we can program large-scale shape formation by giving local instructions to cell-like objects. Our goal is to simulate systems that display properties, like robustness, regeneration, and evolvability, that are present in biological systems but ordinarily not present in computer systems. Consistent with the theory of facilitated variation from evolutionary biology, we find that many of these properties can be introduced and conserved by a hierarchical organization of growth specification.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Bhattacharyya, Arnab

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Gerald J. Sussman.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36794

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/36794