Large-Scale Simulations for Complex Adaptive Systems with Application to Biological Domains

Modeling or simulating Complex Adaptive Systems (CASs) is both important and challenging. As the name suggests, CASs are systems consisting of large numbers of interacting adaptive compartments. They are studied across a wide range of disciplines and have unique properties. They model such systems as multicellular organisms, ecosystems, social networks, and many more. They are complex, in the sense that they are dynamical, nonlinear, and heterogeneous systems that cannot be simply scaled up/down. However, they are self-organized, in the sense that they can evolve into specific structures/patterns without guidance from outside sources. Modeling/Simulating CASs is challenging, not only because of the high complexity, but also because of the difficulty in explaining the underlying mechanism behind self-organization. The goal of this research is to provide a modeling framework as well as a simulation platform to advance the study of CASs. We argue that there are common principles behind self-organization processes of different systems across different domains. We explore, analyze, and perform experiments into these principles. We propose and implement modeling templates such as short-term and long-term adaptivity. We incorporate techniques from systems theory, employing computing paradigms, including multi-agent system and asynchronous message passing. We also consider an application from the biological domain to model and simulate under our framework, treating it as a CAS for validation purposes.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science

Department dc:contributor.department

Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Guo, Donghang

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Santos, Eunice E.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Santos, Eugene Jr.
• Arthur, James D.
• Ribbens, Calvin J.
• Lin, Tao

• Adaptivity
• Self-Organization
• Multi-Agent System
• Complex Adaptive System
• Dictyostelium Discoideum
• Interaction

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-03092008-221211

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/26403