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Virginia Tech

Numerical Methods for the Chemical Master Equation

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

The chemical master equation, formulated on the Markov assumption of underlying chemical kinetics, offers an accurate stochastic description of general chemical reaction systems on the mesoscopic scale. The chemical master equation is especially useful when formulating mathematical models of gene regulatory networks and protein-protein interaction networks, where the numbers of molecules of most species are around tens or hundreds. However, solving the master equation directly suffers from the so called "curse of dimensionality" issue. This thesis first tries to study the numerical properties of the master equation using existing numerical methods and parallel machines. Next, approximation algorithms, namely the adaptive aggregation method and the radial basis function collocation method, are proposed as new paths to resolve the "curse of dimensionality". Several numerical results are presented to illustrate the promises and potential problems of these new algorithms. Comparisons with other numerical methods like Monte Carlo methods are also included. Development and analysis of the linear Shepard algorithm and its variants, all of which could be used for high dimensional scattered data interpolation problems, are also included here, as a candidate to help solve the master equation by building surrogate models in high dimensions.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Ph. D.
Level thesis:degree_level
doctoral
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Mathematics
Department dc:contributor.department
Mathematics
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2009

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Zhang, Jingwei
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Watson, Layne T.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Lin, Tao
  • Ribbens, Calvin J.
  • Herdman, Terry L.
  • Beattie, Christopher A.

Subjects

dc:subject × 9

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-12092009-143340
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/30018

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Zhang, Jingwei. Numerical Methods for the Chemical Master Equation. doctoral thesis, Virginia Tech, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/30018