144,890 research outputs found
The impact of cellular characteristics on the evolution of shape homeostasis
The importance of individual cells in a developing multicellular organism is
well known but precisely how the individual cellular characteristics of those
cells collectively drive the emergence of robust, homeostatic structures is
less well understood. For example cell communication via a diffusible factor
allows for information to travel across large distances within the population,
and cell polarisation makes it possible to form structures with a particular
orientation, but how do these processes interact to produce a more robust and
regulated structure? In this study we investigate the ability of cells with
different cellular characteristics to grow and maintain homeostatic structures.
We do this in the context of an individual-based model where cell behaviour is
driven by an intra-cellular network that determines the cell phenotype. More
precisely, we investigated evolution with 96 different permutations of our
model, where cell motility, cell death, long-range growth factor (LGF),
short-range growth factor (SGF) and cell polarisation were either present or
absent. The results show that LGF has the largest positive impact on the
fitness of the evolved solutions. SGF and polarisation also contribute, but all
other capabilities essentially increase the search space, effectively making it
more difficult to achieve a solution. By perturbing the evolved solutions, we
found that they are highly robust to both mutations and wounding. In addition,
we observed that by evolving solutions in more unstable environments they
produce structures that were more robust and adaptive. In conclusion, our
results suggest that robust collective behaviour is most likely to evolve when
cells are endowed with long range communication, cell polarisation, and
selection pressure from an unstable environment
Complex Networks from Simple Rewrite Systems
Complex networks are all around us, and they can be generated by simple
mechanisms. Understanding what kinds of networks can be produced by following
simple rules is therefore of great importance. We investigate this issue by
studying the dynamics of extremely simple systems where are `writer' moves
around a network, and modifies it in a way that depends upon the writer's
surroundings. Each vertex in the network has three edges incident upon it,
which are colored red, blue and green. This edge coloring is done to provide a
way for the writer to orient its movement. We explore the dynamics of a space
of 3888 of these `colored trinet automata' systems. We find a large variety of
behaviour, ranging from the very simple to the very complex. We also discover
simple rules that generate forms which are remarkably similar to a wide range
of natural objects. We study our systems using simulations (with appropriate
visualization techniques) and analyze selected rules mathematically. We arrive
at an empirical classification scheme which reveals a lot about the kinds of
dynamics and networks that can be generated by these systems
Evolving Ensemble Fuzzy Classifier
The concept of ensemble learning offers a promising avenue in learning from
data streams under complex environments because it addresses the bias and
variance dilemma better than its single model counterpart and features a
reconfigurable structure, which is well suited to the given context. While
various extensions of ensemble learning for mining non-stationary data streams
can be found in the literature, most of them are crafted under a static base
classifier and revisits preceding samples in the sliding window for a
retraining step. This feature causes computationally prohibitive complexity and
is not flexible enough to cope with rapidly changing environments. Their
complexities are often demanding because it involves a large collection of
offline classifiers due to the absence of structural complexities reduction
mechanisms and lack of an online feature selection mechanism. A novel evolving
ensemble classifier, namely Parsimonious Ensemble pENsemble, is proposed in
this paper. pENsemble differs from existing architectures in the fact that it
is built upon an evolving classifier from data streams, termed Parsimonious
Classifier pClass. pENsemble is equipped by an ensemble pruning mechanism,
which estimates a localized generalization error of a base classifier. A
dynamic online feature selection scenario is integrated into the pENsemble.
This method allows for dynamic selection and deselection of input features on
the fly. pENsemble adopts a dynamic ensemble structure to output a final
classification decision where it features a novel drift detection scenario to
grow the ensemble structure. The efficacy of the pENsemble has been numerically
demonstrated through rigorous numerical studies with dynamic and evolving data
streams where it delivers the most encouraging performance in attaining a
tradeoff between accuracy and complexity.Comment: this paper has been published by IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy System
An Incremental Construction of Deep Neuro Fuzzy System for Continual Learning of Non-stationary Data Streams
Existing FNNs are mostly developed under a shallow network configuration
having lower generalization power than those of deep structures. This paper
proposes a novel self-organizing deep FNN, namely DEVFNN. Fuzzy rules can be
automatically extracted from data streams or removed if they play limited role
during their lifespan. The structure of the network can be deepened on demand
by stacking additional layers using a drift detection method which not only
detects the covariate drift, variations of input space, but also accurately
identifies the real drift, dynamic changes of both feature space and target
space. DEVFNN is developed under the stacked generalization principle via the
feature augmentation concept where a recently developed algorithm, namely
gClass, drives the hidden layer. It is equipped by an automatic feature
selection method which controls activation and deactivation of input attributes
to induce varying subsets of input features. A deep network simplification
procedure is put forward using the concept of hidden layer merging to prevent
uncontrollable growth of dimensionality of input space due to the nature of
feature augmentation approach in building a deep network structure. DEVFNN
works in the sample-wise fashion and is compatible for data stream
applications. The efficacy of DEVFNN has been thoroughly evaluated using seven
datasets with non-stationary properties under the prequential test-then-train
protocol. It has been compared with four popular continual learning algorithms
and its shallow counterpart where DEVFNN demonstrates improvement of
classification accuracy. Moreover, it is also shown that the concept drift
detection method is an effective tool to control the depth of network structure
while the hidden layer merging scenario is capable of simplifying the network
complexity of a deep network with negligible compromise of generalization
performance.Comment: This paper has been published in IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy System
Dynamics of directed graphs: the world-wide Web
We introduce and simulate a growth model of the world-wide Web based on the
dynamics of outgoing links that is motivated by the conduct of the agents in
the real Web to update outgoing links (re)directing them towards constantly
changing selected nodes. Emergent statistical correlation between the
distributions of outgoing and incoming links is a key feature of the dynamics
of the Web. The growth phase is characterized by temporal fractal structures
which are manifested in the hierarchical organization of links. We obtain
quantitative agreement with the recent empirical data in the real Web for the
distributions of in- and out-links and for the size of connected component. In
a fully grown network of nodes we study the structure of connected clusters
of nodes that are accessible along outgoing links from a randomly selected
node. The distributions of size and depth of the connected clusters with a
giant component exhibit supercritical behavior. By decreasing the control
parameter---average fraction of updated and added links per time
step---towards the Web can resume a critical structure with
no giant component in it. We find a different universality class when the
updates of links are not allowed, i.e., for , corresponding to
the network of science citations.Comment: Revtex, 4 PostScript figures, small changes in the tex
Born to learn: The inspiration, progress, and future of evolved plastic artificial neural networks
Biological plastic neural networks are systems of extraordinary computational
capabilities shaped by evolution, development, and lifetime learning. The
interplay of these elements leads to the emergence of adaptive behavior and
intelligence. Inspired by such intricate natural phenomena, Evolved Plastic
Artificial Neural Networks (EPANNs) use simulated evolution in-silico to breed
plastic neural networks with a large variety of dynamics, architectures, and
plasticity rules: these artificial systems are composed of inputs, outputs, and
plastic components that change in response to experiences in an environment.
These systems may autonomously discover novel adaptive algorithms, and lead to
hypotheses on the emergence of biological adaptation. EPANNs have seen
considerable progress over the last two decades. Current scientific and
technological advances in artificial neural networks are now setting the
conditions for radically new approaches and results. In particular, the
limitations of hand-designed networks could be overcome by more flexible and
innovative solutions. This paper brings together a variety of inspiring ideas
that define the field of EPANNs. The main methods and results are reviewed.
Finally, new opportunities and developments are presented
Applications of Biological Cell Models in Robotics
In this paper I present some of the most representative biological models
applied to robotics. In particular, this work represents a survey of some
models inspired, or making use of concepts, by gene regulatory networks (GRNs):
these networks describe the complex interactions that affect gene expression
and, consequently, cell behaviour
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