"Epigenetic Tracking" is the name of a model of cellular development that,
coupled with an evolutionary technique, becomes an evo-devo (or "artificial
embryology", or "computational development") method to generate 2d or 3d sets
of artificial cells arbitrarily shaped. 'In silico' experiments have proved the
effectiveness of the method in devo-evolving any kind of shape, of any
complexity (in terms of number of cells, number of colours, etc.); being shape
complexity a metaphor for organismal complexity, such simulations established
its potential to generate the complexity typical of biological systems.
Moreover, it has also been shown how the underlying model of cellular
development is able to produce the artificial version of key biological
phenomena such as embryogenesis, the presence of "junk DNA", the phenomenon of
ageing and the process of carcinogenesis. The objective of this document is not
to provide new material (most of the material presented here has already been
published elsewhere): rather, it is to provide all details that, for lack of
space, could not be provided in the published papers and in particular to give
all technical details necessary to re-implement the method.Comment: 26 pages, 20 figure