Using shape theory and the concept of cellularity, we show that if A is the
global attractor associated with a dissipative partial differential equation in
a real Hilbert space H and the set A−A has finite Assouad dimension d,
then there is an ordinary differential equation in Rm+1, with m>d, that has unique solutions and reproduces the dynamics on A. Moreover,
the dynamical system generated by this new ordinary differential equation has a
global attractor X arbitrarily close to LA, where L is a homeomorphism
from A into Rm+1