AUTOMATA - Invited Speakers
Bastien Chopard
University of Geneva
Determination of platelets properties in blood: combining discrete numerical models with experiments.
Platelets are small blood particles that play a fundamental role in various physiological processes such as, for instance, the formation of clots that prevent bleeding. Their successful action depends on their adhesion and aggregation capabilities, as well as their transport properties in blood, that is their presence at a vessel wall. Their movement is affected by the shape and deformability of red blood cells within the blood flow, making an accurate description of platelets transport very challenging. Currently, medical devices aimed at the determination of platelets function often fail to detect dysfunction. In this talk we will show how discrete numerical models, high performance computing and in vitro observations can be combined to better characterize platelets properties and suggest the design of new medical devices for testing them.
Stefan Haar
INRIA Saclay
Searching for Attractors : To infinity and beyond
Discrete and nondeterministic modelling of regulatory and signalling networks allows to characterize many of their crucial dynamical properties, with a reasonable computational effort. A dynamical feature of particular interest in its own right, as well as in terms of biological relevance, is the landscape of attractors and their attraction basins. In recent years, we have developped new approaches to discovery and global cartography of this basin landscape. We enlarge the set of models used, by moving to Petri nets on the one hand and an opening to continuous dynamics on the other. Surprisingly, these openings are rewarded not only by a sharpening of the analysis, but also the emergence of compact and readable data structures, and fast search algorithms. The talk will advocate the cross-fertilization between discrete and continuous approaches, and to not be afraid of pushing limits.
Irène Marcovici
Université de Rouen Normandie
Cellular automata and percolation: an overview of selected connections
Cellular automata and percolation theory have been mutually enriching for some time now. Percolation theory studies the connectivity properties of random subgraphs of a regular network, and provides tools for studying the evolution of some cellular automata from random configurations, or the behaviour of probabilistic cellular automata. Conversely, the theory of cellular automata provides new insights into some percolation properties, and raises many questions. The talk will present some well-known connections between cellular automata and percolation, together with two recent developments: the study of a percolation game and that of cellular automata with circular neighbourhoods.
Barbara Wolnik
University of Gdańsk
Number conservation of cellular automata: some open questions
Number-conserving cellular automata are a specific class of cellular automata where the total sum of states of all cells remains unchanged through every update of the system. Such cellular automata have a beautiful interpretation as a model of a system of particles moving inside a fixed grid (assuming that the particles can neither appear nor disappear). For this reason, they are a very graceful object for study: any theoretical result can usually be expressed in terms of the interactions between the particles. The intention of the talk is to take a tour of selected results about number-conserving cellular automata, particularly those that unexpectedly provided more questions than answers.
