Related papers: Formation and Destruction of Autocatalytic Sets in…
A model of $s$ interacting species is considered with two types of dynamical variables. The fast variables are the populations of the species and slow variables the links of a directed graph that defines the catalytic interactions among…
Evolution produces complex and structured networks of interacting components in chemical, biological, and social systems. We describe a simple mathematical model for the evolution of an idealized chemical system to study how a network of…
We consider the population dynamics of a set of species whose network of catalytic interactions is described by a directed graph. The relationship between the attractors of this dynamics and the underlying graph theoretic structures like…
A model of an evolving network of interacting molecular species is shown to exhibit repeated rounds of crashes in which several species get rapidly depopulated, followed by recoveries. The network inevitably self-organizes into an…
The evolution of autocatalytic sets (ACS) is a widespread process in biological, chemical and ecological systems which is of great significance in many applications, such as the evolution of new species or complex chemical organizations. In…
We give a self-contained introduction to the theory of directed graphs, leading up to the relationship between the Perron-Frobenius eigenvectors of a graph and its autocatalytic sets. Then we discuss a particular dynamical system on a fixed…
Over the last years, analyses performed on a stochastic model of catalytic reaction networks have provided some indications about the reasons why wet-lab experiments hardly ever comply with the phase transition typically predicted by…
Autocatalytic Sets are reaction networks theorised as networks at the basis of life. Their main feature is the ability of spontaneously emerging and self-reproducing. The Reflexively and Food-generated theory provides a formal definition of…
In this thesis we present a mathematical model describing the population dynamics of molecules in an artificial chemistry where large molecules can be produced by successive ligation of pairs of smaller molecules. The chemistry contains a…
The concept of (auto)catalytic systems has become a cornerstone in understanding evolutionary processes in various fields. The common ground is the observation that for the production of new species/goods/ideas/elements etc. the…
Background: Autocatalytic sets are often considered a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the origin and early evolution of life. Although the idea of autocatalytic sets was already conceived of many years ago, only recently have…
Autocatalytic sets are sets of entities that mutually catalyse each other's production through chemical reactions from a basic food source. Recently, the reflexively autocatalytic and food generated theory has introduced a formal definition…
We analyze a model of interacting agents (e.g. prebiotic chemical species) which are represended by nodes of a network, whereas their interactions are mapped onto directed links between these nodes. On a fast time scale, each agent follows…
The emergence of self-sustaining autocatalytic networks in chemical reaction systems has been studied as a possible mechanism for modelling how living systems first arose. It has been known for several decades that such networks will form…
We study a family of networks of autocatalytic reactions, which we call hyperchains, that are a generalization of hypercycles. Hyperchains, and the associated dynamical system called replicator equations, are a possible mechanism for…
We study a model for the evolution of chemical species under a combination of population dynamics on a short time scale and a selection mechanism on a longer time scale. Least fit nodes are replaced by new nodes whose links are attached to…
Real-world networks grow over time; statistical models based on node exchangeability are not appropriate. Instead of constraining the structure of the \textit{distribution} of edges, we propose that the relevant symmetries refer to the…
Many decision-making algorithms draw inspiration from the inner workings of individual biological systems. However, it remains unclear whether collective behavior among biological species can also lead to solutions for computational tasks.…
There has been a long debate on how new levels of organization have evolved. It might seem unlikely, as cooperation must prevail over competition. One well-studied example is the emergence of autocatalytic sets, which seem to be a…
All living systems -- from the origin of life to modern cells -- rely on a set of biochemical reactions that are simultaneously self-sustaining and autocatalytic. This notion of an autocatalytic set has been formalized graph-theoretically…