Adaptivity Modeling for Complex Adaptive Systems with

Application to Biology
Donghang Guo, Eunice E. Santos, Ankit Singhal, Eugene Santos, Jr., Qunhua Zhao

AbstractModeling or simulating Complex Adaptive Systems

(CASs) is a very important and challenging endeavor.
Previously, we introduced a generic framework for addressing
this problem, and included a number of critical criteria
including emergence, self-organization, adaptivity, and others.
In this paper, we present the methodology used for designing a
particularly key component of our framework: the short-term
adaptivity model. We test our short-term adaptivity model and
framework within the biological science application domain,
which have a number of critical CASs. In particular we model
the aggregation process of Dictyostelium. The comparison
between established biological experimental results and our
simulation results validate the effectiveness of our model and
framework.
Keywords: Complex Adaptive System (CAS), Multi-Agent
System (MAS), Short Term Adaptivity, Multicellular
Simulation, Dictyostelium

I. INTRODUCTION

Complex Adaptive System is any complex system

that involves a large number of interacting adaptive
parts. These systems have unique properties and are studied
across a wide range of disciplines. They model such items as
biological systems, ecosystems, social networks, and many
more. The term 'Complex System' is used to distinguish
systems from those that can be described by simple rules or
reduced to a simple level of explanation. The term 'Adaptive'
refers to the individual entities/parts ability to adapt to their
environment. One of the core properties of CASs is their
emergent behavior, i.e., a collective behavior arising from
interactions among parts [4]. Another unique property of
CASs is their ability to evolve into a specific structure/pattern
without guidance from outside sources. This evolving
process is referred to as self-organization [7]. These unique
properties make CAS modeling/simulation challenging, not
only because of the high complexity, but because of the
difficulty in the abstraction process needed for well-defined
modeling and simulation.
At issue is the fact that many traditional approaches fall
short in the face of realistic CAS modeling/simulation,
especially in approaches that are generic and utilizable across
disciplines. For examples, Ordinary/Partial Differential
Equations (ODE/PDE) are reduction based approaches,
which view the system globally and typically ignore any
local processes and interactions. Classic Cellular Automata
(CA) approaches can model locality but is limited by its
uniform grid format and neighbor rules, which make it
D. Guo, E.E. Santos and A. Singhal are affiliated with the Department of Computer Science ,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061; e-mail:
{doguo,asinghal@vt.edu}, santos@cs.vt.edu.
E. Santos Jr. and Q. Zhao are affiliated with the Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth
College, Hanover, NH 03755; email: {Eugene.Santos.Jr, Qunhua.Zhao}@Dartmouth.edu.

1-4244-0991-8/07/$25.00/2007 IEEE

difficult to capture the heterogeneity of the local processes.

Multi-Agent System (MAS) provides a way to model the
local processes and interactions, and it is natural in handling
heterogeneity. While current MAS designs have not typically
incorporated CAS modeling/simulation issues, especially for
use generically across applications, MAS is an extensible
architecture that can be used to address issues in CAS
modeling and in which we have decided to incorporate
features for CASs.
Clearly, CASs are inherent problems that occur throughout
the sciences and engineering, therefore it is critical that
research should be done in developing an effective generic
framework for CAS modeling/simulation. As such, in a
previous paper [1], we gave a coarse description of an
agent-based generic CAS framework. The framework
spotlighted the major components without specifying their
design procedures.
This paper serves to introduce
methodologies for adaptivity, especially the short term
adaptivity model, which is a key component in the
framework. It also provides validation of the framework and
model through application to computational biology, in
particular to multicellular simulation for Dictyostelium,
which is a model organism that is used to study the process of
multicellular development.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2
discusses the philosophies and core features in CAS
modeling/simulation. Section 3 briefly reviews our
agent-based framework. Section 4 presents the
methodologies used for the short term adaptivity model.
Section 5 validates the system using a biological test bed.
Concluding remarks, a summary of the paper, and future
work are presented in Section 6.
II. BACKGROUND
This section provides necessary background knowledge by
discussing the modeling philosophies and the unique
properties that must be addressed in realistic and utilizable
CAS modeling/simulation. Through the process, we compare
and contrast different modeling approaches, and present our
analysis on how to model adaptive behaviors. These insights
and analysis lead to the basis of our simulation framework
and the adaptive agent model detailed in the later sections.
A. Emergentism vs. Reductionism
High complexity is the first obstacle to a computational
model for CAS. Clearly there can potentially be a number of
different ways to deal with high complexity. In fact, there are
two philosophies in approaches: Reductionism and
Emergentism.

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