A natural class of robust networks

(under construction)

Original entry: Ian Burgess, Fall 2009

References

M. Aldana, P. Cluzel, "A natural class of robust networks," PNAS 100, 8710-8714 (2003).

Summary

This article does not discuss a specific topic in soft-matter or biophysics, but rather provides a broader mathematical analysis of a specific class of dynamical systems that exists in many biological pathways and processes, and identifies dynamics that are universal to this type of system, thus having implications on the dynamics of many biological processes.

The type of system considered is what is called a scale-free network. A network in general is a collection of elements (genes, proteins etc.) whose interactions obey a certain set of rules in both how one element affects the other and which elements can interact. The toy-model network considered by the authors is that in which each element is a switch with an "on" and "off" state and the type of interaction considered is the induced switching of the state of the target element, conditional on the state of the control element. What is identified is a robust stability of specific