Complex networks and simple models in biology

Dynamics of Voter Models on Simple and Complex Networks

How do groups of people come to consensus? While it’s hard to imagine a large group being able to agree on anything, there are some settings where unanimity is necessary—juries are one example. The voter model (VM) represents an idealization of this opinion evolution in which each individual, or agent, is influenced only by other members of the group; there is also no notion of a “right” or a “...

Simple Heuristics in Complex Networks: Models of Social Influence

The concept of heuristic decision making is adapted to dynamic influence processes in social networks. We report results of a set of simulations, in which we systematically varied: a) the agents' strategies for contacting fellow group members and integrating collected information, and (b) features of their social environment — the distribution of members' status, and the degree of clustering in...

Zephyr Lilies: Simple Beauty Belies Complex Biology

Predicting complex biology with simple chemistry.

O ne of the most important activities in science is the development of models, i.e., simpler representations, often by mathematical equations, of more complex systems, which capture key aspects of those systems. A model, of course, cannot be identical to its target system and must discard at least some of the features of the full system while focusing on those characteristics that the modeler c...

Systems Biology: unravelling complex networks?

In this paper we discuss the background and challenges inherent in analysing biological systems from a data driven perspective. We focus on networks arising in cell biology, which, from a mathematical viewpoint, can be studied with the tools of applied graph theory. In particular we discuss how taking a systems biology approach necessitates o the development of alternative, high level (top down...