April 30, 2006
The co-evolution of network topology and dynamics is studied in an evolutionary Boolean network model that is a simple model of gene regulatory network. We find that a critical state emerges spontaneously resulting from interplay between topology and dynamics during the evolution. The final evolved state is shown to be independent of initial conditions. The network appears to be driven to a random Boolean network with uniform in-degree of two in the large network limit. Howev...
August 20, 2007
We study the intrinsic properties of attractors in the Boolean dynamics in complex network with scale-free topology, comparing with those of the so-called random Kauffman networks. We have numerically investigated the frozen and relevant nodes for each attractor, and the robustness of the attractors to the perturbation that flips the state of a single node of attractors in the relatively small network ($N=30 \sim 200$). It is shown that the rate of frozen nodes in the complex...
April 26, 2002
This paper reviews a class of generic dissipative dynamical systems called N-K models. In these models, the dynamics of N elements, defined as Boolean variables, develop step by step, clocked by a discrete time variable. Each of the N Boolean elements at a given time is given a value which depends upon K elements in the previous time step. We review the work of many authors on the behavior of the models, looking particularly at the structure and lengths of their cycles, the...
March 7, 2012
Fixed points are fundamental states in any dynamical system. In the case of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) they correspond to stable genes profiles associated to the various cell types. We use Kauffman's approach to model GRNs with random Boolean networks (RBNs). We start this paper by proving that, if we fix the values of the source nodes (nodes with in-degree 0), the expected number of fixed points of any RBN is one (independently of the topology we choose). For finding su...
June 20, 2006
Random Boolean networks were introduced in 1969 by Kauffman as a model for gene regulation. By combining analytical arguments and efficient numerical simulations, we evaluate the properties of relevant components of critical random Boolean networks independently of update scheme. As known from previous work, the number of relevant components grows logarithmically with network size. We find that in most networks all relevant nodes with more than one relevant input sit in the s...
February 6, 2012
We study the critical behavior of Boolean variables on scale-free networks with competing interactions (Ising spin glasses). Our analytical results for the disorder-network-decay-exponent phase diagram are verified using Monte Carlo simulations. When the probability of positive (ferromagnetic) and negative (antiferromagnetic) interactions is the same, the system undergoes a finite-temperature spin-glass transition if the exponent that describes the decay of the interaction de...
October 19, 2001
A model of cellular metabolism due to S. Kauffman is analyzed. It consists of a network of Boolean gates randomly assembled according to a probability distribution. It is shown that the behavior of the network depends very critically on certain simple algebraic parameters of the distribution. In some cases, the analytic results support conclusions based on simulations of random Boolean networks, but in other cases, they do not.
September 25, 2002
The dynamics of Boolean networks (the N-K model) with scale-free topology are studied here. The existence of a phase transition governed by the value of the scale-free exponent of the network is shown analytically by analyzing the overlap between two distinct trajectories. The phase diagram shows that the phase transition occurs for values of the scale-free exponent in the open interval (2,2.5). Since the Boolean networks under study are directed graphs, the scale-free topolo...
January 29, 2013
We evaluate analytically and numerically the size of the frozen core and various scaling laws for critical Boolean networks that have a power-law in- and/or out-degree distribution. To this purpose, we generalize an efficient method that has previously been used for conventional random Boolean networks and for networks with power-law in-degree distributions. With this generalization, we can also deal with power-law out-degree distributions. When the power-law exponent is betw...
December 12, 2002
Random Boolean networks, originally invented as models of genetic regulatory networks, are simple models for a broad class of complex systems that show rich dynamical structures. From a biological perspective, the most interesting networks lie at or near a critical point in parameter space that divides ``ordered'' from ``chaotic'' attractor dynamics. In the ordered regime, we show rigorously that the average number of relevant nodes (the ones that determine the attractor dyna...