Bonifaci Vincenzo
Istituto di Analisi dei Sistemi ed Informatica, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Rome, Italy.
J Math Biol. 2017 Feb;74(3):567-581. doi: 10.1007/s00285-016-1036-y. Epub 2016 Jun 11.
Optimization of fluid transport in the slime mold Physarum polycephalum has been the subject of several modeling efforts in recent literature. Existing models assume that the tube adaptation mechanism in P. polycephalum's tubular network is controlled by the sheer amount of fluid flow through the tubes. We put forward the hypothesis that the controlling variable may instead be the flow's pressure gradient along the tube. We carry out the stability analysis of such a revised mathematical model for a parallel-edge network, proving that the revised model supports the global flow-optimizing behavior of the slime mold for a substantially wider class of response functions compared to previous models. Simulations also suggest that the same conclusion may be valid for arbitrary network topologies.
黏液菌多头绒泡菌中流体运输的优化一直是近期文献中多项建模研究的主题。现有模型假定，多头绒泡菌管状网络中的管道适应机制由流经管道的流体流量总量控制。我们提出假说，认为控制变量可能是沿管道的流体压力梯度。我们对平行边网络的这种修正数学模型进行了稳定性分析，证明与先前模型相比，修正后的模型在实质上更广泛的响应函数类别中支持黏液菌的全局流量优化行为。模拟还表明，相同结论可能适用于任意网络拓扑结构。
