Agent-oriented modeling of the dynamics of biological organisms

Abstract

In this paper, the agent-oriented modeling perspective to cope with biological complexity is discussed. Three levels of dynamics can distinguished and related to each other: dynamics of externally observable agent behavior, dynamics of internal agent processes, and dynamics of multi-agent organisations. This paper addresses the first two. Basic agent concepts to describe externally observable agent behavior are introduced. In the context of two case studies on animal behavior and cell functioning, it is shown how these concepts can be used to specify dynamic properties. In addition, a number of basic agent concepts to describe an agent's internal processes are introduced. Also, these concepts are illustrated for specification of dynamic properties in the two case studies. Furthermore, the relationships between dynamic properties of externally observable behavior and dynamic properties of internal agent processes are addressed and illustrated for the animal and cell case studies.

On the use of organisation modelling techniques to address biological organisation

“…By using multi-agent organisation modelling techniques for analysis and simulation, the inherent complexity of the dynamics of multiple interacting processes within a society can be made manageable by choosing the right level of abstraction in describing them. As also discussed in [21], many phenomena in nature (or in the laboratory) have the same characteristic: they also involve complex dynamics of multiple distributed processes and their interaction. Therefore, a natural question is whether a multi-agent-organisation modelling perspective is promising for this domain of biological complexity.…”