systems’ behavior under the influence of environmental factors
[10, 11].In particular, it allows representing such factors in the
form of space-dependent force fields, and making the agents
responsive to them by associating the force-fields with the proper-
ties of the spatial grid where the agents live and move. Some
obvious applications include temperature/pressure gradients,
chemical diffusion, electromagnetic/gravitational interactions, etc.1.2 MAS and System
Biology
Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) and Systems Biology (SB) in their
relatively recent history share a number of deep connections, both
from a theoretical perspective and in a more practical, applicative
dimension. It could not be different from that, since Systems
Biology too is based on the understanding that the whole is greater
than the sum of the parts and actually shares with MAS a holistic
approach to explore the biological complexity and to design pre-
dictive, multiscale models. Thus, once again Complexity is the most
significant, pregnant, and meaningful keyword characterizing the
problems of interest for both MAS and System Biology.
Having stressed that, however, it is difficult to overemphasize
the tenet that both are concerned with networks. As a matter of
fact, the mutual relationships between agents in MAS find an
immediate operational representation in the network’s links. The
semantics of words likenetworkandsystem, on the other hand,
directly refers to an ensemble of (even nonlinearly) interacting
elements.
Finally, it is quite interesting that the following citations from
ISB [12]:
“....our bodies are made up of many networks that are integrated and
communicating on multiple scales.....” and “...Systems biology looks at
these (biological) networks across scales to integrate behaviors at different levels,
to formulate hypotheses for biological function and to provide spatial and
temporal insights into dynamical biological changes....”seem to reflect exactly the most demanding and exciting ambition
of MAS.2 The Influence of External Force-Fields
In our own experience we could appreciate the advantage of using
MAS-based simulations particularly in the study of:- Shape changes induced by force fields in cell populations
in vitro. - Synchronous activation of brain neurons.
In all the cases reproducing the observed time-dependent
trends provided qualitative, precious hints to work out solid mech-
anistic hypotheses.Multi-agent Simulations of Population Behavior... 309