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Autocatalytic Set
An autocatalytic set is a collection of entities, each of which can be created catalytically by other entities within the set, such that as a whole, the set is able to catalyze its own production. In this way the set ''as a whole'' is said to be autocatalytic. Autocatalytic sets were originally and most concretely defined in terms of molecular entities, but have more recently been metaphorically extended to the study of systems in sociology, ecology, and economics. Autocatalytic sets also have the ability to replicate themselves if they are split apart into two physically separated spaces. Computer models illustrate that split autocatalytic sets will reproduce all of the reactions of the original set in each half, much like cellular mitosis. In effect, using the principles of autocatalysis, a small metabolism can replicate itself with very little high level organization. This property is why autocatalysis is a contender as the foundational mechanism for complex evolution. Pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catalysis
Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recycles quickly, very small amounts of catalyst often suffice; mixing, surface area, and temperature are important factors in reaction rate. Catalysts generally react with one or more reactants to form intermediates that subsequently give the final reaction product, in the process of regenerating the catalyst. Catalysis may be classified as either homogeneous, whose components are dispersed in the same phase (usually gaseous or liquid) as the reactant, or heterogeneous, whose components are not in the same phase. Enzymes and other biocatalysts are often considered as a third category. Catalysis is ubiquitous in chemical industry of all kinds. Estimates are that 90% of all commercially produced chemical products involve catalysts at some s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stuart Kauffman
Stuart Alan Kauffman (born September 28, 1939) is an American medical doctor, theoretical biologist, and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. He was a professor at the University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Calgary. He is currently emeritus professor of biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania and affiliate faculty at the Institute for Systems Biology. He has a number of awards including a MacArthur Fellowship and a Wiener Medal. He is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection, as discussed in his book ''Origins of Order'' (1993). In 1967 and 1969 he used random Boolean networks to investigate generic self-organizing properties of gene regulatory networks, proposing that cell types are dynamical attractors in gene regulatory networks and that cell differentiation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chemoton
The term chemoton (short for 'chemical automaton') refers to an abstract model for the fundamental unit of life introduced by Hungarian theoretical biologist Tibor Gánti. Popular articles express surprise that Gánti's work is so little known. Gánti conceived the basic idea in 1952 and formulated the concept in 1971 in his book ''The Principles of Life'' (originally written in Hungarian, and translated to English only in 2003). He suggested that the chemoton was the original ancestor of all organisms. The basic assumption of the model is that life should fundamentally and essentially have three properties: metabolism, self-replication, and a bilipid membrane. The metabolic and replication functions together form an autocatalytic subsystem necessary for the basic functions of life, and a membrane encloses this subsystem to separate it from the surrounding environment. Therefore, any system having such properties may be regarded as alive, and it will be subjected to natural se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bootstrapping
In general, bootstrapping usually refers to a self-starting process that is supposed to continue or grow without external input. Etymology Tall boots may have a tab, loop or handle at the top known as a bootstrap, allowing one to use fingers or a boot hook tool to help pulling the boots on. The saying "to " was already in use during the 19th century as an example of an impossible task. The idiom dates at least to 1834, when it appeared in the ''Workingman's Advocate'': "It is conjectured that Mr. Murphee will now be enabled to hand himself over the Cumberland river or a barn yard fence by the straps of his boots."Jan FreemanBootstraps and Baron Munchausen ''Boston.com'', January 27, 2009 In 1860 it appeared in a comment on philosophy of mind: "The attempt of the mind to analyze itself san effort analogous to one who would lift himself by his own bootstraps." Bootstrap as a metaphor, meaning to better oneself by one's own unaided efforts, was in use in 1922. This metaphor s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-hosting (compilers)
In computer programming, self-hosting is the use of a program as part of the toolchain or operating system that produces new versions of that same program—for example, a compiler that can compile its own source code. Self-hosting software is commonplace on personal computers and larger systems. Other programs that are typically self-hosting include kernels, assemblers, command-line interpreters and revision control software. Operating systems An operating system is self-hosted when the toolchain to build the operating system runs on that OS. For example, Windows can be built on a computer running Windows. However, operating systems don't start out as self-hosted. When developing for a new computer or operating system, you need a system to run the development software, but you need development software to write the operating system. This is called a bootstrapping problem or, more generically, a chicken or the egg dilemma. A solution to this problem is the cross compiler (or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bootstrapping (compilers)
In computer science, bootstrapping is the technique for producing a self-compiling compiler – that is, a compiler (or assembler) written in the source programming language that it intends to compile. An initial core version of the compiler (the ''bootstrap compiler'') is generated in a different language (which could be assembly language); successive expanded versions of the compiler are developed using this minimal subset of the language. The problem of compiling a self-compiling compiler has been called the chicken-or-egg problem in compiler design, and bootstrapping is a solution to this problem. Many compilers for many programming languages are bootstrapped, including compilers for BASIC, ALGOL, C, C#, D, Pascal, PL/I, Haskell, Modula-2, Oberon, OCaml, Common Lisp, Scheme, Go, Java, Elixir, Rust, Python, Scala, Nim, Eiffel, TypeScript, Vala, Zig and more. Process A typical bootstrap process works in three or four stages: * Stage 0: preparing an environment for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-replication
Self-replication is any behavior of a dynamical system that yields construction of an identical or similar copy of itself. Biological cells, given suitable environments, reproduce by cell division. During cell division, DNA is replicated and can be transmitted to offspring during reproduction. Biological viruses can replicate, but only by commandeering the reproductive machinery of cells through a process of infection. Harmful prion proteins can replicate by converting normal proteins into rogue forms. Computer viruses reproduce using the hardware and software already present on computers. Self-replication in robotics has been an area of research and a subject of interest in science fiction. Any self-replicating mechanism which does not make a perfect copy (mutation) will experience genetic variation and will create variants of itself. These variants will be subject to natural selection, since some will be better at surviving in their current environment than others and will o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Von Neumann
John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time and was said to have been "the last representative of the great mathematicians who were equally at home in both pure and applied mathematics". He integrated pure and applied sciences. Von Neumann made major contributions to many fields, including mathematics (foundations of mathematics, measure theory, functional analysis, ergodic theory, group theory, lattice theory, representation theory, operator algebras, matrix theory, geometry, and numerical analysis), physics (quantum mechanics, hydrodynamics, ballistics, nuclear physics and quantum statistical mechanics), economics ( game theory and general equilibrium theory), computing ( Von Neumann architecture, linear programming, numerical meteo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Von Neumann Universal Constructor
John von Neumann's universal constructor is a self-replicating machine in a cellular automaton (CA) environment. It was designed in the 1940s, without the use of a computer. The fundamental details of the machine were published in von Neumann's book ''Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata'', completed in 1966 by Arthur W. Burks after von Neumann's death. While typically not as well known as von Neumann's other work, it is regarded as foundational for automata theory, complex systems, and artificial life. Indeed, Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner considered Von Neumann's work on self-reproducing automata (together with Turing's work on computing machines) central to biological theory as well, allowing us to "discipline our thoughts about machines, both natural and artificial." Von Neumann's goal, as specified in his lectures at the University of Illinois in 1949, was to design a machine whose complexity could grow automatically akin to biological organisms under natural selection. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artificial Chemistry
An artificial chemistryW. Banzhaf and L. YamamotoArtificial Chemistries MIT Press, 2015. P. DittrichArtificial chemistry (AC)In A. R. Meyers (ed.), Computational Complexity: Theory, Techniques, and Applications, pp. 185-203, Springer, 2012.P. Dittrich, J. Ziegler, and W. Banzhaf.Artificial chemistries — A review Artificial Life, 7(3):225–275, 2001. is a chemical-like system that usually consists of objects, called molecules, that interact according to rules resembling chemical reaction rules. Artificial chemistries are created and studied in order to understand fundamental properties of chemical systems, including prebiotic evolution, as well as for developing chemical computing systems. Artificial chemistry is a field within computer science wherein chemical reactions—often biochemical ones—are computer-simulated, yielding insights on evolution, self-assembly, and other biochemical phenomena. The field does not use actual chemicals, and should not be confused with either syn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polymer
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic and natural polymers play essential and ubiquitous roles in everyday life. Polymers range from familiar synthetic plastics such as polystyrene to natural biopolymers such as DNA and proteins that are fundamental to biological structure and function. Polymers, both natural and synthetic, are created via polymerization of many small molecules, known as monomers. Their consequently large molecular mass, relative to small molecule compounds, produces unique physical properties including toughness, high elasticity, viscoelasticity, and a tendency to form amorphous and semicrystalline structures rather than crystals. The term "polymer" derives from the Greek word πολύς (''polus'', meaning "many, much") and μέρος (''meros'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closure (mathematics)
In mathematics, a subset of a given set is closed under an operation of the larger set if performing that operation on members of the subset always produces a member of that subset. For example, the natural numbers are closed under addition, but not under subtraction: is not a natural number, although both 1 and 2 are. Similarly, a subset is said to be closed under a ''collection'' of operations if it is closed under each of the operations individually. The closure of a subset is the result of a closure operator applied to the subset. The ''closure'' of a subset under some operations is the smallest subset that is closed under these operations. It is often called the ''span'' (for example linear span) or the ''generated set''. Definitions Let be a set equipped with one or several methods for producing elements of from other elements of . Operations and (partial) multivariate function are examples of such methods. If is a topological space, the limit of a sequence of element ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
