Aspects of multiscale modelling in a process algebra for biological systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a modified process algebra tailored for multiscale biological system modeling, accounting for different action durations and concurrent activities across scales.

Contribution

It presents a new variant of CCS with features and semantics specifically designed for multiscale biological systems, including behavioral equivalences.

Findings

The algebra models actions with varying durations across scales.

It supports concurrent actions at different levels.

Examples demonstrate the algebra's applicability.

Abstract

We propose a variant of the CCS process algebra with new features aiming at allowing multiscale modelling of biological systems. In the usual semantics of process algebras for modelling biological systems actions are instantaneous. When different scale levels of biological systems are considered in a single model, one should take into account that actions at a level may take much more time than actions at a lower level. Moreover, it might happen that while a component is involved in one long lasting high level action, it is involved also in several faster lower level actions. Hence, we propose a process algebra with operations and with a semantics aimed at dealing with these aspects of multiscale modelling. We study behavioural equivalences for such an algebra and give some examples.