Multiscale Modelling: A Mobile Membrane Approach

TL;DR

This paper explores how mobile membranes, inspired by biological processes, can be used to develop a unified multiscale modeling approach that effectively captures spatial and temporal interactions in biological systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multiscale coupling scheme using mobile membranes, extending membrane systems to better model biological multiscale phenomena.

Findings

Mobile membranes enable effective multiscale coupling.

The approach naturally incorporates spatial information.

It offers a unified framework for biological multiscale modeling.

Abstract

Nowadays, multiscale modelling is recognized as the most suitable way to study biological processes. Indeed, almost every phenomenon in nature exhibits a multiscale behaviour, i.e., it is the outcome of interactions that occur at different spatial and temporal scales. Although several ways to provide "multilayer" models have been proposed, only Complex Automata naturally embed spatial information and realize the multiscale approach with well-established inter-scale integration schemas. Recently, such approach has been restated in terms of Spatial P systems - a variant of P systems with a more geometric concept of space. In this work we discuss how mobile membranes, a variant of membrane systems inspired by the biological movements of endocytosis and exocytosis, can be efficaciously exploited to define a uniform multiscale coupling scheme relying only on the features of the formalism itself.