Amorphous computing
Amorphous computing
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DOI：
10.1145/332833.332842
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发表时间：
2000-05-01
影响因子：
22.7
通讯作者：
Homsy, G
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Abelson, H;Allen, D;Homsy, G
想象一下，细胞工程学的一门学科，可以定制生物细胞，使其充当传感器和执行器，作为药物的可编程输送工具，或者作为组装纳米结构的化学工厂。制造这种系统的能力似乎在我们的能力范围内，即使它还不在我们的掌握之中。然而，捏造只是故事的一部分。数字计算机一直被构造成可靠部件的精确排列，几乎所有组织计算的技术都依赖于这种精确性和可靠性。我们可以设想制造出大量的单个计算元件无论是微制造的粒子还是工程细胞但是我们几乎没有有效地对它们进行编程的想法。利用这些新技术的机会提出了一个广泛的概念挑战-无定形计算的挑战。如何从大量以未知、不规则和随时间变化的方式相互连接的不可靠部分的合作中设计出预先指定的、连贯的行为？一个关键的任务是确定适当的组织原则和编程方法来控制无定形系统。生物有机体中形态的生长表明，尽管单个细胞的精确排列和数量是可变的，但在遗传程序的控制下，通过细胞的相互作用，可以发展出明确的形状和功能结构。在此基础上，讨论了控制非晶态系统的一些思路，特别是生物学方面的启示。我们转向生物学不仅仅是一个比喻，而是作为一个实际的实现技术，通过“细胞计算”，在活细胞内构建逻辑电路的无定形系统。
Imagine a discipline of cellular engineering that tailor-makes biological cells to function as sensors and actuators, as programmable delivery vehicles for pharmaceuticals, or as chemical factories for the assembly of nanoscale structures. The ability to fabricate such systems seems within our reach, even if it is not yet within our grasp. Yet fabrication is only part of the story. Digital computers have always been constructed to behave as precise arrangements of reliable parts, and almost all techniques for organizing computations depend on this precision and reliability. We can envision producing vast quantities of individual computing elements—whether microfabricated particles or engineered cells—but we have few ideas for programming them effectively. The opportunity to exploit these new technologies poses a broad conceptual challenge—the challenge of amorphous computing. How can prespecified, coherent behavior be engineered from the cooperation of vast numbers of unreliable parts interconnected in unknown, irregular, and time-varying ways? One critical task is to identify appropriate organizing principles and programming methodologies for controlling amorphous systems. The growth of form in biological organisms demonstrates that welldefined shapes and functional structures can develop through the interaction of cells under the control of a genetic program, even though the precise arrangements and numbers of the individual cells are variable. Accordingly, we discuss some ideas for controlling amorphous systems, especially the hints from biology. We turn to biology not just as a metaphor, but as an actual implementation technology for amorphous systems by means of “cellular computing,” which constructs logic circuits within living cells.