Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

To Live And Die In Ca, Jane Frances Curnutt

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis investigates the nature of elementary cellular automata to better understand their relationship of the models they support to the biological organisms that create the mats and soil crusts found in extreme environments here on earth. Cellular automata have been used to study growth and patterns in forests, arid desert environments, predator-prey problems, and sea shells. It has also been used to study areas of diverse epidemiology and linguistics. Cellular automata have been used as the core of computer games as well. This investigation has led to develop a graphical grammar for simple cellular automata, using L-systems, a grammar …