Hence there is a clear link with climate research. The complicated models require efficient numerical solution techniques. The project 'Distributed Visualization of Biological Structures' aims at the development of an experimental platform to study advanced image processing techniques for cell structures and interaction schemes for remote steering of a laboratory apparatus, in the context of high speed networks. Interactive distributed visualization coupled with virtual environments allows for collaborative analysis, interrogation of large repositories of biological structures and distance learning. Since about a decade, scientists realise that many biological and physical systems seem to drive themselves, without precise external tuning, towards a state which resembles a typical equilibrium statistical mechanics system at the critical point.
Examples are certain types of epidemics, forest fires, and processes in the brain.
A hot question in neuroscience is how the hand-shaped ends of axons growing out of neurons explore the territory they traverse on their way to a target tissue. This growth process is partly guided by concentration gradients of biochemical molecules in the extracellular space, arising from diffusion and various chemical interactions. This leads to models consisting of parabolic equations coupled with gradient-type equations for the positions of the axons. We will study these models and their numerical solution and implement efficient numerical algorithms in software that is user-friendly for neuroscientists, as a joint activity with the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research. Furthermore, there is a whole range of problems linking to Combinatorial Optimization.