Cover image

Cover A static view of reactive animation: An approach to modeling complex systems, in which the mathematical execution of a precise model of behavior generates a simulation viewed as a moving picture of molecules and cells. Here we illustrate thymocytes developing in the thymus lobule: surface molecules, differentiation, migration, proliferation, apoptosis, molecular gradients, anatomical compartments, etc. The upper rectangle represents a thymocyte's statechart; the lower rectangle shows a front-end animation (self-organization of anatomical zones); the middle rectangle zooms into the animation (differentiating thymocytes interacting with epithelial cells). This simulation makes it possible to observe emergent properties and to experiment in silico. (For details, see Efroni etal., pp. 2485–2497. Cover art designed by Shlomit Davidson.)