Limits on reliable information flows through stochastic populations.

ABSTRACT: Biological systems can share and collectively process information to yield emergent effects, despite inherent noise in communication. While man-made systems often employ intricate structural solutions to overcome noise, the structure of many biological systems is more amorphous. It is not well understood how communication noise may affect the computational repertoire of such groups. To approach this question we consider the basic collective task of rumor spreading, in which information from few knowledgeable sources must reliably flow into the rest of the population. We study the effect of communication noise on the ability of groups that lack stable structures to efficiently solve this task. We present an impossibility result which strongly restricts reliable rumor spreading in such group

SUBMITTER: Boczkowski L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6005642 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature