title: Artificial cell division.
abstract: After a survey of the theory and some realizations of self-replicating machines, this paper presents a novel self-replicating loop endowed with universal construction and computation properties. Based on the hardware implementation of the so-called Tom Thumb algorithm, the design of this loop leads to a new kind of cellular automaton made of a processing and a control units. The self-replication of the Swiss flag serves as an artificial cell division example of the loop which, according to autopoietic evaluation criteria, corresponds to a cell showing the phenomenology of a living system.
authors.affiliation: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Logic Systems Laboratory, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. daniel.mange@epfl.ch
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mange
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stauffer
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Petraglio
authors.forename: Gianluca
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tempesti
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002455:Cell Division / Q000502:physiology*; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005246:Feedback / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological