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EPJ B Topical Issue: Extreme Value Statistics and Search in Biology: Theory and Simulations
- Details
- Published on 29 May 2020
Submissions are invited for a Topical Issue of EPJ B on Extreme Value Statistics and Search in Biology: Theory and Simulations.
The reliability of the functioning of biological systems is still puzzling taking into account that many processes governing this functioning are prone to strong fluctuations on very different scales. In many cases these processes rely on a single or a few events, for example, those starting a signalling cascade, and may be dominated by the first or the first successful encounter of the corresponding units. Such encounters are often modelled as different variants of random search processes. The analysis of such processes pertinent to specific biological situations shows that in many cases a search process by a single agent is extremely ineffective, with typical encounter times considerably larger than what is necessary from the biological point of view. Therefore, the successful encounters are rare events.