Clayton M. Lockhart

Time behavior of stressed nonhierarchical networks

Abstract In this paper it is shown, by means of simulation, that interesting time behavior is observed for damaged and overloaded networks, and that adaptive, decentralized intelligence can have a dramatic influence on the overall network performance. The time behavior of nonhierarchical networks is modeled by a system of nonlinear difference equations among global variables, and bistability is shown to exist. Using a simple adaptive control mechanism, it is shown that, depending upon the value of a certain network variable, either limit cycle or steady state behavior results. A few ideas are discussed for applications of nonhierarchical communications to cellular automata and to decision-making systems.