Genetic regulatory mechanisms by means of extended interactive Petri nets

We choose to integrate formalism for knowledge representation with formalism for process representation as a way to specify and regulate the overall activity of a multi cellular agent. The result of this approach is XP_iN, another formalism, wherein a distributed system can be modeled as a collection of interrelated sub nets sharing a common explicit control structure. Each sub net represents a system of asynchronous concurrent threads modeled by a set of transitions. XP_iN combines local state and control with interaction and hierarchy to achieve a high level abstraction and to model the complex relationships between all the components of a distributed system. Viewed as a tool, XP_iN provides a carefully devised conflict resolution strategy that intentionally mimics the genetic regulatory mechanism used in an organic cell to select the next genes to process