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We have developed a knowledge-based but partially analytic simulation system. This system simulates regulatory action in lambda phage, a virus which infects E. coli. Specifically, we simulated the decision between its two developmental pathways, lytic and lysogenic growth. Our model is composed of two levels: roughly abstracted level and precisely abstracted level. The former level is discrete-event and knowledge-based. It covers overall regulations inside lambda phage in qualitative representation. On the other hand, the latter is based on quantitative chemical equations describing the sensitive bifurcation within pathways. In this way, qualitatively clear overview of regulatory action is efficiently simulated using knowledge base, and only the unpredictable part is analytically simulated in detail. This system can output not only input knowledge but also precise prediction by computational analysis, data which help molecular biologists find new theories of regulatory actions.

Some people think that carbon and sustainable development are not compatible. This textbook shows that carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the air and bio-carbon from biomass are our best allies in the energy transition, towards greater sustainability. We pose the problem of the decarbonation (or decarbonization) of our economy by looking at ways to reduce our dependence on fossil carbon (coal, petroleum, natural gas, bitumen, carbonaceous shales, lignite, peat). The urgent goal is to curb the exponential increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and hydrosphere (Figures 1.1 and 1.2) that is directly related to our consumption of fossil carbon for our energy and materials The goal of the Paris agreement (United Nations COP 21, Dec. 12, 2015) of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees (compared to the pre-industrial era, before 1800) is becoming increasingly unattainable (Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), report of Aug. 6, 2021). On Aug. 9, 2021 Boris Johnson, prime minister of the United Kingdom, declared that coal needs to be consigned to history to limit global warming. CO₂ has an important social cost…