The spatial and temporal dynamics of compartmentalized reaction-diffusion
systems consisting of a collection of reactive domains separated
by chemically inactive regions will be discussed. The reactive
dynamics is governed by multi-step reaction mechanisms and each reactive
domain is specific to a particular elementary step or collection of
elementary steps of the global reaction mechanism. Far-from-equilibrium
situations where the global kinetics can give rise to complex states such
as bistability, oscillations or chaos will be discussed. The effects of
compartmentalization will be illustrated by a study of the influence of
diffusion, reactive domain size and domain distribution on the nature of
the spatio-temporal dynamics. Since compartmentalization is the rule in biology and may occur in the laboratory, this study provides some insight into the phenomena that might be seen in such circumstances.
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