CONTINUOUS CELL-TO-CELL MAPPING

The cell-to-cell mapping technique (CCMT) is a numerical technique for the global analysis of non-linear dynamic systems and models system e volution as a Markov chain in discrete time. The computational feasibi lity of a continuous time version of CCMT is investigated using the va n der Pol oscillator. The results show that while the continuous CCMT leads to large reduction in Markov model setup time and memory require ments as well as saving a large amount of computational time in the va lidation of the results with respect to the conventional CCMT, converg ence to the asymptotic solution can be very slow. In these respect, th e continuous CCMT approach is expected to be most effective as a scopi ng tool to determine the approximate location of the attractors. (C) 1 997 Academic Press Limited.