Matrix-based flipping method for improving the robustness of Boolean networks

Abstract

This paper proposes a matrix-based flipping method for improving the robustness of Boolean networks (BNs). The robustness considered in this paper is to find a flip matrix such that the output of a given BN with the flip matrix is unaffected by disturbances, in which case the output of the given BN is said to be flipping-based robust. Firstly, a necessary and sufficient condition is presented to determine whether the output of a given BN is identity matrix flipping-based robust. Then a novel flipping method based on the Hamming distance is provided to find the flip matrix and realize that the output of a given BN is flipping-based robust. Finally, a biological example is used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.