Physica D 171 (2002) 197210

Graph automata: natural expression of self-reproduction

Kohji Tomita a, , Haruhisa Kurokawa a , Satoshi Murata b,1
b

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 1-2 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-8564, Japan Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuda, Midori-ku, Yokohama 226-8502, Japan Received 6 March 2002; received in revised form 14 May 2002; accepted 16 July 2002 Communicated by A. Doelman

Abstract A variety of models of self-reproduction process have been proposed since von Neumann initiated this eld with his self-reproducing automata. Almost all of them are described within the framework of two-dimensional cellular automata. They are heavily dependent on or limited by the peculiar properties of the two-dimensional lattice spaces. But such properties are irrelevant to the essential nature of self-replication. In this paper, we introduce a new framework called graph automata to obtain a natural description of complicated spatio-temporal developmental processes such as self-reproduction. The most advantageous point of this methodology is that it is not restricted to particular lattice space. As an illustrative example, a self-reproduction of Turing machine, which requires very long description by conventional cellular automata, is shown in a simple and straightforward formulation. Graph automata provide a new tool to approach important scientic problems such as evolution of morphology, and also to give the basis of self-reproducing and self-repairing artifacts. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PACS: 87.10.+e Keywords: Self-reproduction; Cellular automata; Self-organization; Emergence; Turing machine

1. Introduction Self-reproduction, one of the most mysterious properties of life, has attracted many researchers for a long time. After von Neumann had become interested in logical representation of self-reproduction processes about a half-century ago [1], it has been an object of theoretical studies [2,3]. The motivation of those works is no doubt desire to understand the founda Corresponding author. Tel.: +81-298-617126; fax: +81-298-617091. E-mail addresses: k.tomita@aist.go.jp (K. Tomita), kurokawah@aist.go.jp (H. Kurokawa), murata@dis.titech.ac.jp (S. Murata). 1 The work of this author was partly supported by the Sumitomo Foundation (No. 010145).

tion of self-reproduction process in terms of systems science. But it is also believed that understanding the logic of self-replication is necessary to realize molecular or nano-scale machines, because conventional serial production methodology is no longer useful, and massive parallelism of them requires auto-catalytic production of machines [4]. Self-replication principle is also applicable to other elds such as architecture for self-repairable computers [5,6]. von Neumann designed a self-reproducing machine within the framework of two-dimensional cellular automata. It is built on two-dimensional regular lattice, where each cell has 29 states. The state of each cell is rewritten according to the state transition rules, which refers to ve neighborhoods including itself.

0167-2789/02/$ see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 1 6 7 - 2 7 8 9 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 6 0 1 - 2

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The machine consists of a universal constructor, and a tape that contains all the necessary information to rebuild the whole structure. The constructor interprets instructions on the tape and builds a new machine at another place by extending a component called a constructing arm. Indeed von Neumanns purpose to investigate the possible formal framework for evolvable machines was achieved, but the machine was too complicated. It requires 200,000 cells, and even now, the complete simulation of the machine has not been conducted. (Recently, an implementation was given by Pesavento [7] based on an extension of the state transition rules.) Codd [8] succeeded to reduce the necessary number of states per cell to 8, but the total number of cells even increased to 100,000,000. Later, Takahashi and Hayasako [9] obtained a solution of 41-state, 20,000-cell composition, by introducing a two-layer lattice system. In 1984, Langton designed a new type of selfreplicating machine. He obtained much simpler composition of self-replicating system (7-state, 86-cell) by giving up universal construction capability of previous models [10]. His self-replicating loop is based on Codds sheathed path for signal propagation. He designed a special instruction sequence to replicate the whole structure and contained it in the sheath. Reggia et al. [11] considered symmetry requirements for the rules and found an unsheathed self-replicating loop with 6-state, 5-cell, believed to be the smallest at this moment. Chou and Reggia [12] also showed that self-replicating structures could emerge from randomly distributed initial patterns. On the other hand, Perrier et al. [13] rearrange the Langton-type self-replication loop to regain the computation capability. They attached two strands to the loop storing program and data, and succeeded to embed universal Turing machine in very small cell space proportional to program and data length. However, it still requires 63 states and 8503 rules. Meanwhile, Chou and Reggia solved an NP-complete problem, the satisability problem, by introducing competition among simple self-replicating loops, each of them carrying different candidates for the solution [14]. Other than these, various formulations of cellular automata such as asynchronous, heterogeneous and

stochastic cellular automata have been proposed but are omitted here. All of the above models are built within the twodimensional cellular automata. The simple formalism of cellular automata is quite suitable for both analysis and synthesis. It brings its ability into full play when it is applied to eld dynamics problems like uid ow or reactiondiffusion. However, we think it is not necessarily the best framework to describe the self-reproduction processes. Particular properties of two-dimensional lattice space obstruct natural expression of self-reproduction processes. Following are two general restrictions ((1) and (2)) and two technical disadvantages ((3) and (4)) of the lattice spaces. (1) Fixed topology. Connection topology among the cells is restricted to predetermined homogeneous lattice. Variable resolution is impossible on a regular lattice. (2) Difculty of representing closed space. Biological phenomena like embryonic development occur in nite closed space. Such phenomena cannot be expressed by many cellular automata, because they need endless space. We can dene cellular automata on a sphere or a torus, however, the size of the space cannot be changed. (3) It is difcult to synchronize between remote components. Connecting parts by wires is quite easy in ordinary space, but very difcult in cellular space. Since the speed of signal propagation is not more than one cell per one time step, elaborate design of relative locations of components and path lengths is required. For example, von Neumann built a special component just for crossing independent signals. (4) It requires room for replicated object. The third requirement imposes a lot of work to avoid an overlap between the original and daughter patterns. von Neumann devised the construction arm for this purpose. In Langtons self-replication, the loops leave empty sheaths like coral polyp. Reggias smallest self-replicating pattern cannot repeat the process more than three times because of the overlap.

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A method called L-system gives a clue to resolve these difculties of cellular automata. L-system is a method based on the term-rewriting grammar, which can capture developmental processes of various plant shapes [15,16]. Although it is suitable for describing tree structures, graphs including closed loops are difcult to describe. Map L-system has been proposed to overcome this problem [17]. Although it can describe a planar cell division process, it requires elaborate rule design. Doi [18] proposed another formulation called graph development system. In this system, an incidence matrix represents objective topological structure, and a submatrix in the whole matrix is rewritten by the grammar corresponding to local topological change among the elements. In the sense that these methods can describe not only state transitions, but also topological changes of the structure, they have stronger power of expression than cellular automata. Although L-system and its variants allow various patterns of topological change, the regularity of formulation is sacriced. Namely, the number of related elements and premised connectivity pattern for a rewriting rule varies case by case. It is very difcult to apply L-system and its variants to a systematic design problem of complex systems. In this paper, we propose a new framework called graph automata, which is both exible in topology and regular in formulation. The idea was rst presented in [19]. Graph automata is a class of automata including formal rules for cell division, cell commutation and cell annihilation in addition to ordinary state transition rules. Since the graph automata are not constrained to a particular lattice system, it is able to describe processes with changing number of elements and topology among them like the L-system. On the other hand, its formulation is homogeneous similar to cellular automata, thus suitable to systematic design. In terms of rewriting of graphs, there has been lots of research in the area of graph grammars [20]. But many of them focus mainly on general properties or computational aspects of the systems, and realization of self-replicating systems has not been considered so far. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we give the formulation of graph automata

with some illustrative examples. In Section 3, we demonstrate its power of expression by showing a simple composition of self-reproducing Turing machine, which requires lengthy description by using conventional cellular automata. Simulation result of the self-reproducing process is also shown. Section 4 concludes the paper.

2. Formulation of graph automata In the cellular automata, cells with discrete states form a lattice and transition of each cell state is determined by the states of neighbors. For this transition, lattice structure is not necessary, but each cell needs to have a certain constant number of neighbors. In graph automata, all cells (we call them nodes hereafter) have three neighbors. Multiple links between the same two nodes are allowed. In this paper, we consider a class of graphs that can be projected onto a planar graph. This constraint of three neighbors is satised by many structures such as endless planar honeycomb, tetrahedron, cube, dodecahedron and fullerene. Nodes are connected to neighbors via links, and various rules to change their states and topology are applied. We dene nite states on nodes, which is taken from an arbitrary nite set of symbols. At each node, a cyclic order of links is dened, and all the nodes are assumed to have the same rotational direction of the cyclic order on the planar graph. The graph rewriting rules are designed so that the graph is always kept planar and the directions of the cyclic orders are conserved. The constant number of neighbors enables us to write rules in a regular form, i.e., each rule is described by a rule name and at most ve symbols as its arguments. This gives great advantage when we design a large complex system. For instance, we can reuse the same rule in different situations. It is possible to stack rules as a subroutine where ring of a rule triggers cascade of other rules. Three-neighbor connectivity is the minimum that can generate nontrivial graphs, and more importantly, it is invariant under the following graph rewriting operations.

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2.1. Rules of graph automata At rst, we give rules of graph automata and describe the effect of each rule. There are four kinds of rules: one state transition rule and three graph rewriting rules (Fig. 1). The state transition rule changes the state of nodes, and the graph rewriting rules change the structure of the graph. We represent these rules as follows:

State transition rule: trans m0 (m1 , m2 , m3 ) m1 Graph rewriting rules: div m0 (n1 , n2 , n3 ) m1 com(n1 , n2 ) anh(n1 , n2 ) (division rule), (state transition rule),

(commutation rule), (annihilation rule).

In node rules (trans and div), m0 denotes current state of the node, and n1 , n2 , n3 are states of its neighboring nodes in this order. States of the neighbors are matched with the condition part, by shifting them in the cyclic order. Thus, (n1 , n2 , n3 ), (n2 , n3 , n1 ), and (n3 , n1 , n2 ) mean the same condition, but (n3 , n2 , n1 ) is not the same. In link rules (com and anh), n1 and n2 are node states at its both ends. Exchange of the neighbors is allowed in matching. State transition rules simply changes the state of the node when the condition is satised (Fig. 1(a)). Division rule divides a node into three nodes with the identical state and generates three new links (Fig. 1(b)). The cyclic orders at the new nodes inherit previous order. Commutation rule rearranges the local connective situation including two adjacent nodes (Fig. 1(c)). It can be regarded as a quarter rotation of a pair of adjacent nodes. The direction of the commutation is dened as the same direction of the cyclic link order. This commutation is realized by reconnection of links as shown in the parenthesized illustration in this gure, where dotted links are removed and thick links are added. Annihilation rule removes a pair of nodes and a link between them (Fig. 1(d)). It is realized by connecting two pairs of adjacent nodes as shown in the parentheses. 2.2. Updating procedure This section describes how the rules are applied to the whole system. We assume the time step of integers. An initial graph and a rule set are given. The rule set is a list of rules, and the graph is updated at each time step.

Fig. 1. Rules of graph automata: (a) state transition rule (trans m0 (n1 , n2 , n3 ) m1 ); (b) division rule (div m0 (n1 , n2 , n3 ) m1 ); (c) commutation rule (com (n1 , n2 )); (d) annihilation rule (anh (n1 , n2 )).

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To update the graph automata, we apply only node rules (trans and div) at even time steps, and link rules (com and anh) at odd time steps. Rules are executed synchronously for all the nodes or links. If several rules are applicable to the same node, i.e., if the lefthand side of several rules matches, predetermined priority (listing order in the rule table) determines which rule to re. Because applying either commutation or annihilation to adjacent links causes inconsistency, all such applications are suppressed. This lateral inhibition is realized in several ways in a local manner. One is to see a wider area covering the next neighbors to conrm that neighboring links do not satisfy the condition of any rule. Another is to execute the

process in two steps. First, each link raises a ag if a rule condition is satised, and then, if any of the four neighboring links does not raise the ag, the link actually execute the rule. We adopt the latter in the following simulation. By these restrictions, the updating process becomes completely deterministic. 2.3. Simulation of graph automata When we are to design the elaborate graph structure and rule set, the development process becomes complicated and some mechanical aid is necessary to visualize the process. For this purpose, we developed a simulator of the development process of graph

Fig. 2. Flexible resolution. Uniform honeycomb lattice with arbitrary resolution is obtained when division and commutation rules are alternately applied.

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automata. Such a simulator is useful also to verify the designed rule sets. In this simulator, the method to display graphs is important to grasp the graph structure. Because graphs used in this paper are planer, there are many ways to show them on a plane. But it is not easy to draw the graphs on a plane without overlapping of the links. Thus we take a different approach to simplify the procedure. The graphs are embedded in the three-dimensional Euclidean space, and drawn by wireframes on the surface of a sphere (or a balloon). For simplicity, a link is assumed to be a spring with a damping characteristic. By applying appropriate pressure force inside the balloon, natural wireframe shapes can be generated according to the development process, as shown later in Figs. 3(a) and 6. 2.4. Illustrative examples Here, simple examples are shown to explain the potential of graph automata.

(a) Flexible resolution. Uniform honeycomb lattice with arbitrary resolution is obtained when division and commutation are alternately applied (Fig. 2). (b) Generation of repetitive structure. From a heterogeneous tetrahedron (where all the nodes have different states), a spherical graph is generated by a rule set similar to (a). Then it continues to extend four arms with repetitive structure (Fig. 3(a)). The process is described by 22 rules (Fig. 3(b)). (c) Minimal self-replication. Self-replication sequence for heterogeneous tetrahedron (where all the nodes have different states) is designed (Fig. 4(a)). It requires two additional intermediate states and 19 rules (Fig. 4(b)). The whole structure and information on the nodes is replicated after the eighth step. (No rules were applied at time steps 0, 3 and 5.) Note that this replicating process is repeated arbitrarily many times. Although frameworks are different, this 4-cell solution is even smaller than Reggias 5-cell record.

Fig. 3. Generation of repetitive structure. Initial state is a heterogeneous tetrahedron: (a) structure; (b) rule.

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Fig. 4. Minimal self-replication: (a) process of minimal self-replication. ex denotes state exchange between neighboring nodes that is done by simultaneous execution of state transition at adjacent nodes. Commutation rules and annihilation rules in step 7 are executed simultaneously; (b) rule.

3. Design of self-reproducing Turing machine A Turing machine is a mathematical model of computation [21], which is composed of one-dimensional tape of innite length and a moving head. The tape is divided into squares and each square contains a symbol from a nite set. At any time, the head is located at one of the squares, and it can read/write only on the square. The Turing machine has an internal state chosen from a nite set. From its internal state and a symbol on the head location, it decides its operation to write a new symbol, move the head to the left or right for one square, and change its internal state.

This rewriting process corresponds to computation. It is a very simple model, but it can compute any computable function according to Churchs thesis [22]. In graph automata, the Turing machine can be modeled by a simple ladder structure (Fig. 5(a)). The upper nodes of the ladder correspond to squares of the tape, and one node in the lower ladder plays the role of the head. To keep the three-neighbor constraint, both ends of the ladder (called EOTs (end of tape)) are connected to form a loop. Although the tape is nite, the structure can be extended for arbitrary length by division of EOT if necessary. Each operation of a Turing machine is realized by several rules in graph automata. Writing

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Fig. 5. Reproduction process of Turing machine.

operation of a new symbol on the tape is realized easily by state transition because the node is adjacent to the head node. Head moving operation is realized by two consecutive steps as follows since the node at the new location cannot refer to the symbol on the head. First, the head node becomes a state that represents the new internal state and the moving direction. Then, one adjacent node changes its state to the new internal state. Precise steps and rule construction are given in Appendix A.

Self-reproduction process of the Turing machine can be naturally expressed within the framework of graph automata (Fig. 5). Activation begins at the location of the head, which causes a chain reaction of activation, and the activated region is controlled to be only part of the system. After the propagation of the activated region from the head position to both EOTs, the structure is duplicated and separated into two ladders. In the design of the reproduction process, we assume that the process begins when the head becomes

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a special internal state. The outline is as follows, and the detailed set of rules are given in Appendix B. Step 1. When the head becomes a special state, the whole self-reproduction process is triggered. At rst, the head node and the corresponding tape node divide (Fig. 5(a) and (b)). Step 2. If a neighboring head node or tape node is divided, the neighboring nodes are also divided (Fig. 5(b) and (c)). Step 3. By commuting the links, a new ladder structure is constructed (Fig. 5(c) and (d)). Step 4. By exchanging the information, tape and node information is placed in appropriate positions. Then, unnecessary nodes and links are annihilated to separate the two ladders (Fig. 5(c)(f)). Step 5. The above steps 24 are repeated from the head position to both EOTs. Some rules are provided to cope with the special conditions around the EOTs (Fig. 5(e)(j)). Step 6. When the processes in both directions are nished, the EOTs are commuted and then annihilated. This makes two identical ladder structures (Fig. 5(j) and (k)). Step 7. The original state is restored (Fig. 5(k) and (l)), and the whole replication process can be repeated again. Both the necessary number of states and rules depend on the original Turing machine. For two symbol Turing machines, the process requires 20 states (including ve in the initial state) and 257 rules. The whole process of this case is veried by computer simulation (Fig. 6). (In this simulation, only reproduction is conducted. To execute it also as a Turing machine, it sufces to merge the rules.) To our knowledge, this is the smallest model of self-reproducing system with computational capability. There are no restrictions on the tape length, and the same rule set is applicable for any sequence of symbols. This compact description is achieved because graph automata are free from various restrictions of cellular automata as mentioned above. It is also possible to realize self-reproduction of universal Turing machine. For instance, we can embed

Fig. 6. Simulation.

Minskys small universal Turing machine [23]. In this case, 30 states and 955 rules are necessary for the reproduction process, and 23 states and 745 rules in addition are required for computation as a universal Turing machine.

4. Discussion and conclusion In this paper, we proposed a new framework called graph automata for natural description of complicated development processes. It has the following advantages: It is not restricted to a homogeneous lattice space. It can express processes that include dynamic changes in the number and topology of the elements. It can naturally deal with processes in the closed space.

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The rules are described in a uniform manner. In addition to showing that it is Turing complete, we gave a self-reproducing process of a Turing machine. Such process requires lengthy and complicated description using cellular automata, but we showed that natural and compact expression is possible by using graph automata. Graph automatas strong power of expression will provide a new tool to describe various complex processes. It is especially suitable to describe a development process in a closed space, where the process itself determines its boundary conditions. In our system, there are two restrictions for simplication as follows. They were introduced to make the structure and development process simple at least in this rst stage. One is the structural restriction. In this paper we considered planer graphs with three link nodes. Planer restriction is relaxed by permitting nonplanar initial states, or introducing new rewriting rules. By four link model, we can extend our system to the 3D space. We can consider many ways to extend the structure, but it will depend on the objects to be modeled in the graph automata. The other is in updating process. Lateral inhibition of link rules and separate updating steps for node and link rules were assumed. These come mainly from the requirement to make the updating process deterministic. If we permit the stochastic development, we can exclude such exceptions by, e.g., local application of rules instead of synchronous application to the whole system. We have the following future work to extend the framework. First one is the introduction of physical properties such as the distance between nodes or physical environment. In this paper we have concentrated only on the logical relation among elements. Interaction with the external environment or among the elements that are not linked together will enable to express more exible development processes. Second is the application of evolutionary computation such as genetic algorithm. We can evolve the system to achieve some desired property, since the rule description of graph automata is uniform and it is suitable to these methods.

Inheriting accumulated knowledge in cellular automata, graph automata will open a new dimension by introducing topological freedom to system description. It will throw new light in various subjects in science and technology, such as morphogenesis of living systems, articial life, self-assembling molecular systems, and innovative production method in nano-scale.

Appendix A. Expression of Turing machine In order to embed a Turing machine in the graph automata, it is enough to realize the following three as rules of graph automata: (1) rules to rewrite symbols of the tape and internal state transition rules in the Turing machine; (2) rules to move the head; (3) rules to extend the ladder. We assume that the initial structure that corresponds to the initial state of the Turing machine is given. Hereafter, we use the following states of the nodes: EOT: end of the tape. NH: nonexistence of the head. qi , 0 , qi , L , qi , R (for each internal TM state qi ): existence of the head of internal state qi . L and R indicate the moving direction. si (for each TM symbol si ): the tape symbol of the node. We assume s0 denotes the blank symbol. Each tape node at both ends are kept to be of this state. (1) Tape rewriting and internal state transition. Suppose an instruction quintuple of TM (qi , sj , qk , sl , dir), which means if the current state is qi and the current symbol is sj , then change to state qk , write symbol sl and move to dir, where dir {L, R}. Each instruction is realized by the following rules. Rewriting the tape symbols is executed by the following state transition rule: trans sj ( sx , qi , 0 , sy ) sk where sx and sy denote any tape symbol of the TM.

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In terms of the head action, at rst, we change the head state to a new one that represents the new internal state and the moving direction. (The head motion is explained in the next section.) trans qi , 0 (NH, sj , NH) ql , dir (2) Head motion. Because the new head state above includes moving direction, the motion is realized by two simultaneous state changes by the head node itself and a adjacent node at the new head location. It is denoted by the following rules depending only on the set of states and symbols. (qx and qy denote any internal TM state.) Moving rightward: trans qx , R (NH, sy , NH) NH trans NH(NH, sx , qy , R ) qy , 0 trans NH(EOT, sx , qy , R ) qy , 0 Moving leftward: trans qx , L (NH, sy , NH) NH trans NH( qx , L , sy , NH) qx , 0 trans NH( qx , L , sy , EOT) qx , 0 (3) Tape extension. When the head is adjacent to an EOT, the ladder is extended by one base by dividing the EOT and setting up the initial states to the two new nodes: div EOT( sx , EOT, qy , 0 ) EOT div EOT( qx , 0 , EOT, sy ) EOT trans EOT(EOT, EOT, sx ) s0 trans EOT( qx , 0 , EOT, EOT) NH A sequence of rule applications is shown in Fig. 7. By executing a TM command (qi , sj , qk , sl , R) near the right EOT, tape rewriting ((a) and (b)), internal state transition ((a) and (b)), and head motion ((b) and (c)) take place, and then the tape is extended ((c)(e)) in succession.
Fig. 7. Embedding of a Turing machine. A Turing machine command (qi , sj , qk , sl , R) is executed by several steps.

Appendix B. Rule set for self-reproducing Turing machine Here we give a complete set of rule schemes for self-reproduction of a Turing machine. Suppose it starts self-reproduction when the head becomes a special state H. Rule schemes according to steps 17 in Section 3 are denoted by (1)(7) in Fig. 8, respectively. si , sj , . . . denotes any tape symbol (we simply

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Fig. 8. Rule set for self-reproduction.

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denote si , sj , . . . by si , sj , . . . ). In addition to the original states (si , H, NH, EOT), the following intermediate states are used: EOT , EOT , EOT , EOT(4) , EOT(5) , si , si , H , H , H , NH , NH , ERA. Here, , , etc. are used to generate distinct states from the original, and ERA denotes a state to be annihilated. Particularly, is used to indicate the states after the division. The number of states is 20 if the original Turing machine has two symbols. In the rule description, Q indicates NH or H. Using these states, each step of self-reproduction can be described in the following: Step 1. When the head becomes a special state H, the whole self-reproduction process is triggered. At rst, the head node H and the corresponding tape node sj divide into nodes in state H and sj , respectively (Fig. 5(a) and (b)). Step 2. If a neighboring head node or tape node is divided into state si or Qi , nodes sj and NH are also divided into sj and NH , respectively. At the same time, the si and Qi change its state to si and Qi , respectively. Information of the si and Qi is exchanged (Fig. 5(b) and (c)). Step 3. When si and sj or Qi and Qi are adjacent, the link between them are commuted (Fig. 5(c) and (d)). This commutation builds a new ladder structure. Step 4. By exchanging the information, tape and node information is placed in appropriate positions. More precisely, information from the lower ladder (H or NH) is copied to the right node, and information from the upper ladder (si ) is copied to the left node. At the same time, unnecessary nodes become ERA in preparation of the future annihilation (Fig. 5(c) and (d)). Then, the unnecessary nodes and links are annihilated to separate the two ladders (Fig. 5(e) and (f)). Step 5. The above steps 24 are repeated until it reaches both EOTs. Some rules are provided to cope with the cases around the EOTs. The left and right EOTs are divided into EOT and EOT , respectively, and then the upper

EOT and lower EOT are divided again into EOT (Fig. 5(e)(j)). Step 6. When the processes in both directions are nished, EOT and EOT are connected with two EOT(4) . They are commuted and then annihilated (Fig. 5(j) and (k)). (EOT(5) is used as an intermediate state here.) This makes two identical ladder structures. Step 7. The original state is restored (Fig. 5(k) and (l)), and the whole replication process can be repeated again.

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