Formal approaches to understanding biological oscillators

In this brief review, we have attempted to illustrate the utility of our qualitative scheme proposed in 1984 (27). This scheme provides a means of summarizing information concerning oscillating systems by identifying system variables and parameters and the interactions between variables. Moreover, the qualitative scheme can be employed to deduce the form of system differential equations. This second step then clearly shows the rate constants that must be deduced through experimentation for the construction of explicit mathematical models.