Update schedules of sequential dynamical systems

Sequential dynamical systems have the properly, that the updates of states of individual cells occur sequentially, so that the global update of the system depends on the order of the individual updates. This order is given by an order on the set of vertices of the dependency graph. It turns out that only a partial suborder is necessary to describe the global update. This paper defines and studies this partial order and its influence on the global update function. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V.. All rights reserved.