Global instability of the Keller-Segel model of slime mold aggregation for transient kinetic processes

The onset of aggregation for slime mold aggregation is an important biological system that has been studied extensively because the system is simplistic by nature but also forms a solid baseline for more complicated systems. Keller and Segel were able to determine conditions for instability of the slime mold aggregation system for a linearized system. However, they had to employ strong assumptions on the kinetics of chemical components involved in the process in order to transform the system into a form they could study. Thus the main purpose of this thesis is to use recent technology to determine the consequences of using the simplified system as compared to the original system.