[abdullahkhalids]

Have they proven their computational model is inequivalent to cellular automata? It is possible that the link rules could be translated into cell rules in regular cellular automata.

That said a different representation can always reveal new phenomena about an old model.

[topaz0]

Depending what domain of cellular automata you're talking about this might be trivial -- just redefine the state space of the cell to also include which cells it is connected to, then all that information is available to use in update rules.

[crdrost]

I mean even phrasing what you're trying to do there, would be a big difficult task.

Consider e.g. that Game of Life has had folks build universal Turing machines for it, and those machines can be programmed to run a Lace automaton.