Towards homeostatic architecture: simulation of the generative process of a termite mound construction

This report sets out to the theme of the generation of a ‘living’, homeostatic and self-organizing architectural structure. The main research question this project addresses is what innovative techniques of design, construction and materials could prospectively be developed and eventually applied to create and sustain human-made buildings which are mostly adaptive, self-controlled and self-functioning, without option to a vast supply of materials and peripheral services. The hypothesis is that through the implementation of the biological building behaviour of termites, in terms of collective construction mechanisms that are based on environmental stimuli, we could achieve a simulation of the generative process of their adaptive structures, capable to inform in many ways human construction. The essay explicates the development of the 3-dimensional, agent-based simulation of the termite collective construction and analyzes the results, which involve besides physical modelling of the evolved structures. It finally elucidates the potential of this emerging and adaptive architectural performance to be translated to human practice and thus enlighten new ecological engineering and design methodologies

Affect and believability in game characters:a review of the use of affective computing in games

Virtual agents are important in many digital environments. Designing a character that highly engages users in terms of interaction is an intricate task constrained by many requirements. One aspect that has gained more attention recently is the effective dimension of the agent. Several studies have addressed the possibility of developing an affect-aware system for a better user experience. Particularly in games, including emotional and social features in NPCs adds depth to the characters, enriches interaction possibilities, and combined with the basic level of competence, creates a more appealing game. Design requirements for emotionally intelligent NPCs differ from general autonomous agents with the main goal being a stronger player-agent relationship as opposed to problem solving and goal assessment. Nevertheless, deploying an affective module into NPCs adds to the complexity of the architecture and constraints. In addition, using such composite NPC in games seems beyond current technology, despite some brave attempts. However, a MARPO-type modular architecture would seem a useful starting point for adding emotions

Investigating biocomplexity through the agent-based paradigm.

Capturing the dynamism that pervades biological systems requires a computational approach that can accommodate both the continuous features of the system environment as well as the flexible and heterogeneous nature of component interactions. This presents a serious challenge for the more traditional mathematical approaches that assume component homogeneity to relate system observables using mathematical equations. While the homogeneity condition does not lead to loss of accuracy while simulating various continua, it fails to offer detailed solutions when applied to systems with dynamically interacting heterogeneous components. As the functionality and architecture of most biological systems is a product of multi-faceted individual interactions at the sub-system level, continuum models rarely offer much beyond qualitative similarity. Agent-based modelling is a class of algorithmic computational approaches that rely on interactions between Turing-complete finite-state machines--or agents--to simulate, from the bottom-up, macroscopic properties of a system. In recognizing the heterogeneity condition, they offer suitable ontologies to the system components being modelled, thereby succeeding where their continuum counterparts tend to struggle. Furthermore, being inherently hierarchical, they are quite amenable to coupling with other computational paradigms. The integration of any agent-based framework with continuum models is arguably the most elegant and precise way of representing biological systems. Although in its nascence, agent-based modelling has been utilized to model biological complexity across a broad range of biological scales (from cells to societies). In this article, we explore the reasons that make agent-based modelling the most precise approach to model biological systems that tend to be non-linear and complex

Reviewing agent-based modelling of socio-ecosystems: a methodology for the analysis of climate change adaptation and sustainability

The integrated - environmental, economic and social - analysis of climate change calls for a paradigm shift as it is fundamentally a problem of complex, bottom-up and multi-agent human behaviour. There is a growing awareness that global environmental change dynamics and the related socio-economic implications involve a degree of complexity that requires an innovative modelling of combined social and ecological systems. Climate change policy can no longer be addressed separately from a broader context of adaptation and sustainability strategies. A vast body of literature on agent-based modelling (ABM) shows its potential to couple social and environmental models, to incorporate the influence of micro-level decision making in the system dynamics and to study the emergence of collective responses to policies. However, there are few publications which concretely apply this methodology to the study of climate change related issues. The analysis of the state of the art reported in this paper supports the idea that today ABM is an appropriate methodology for the bottom-up exploration of climate policies, especially because it can take into account adaptive behaviour and heterogeneity of the system's components.Review, Agent-Based Modelling, Socio-Ecosystems, Climate Change, Adaptation, Complexity.

The Repast Simulation/Modelling System for Geospatial Simulation

The use of simulation/modelling systems can simplify the implementation of agent-based models. Repast is one of the few simulation/modelling software systems that supports the integration of geospatial data especially that of vector-based geometries. This paper provides details about Repast specifically an overview, including its different development languages available to develop agent-based models. Before describing Repast’s core functionality and how models can be developed within it, specific emphasis will be placed on its ability to represent dynamics and incorporate geographical information. Once these elements of the system have been covered, a diverse list of Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) applications using Repast will be presented with particular emphasis on spatial applications utilizing Repast, in particular, those that utilize geospatial data

Multi-level agent-based modeling - A literature survey

During last decade, multi-level agent-based modeling has received significant and dramatically increasing interest. In this article we present a comprehensive and structured review of literature on the subject. We present the main theoretical contributions and application domains of this concept, with an emphasis on social, flow, biological and biomedical models.Comment: v2. Ref 102 added. v3-4 Many refs and text added v5-6 bibliographic statistics updated. v7 Change of the name of the paper to reflect what it became, many refs and text added, bibliographic statistics update

A cooperative cellular and broadcast conditional access system for Pay-TV systems

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2009 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.The lack of interoperability between Pay-TV service providers and a horizontally integrated business transaction model have compromised the competition in the Pay-TV market. In addition, the lack of interactivity with customers has resulted in high churn rate and improper security measures have contributed into considerable business loss. These issues are the main cause of high operational costs and subscription fees in the Pay-TV systems. As a result, this paper presents the Mobile Conditional Access System (MICAS) as an end-to-end access control solution for Pay-TV systems. It incorporates the mobile and broadcasting systems and provides a platform whereby service providers can effectively interact with their customers, personalize their services and adopt appropriate security measurements. This would result in the decrease of operating expenses and increase of customers' satisfaction in the system. The paper provides an overview of state-of-the-art conditional access solutions followed by detailed description of design, reference model implementation and analysis of possible MICAS security architectures.Strategy & Technology (S&T) Lt

Complexity in city systems: Understanding, evolution, and design

6.4 Exemplars of complex systems There are many signatures of complexity revealed in the space-time patterning of cities (Batty, 2005) and here we will indicate three rather different but nevertheless linked exemplars. Our first deals with ..

Proceedings of the ECCS 2005 satellite workshop: embracing complexity in design - Paris 17 November 2005

Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science. These proceedings are the result of a workshop organized as part of the activities of a UK government AHRB/EPSRC funded research cluster called Embracing Complexity in Design (www.complexityanddesign.net) and the European Conference in Complex Systems (complexsystems.lri.fr). Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science. These proceedings are the result of a workshop organized as part of the activities of a UK government AHRB/EPSRC funded research cluster called Embracing Complexity in Design (www.complexityanddesign.net) and the European Conference in Complex Systems (complexsystems.lri.fr)