🚀 go-pugleaf

Clive,
	With respect to whether a link between flocking behavior and 
orientation during seasonal migration is 'accepted' see Hamilton's 
chapter in Storm, 1967.  Paul Kerlinger has described some more explicit 
models for the function of flocking including enhanced location of 
thermals in his book, _Flight strategies of migrating hawks_.  Both 
references are pasted in, below.
	I am very curious about what you called the '3-rule'-type 
complexity-based models.  Are these specific to group behavior or 
orientation?  Will you please post or mail references?  Thanks.

ACCESSION: 21618818
   AUTHOR: Biology Colloquium (27th : 1966)
    TITLE: Animal orientation and navigation :
           proceedings of the twenty-seventh annual Biology Colloquium, May
           6-7, 1966 /
    PLACE: Corvallis :
PUBLISHER: Oregon State University Press,
     YEAR: 1967
 PUB TYPE: Book
   FORMAT: ix, 134 p. : ill. ; 24 cm
   SERIES: Proceedings of the twenty-seventh annual Biology Colloquium
           Biology Colloquium Proceedings of the annual Biology Colloquium
           ; 27th.
    NOTES: Includes bibliographies
  SUBJECT: Animal orientation -- Congresses
           Animal navigation -- Congresses
           Radar in zoology -- Congresses
           Animal behavior -- Congresses.
    OTHER: Storm, Robert M.

ACCESSION: 19122996
   AUTHOR: Kerlinger, Paul.
    TITLE: Flight strategies of migrating hawks /
    PLACE: Chicago :
PUBLISHER: University of Chicago Press,
     YEAR: 1989
 PUB TYPE: Book
   FORMAT: xv, 375 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
    NOTES: Includes index.
           Bibliography: p. 343-368.
     ISBN: 0226431665 (alk. paper) 0226431673 (pbk. : alk. paper)
  SUBJECT: Hawks -- Migration.
           Birds -- Migration.

Kristian
komland@moose.uvm.edu

Clive Steward (csteward@narration.cityscape.co.uk) wrote:
: I would like to ask for some professional judgement.  Composing reasonable
: theories is quite different from knowing that they're accepted in the
: field.   Use described below.

: The basic question:  

: Would it be acceptable to state that there is an accepted link between the
: concepts of flocking behaviour and of location guidance during seasonal
: migration?

: To be more specific on this first question, I would like to imagine that
: the semi-chaotic patterning of, say, birds or butterflies  during flocking
: could act as a kind of search activity which helps the flock discover
: landmarks, wind current directions, temperature gradients, whatever clues
: (interested in list) which form part of the factors which tend them on
: their way, also to choose by appropriate senses likely sites for interim
: landing or at the end of journey.

: At another level, I would like to imagine that the '3-rule'-type
: complexity-based models such as developed at the Santa Fe Institute for
: flocking (or other basis) could acceptably be said to allow any bird in a
: flock who has a 'better' reason to guide the flock.  What I have in mind is
: that they're hungry, one bird sees the prey habitat first, sums his
: behaviour to head for it, this modifies the flock so more see and follow,
: etc..  Likewise if another bird then spots a falcon, he goes wide and the
: rest follow.

: The purpose I'd like to use these thought models for is actually in the
: field of Learning Organisations (management structure & theory).  I have
: enough grad school background in mathematical ecology etc.. to be pretty
: comfortable with all constituents here, but then long out of touch with the
: field to know what theories have currency.

: If you are interested, the use would be to suggest how important it can be
: to provide individuals and working groups with independence, and a
: capability to momentarily 'guide for the flock'.  I hope this is
: interesting.

: I would have to use this idea first in about 10 days, if it's acceptable.

: Thank you kindly for any help offered,

: Clive Steward


: Clive Steward
: csteward@narration.cityscape.co.uk

Interesting thoughts.  I can't comment on what is currently accepted
among ornithologists, but I would suggest that you not be too heavily
persuaded by ornithologists who might doubt these ideas.  If they
can't dissuade you with sound evidence, stick to your ideas.  On the
other hand, someone may have already explored such a model.  I haven't
heard of it being done before.
I'm not sure I understand what you are proposing.  I thought that you
were going to suggest that flocks serve as consensus-generators, where
the directional judgment of individuals is modified by that of the
rest of the flock.  This way, if they all have slightly different
assessments of which way is South, they can arrive at a consensus by
mass action and minimize their individual chances of taking a wrong
course.  I have seen such a dynamic modelled in relation to ant
behavior by Pasteels and Deneuborg (sp?).  I could give more precise
references if you're interested.  However, this doesn't sound like the
concept that you are proposing.  You seem to be suggesting that
individual deviations will pull flocks toward better actions, whereas
I am talking about individuals deviating toward the flock action.  I
don't understand what you mean when you say that the bird "sums his
behavior".  In any case, there is a fair amount of literature on
recruitment in ants and bees that you might find to be relevant.
Further discussion should probably be taken to e-mail . . .

Hope this helps
Rikki Hall

In article <1994Dec1.181858.18788@emba.uvm.edu>,
komland@moose.uvm.edu (Kristian S. Omland) wrote:

>Clive,
>	With respect to whether a link between flocking behavior and 
>orientation during seasonal migration is 'accepted' see Hamilton's 
>chapter in Storm, 1967.  Paul Kerlinger has described some more explicit 
>models for the function of flocking including enhanced location of 
>thermals in his book, _Flight strategies of migrating hawks_.  Both 
>references are pasted in, below.

And thank you very much, truly, Kristian.  The Hamilton/Storm reference is
actually from my first alma mater, even years I was there.  However, I
don't know how I'm going to come up with either here in northern England in
the necessary few days.  Could I possibly ask you the further favor of a
synopsis?

Your language on the Kerlinger models suggests that this metaphor I wish to
suppose isn't denied; may I believe that?  May I believe also it's
supported?  Of course it will  be very interesting to read and assimilate
the sources once that becomes possible.

>	I am very curious about what you called the '3-rule'-type 
>complexity-based models.  Are these specific to group behavior or 
>orientation?  Will you please post or mail references?  Thanks.

Yes, the clearest reference I have present in my 'local' library is from
Waldrop, M. Mitchell, 1992, 'Complexity', ISBN 0-670-85045-4 pbk,
apparently published in US by Simon & Schuster, elsewhere by
Penguin/Viking.

The material is in chapter 7, titled Peasants under Glass, which begins on
page 241 with a description of a simulation called 'boids', prepared in
late 1987 by Craig Reynolds at the Symbolics Corporation.   In the book,
it's being looked at nominally by John Holland and Brian Arthur during one
of their sojourns at the Sante Fe Institute.

Reynolds' intention was to generally model flocking, schooling, or herding
behaviour.  He did this by placing a large collection of autonomous agents
-- the 'boids' -- in a three-dimensional environment including topography
and obstacles (view of it may have from the sound of it been a sort of
2-1/2d, possibly).

The three sole rules governing each boid were:

1)  Attempt to maintain a minimum distance from other objects in the
environment, including other birds.
2)  Attempt to match velocities with boids in its neighborhood.
3)  Attempt to move toward the center of mass of boids in its neighborhood.

[One can imagine a relaxation producing vector forces at each interval, I
think -- the exact words in the book are 'It tried to' where I have placed
'Attempt'.  I've been tempted to knock this up in Smalltalk, wish there
were the time.]

No other rules; of course the book goes on to explain this means no rules
which said, 'form a flock', and to draw out the point about degree of
attention to local vicinity; finally to say that if a flock happened, it
seemingly had to be an emergent phenomenon.

Result:  flocks did form, it says every time, regardless of varying initial
conditions.  The appearance of the flock which formed as it moved around
obstacles was said to be in a 'very fluid and natural manner', including
sometimes breaking into sub-flocks which flowed around boundaries of an
obstacle, and then rejoined smoothly after.

The set piece to prove the point was where a flocked boid apparently ran
into a pole (lucky head-on shot, suppose), and 'fluttered around for a
moment as though stunned and lost', as one could imagine it would do if
halted and the distant flock were swirling, finally 'darted forward to
rejoin the flock as it moved on'. 

This head-on shot reaction is reported as Reynold's point of insistence
that the model behaviour was truly emergent.  In Waldrop's text, we then
move on to Holland mulling this considerably with Arthur on the car ride
back, exhibiting what seems from reading a typical personal amount of
caution.   Holland cautioned Reynolds, wondered if even with the pole
bumping, the rules were so obvious 'you aren't learning anything new'.  He
wanted to have ability to put more objects in the environment and see what
happened.

Arthur said he couldn't argue with that, but 'for himself', this evidently
seemed (as it does to me) much more a discussion of how to define emergent
behaviour.  As he says, everything in the universe 'has rules', so 'what is
emergence', and 'that goes to the heart of the problem in artifical life',
which is of course Holland's metier.  I could say parallel to the
definition of consciousness, with which it by now has several geometries of
parallel.

Personally, I would accept the behaviour as novel and not deducible, 
therefore 'emergent', and in fact the book uses this angle to follow Arthur
as he went rather immediately from this and, he says, the stimulation of
it's discussion, into agent-based simulations of economy.  He began with a
feudal world, hence the chapter title.

The chapter goes quite far beyond all this,  which was first 2 pages only,
on to economics being brought into Sante Fe, physicist/economist dynamics,
immunology, 'rationality' degrees in economics, inductive economic
modeling, more Holland alife this time with Darwinian adaptation, conflict
resolutio game theory, and finally a taste of the beginning of stock market
simulations (few facts here, of course).

I think, actually, that it's a pretty good book, and certainly interesting.

Cheers, Christian

Clive






Clive Steward
csteward@narration.cityscape.co.uk

In article <VEERY.94Dec1171800@dogwood2.utcc.utk.edu>,
veery@dogwood2.utcc.utk.edu (Richard Hall) wrote:

>Interesting thoughts.  

Thanks.

>I thought that you
>were going to suggest that flocks serve as consensus-generators, where
>the directional judgment of individuals is modified by that of the
>rest of the flock.  This way, if they all have slightly different
>assessments of which way is South, they can arrive at a consensus by
>mass action and minimize their individual chances of taking a wrong
>course.

I do think of this,  as a 'fundamental' mode.

>I have seen such a dynamic modelled in relation to ant
>behavior by Pasteels and Deneuborg (sp?).  I could give more precise
>references if you're interested.

Yes, please, at your convenience -- right now time forces me try to
assemble bounding judgements, but I will want to explore.

>However, this doesn't sound like the
>concept that you are proposing.

True, as an additional concept.

>You seem to be suggesting that
>individual deviations will pull flocks toward better actions

Yes.  Even allowing for a dominant leader, s/he can't be omnipotent.  May
get tired, may be injured or sick, more likely, just isn't the first to see
the next important thing.  Somebody else will, and my picture of the
potentials of 'emergent' flocking seems to give a means by which the
shifting of influence can take place automatically, even if perhaps the
steadier state will resolve again to a favored individual in relative lead.

> I don't understand what you mean when you say that the bird "sums his
>behavior".

My thinking is in the neural network or blackboard ai sense, where there
can be several consistent modes of systematic behaviour, and the most
'indicated' takes a strong balance, likely not in an entirely dominant
sense, at any point.   I.e., so long as all things are equal, let's say the
'three-rule' (see other messages) behaviour dominates, perhaps plus other
rules which aren't considered here.  Three-rule takes care of terrain
avoidance, etc. housekeeping and keeps flock together, for all good
reasons.

Now a new issue pops up on the 'radar'.  Everyone's hungry, but no response
without an answer to it.  Now our bird who is about to become special,
through the natural weaving flow emergent of the flock rules, ends up,
let's say, outside enough, and pointed in the right direction enough, to
notice a likely looking grove of trees.  In my model, his hunger/food
desire overbalances the flocking rules enough that he goes wide; the others
because obeying 'only' the flocking rules will tend to follow him.

Similar postulation for all the location apparatus, in the picture which
I'm presuming but asking if accepted here: i.e., lot's of non-specific
sensing, which again sums to a useful picture.  Anyone with particular
sensitivity (better eyesight today, feels the temperature gradient, smells
the landfall, remembers the route last year better) will tend to deviate
accordingly.  By the three-rule 'center-of-mass' following, others will
come following so long as this member pushes.

>In any case, there is a fair amount of literature on
>recruitment in ants and bees that you might find to be relevant.

Yes, good idea, in good time.

>Hope this helps
>Rikki Hall

Indeed, and thanks.  Do you find anything uncomfortable in my picture of
the overall migration navigation being composed of a very 'wide-band' use
of all senses, memories, prototype (shape) matching, not to exclude genetic
coding, which might for example initiate preparation and takeoff according
to stimuli such as seasonal temperature gradients in time and space?

Cheers,

Clive



Clive Steward
csteward@narration.cityscape.co.uk

In article <richard.gillen-051294221803@ara87.cis.corp.medtronic.com>,
richard.gillen@medtronic.com (Richard R. Gillen) wrote:

>I assume you've heard of, or read, Meg Wheatley's Leadership and the New
>Science in which she discusses "flocking" with refs to her source and org
>development / change concepts.

Actually, not; will have to look, and thanks.

>Although 3-rules and the like are simpler
>concepts, most discussants agree on a few simple rules at a time, which
>then change to a new set, situationally dependent...in human complex
>organizations where research and identification of discrete variables are
>extremely problematic.

Yes, I do suppose our human case to be a bit more deep.  This query was for
a metaphor about which I could build a story-system to encourage thinking. 
The aspect of situationality you mention does particularly interest me; it
seems that to 'get something done', people often like to hear what kind of
limits to their activity can be thought available, before they're
comfortable to begin, and even if they'll possibly like to 'break the
boundary' later, which I think one could feel is really moving into another
mode, once interest establishes an envelope.
 
>In any case, the mathematics suggest complex
>variable tables which may reveal patterns in the gestalt field a/o the
>gestalt background. I am interested in same, esp. with I/T organizations
>embedded in complex science / medical manufacturing org contexts.

I wonder if it could be useful to pass on another source located today: 
it's http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/lab/adapt/index.html, which is the
Cognitive Science Research Papers area at the University of Sussex
(Brighton).  Lots of interesting avenues, some of which sound perhaps
connectible with your interests.

Thank you for your thoughts!




Clive Steward
csteward@narration.cityscape.co.uk

I'd like to thank very kindly all who have replied so far, via e-mail or
the net.  I will do a summary of these interesting notes, as soon as
conversations come to closure. 

However, some of the responses on the net may have been missed.  I received
a message from my host today that the news service has been repaired after
being erratic (out of disk); and sure enough, the evidence of skipped
articles is there.

Could I possibly ask for a repost or email, if what you've sent isn't one
of the three postings listed below?  Many thanks, and very sorry for the
trouble.

Usenet news postings received (and only these):

1.  from Kristian S. Omland, begins:  With respect to whether a link
between flocking behavior and orientation during seasonal migration is
'accepted' see Hamilton's 

2.  from Richard Hall, begins:  Interesting thoughts.  I can't comment on
what is currently accepted among ornithologists, but I would suggest that
you not be too heavily persuaded by ornithologists who might doubt these
ideas.

3. from Richard R. Gillen, begins with my quote, then: I assume you've
heard of, or read, Meg Wheatley's Leadership and the New Science in which
she discusses "flocking" 

Thanks again.




Clive Steward
csteward@narration.cityscape.co.uk

In article <1994Dec1.181858.18788@emba.uvm.edu>,
komland@moose.uvm.edu (Kristian S. Omland) wrote:

>	I am very curious about what you called the '3-rule'-type 
>complexity-based models.  Are these specific to group behavior or 
>orientation?  Will you please post or mail references?  Thanks.

I've found something further than the Waldrop reference on this, at least
on tools.  On WWW, at http://www.santafe.edu/~nelson/swarm/ is a collection
of materials about Swarm, which is apparently Chris Langton's follow-on to
the "boids" work.

Quoting from the abstract of one of the papers, "Swarm is a general purpose
simulation package for the investigation of concurrent, distributed
systems:  systems in which a large number of autonomous agents interact
with one another and with a dynamically changing environment.  Swarm
provides general purpose utilities for designing, implementing, running,
and analyzing such multi-agent systems.

First line in the overview: "The primary goal of the Swarm simulation
system is to save researchers from having to deal with all of the computer
science issues involved in the implementation of concurrent, distributed
artificial worlds."



Clive Steward
csteward@narration.cityscape.co.uk

In article <AB0A62AC9668B336C@ae037.du.pipex.com>csteward@narration.cityscape.co.uk (Clive Steward) writes:

> I've found something further than the Waldrop reference on this, at
> least on tools.  On WWW, at http://www.santafe.edu/~nelson/swarm/
> is a collection of materials about Swarm, which is apparently Chris
> Langton's follow-on to the "boids" work.

  Well, I suppose I ought to say something about this.

  I am involved with the Swarm project, and in fact want to use the
system for individual-based spatial ecological models.  Swarm is
intended to be a general-purpose multi-agent simulation system.  So
far it has been used for simple ecological models, economic models of
agents trading with each other or buying/selling products depending on
their local environment, very simple traffic models, some social
insect models, and a couple other things.

  The web site above contains what little public documentation exists
at this point.  Also under there is a paper I presented in Toronto in
September at a conference on Advanced Technology for Natural Resource
Management, called "The Swarm Simulation System and Individual-Based
Models".  It gives a very high-level overview of Swarm, and also
discusses some of the advantages and disadvantages of using these
kinds of models.  Note that I'm pretty embarassed about the herbivory
model I briefly mention in there, since it uses age-based life-history
tables for the plants and the herbivores (rather than size-based
tables for the plants which would probably be more appropriate), and
when an herbivore attacks a plant, it eats/destroys the *whole* plant.
Well, it made the code simpler, and I wasn't intending it to be a very
realistic model (I actually wrote it for a numerical analysis class to
try to fit differential equations to the dynamics).  If you don't do
WWW, you can my paper via FTP from ftp.santafe.edu under the directory
"pub/hiebeler/papers/swarm" (PostScript and LaTeX versions are
available.  See the README file in that directory).

  Anyway, Swarm could easily handle the Boids flocking simulation.  We
had a workshop on Multi-Agent Simulation Systems in June at the Santa
Fe Institute, with many people including the Boid guy Craig Reynolds
(the bio folks present were Randy Gimblett and George Ball from U of
Arizona who are doing landscape ecology simulation stuff, and Jack
Corliss and Tony Burgess from the Biosphere-2 who want to simulate
their biosphere to help manage the thing).  We tried to get a lot of
input from people developing similar (but often more special-purpose)
simulation environments, and from potential users of the system.

  Hopefully there will be an initial public release of Swarm sometime
in early-to-mid 1995 (the initial prototype I developed, described in
my paper, is not being publically released; it was used as a basis for
designing a much more flexible/powerful new version).  When it's
ready, I hope it will be a useful tool for individual-based modeling
in ecology, among many other things.  I will certainly post an
announcement on Ecolog-L (sci.bio.ecology) when the first general
release is available.  You can also contact
"swarm-request@santafe.edu" to be put on an announcement list, or a
developers' list if you are interested in seeing some discussion of
low-level details of the system.

  And feel free to contact me if you have any questions about Swarm.

--
Dave Hiebeler     hiebeler@husc.harvard.edu   ~{:#DZ4fV*<:#,LlQDHt1HAZ~}
Graduate student in Applied Math / Ecology, Harvard University

Clive,

As an ornithologist working with bird migration and navigation, I feel
obliged to insert my $.02 worth (and probably my foot into my mouth ;-)
).  There are actually two behaviors being discussed here:  flocking and
herding (the coalescence of animals into a single functional group) and
navigation (although the discussion has focused on migratory navigation,
the same rules would apply to homing navigation).  Some species of birds
and other animals form herds/flocks during migration, but also at other
times of the year: deer herd in winter, birds form nonmigratory
postbreeding flocks, fish school year round, etc.  The evolutionay
advantages for many of these groups appear to be associated with improved
foraging and/or predator protection.  All these aggregations move through
their environments following rules that might resemble those in the
proposed simulations.  I am not familiar with the simulation model that
is described here, but if the attractiveness of the different "objects"
that are encountered in the "environment" could be weighted, with
conspecifics being more "attractive" than "poles", I expect it would be a
relatively good approximation of the flock/herd's dynamics.

The second behavior is navigation during migration (and homing).  Most
songbirds migrate at night either as individuals or very loose flocks. 
There are a number of studies using both direct and indirect observation
techniques that substantiate this.  Waterfowl and shorebirds often
migrate as flocks during either the day or night (someimes they will
start in the evening and migrate well into the next day).  During
migration the flocks fly high (1-3000 m) and don't have to worry about
"poles" that might deflect their flight (unless the pole is an aircraft,
in which case...).  There are reports that the leader of the flocks are
adults that have made the trip previously, and that the lead changes
periodically.  The changing of the leader could be the result of
"differences of opinion" regarding the direction they should fly, but
more likely is the result of the leader having to work harder than the
following birds.  The extra work is caused by the following birds using
the wingtip vortices produced by the lead bird for extra lift (and hence
reduced cost of flight).

The only test of the hypothesis that flocks are better oriented than
individuals, that I am aware of, was on homing pigeons.  In this case,
the researchers concluded that flocks were no better than individuals.  I
don't have the reference at hand, but can dig it out if anyone is
interested.  Paul Kirlinger's work (as the title of his book states) is
with thermal soaring by hawks.  The aggregation of the hawks is a result
of nonuniform distribution of a resource they require for migration:
updrafts; not a social attraction.  Other hawks are indicators only of
where the updrafts are located.

I hope this  material is useful to your ideas.  If you would like any
more gory details or references, please let me know.

Bob Beason
beason@uno.cc.geneseo.edu