Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in
Menu
Find a journal Publish with us
Search
Cart
Book cover

International Conference on Coordination Languages and Models

COORDINATION 2012: Coordination Models and Languages pp 152–165Cite as

  1. Home
  2. Coordination Models and Languages
  3. Conference paper
Fluid Analysis of Foraging Ants

Fluid Analysis of Foraging Ants

  • Mieke Massink17 &
  • Diego Latella17 
  • Conference paper
  • 630 Accesses

  • 6 Citations

  • 7 Altmetric

Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNPSE,volume 7274)

Abstract

Workers of the Argentine ant, Iridomyrmex humilis, are known to be capable to find efficiently the shortest route from their nest to a food source. Their approach is based on a simple pheromone trail-laying and following behaviour accessing only local information. In this note we explore the modelling and analysis of foraging ants in Bio-PEPA [8,6]. The simple case study concerns ants that need to cross a bridge with two branches of different length to reach food and carry the food home and is based on empirical data described by Goss and Deneubourg et al. [13,10]. We explore the conditions for which the shortest path emerges as the preferred one by the ants. The analysis is based on stochastic simulation and fluid flow analysis. The behaviour of ant colonies has inspired the development of an interesting class of optimisation algorithms ranging from alternative shortest path algorithms to new scheduling and routing algorithms, algorithms to solve set partition problems and for distributed information retrieval. Process algebraic fluid flow analysis may be an important additional technique to the analysis of such algorithms in a computationally efficient way.

Keywords

  • Fluid flow
  • process algebra
  • collective dynamics
  • self-organisation
  • emergence

Download conference paper PDF

References

  1. Ascens Project, http://www.ascens-ist.eu/

  2. Bortolussi, L.: Stochastic concurrent constraint programming. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Quantitative Aspects of Programming Languages, QAPL 2006. ENTCS, vol. 164-3 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bortolussi, L., Policriti, A.: Modeling biological systems in concurrent constraint programming. Constraints 13(1-2), 66–90 (2008)

    CrossRef  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Bortolussi, L., Policriti, A.: Dynamical Systems and Stochastic Programming: To Ordinary Differential Equations and Back. In: Priami, C., Back, R.-J., Petre, I. (eds.) Transactions on Computational Systems Biology XI. LNCS, vol. 5750, pp. 216–267. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  5. Ciocchetta, F., Duguid, A., Gilmore, S., Guerriero, M.L., Hillston, J.: The Bio-PEPA Tool Suite. In: Proc. of the 6th Int. Conf. on Quantitative Evaluation of SysTems, QEST 2009, pp. 309–310 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Ciocchetta, F., Guerriero, M.L.: Modelling biological compartments in Bio-PEPA. ENTCS 227, 77–95 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Ciocchetta, F., Hillston, J.: Bio-PEPA: An extension of the process algebra PEPA for biochemical networks. ENTCS 194(3), 103–117 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Ciocchetta, F., Hillston, J.: Bio-PEPA: A framework for the modelling and analysis of biological systems. TCS 410(33-34), 3065–3084 (2009)

    CrossRef  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. De Nicola, R., Katoen, J., Latella, D., Loreti, M.: StoKLAIM: A stochastic extension of KLAIM, CNR-ISTI Technical Report number ISTI-2006-TR-01 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Deneubourg, J.L., Aron, S., Goss, S., Pasteels, J.M.: The self-organizing exploratory pattern of the argentine ant. Journal of Insects Behaviour 3(2) (1990)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Dorigo, M., Stützle, T.: Ant Colony Optimization. The MIT Press (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Gillepie, D.T.: Exact stochastic simulation of coupled chemical reactions. The Journal of Physical Chemistry 81(25), 2340–2361 (1977)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  13. Goss, S., Aron, S., Deneubourg, J.L., Pasteels, J.M.: Self-organized shortcuts in the Argentine Ant. Naturwissenschaften 76, 579–581 (1989)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  14. Hillston, J.: Fluid flow approximation of PEPA models. In: Proceedings of QEST 2005, pp. 33–43. IEEE Computer Society (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Kurtz, T.G.: Solutions of ordinary differential equations as limits of pure Markov processes. Journal of Applied Probability 7(1), 49–58 (1970)

    CrossRef  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  16. Kwiatkowska, M., Norman, G., Parker, D.: PRISM: Probabilistic model checking for performance and reliability analysis. ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Kwiatkowska, M., Norman, G., Parker, D.: PRISM 4.0: Verification of Probabilistic Real-Time Systems. In: Gopalakrishnan, G., Qadeer, S. (eds.) CAV 2011. LNCS, vol. 6806, pp. 585–591. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  18. Milner, R.: Calculi for synchrony and asynchrony. Theoretical Computer Science 25(3), 267–310 (1983)

    CrossRef  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  19. Sumpter, D.J.T., Blanchard, G.B., Broomhead, D.S.: Ants and agents: a process algebra approach to modelling ant colony behaviour. Bulletin of Mathematical Biology 63, 951–980 (2001), doi:10.1006/bulm.2001.0252

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  20. Tofts, C.: The autosynchronisation of leptothorax acervorem (fabricius) described in WSCCS. Tech. Rep. ECS-LFCS-90-128, LFCS, University of Edinburgh (1990)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell’Informazione ‘A. Faedo’, CNR, Italy

    Mieke Massink & Diego Latella

Authors
  1. Mieke Massink
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Diego Latella
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, Reykjavik University, Menntavegur 1, 101, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Marjan Sirjani

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing

About this paper

Cite this paper

Massink, M., Latella, D. (2012). Fluid Analysis of Foraging Ants. In: Sirjani, M. (eds) Coordination Models and Languages. COORDINATION 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7274. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30829-1_11

Download citation

  • .RIS
  • .ENW
  • .BIB
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30829-1_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-30828-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-30829-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Share this paper

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Search

Navigation

  • Find a journal
  • Publish with us

Discover content

  • Journals A-Z
  • Books A-Z

Publish with us

  • Publish your research
  • Open access publishing

Products and services

  • Our products
  • Librarians
  • Societies
  • Partners and advertisers

Our imprints

  • Springer
  • Nature Portfolio
  • BMC
  • Palgrave Macmillan
  • Apress
  • Your US state privacy rights
  • Accessibility statement
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Help and support

167.114.118.210

Not affiliated

Springer Nature

© 2023 Springer Nature