In this paper, we present examples from the literature of successful problem solving systems that have been heavily influenced directly from biological studies of insect societies. Included among these systems are a few of our own. These examples are presented in light of manufacturing applications and only the tip of the iceberg is touched upon. It is our hope that the reader will find a new s...

A growing body of researchers from the social and computer sciences are using computational experimentation in a highly exploratory way. The work done in this area is less "simulation" and more "construction". By analogy with artificial intelligence and artificial life, this synthetic approach has become known as artificial societies. It is argued that artificial societies can aid memetic theor...

THE fifth meeting of the session 1933-4 was lheld in the City and County Infirmary on 30th March, at 8.30 p.m. The president, Dr. XV. Rankin, welcomed Mr. S. T. Irwin, who was the lecturer for the meeting. There was a very large attendance of members. Mr. lrwin chose as his subject, "-Fhe Treatment of Gastric and Duodenal Ulceration." It would be very difficult to give anl adequate epitome of t...

Divorce and end-of-union rates have risen sharply over the past thirty years, and a growing number of children have to cope with parental separation: one non-adult child in four among recent birth cohorts (box 1). Education, too, has changed radically over recent decades; it has been “democratized”—become accessible to all—and the period of compulsory education is now substantially longer. The ...

In this paper we propose a formal model of coordination in Multi-Agent Systems. Wooldridge and Jennings [15] restrict their approach to Cooperative Problem Solving cases insisting in a team-formation stage in which agents commit themselves to act as a group to achieve a common goal before negotiation starts. In our model, autonomous agents first recognise how they depend on each other (they may...

It is, no do.ubt, wisely ordered by Providence, that Societies can never act collectively with the multiplied energies and talents of the individuals composing them. If such were the case, solitary exertions would be annihilated, and monopolies in Science and Literature would operate with the same baneful influence which marks their steps in trade. In medical Science, indeed, there can hardly b...

THE opening meeting of the Society was held on the 3rd November, when the retiring president, Professor W. W. D. Thomson, introduced Dr. John McCloy to the chair. After thanking Professor Thomson and the fellows and members of the Society for conferring the honour of presidency upon him, Dr. McCloy then referred to the losses which the Society had sustained during the previous year from the dea...

World-wide interlinked computer networks are forming the foundation for computational societies of software agents. Already, these new societies have encountered problems endemic to human communities, such as overusing common resources with thrashing over virtual memory and competition by packets for network time. Unlike with human societies, these inefficiencies can be overcome by reworking th...