Many networks are used to transfer information or goods, in other words, they are navigated. The larger the network, the more difficult it is to navigate efficiently. Indeed, information routing in the Internet faces serious scalability problems due to its rapid growth, recently accelerated by the rise of the Internet of Things. Large networks like the Internet can be navigated efficiently if nodes, or agents, actively forward information based on hidden maps underlying these systems. However, in reality most agents will deny to forward messages, which has a cost, and navigation is impossible. Can we design appropriate incentives that lead to participation and global navigability? Here, we present an evolutionary game where agents share the value generated by successful delivery of information or goods. We show that global navigability can emerge, but its complete breakdown is possible as well. Furthermore, we show that the system tends to self-organize into local clusters of agents who participate in the navigation. This organizational principle can be exploited to favor the emergence of global navigability in the system.

 

Collective navigation of complex networks: Participatory greedy routing
Kaj-Kolja Kleineberg & Dirk Helbing
Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 2897 (2017)
doi:10.1038/s41598-017-02910-x

Source: www.nature.com

Bees are smart, anybody knows that, but swarms are smarter. They have the ability to choose the best dwelling place among a set of potential nest sites with different qualities. Signalling serves the bees to convince their mates to choose the same site they have visited, and to prevent that other bees recruit to different sites. Our latest study proposes that the frequency of signalling is a key parameter: on the one hand, scarce signalling among bees hampers the attainment of consensus within the swarm; on the other hand, too frequent signalling reduces decision accuracy by quickly committing to early-discovered inferior quality options. The optimal signalling frequency lies in the middle. We suggest that the ability of bees to fine-tune their communication frequencies helps them to master their house-hunting task. Hence, this study hypothesises how ecological factors determining the density of suitable nest sites may have led to selective pressures for the evolution of an optimal stable signalling frequency. It also indicates a possible signalling strategy of honeybees: starting with few signals and gradually increasing the signalling frequency through time, until convergence is reached. In addition, our results may lead to the implementation of better algorithms for distributed decision making, to be employed in sensor networks or robot swarms.

 

A. Reina, J.A.R. Marshall, V. Trianni, T. Bose. Model of the best-of-N nest-site selection process in honeybees. Physical Review E, 95(5): 052411, 2017.
URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevE.95.052411

Source: journals.aps.org

The America-dominated era had industrialized the world, and created previously unseen levels of luxury. It also created a financial industry to make it happen, and a digital infrastructure to watch and control the world. Yet, it has failed to solve the existential challenges of our planet: climate change, environmental destruction, resource depletion. This lack of sustainability is causing wars, mass migration, and a future heading for disaster. A new approach – one that brings people and nature in balance – is urgently needed.

Source: futurict.blogspot.mx