What is Swarm Intelligence?

Question

This is to present a Seminar so detailed answer needed.

Answer 1

Swarm Intelligence is the principal peer-reviewed publication dedicated to reporting on research and developments in the multidisciplinary field of swarm intelligence. The journal publishes original research articles and occasional review articles on theoretical, experimental and/or practical aspects of swarm intelligence. All articles are published both in print and in electronic form. There are no page charges for publication. There will be two printed issues of Swarm Intelligence in 2007. Starting in 2008, Swarm Intelligence will be published quarterly.


The field of swarm intelligence deals with systems composed of many individuals that coordinate using decentralized control and self-organization. In particular, it focuses on the collective behaviors that result from the local interactions of the individuals with each other and with their environment. It is a fast-growing field that encompasses the efforts of researchers in multiple disciplines, ranging from ethology and social science to operations research and computer engineering.


Swarm Intelligence will report on advances in the understanding and utilization of swarm intelligence systems, that is, systems that are based on the principles of swarm intelligence. The following subjects are of particular interest to the journal:


modeling and analysis of collective biological systems such as social insect colonies, flocking vertebrates, and human crowds as well as any other swarm intelligence systems;


application of biological swarm intelligence models to real-world problems such as distributed computing, data clustering, graph partitioning, optimization and decision making;


theoretical and empirical research in ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, swarm robotics, and other swarm intelligence algorithms.

Answer 2

The most detailed answer I can give you is

1) You should have chosen a different topic. Swarm + intelligence are mutually exclusive. It's a pretty bad misnomer and a pretty desperate field. When I had some exposure to Genetic Algorithms a decade ago (a halfway reasonable thing to research) someone said that swarms were the next big thing. Well... they are still the next big thing, which in science is not a particularly charming way of saying "LOSER!". Most of what is being done in "swarm intelligence" IMHO has been done in physics and mathematics decades ago. It just happens that the mathematically important results are likely to be inaccessible to the people who like to screw around with robots and few are likely willing to read the material already available on self-organization. After all... it is not sexy to write into your grant application that all you are doing is to reinvent the wheel. And maybe badly, at that.

2) If this is for a science seminar, you better get the books about the topic from the library. Yahoo answers will not get you much beyond the Wikipedia level (which often is remarkable good, by the way). I happen to be a scientist/engineer and I wouldn't put any more work into even my best answers than is needed to re-organize my knowledge and re-write it in a way to make it accessible to the layman. I don't see anyone else here doing much more. After all, the difference between writing a short blurb and giving a well thought out seminar is approx. two orders of magnitude in absolute work and time. And in the end, I don't have to give the damn thing, so I won't look foolish. But you just might.

3) Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. In other words... if you are not having fun researching such a topic, you are wasting your time and money getting an education which requires you to give or participate in seminars. Go do something you like and let someone else with more passion take your place.

Just my three cents. And good luck getting some useful info.

Answer 3

Hi. Here is a good starting point. http://www.answers.com/Swarm+Intelligence?cat=technology&gwp=13