Swarm Model (Artificial Chemistry/Autopoiesis) Available...

[Barry McMullin]

OK folks, in anticipation of giving a short presentation at the
SwarmFest, y'all are welcome to have a look at my model (SCL v0.04) in
advance.  It is documented in two SFI working papers, which
you'll currently find at:

http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~autonomy/bmcm9701
http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~autonomy/bmcm9702

The source distribution is at:

http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~autonomy/bmcm9702/scl-0.04.tar.gz

These will all be mirrored soon (hopefully in the next few days)
at:

http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/publications/97-01-001
http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/publications/97-01-002
http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/publications/97-01-002/scl-0.04.tar.gz

The source distribution is (?) also mirrored in the Swarm user
contrib area:

ftp://ftp.santafe.edu/pub/swarm/users-contrib/anarchy/scl-0.04.tar.gz

The first working paper is *very* long, and is mainly background
about what the model does *not* do (!), and you may well prefer to 
skip it.  The second is, in effect, the
"user guide" for the application.

I've been developing against an SFI internal development 
version of Swarm, but it should (;-) build OK against the current
public release - but I guess y'all will let me know if not!
It may well break after the v1.0 release, but that's an issue
for another day.

And just to give you *some* idea of what it's about, here's the
abstract from the second working paper:

==========================================

This report describes the SCL (v0.04) system. This is an implementation 
of an artificial chemistry, using the Swarm[1] simulation system. This 
chemistry is qualitatively based on the system first described in 
Varela et al. (1974). This involves three distinct chemical
species: Substrate, Catalyst and Link, hence SCL. It was designed with 
a view to generating simple phenomena of autopoietic organisation. 
Varela et al. included a detailed algorithmic account of their original 
model; however, as documented in (McMullin 1997), there are a number of 
problems with interpreting and/or re-implementing that algorithm.
Arising from this, that original algorithm was essentially set aside in 
designing SCL; instead, SCL seeks to capture only the general, qualitative, 
reaction schemes described by Varela et al. 

SCL was developed for two separate purposes. Firstly, it provides a 
platform to critically re-evaluate the phenomena--particularly 
autopoietic phenomena--that can be realised with this general kind of 
reaction scheme. That phenomenological investigation will be described
in a separate report. The second objective was to gain experience of the 
Swarm simulation system and evaluate its suitability for this kind of 
project. This report is concerned solely with this second objective: i.e. 
with documenting the implementation, and with evaluating the use of Swarm. 

============================================

That's it - enjoy!

Barry.



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
| Barry McMullin, Autonomous Systems Group,  |    address@hidden |
| School of Electronic Engineering,          |  Voice: +353-1-704-5432 |
| Dublin City University, Dublin 9, IRELAND. |  FAX:   +353-1-704-5508 |
| http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~mcmullin/home.html |                         |
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++