-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Julian Vincent
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 18:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: biomimetics for space allocation?
Dario Landa wrote:
> Basically, the subject of study is the "Space Allocation
> Problem", which deals with the optimal distribution
> of areas of space among objects. We think that the optimal distribution of
> the space might be present in some natural process that could be used as
> inspiration for solving this problem.
There is, of course, masses of information on territory and competition for
space amongst both plants and animals. But how much of it involves
optimisation? I suppose a climax community has more organisms and species
per
unit area, and presumably this represents some sort of optimisation, but how
to quantify this? Do members of a particular species live longer /
reproduce
more / have fewer diseases when in a climax community rather than a
sub-climactic one? Is that really the criterion for optimisation? What are
you trying to optimise?
Julian Vincent
The optimization criteria here is the optimal space utilization and
satisfaction of requirements contraints,
i.e. given the areas of space with different sizes,
the objects must be allocated in a way suchj that each
objetc obtains the needed space, no space is overused
or wasted and mayeb some objects might have a preference
for certain locations, proximity to others, adjacency,
and what is more, maybe the areas of space could be susceptible of
modification as a result.
However, the highly constrained the problem is, there are
still two main objectives: allocation of all objects, and
optimum space utilization.
Dario Landa
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