It consists in the use of methods inspired by nature to solve problems in a computer. The inspiration is mainly taken from natural biological information processing systems, such as chemical processes, cooperation between beings and so on. Some examples of nature-inspired computation are simulated annealing, ant colony optimization, or cooperative problem solving (CPS).
Published in Chapter:
Nature-Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimization
Juan R. González (University of Granada, Spain), Alejandro Sancho-Royo (University of Granada, Spain), David A. Pelta (University of Granada, Spain), and Carlos Cruz (University of Granada, Spain)
Copyright: © 2008
|Pages: 8
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-885-7.ch129
Abstract
Biological entities (ranging from bacteria to humans) can engage in many and varied types of social interaction, from altruistic cooperation to open conflict. A paradigmatic case of social interaction is cooperative problem solving (CPS), where a group of autonomous entities work together to achieve a common goal. For example, we might find a group of people working together to move a heavy object, play a symphony, choose a business strategy, or write a joint paper. CPS has been studied by researchers from a variety of areas such as distributed A. I., soft computing, economics, philosophy, organization science, and the social and natural sciences among others.