1. CS361 Emergence
This is the homepage for the CS361 Emergence course at Bryn Mawr College.
1.1. Overview
A multi-disciplinary exploration of the interactions underlying both real and simulated systems such as: ant colonies, economies, brains, earthquakes, biological evolution, artificial evolution, computers, and life. These emergent systems are often characterized by simple, local interactions that collectively produce global phenomena not apparent in the local interactions.
| Instructor | Douglas S. Blank |
| dblank@cs.brynmawr.edu | |
| Office | Park Science, room 246B |
| Phone | 610-526-6501 |
| FAX | 610-526-6535 |
| Office hours | MW 2-3:30 and by appt |
Protected downloads, grades, list of classmates, teams, and write-ups can be accessed through ![[WWW]](/wiki/classic/img/moin-www.png){kind=small}
Edventure
Textbook: The Computational Beauty of Nature, by Gary William Flake
Class: TR 10am-11:30, Park Science 338
Lab hours: TBA, in Park Science 231
1.2. Schedule
| Week | ||
| Date | Topic | Reading |
| 01 | ||
| Tue Jan 20 | Emergence | None |
| Thr Jan 22 | What is it? | Resnick, Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams, Intro |
| 02 | ||
| Tue Jan 27 | Cellular Automata |
Flake, Chapter 15.0 - 15.3; PyroModulePythonIntro CA (click on (view) or (download)); CS361Lab01 assigned |
| Thr Jan 29 | Cellular Automata | Langton, Computation at the edge of chaos: phase transitions and emergent computation |
| 03 | ||
| Tue Feb 3 | Cellular Automata | Langton, Computation at the edge of chaos: phase transitions and emergent computation, part 2; and Python. See PyroModuleCA; CS361Lab02 assigned |
| Thr Feb 5 | Python | |
| 04 | ||
| Tue Feb 10 | Cellular Automata | Wolfram, A New Kind of Science, Part 1 |
| Thr Feb 12 | Cellular Automata | Presentations |
| 05 | ||
| Tue Feb 17 | Cellular Automata | Wolfram, A New Kind of Science, Part 2 |
| Thr Feb 19 | Cellular Automata | Wolfram, A New Kind of Science, Part 3 |
| 06 | ||
| Tue Feb 24 | Genetic Algorithms | PyroModuleEvolutionaryAlgorithms |
| Thr Feb 26 | GA | Discuss Chapter 20, Flake; Assign CS361Lab03 |
| 07 | ||
| Tue Mar 2 | GACA |
Discuss Revisiting the Edge of Chaos |
| Thr Mar 4 | GACA | Present best CA rules and methods for solving Majority Classification Task |
| 08 | ||
| Tue Mar 9 | Spring Break | |
| Thr Mar 11 | Spring Break | |
| 09 | ||
| Tue Mar 16 | Final CA Discussion! | Present results from GACA |
| Thr Mar 18 | Autonomous Agents & Self-Organization | Chapter 16, CBoN |
| 10 | ||
| Tue Mar 23 | No class | |
| Thr Mar 25 | Project Proposals Due | |
| 11 | ||
| Tue Mar 30 | Competition and Cooperation | Chapter 17, CBoN |
| Thr Apr 6 | Producer-Consumer Dynamics | Chapter 12, CBoN |
| 12 | ||
| Tue Apr 8 | IPD | Competition! |
| Thr Apr 13 | Project Discussions | |
| 13 | ||
| Tue Apr 15 | Tipping Point | http://www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/ |
| Thr Apr 20 | Tipping Point | Why does this characterization of emergence seem different? What is different? |
| 14 | ||
| Tue Apr 22 | Canonical Emergence |
Mark Kuperberg's Canonical Emergence. To run the Segregation Model: 1) start netlogo, 2) select File -> Models Library, 3) select Social Science -> Segregation, 4) run it! |
| Thr Apr 27 | ||
1.3. Lab Assignments
1.3.1. (Lab 3 Evolved Rule Sets)
Please post rule set.
Kirstin and Hannah 11111011101101101101111111100110110111111111111101111111101111101111111111111111110011001100000010100000100000100011100000000000 Audrey and Christina 11111111111111101111111110101110111100101110101011111110111111101111101010100100001111000101110000100000100000001001100000000000 Karen 11111110111111111100100010111010100011101010111110000101000010001000001011100110111100111001110010101011100001001010101000000000 Nathan 11111101111001111001110000011100100101100101100010100111011010001010010001001001010010100000011010010100000111101001000000001000 Sarah 11101001101001111100111010101010101101111110110000100011100101001001110010000001000010101111011111000010001000001011011010100101 Ioana 11111101101010011010001000000010110101001011110011101000101011001010101011101100111001011011101000101100000100101000001010000000
Results
GKL (21.521000000000001, 0.97799999999999998) Kirstin and Hannah (32.801000000000002, 0.92900000000000005) Audrey and Christina (35.707999999999998, 0.877) Karen (29.396999999999998, 0.92000000000000004) Nathan (33.597999999999999, 0.376) Ioana (36.073999999999998, 0.88200000000000001) Sarah (141.64500000000001, 0.0050000000000000001)
1.4. Assessment
Grading will be based on the following:
| Participation | |
| class discussions | 15% |
| class presentations | 20% |
| Writing | |
| class writeups | 15% |
| laboratory work | 30% |
| Project | |
| final project and presentation | 20% |
Students who think they may need accommodations in this course because of the impact of a disability are encouraged to meet with either course instructor early in the semester. Students should also contact Stephanie Bell, Coordinator of Access Services, at 610-526-7351 in Canwyll House, as soon as possible, to verify their eligibility for reasonable accommodations. Early contact will help to avoid unnecessary inconvenience and delays.
