formal models

[cal]

mostly for vladimir -

'affine spaces' is the correct term to use in english
(if the space has an actual origin, then it is a vector space or linear space,
but if there is no distinguished origin, then it is an affine space)

can you describe the qualities you are looking for in your model?
        it seems as though they are (at least):
                location
                motion
                interaction

but i don't think that behavior is easily represented as a vector in such a 
space,
unless it is very high-dimensional

one of the difficulties will be that the agents themselves contain state 
information,
and either that gets represented in the n-space
(which means that all the agents have identical sets of parameters),
or else the n-space is only to represent locations,
and something else representes the states of the agents in the space

it seems to me that the kind of space you want is a variable-dimension space,
with parts in some dimensionalities and parts in others
(representing the fact that the important criteria for agent behavior is not
homogeneous across the entire space) -
this also allows locally affine spaces to be used,
and if care is taken with the transitions,
the entire model can be made appropriately formal,
while still having a structure that reflects the way it would be implemented in 
swarm

keep working on the qualitites you want

more later,
cal


Dr. Christopher Landauer
National Systems Group, The Aerospace Corporation
The Hallmark Building, Suite 187
13873 Park Center Road, Herndon, Virginia 20171
e-mail: address@hidden
Phone: (703) 318-1666, FAX: (703) 318-5409


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