www.amazon.com link to textbook: Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams by Mitchel Resnick. NOTE: Use Search inside this book link to read pages 3 through 8 (First Pages) of the book, if you do NOT have it yet.
Read pages 3-8 of the book (23 paragraphs). You can read these pages on the amazon.com link if you do not yet have the book. LOOK INSIDE the book and choose FIRST PAGES.
For your convenience, I have provided the first sentence of each and every one of the pargraphs here. Makes a good outline and study guide to help your focus and note taking and the future discussion.
Chapter 1 - Pages 3 through 8 - first sentence of each paragraph. These 23 paragraphs and these 6 pages are available in the amazon First Pages preview LOOK INSIDE! this book. ------------ Click to LOOK INSIDE! 1 --------------------- -------------------------------- Foundations Any study which throws light upon the nature of "order" or "pattern" in the universe is surely notrivial. ---Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind A flock of birds sweeps across the sky. Like a well-choreographed dance troupe, the birds veer to the left in unison. Then, suddenly, they all dart to the right and swoop down toward the ground. ... How do birds keep their movements so orderly, so synchronized? ... Bird flocks are not the only things that work that way. ... In recent years, there has been a growing fascination with these types of systems. ... Almost everywhere you look these days, there is evidence of decentralization. ... ---------------- But even as the influence of decentralized ideas grows, there is a deep-seated resistance to such ideas. ... This assumption of centralized control, a phenomenon I call the centralized mindset, is not just a misconception of the scientifically naive. ... Of course, centralized ideas are not always bad or wrong. ... That is starting to change, but only slowly. There is a powerful tension. ... In this book I explore both the allure of decentralization and the centralized mindset that resists it. ... My investigation consists of several interwoven threads, each of which reinforces and enriches the others. ... Probing people's thinking. Developing new conceptual tools. Developing new computational tools. (NetLogo turtle graphics) ... High-school students have used StarLogo to create and explore a variety of decentralized microworlds. ... This research might seem like a strange mixture. What field is it? ... The Era of Decentralization On December 7, 1991, Russian president Boris Yeltsin met with the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus in a forest dacha outside the city of Brest. ... The next day, halfway around the world, another powerful institution announced its own decentralization plans. IBM chairman John Akers publically announced a sweeping reorganization of the computer giant, ... ... Thus, within days, two of the world's most powerful institutions announced radical transformations, abandoning centralized hierarchies in favor of more decentralized structures. ... The decentralization trend is evident in the ways that people organize countries and corporations, and in the ways people design new technologies. But more important, it is evident in the ways people THINK ABOUT the world. ... Of course, interest in decentralization is not entirely new. ... Nearly a century after Adam Smith, Charles Darwin brought the idea of the invisible hand to biology. ... This section examines the trend toward decentralization in five different domains: ... As I investigated the growing interest in decentralized ideas in so many varied domains, my first inclination was to try to figure out which domain is the most influential. ... But as I thought about it, I realized that my inquiry was violating the spirit of the very trend that I was trying to study. Why should there be a single, central, underlying cause for all of this decentralization? ... The following overview is necessarily superficial, ignoring many of the subtleties and exceptions to the decentralization trend.
See the Models Library for NetLogo. All of these models will also be installed on your computer (PC or MAC) when you install the free NetLogo turtle graphics software.
Biology category has SLIME model (see SLIME MOLD in chapter 3) ANTS model (see Artificial Ants in chapter 3) TERMITES model (see Termites in chapter 3) Social Science category has Traffic Basic and Traffic Grid (see Traffic Jams in chapter 3) Earth Science category has Fire (see Forest Fire in chapter 3)
Send email to jacobson@cs.uni.edu with your answers to the questions and tasks. Anytime by or on Monday 09/12/2011 is fine, including late that evening if needed. Feel free to scan in hand-written pen/pencil sheets and send as attachment too, if you wish.
Questions on Resnick book pages 3-8 readinngs: 1. From the pages 3-8 readings, explain what the centralized mindset is. "Visualize a flock of birds winging in the autumn sky or the amazing synchronized fireflies that blink in unison lighting up whole trees in the Far East. How do these patterns come about? All of these patterns are emergent, there is no leader bird which other birds follow, no conductor firefly leading the band -- these patterns emerge out of the behavior of individuals and the adjustment of that behavior in interaction with other individuals." http://ccl.northwestern.edu/papers/MEE/ 2. Look at the Flocking model in NetLogo models or the online version. What are the main three rules that each bird follows? Briefly explain or define each one of the three rules. 3. Which of the 3 rules birds follow seem most applicable for UNI students during the busiest times on campus when there is heavy foot traffic (and some bike traffic) on the sidewalks and in the hallways between classrooms and buildings and dorms? Why? 4. Which rule of the 3 rules seems least to apply to UNI Panther between classes traffic? Why? 5. On page 6, Russia, formerly the USSR, and IBM both announced moves toward more decentralized thinking and organizing back in December of 1991. Do you think trends and moves toward decentralization have continued since then or not? Give examples and/or discuss. Do you think more decentralized thinking and planning is needed? 6. Each turtle in NetLogo is a separate agent obeying and following its own set of rules and often causing surprising patterns to emerge. Find one of the models from the NetLogo models library (online web based or using the NetLogo software) that we have not looked at in class and tell why you find its "emergent behavior" interesting and why you would want to study it further.Questions on the readings ARE ALL HERE NOW.
There will be NO Questions on the NETLOGO video at this time.
Netlogo is also available at most of the computer labs on the UNI campus, including all CNS labs and all of the SCC (Student Computer Center) labs like the Library, Union, Redeker, Towers, Lawther, etc.