By borrowing from nature, Xiaohui Cui of Oak Ridge National Laboratory is devising more efficient ways to analyze large amounts of publicly available data and perform other tasks to make information more accessible and useful. While ants and birds don't know anything about mathematical models, they represent the ideal when it comes to teamwork, colony organization and devising the best way to accomplish a task. Using the same concepts that allow ants and birds to keep themselves in a colony and perform duties that are essential to their survival, Cui uses a technique called multiple species flock clustering, which sorts through news items on the Internet to extract useful information. Cui also is developing a disposable sensor network based on the ant colony mathematical model, which enables large numbers of sensors to self-organize and collect and exchange information. This can be used, for example, by 1,000 or more battery-powered sensors deployed in strategic locations to monitor environmental activity or gather other information over a long period of time. This work is funded by the Department of Homeland Security.
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