Computational Ecosystems in a Changing Environment

Natalie Glance, Tad Hogg and Bernardo A. Huberman
Dynamics of Computation Group
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
Palo Alto, CA 94304
hogg@parc.xerox.com

@ARTICLE {,
 AUTHOR = "Natalie Glance and Tad Hogg and Bernardo A. Huberman",
 TITLE = "Computational Ecosystems in a Changing Environment",
 JOURNAL = "Intl. J. of Modern Physics C",
 VOLUME = "2",
 NUMBER = "3",
 PAGES = "735-753",
 YEAR = "1991"}

Abstract

We study the adaptive behavior of a computational ecosystem in the presence of time-periodic resource utilities as seen, for example, in the day-night load variations of computer use and in the price fluctuations of seasonal products. We do so within the context of the Huberman-Hogg model of such systems. The dynamics is studied for the cases of competitive and cooperative payoff functions with time-modulated resource utilities, and the system's adaptability is measured by tracking its performance in response to a time-varying environment.
Keywords: non-linear dynamics, distributed computation, adaptability.
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