Résumé: This paper presents HACSEG, a new ant algorithm for the image segmentation based on the Markov Random Field (MRF) and a modified version of the Ant Colony System algorithm coupled with a local search. HACSEG algorithm differs from other ant algorithms proposed for image segmentation, in the way that each artificial ant is associated with a particular partition that is modified using phe...

Path planning problem, is a challenging topic in robotics. Indeed, a significant amount of research has been devoted to this problem in recent years. The ant colony optimization algorithm is another approach to solve this problem. Each ant drops a quantity of artificial pheromone on every point that the ant passes through. This pheromone simply changes the probability that the next ant becomes ...

This paper develops the formal framework of ant programming with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding on ant colony optimization and, more in general, on the principles underlying the use of an iterated Monte Carlo approach for the multi-stage solution of combinatorial optimization problems. Ant programming searches for the optimal policy of a multi-stage decision problem to which the ori...

Although density-dependent benefits to hemipterans from ant tending have been measured many times, few studies have focused on integrated effects such as interactions between ant tending, natural enemy density, and hemipteran density. In this study, we tested whether the invasive mealybug Phenacoccus solenopsis is affected by tending by ghost ants (Tapinoma melanocephalum), the presence of para...

We investigated the roles of habitat fragmentation and the invasion of an exotic species on the structure of ground-foraging ant communities in 40 scrub habitat fragments in coastal southern California. In particular, we asked: how do fragment age, fragment size, amount of urban edge, percentage of native vegetation, degree of isolation, and the relative abundance of an exotic species, the Arge...

Recently, researchers in various fields have shown interest in the behavior of creatures from the viewpoint of adaptiveness and flexibility. Ants, known as social insects, exhibit collective behavior in performing tasks that can not be carried out by an individual ant. In ant colonies, chemical substances, called pheromones, are used as a way to communicate important information on global behav...

Stabilized rice bran (SRB) is classified as a "functional food" because of its prebiotic characteristics. With increasing grain prices and the pressure to remove antibiotics from swine diets because of concern over antibiotic resistance, SRB was investigated as a nursery diet ingredient with and without the addition of antibiotics (ANT). Two hundred pigs were weaned at 21 d of age, blocked by B...

Ant systems are flexible to implement and give possibility to scale because they are based on multi agent cooperation. The aim of this publication is to show the universal character of that solution and potentiality in implementing it in wide areas of applications. The increase of demand for effective methods of large document collections management is a sufficient stimulus to place the researc...

The red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta Buren, is considered an oil-loving feeder, however, carbohydrates are essential ingredients in the diet of the fire ant also. Comprehensive screening of mono-, di-, and tri-saccharides demonstrated that glucose, fructose, fucose, sucrose, maltose, turanose and raffinose were significant phagostimulants for fire ant workers. It was also found that wh...

This work proposes a new rule pruning procedure for Ant-Miner, an Ant Colony algorithm that discovers classification rules in the context of data mining. The performance of Ant-Miner with the new pruning procedure is evaluated and compared with the performance of the original Ant-Miner across several datasets. The results show that the new pruning procedure has a mixed effect on the performance...