Addressing nonlinearities in Monte Carlo.

Monte Carlo is famous for accepting model extensions and model refinements up to infinite dimension. However, this powerful incremental design is based on a premise which has severely limited its application so far: a state-variable can only be recursively defined as a function of underlying state-variables if this function is linear. Here we show that this premise can be alleviated by projecting nonlinearities onto a polynomial basis and increasing the configuration space dimension.

Self-propelled rods exhibit a phase-separated state characterized by the presence of active stresses and the ejection of polar clusters.

We study collections of self-propelled rods (SPR) moving in two dimensions for packing fractions less than or equal to 0.3. We find that in the thermodynamical limit the SPR undergo a phase transition between a disordered gas and a novel phase-separated system state.

Residence times and boundary-following behavior in animals.

Many animals in heterogeneous environments bias their trajectories displaying a preference for the vicinity of boundaries. Here we propose a criterion, relying on recent invariance properties of residence times for microreversible Boltzmann's walks, that permits detecting and quantifying boundary-following behaviors. On this basis we introduce a boundary-following model that is a nonmicroreversible Boltzmann's walk and that can represent all kinds of boundary-following distributions.

How do ants make sense of gravity? A Boltzmann Walker analysis of Lasius niger trajectories on various inclines.

The goal of this study is to describe accurately how the directional information given by support inclinations affects the ant Lasius niger motion in terms of a behavioral decision. To this end, we have tracked the spontaneous motion of 345 ants walking on a 0.5×0.

Modeling collective animal behavior with a cognitive perspective: a methodological framework.

The last decades have seen an increasing interest in modeling collective animal behavior. Some studies try to reproduce as accurately as possible the collective dynamics and patterns observed in several animal groups with biologically plausible, individual behavioral rules. The objective is then essentially to demonstrate that the observed collective features may be the result of self-organizing processes involving quite simple individual behaviors.