Attraction, Dynamics, and Phase Transitions in Fire Ant Tower-Building.

Many insect species, and even some vertebrates, assemble their bodies to form multi-functional materials that combine sensing, computation, and actuation. The tower-building behavior of red imported fire ants, , presents a key example of this phenomenon of collective construction. While biological studies of collective construction focus on behavioral assays to measure the dynamics of formation and studies of swarm robotics focus on developing hardware that can assemble and interact, algorithms for designing such collective aggregations have been mostly overlooked.

Patient Satisfaction With Pharmacist-Led Chronic Disease State Management Programs.

Purpose: To assess patient satisfaction, perception of self-management, and perception of disease state knowledge with pharmacist-led diabetes and cardiovascular disease state management (DSM) programs.

Methods: A self-insured chain of grocery store pharmacies in the Kansas City metropolitan area administers pharmacist-led diabetes and cardiovascular DSM programs for eligible employees and dependents. A modified version of the Diabetes Disease State Management Questionnaire was used to assess patient satisfaction with the DSM programs.