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One of the most important features of modern production is that the demand for the product is constantly changing. The problems showing demand variability in certain time periods are called dynamic facility layout problems (DFLP). The establishment of a balance between handling and moving costs is attempted with such problems. Because the DFLP are complex combinatorial optimization problems, classical optimization techniques may not always be sufficient to solve them. Furthermore, it is necessary to find a solution within a reasonable computation time. Therefore, researchers tend to use heuristic methods. In the literature, various heuristic methods, such as the genetic algorithm, tabu search and ant-colony algorithm, were used to solve the DFLP. The paper introduces the use of bacterial foraging optimization (BFO) to solve the DFLP. In this study, a new hybrid heuristic algorithm, called simulated annealing which is based on bacterial foraging optimization (SABFO), is proposed for the DFLP. Also, the parameter tuning of the SABFO is made by Taguchi method. The proposed algorithm is tested on the most-used test problems in the literature, and satisfactory results are obtained at reasonable computation times. The study is important to show how BFO that is a new heuristic approach is applied to the DFLP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article seeks to address legal and other social science scholarship on regulatory issues pertaining to foraging in the U.S. Topics covered include the growing popularity of foraging and its benefits and risks, the history of foraging traditions in the country and the factors behind the development of its anti-foraging laws, and the impacts of foraging rules and foraging rules the government should adopt.

Operant behavior involves many physical dimensions, including time, force, location, and distance. Energy is an important dimension in foraging behavior or motor response. Kono ( Learning & Behavior, 41, 425-432, 2013) developed a schedule in which the controlling variable was the energy of responses, calculated by dividing the squared value of the distance between two consecutive responses by the squared value of the interresponse time, or the elapsed time between the two responses. This energy schedule demonstrated the possibility of differential reinforcement of the energy of responses, but the effect was relatively weak. Kono ( Learning & Behavior, 41, 425-432, 2013) proposed that this weak effect could have been caused by two features of the adjusting procedure: the use of two or more schedules and variation in the reinforced energy of responses across trials depending on the subjects' previous choice. The present study employed a single energy schedule whose requirement was fixed throughout the session. The results showed that the energy of responses increased as the requirement of the energy schedule increased. In addition, the degree of increase was greater for distance of responses than for time of responses. These results suggest that the energy schedule is a suitable method for controlling the energy of behavior, and the distance of responses has a greater effect than time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolutionary pressures have made foraging behaviours highly efficient in many species. Eye movements during search present a useful instance of foraging behaviour in humans. We tested the efficiency of eye movements during search using homogeneous and heterogeneous arrays of line segments. The search target is visible in the periphery on the homogeneous array, but requires central vision to be detected on the heterogeneous array. For a compound search array that is heterogeneous on one side and homogeneous on the other, eye movements should be directed only to the heterogeneous side. Instead, participants made many fixations on the homogeneous side. By comparing search of compound arrays to an estimate of search performance based on uniform arrays, we isolate two contributions to search inefficiency. First, participants make superfluous fixations, sacrificing speed for a perceived (but not actual) gain in response certainty. Second, participants fixate the homogeneous side even more frequently than predicted by inefficient search of uniform arrays, suggesting they also fail to direct fixations to locations that yield the most new information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing diet breadth, a distinguishing characteristic of human foraging strategies at the end of the Pleistocene and in the early Holocene, is known to be a key development contributing to domestication and the spread of agriculture and pastoralism. Many scholars have focused on broad-spectrum foraging as a result of resource depression due to demographic stress or environmental degradation. However, these factors are absent in an increasing number of cases. New research in the Gobi Desert shows that a dramatic change in organizational strategies, including the intensified use of low-ranked foods from dune-field and wetland habitats, is closely correlated with the establishment of dispersed patches boasting high species diversity and a concentrated abundance of small prey. According to a global suite of paleoenvironmental and archaeological data, it appears that the fragmentation of more homogeneous grassland habitats coincided with the rise of broad-spectrum foraging and that these fragmented ecosystems were ideally suited to the unique set of foraging strategies employed by modern Homo sapiens. This study shows how broad-spectrum foraging, increased human population density, and the shift toward food production should be considered by-products of major environmental changes that created an ecological setting ideal for enhanced human reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how changes in sea level and biome distribution may have affected the habitats occupied by hunter-gatherers in East Asia. Using a model-based reconstruction of changing sea level from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to present day, our analysis reveals that the exposure of a large continental shelf during the LGM sea level lowstand created a wealth of wooded, estuarine, and coastal biomes that could have been exploited intensively by Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. Models explaining hunter-gatherer subsistence changes and migrations in this period should take into account the large area that has been lost to rising sea level since the LGM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foraging for coherence is a pragmatist philosophy of the brain. It is a philosophy anchored to objects and instrumental in understanding the brain. Our age is dominated by neuroscience. A critical common sense underlies inquiry including that of neuroscience. Thus a pragmatist orientation to neuroscience is about foraging for coherence; not overselling neuroscience. Foraging for coherence is the search for adaptation - diverse epistemic orientation tied ideally to learning about oneself, one's nature, and one's history in the context of learning about the brain. Neuroscience is about us: Our desires, habits, styles of reason, human vulnerability, and abuse. The language of the neuron, Foraging for coherence is a pragmatist philosophy of the brain. It is a philosophy anchored to objects and instrumental in understanding the brain. Our age is dominated by neuroscience. A critical common sense underlies inquiry including that of neuroscience. Thus a pragmatist orientation to neuroscience is about foraging for coherence; not overselling neuroscience. Foraging for coherence is the search for adaptation - diverse epistemic orientation tied ideally to learning about oneself, one's nature, and one's history in the context of learning about the brain. Neuroscience is about us: Our desires, habits, styles of reason, human vulnerability, and abuse. The language of the neuron, or the gene, or the systems does not replace the discussion about us as the person, in the social and historical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coded data on subsistence dependence in George Murdock’sEthnographic Atlashave been interpreted as showing that traditional societies face a stark choice between foraging and farming modes of subsistence. Supposedly, scheduling conflicts and the need to stay mobile effectively prevent foragers from supplementing their diet with low-level food production. However, close inspection of Murdock’s data reveals several potential problems with how he arrived at his estimates of subsistence dependence. When his data are corrected to counter these problems, foraging activities appear to rival agriculture in importance in most farming societies. Accordingly, this study infers that foraging and farming tasks do not necessarily pose scheduling conflicts, even though a commitment to farming tends to lead to its increased economic importance over time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It has been argued that warfare evolved as a component of early human behavior within foraging band societies. We investigated lethal aggression in a sample of 21 mobile forager band societies (MFBS) derived systematically from the standard cross-cultural sample. We hypothesized, on the basis of mobile forager ethnography, that most lethal events would stem from personal disputes rather than coalitionary aggression against other groups (war). More than half of the lethal aggression events were perpetrated by lone individuals, and almost two-thirds resulted from accidents, interfamilial disputes, within-group executions, or interpersonal motives such as competition over a particular woman. Overall, the findings suggest that most incidents of lethal aggression among MFBS may be classified as homicides, a few others as feuds, and a minority as war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceptual processing of a target stimulus may be inhibited if its location has just been cued, a phenomenon of spatial attention known as inhibition of return (IOR). In the research reported here, we demonstrated a striking effect, wherein items that have just been the focus of reflective attention (internal attention to an active representation) also are inhibited. Participants saw two items, followed by a cue to think back to (i.e., refresh, or direct reflective attention toward) one item, and then had to identify either the refreshed item, the unrefreshed item, or a novel item. Responses were significantly slower for refreshed items than for unrefreshed items, although refreshed items were better remembered on a later memory test. Control experiments in which we replaced the refresh event with a second presentation of one of the words did not show similar effects. These results suggest that reflective attention can produce an inhibition effect for attended items that may be analogous to IOR effects in perceptual attention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Real-world visual searches often contain a variable and unknown number of targets. Such searches present difficult metacognitive challenges, as searchers must decide when to stop looking for additional targets, which results in high miss rates in multiple-target searches. In the study reported here, we quantified human strategies in multiple-target search via an ecological optimal foraging model and investigated whether searchers adapt their strategies to complex target-distribution statistics. Separate groups of individuals searched displays with the number of targets per trial sampled from different geometric distributions but with the same overall target prevalence. As predicted by optimal foraging theory, results showed that individuals searched longer when they expected more targets to be present and adjusted their expectations on-line during each search by taking into account the higher-order, across-trial target distributions. However, compared with modeled ideal observers, participants systematically responded as if the target distribution were more uniform than it was, which suggests that training could improve multiple-target search performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a study that examines foraging habits and goals among the Hadza people of Tanzania. It focuses on the preferences of Hadza men and women in terms of group association and provisioning advantages. It discovered that both Hadza men and women were much more likely to chose groups solely based on household provisioning advantages. This indicates that within the Hadza culture women play a dominant role in choosing settlement location. It also indicates that family provisioning among Hadza men plays a more important role than displays of hunting ability, when deciding where and with whom to live.

The article discusses the implication of using organisms and other foraging species in the study of aging in human beings. Among recent studies, model organisms became an important tool in conducting the study and in that way human can learn much about aging. This implies that although human learned something from the studies, it is far better if one looks at the life and the way one has lived.

Discusses the use of public information by social foragers to assess patch quality. Hypothesis that foragers in groups use the sampling activity of companions to determine the quality of food patch; Individual foragers' behavior of estimating the number of food items remaining in a patch at each time step using either their own success or an aggregate value based on the success of all forages in the group.

Provides information on a study that examined the mating system of foragers in the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. Methodology of the study; Results and discussion on the study; Conclusion.

The occurrence of fatal attacks during intergroup encounters among chimpanzees suggests that certain aspects of chimpanzee and human intergroup aggression may be explicable in similar ways. This paper addresses three questions: What conditions favor the evolution of lethal raiding in intergroup aggression? Why is intergroup aggression in these two species predominantly the domain of males? Under what circumstances do groups compete over access to females as opposed to material resources? Examination of comparative data on nonhuman primates and cross-cultural study of foraging societies suggests that attacks are lethal because where there is sufficient imbalance of power their cost is trivial, that these attacks are a male and not a female activity because males are the philopatric sex, and that it is resources of reproductive interest to males that determine the causes of intergroup aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture has long been regarded as an improvement in the human condition: Once Homo sapiens made the transition from foraging to farming in the Neolithic, health and nutrition improved, longevity increased, and work load declined. Recent study of archaeological human remains worldwide by biological anthropologists has shown this characterization of the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture to be incorrect. Contrary to earlier models, the adoption of agriculture involved an overall decline in oral and general health. This decline is indicated by elevated prevalence of various skeletal and dental pathological conditions and alterations in skeletal and dental growth patterns in prehistoric farmers compared with foragers. In addition, changes in food composition and preparation technology contributed to craniofacial and dental alterations, and activity levels and mobility decline resulted in a general decrease in skeletal robusticity. These findings indicate that the shift from food collection to food production occasioned significant and widespread biological changes in human populations during the last 10,000 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on the article ""Many Seasons Ago": Slavery and Its Rejection Among Foragers on the Pacific Coast of North America" by David Wengrow and David Graeber. He congratulates the researchers for explaining differences noted in traditional economic and political organization of the hunting and gathering societies of California and the North American Northwest Coast. He addresses a question about analytical method that runs to the core of critiques of anthropological colonialism.

The author comments on the article ""Many Seasons Ago": Slavery and Its Rejection Among Foragers on the Pacific Coast of North America" by David Wengrow and David Graeber. He addresses some questions and points to areas for continued research about the diverse peoples and foraging strategies in the Pacific littoral of North America. He also discusses certain hallmark problematic approaches used by anthropologists in studying foraging peoples.

The author discusses the analysis of risk-sensitive foraging by different researchers. He states that overall variance is more useful than the variance of a particular resource. He informs that risk-minimizing diet breadth can be simulated by the estimation of mean and variability of both the energetic benefits and resource handling time.