Landscapes description using linguistic summaries and a two-dimensional cellular automaton

Abstract

Cellular automata models are used in ecology since they permit integrate space, ecological process and stochasticity in a single predictive framework. The complex nature of modeling (spatial) ecological processes has made linguistic summaries difficult to use within the traditional cellular automata models. This paper deals with the development of a computational system capable to generate linguistic summaries from the data provided by a cellular automaton. This paper shows two proposals that can be used for this purpose. We build our system by combining techniques from Zadeh's Computational Theory of Perceptions with ideas from the State Machine Theory. This paper discusses how linguistic descriptions may be integrated into cellular automata models and then demonstrates the use of our approach in the development of a prototype capable to provide a linguistic description of ecological phenomena. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.