Density-functional fluctuation theory of crowds.

ABSTRACT: A primary goal of collective population behavior studies is to determine the rules governing crowd distributions in order to predict future behaviors in new environments. Current top-down modeling approaches describe, instead of predict, specific emergent behaviors, whereas bottom-up approaches must postulate, instead of directly determine, rules for individual behaviors. Here, we employ classical density functional theory (DFT) to quantify, directly from observations of local crowd density, the rules that predict mass behaviors under new circumstances. To demonstrate our theory-based, data-driven approach, we use a model crowd consisting of walking fruit flies and extract two functions that separately describe spatial and social preferences. The resulting theory accurately predicts experi

SUBMITTER: Mendez-Valderrama JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6117271 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature