SwarmFest Abstract

[M Lang / S Railsback]

Marcus: Glen says he is willing to present this at SwarmFest. He
presented a similar talk at our Ecological Society symposium on
individual-based modeling last summer; we are now turning it into a
paper for the journal Natural Resource Modeling.

Steve R.

Software Engineering Considerations for Agent-based Models

Glen Ropella, Steve Railsback, & Steve Jackson

ABSTRACT. Software design is much more important for agent-based models
(ABMs) than it is for conventional models, for three reasons. (1) The
results of an ABM are the emergent properties of a system of interacting
agents that exist only in the software; unlike analytical model results,
an ABM's outcomes can be reproduced only by exactly reproducing its
software implementation. (2) Outcomes of an ABM are expected to be
complex and novel, making software errors difficult to identify. (3) An
ABM needs 'systems software' that manages populations of multiple kinds
of agents, often has nonlinear and multi-threaded process control, and
simulates a wide range of physical and biological processes. We provide
seven general software guidelines for complex models are especially
important for ABMs. We also provide four additional guidelines specific
to ABMs. Strategies for meeting these guidelines include planning
adequate resources for software development and using tools like Swarm
that are designed specifically for ABMs.

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Lang, Railsback & Assoc.
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Until July 1, 2001: 
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