Agent Modelling and Simulation Presentation

Yesterday, as part of a doctoral school course, I gave a short presentation on Agent-Based Modelling and Simulation. The talk was mainly focused on a brief theoretical background (differences ABM and conventional models, the methodological approach) example of ABM in social sciences (Schilling). I developed and simulated a basic model I called “coopetitive famers” (coopetition coming from the merge of cooperation and competition) as a heuristic approach to competitive environments with cooperative and individualistic farmers. It was a way to show patterns emerging from basic interaction rules (agent mainly interacting with the environment).

I was advised to have a look at “The Evolution of Cooperation” which discusses how cooperation can emerge in a world of self-seeking egoists when there is no central authority to police their actions.

Relation to my thesis: I worked on this to grasp the possibility to introduce ABM into my thesis as a methodology to get insights on users and groups behaviors in a mobile and ubiquitous environment. For example try to model their interaction rules in cases of zero/bad/avg/good positioning accuracy or latency. As a next step, I need to investigate on the way to integrated GIS into ABM.