Maybe the agent-based model ASCRIBE in http://www.springerlink.com/content/c48018656254v44v/?MUD=MP

can be considered midsize? It models combined effects of internal agent processes based on intentions, beliefs and emotions with contagion based on social interaction.

Or are you looking for smaller sizes?

Hi, thanks for the link. Actually, I'm looking for less ambitious models. And also for target systems against which some basic calibration and validation can be done. Students, after a proper training on ABM, will have 3 weeks (maybe one month at most), to build a model from the description of a "real" system + one associated modeling question. The idea is to have them work on both the conceptual design of a model from a scientific description found in the literature and one implementation of it. If a "model" is already described in the paper(s), then the most interesting part of their work will already be done… Although I could ask them to imagine a new way of answering the question with a model. Not sure if I am very clear, by the way :)

Hi,

I made good experiences with biological questions (What is the effect of environmental structure on the efficiency of information flow within the social insects - see the work of Anna Dornhaus, e.g. in: Dornhaus A, Klügl F, Oechslein C, Puppe F, Chittka L 2006 'Benefits of recruitment in honey bees: effects of ecology and colony size in an individual-based model' Behavioral Ecology 17: 336-344). The model is quite simple and can be implemented quite easily, but there is a lot of things around to learn about doing a ABM study. An alternative would be traffic-related questions (how would the overall distribution of driver in a network change, if a particular road is blocked and only parts of the drivers know about it beforehand). I don't know what infrastructure you are using and whether you can easily access road network data.

best, Franziska

We have a model that evolves behavior described here:

http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1002236

the task is somewhat arbitrary, and your students could make up various different tasks and use our code base as a starting point, it is rather straight forward to use, and even a complete recode will not take forever.

Or if you want to do more along the lines of agent base evolutionary game theory this one is about rock paper scissor:

http://pre.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v85/i1/e011914

or iterated prisoners dilemma:

http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000948

Cheers Arend

Hi Alexis,

I think it is great to discuss the spectrum of model complexity from toy models offering a "proof of existence" (Waldrop 1990 asking for the moon, science if I remember correctly) versus high fidelity models (e.g., flight simulators). I spent some time working with individuals at the center for the study of complex systems, and Dan Brown also at UM, who really drove home the systematic incorporation of data and complexity into a suite of models (I think Bankes in PNAS from the Joe Sackler colloquium in Irvine California has a good article talking about the benefits of a suite of models - year is around 2001-2003). Anyway, while there we started out with a very simple toy model of residential location for which I created a netlogo version (http://masi.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/sluce/education/sluce_ed.htm). Then others on our project conducted a social survey to verify our theoretical drivers, which luckily did but also identified others. We developed a slightly more complex version of our residential model that was empirically informed by those data, which is available for download here (http://masi.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/sluce/) and the paper I've posted here (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230719327_2006_Brown_Robinson) along with two supplementary material documents (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Derek_Robinson/publications/?ev=prf_pubs_p2). Then I incorporated this model of residential location into a much more complex model of exurban growth that added several new agents (i.e., farmers, developers, township board) and interaction among them (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230719313_2009_Robinson_Brown). We continue to build in more complexity through land markets and land management (the paper is in copyediting so if you're keen let me know and I'll send along). I think the first two residential location models could be feasibly developed within a course with the help of the papers (and assuming reasonable programming levels and knowledge of repast). Hope this helps you out. I'm enjoying everyone's answers as well.

Cheers,

Derek.

Data Effects of Heterogeneity in Residential Preferences on an Ag...

Data Evaluating the effects of land-use development policies on e...

@all : what great answers ! Thanks so much.

@ Franziska : traffic simulation could be a good idea (and we have the infrastructure to do that), but I'm always afraid, in this kind of models, about the amount of details in which you have to dive to obtain something satisfying. Anyway, your pointer to the work of Dornhaus is just perfect (didn't know her work).

@ Arend : well, I did not think about evolutionary models, but you hit a point there. This is indeed a great way of showing the interest of ABM vs. other techniques.

@ Stefan : hope the other answers will contribute to your lecture as well :) Daisy World is also a nice model I totally overlooked, probably because I was focused on "real" problems. But, in a sense, since I have six groups of students, it could be a good idea to introduce one "abstract" model in case…

@ Desi : one other work I did not know. And a great discovery. Thanks !

@ Derek : I totally agree with the — highly pedagogical — idea of building models of incremental complexity. That's what we use to build our tutorials for GAMA, for instance. My only concern with this course is that I have at most 4 weeks left with the students, which makes it quite difficult to implement a nice progression (for instance, if I want them to present their intermediary findings or implementations). However, I might very well reuse your two first models, given the fact that I already worked with them on a "simple" Schelling model of segregation.

Meanwhile, I have also worked a bit (and not only waited for your answers :) ), and found two interesting ideas :

- the different papers of Charlotte Hemelrijk about the DomWorld models (dominance hierarchies among primates). The ABMs (or IBMs) are more or less given in them, but since each paper deals with a different trait or behavior, the interesting question is how to couple them in order to obtain a quite complex artificial society.

- This (new) paper : http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0044501?imageURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0044501.t001, about the importance of the "negative feedback" in ant foraging. Combined with some already classic toy ant models, it could lead to some nice models.

Plus things I already had under the hood (water flow modeling like the one depicted in the RIVAGE project, plant hoppers invasions modeling based on the life-cycle of individual insects, and a few other ones).

By the way, while looking for all this, I thought it would be great, somehow, to maintain this type of resources somewhere (as I'm probably not the only one scratching his head to find new and not so obvious models to implement with students). I know the domain quite well, but I was very surprised to see how difficult it was to find something else than simple toy models. And sites like openABM, for example, are not of a great help in that respect. Any volunteer :) ?

I talked to Charlotte Hemeljrik a couple of month ago about swarming and agent based modeling and while she is using a top down approach where you set the rules for every agent we just submitted a paper where we evolve agents to look into the environment and depending on predation or not evolve behavior that leads to swarming. Since the behavior is not "forced" on the agents but the behavior emerges from the agent it self we call this a bottom up approach. Comparing these two approaches top vs. bottom might give a nice insight for your students and help them understand which modelig approach can be used for what kind of statement. Just a thought, cheers Arend

Hi,

In training sessions on ABM, we have been using in such a way

* the Dricol model implemented by Thebaud & Locatelli in 2001

* the agent-based model described in a chapter entitled "The evolution of cooperation in an ecological context" by JW Pepper & BB Smuts (in the book "Dynamics in Human and Primate Societies: Agent-Based Modeling of Social and Spatial Processes")

Salut Alexis!

In training sessions on ABM, we have been using

* the Dricol model implemented by Thebaud & Locatelli in 2001

* the agent-based model described in a chapter entitled "The evolution of cooperation in an ecological context" by JW Pepper & BB Smuts (in the book "Dynamics in Human and Primate Societies: Agent-Based Modeling of Social and Spatial Processes")

But I'm afraid these are replications of existing ABM, not exactly what your are looking for...

During the summer school on ABMS we delivered the last two weeks in Montpellier, we introduced a KISS fiction... Not sure you will find it relevant for a 3-week student project anyway...

Cheers,

clp

Salut Christophe,

Thanks for the suggestions ! The last one is particularly interesting (this is actually exactly on the line of what I was looking for : pre-digested descriptions suitable for me and the students :), but still quite open with respect to the kind of model that can be drawn from them).

Hope to see you soon !

Cheers,

Alexis

@Christophe: I just would like to mention that in your example you probably forgot the important role of "Gamanotus Umisco", a species of ants that has the particularity to allow "Mimosa cormasita" to reproduce by harvesting its pollen. Do you think it could be worth adding it to the model ?

@Alexis: Great! You are most welcome in Montpellier next September for the third edition of the multi-platform Summer School "Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation for Renewable Resource Management"!!!

If any field goes, have you looked into Finance and Economics? The Sante Fe Artificial Stock Market (see e.g. Blake LeBaron's paper "A Builder's Guide to Agent Based Financial Markets") I found appeals to students with interests in the stock market. Leigh Tesfatsion's websites (http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/abmread.htm, http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/ace.htm) have quite a few examples (of varying size) where ABMs are applied to economic problems/questions.