ESM'2006

October 23-25, 2006 - LAAS, Toulouse, France

Conference Tutorials

Conference Tutorial

TOPIC

This tutorial will introduce the participants to this novel field of computer simulation, which is gaining popularity in the study of complex systems, especially of complex social systems. The main tenet of agent-based modeling and simulation (ABM) is to model the individual, together with its imperfections (e.g., limited cognitive and computational abilities), its idiosyncrasies, and unique interactions. Thus, the approach builds the model from the bottom-up, focusing mostly on micro rules and seeking the understanding of the emergence of macro behavior The tutorial will discuss the defining properties of ABM via worked examples using the Multi-Agent Simulation Suite (MASS). We will also compare ABM's approach to other computational simulation methods, like Systems Dynamics and microsimulation.

LENGTH OF THE TUTORIAL

The tutorial consists of 4 1-hour long lectures.


THE INTENDED AUDIENCE

The foreseen audience will have experience in social sciences and/or complex systems. Minimal computer literacy is assumed, but no extensive experience is required. Alternatively, the tutorial is also beneficial to practitioners of computer simulation who are new to the particular approach of ABM.

LECTURER:

Laszlo Gulyas graduated from Lorand Eotvos University (ELTE), Budapest, Hungary and holds a PhD, MSc and BSc in Computer Science. Dr. Gulyas is currently affiliated with the Department of History and Philosophy of Sciences at the same institution and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of ELTE s Informatics Cooperative Research and Education Center. He is also a research director at AITIA International, Inc. a Hungarian IT company with R&D focus. At AITIA, Dr. Gulyas is the leader of the company s multi-agent modeling and simulation research group and leads the development of the Multi-Agent Modeling Suite (MASS), in cooperation with ELTE s Informatics Cooperative Research and Education Center. Dr. Gulyas has been doing research on agent-based modeling and multi-agent systems since 1996. He has led the development of the Multi-Agent Modeling Language (MAML), the first special purpose programming language for agent-based simulation. He also contributed to the design and development of RePast, today's leading agent-based simulation environment. He has been involved in teaching both graduate and undergraduate level courses in agent-based modeling and simulation at Harvard University, at the Central-European University and at the Eotvos Lorand University, Hungary. He was also a faculty member at the 2002 Budapest Complex Systems Summer School organized by the Santa Fe Institute. Dr. Gulyas has more than 30 referred publications, including 8 book chapters and a textbook chapter. He has also co-edited a volume on agent-technology and multi-agent systems and published numerous conference papers. He has been and is helping the work of three scientific journals and many conferences.