Agent Based Modelling

The decoupling of direct payments from production represents a substantial reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Farmers are no longer required to produce commodities to be entitled to support but only to keep land in Good Environmental and Agricultural Condition. If output declines as a result, there is concern that landscape services produced jointly with commodities will also decline. The aim of this paper is to assess the long-term effects of the 2003 reform on farm structure, landscape mosaic and biodiversity for a sample of EU regions. Impacts are quantified using a spatial agent-based modelling approach by simulating agricultural development with links to indicators of landscape value. Our results demonstrate that eliminating the link between support payments and production has possible negative consequences for the landscape, but only under particular circumstances. It is shown that these effects could be offset by strengthening (Pillar II) agri-environmental schemes. Further the single payment scheme results in higher land rental prices which reduces its ability to achieve its goal of providing income security for farmers. Implications of these results for the direction of continued CAP reform are discussed.

This paper argues that the agent-based simulation approach is just the one appropriate to the social sciences (includ- ing economics). Although there were many predecessor ap- proaches, which tried to build formal models of social sys- tems, all of them fell short of the peculiar features of the objects of all social sciences: complex systems consisting of numerous autonomous actors

The software agent paradigm has received considerable at- tention recently, both in research and industrial practice. However, adop- tion of this software paradigm remains elusive in software engineering practice. We claim that part of the adoption problem lies with the fact that mentalistic and social concepts underlying agents are subjective and complex for the average practitioner. Specifically, although there are many efforts related to the topic coming from philosophy, cogni- tive sciences and computer science, a uniform and well-founded semantic view on these concepts is currently lacking. This work extends an ex- isting upper-level ontology and offers it as a foundation for evaluating and designing agent-oriented modeling languages. In particular, the pa- per focuses on the concept of goal, aiming at disambiguating its defini- tion, discussing its different manifestations, and clarifying its relation to other important agent-related concepts. For that, we examine how goals are conceived and used according to some relevant literature on agent- orientation. In addition, related work on akin fields, especially philosophy and AI are used as a basis for the proposed ontological extensions.

In the context of increasing diffusion of technologies related to Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things in particular, we have developed an agent-based model to simulate the effect of IoT diffusion in companies and verify potential benefits and risks.

The model analyses how firms react to the spread of IoT in the market by analysing its effects on firms' pricing and quality strategies, its impact on variable production costs, and the long-term survival rate of firms.

The model shows how IoT diffusion has the potential to influence the market by supporting both quality and cost improvements.

The results of the model also confirm the potential for significant benefits for businesses, suggesting the opportunity to support the introduction and application of IoT, and clearly show how the use of IoT can be a key strategic choice in competitive market contexts focused on cost strategies to increase business performance and prospects.

This paper argues that the agent-based simulation approach is just the one appropriate to the social sciences (includ-ing economics). Although there were many predecessor ap-proaches, which tried to build formal models of social sys-tems, all of them fell short of the peculiar features of the objects of all social sciences: complex systems consisting of numerous autonomous actors who interact with each other, who take on different roles at the same time, who are con-scious of their interactions and roles and who can commu-nicate with the help of symbolic languages even about the counterfactual. These human actors are unlike physical particles although their behaviour might sometimes be quite similar to the be-haviour of physical particles when humans occur in very large numbers (but they are most interesting when they form only small networks). Real human actors would not concede that their behaviour is stochastic, they will always assert that their actions are deliberate (but at th...

In economics numerical approaches are increasingly used for the analysis of dynamic phenomena of economic development since almost 30 years. The first generation of simulation models was rather focused on stylized empirical phenomena. With the emergence of agent-based modelling the last 10 years, however, the trade-off between simplicity and abstracting in modelling, and taking into account the complexity of the socio-economic reality has been enhanced to a large extent. This paper serves as a basic instruction on how to model qualitative change using an agent-based modelling procedure. The necessity to focus on qualitative change is discussed, agent-based modelling is explained and finally an example is given to show the basic simplicity in modelling.

Emergency services call centres operate to stringent parameters based on providing rapid support to their communities. It is this that differentiates the emergency service call centre from other call centre categories. The focus of this paper is to model the resource allocation within the NSW Police Assistance Line (NSWPAL), which is a multi-site, multi-queue, multi- server call centre that takes

One of the approaches gaining ground in policy design is the implementation of combinations of policy measures as policy packages with the aim of increasing efficiency and effectiveness of the designed policies. In this paper, we describe the recent advancements in the developments of a virtual environment for the exploration and analysis of policy packages. The virtual environment uses an agent-based modelling approach for the generation of different configurations of policy measures in the policy packages. The benefit of using the approach is the proactive and flexible generation of policy packages as the agents can react to the changes that occur and create packages that are more robust. The system allows faster examination of more alternatives, further exploration of the design space, and testing the effects of changes and uncertainties while formulating policies. The results demonstrate the benefit of using agent-based modelling approaches in the design of complex policies.

Because of improving accessibility, transport developments play an important role in residence choice of renter households. In this paper, an agent-based model is developed to investigate impacts of different transport developments on residence choice of renter households in Tehran, the capital of Iran. In the proposed model, renter households are considered as agents who make a multi-objective decision and compete with each other to rent a preferred residential zone. Then, three transport development scenarios including construction a new highway, subway and bus rapid transit (BRT) line are simulated and resulting changes in residence choice of agents are evaluated. Results show that transport development scenarios significantly affect residence choice behavior of different socioeconomic categories of renter households and lead to considerable changes in the residential demand, the ​composition of residents, mean income level and mean car ownership in their vicinities.

In the context of increasing diffusion of technologies related to Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things in particular, we have developed an agent-based model to simulate the effect of IoT diffusion in companies and verify potential benefits and risks. The model analyses how firms react to the spread of IoT in the market by analysing its effects on firms' pricing and quality strategies, its impact on variable production costs, and the long-term survival rate of firms. The model shows how IoT diffusion has the potential to influence the market by supporting both quality and cost improvements. The results of the model also confirm the potential for significant benefits for businesses, suggesting the opportunity to support the introduction and application of IoT, and clearly show how the use of IoT can be a key strategic choice in competitive market contexts focused on cost strategies to increase business performance and prospects.

The paper looks into how traits based modelling allows an intelligent agent to get synchronised with a strategic discourse. Here the agent relies on different personalities of the unique self-created by differentiating and grouping traits according to the needs of the operational environment. Then on the basis of subsequent combinations of traits new traits are generated which can be selected according to the needs of the agent based on interpretation of incoming messages. The paper brings into the focus the journey of intelligent agent along a strategic discourse by going for traits based modelling of an agent.

The interdependence and complexity of socio-technical systems and availability of a wide variety of policy measures to address policy problems make the process of policy formulation difficult. In order to formulate sustainable and efficient transport policies, development of new tools and techniques is necessary. One of the approaches gaining ground is policy packaging, which shifts focus from implementation of individual policy measures to implementation of combinations of measures with the aim of increasing efficiency and effectiveness of policy interventions by increasing synergies and reducing potential contradictions among policy measures. In this paper, we describe the development of a virtual environment for the exploration and analysis of different configurations of policy measures in order to build policy packages. By developing systematic approaches it is possible to examine more alternatives at a greater depth, decrease the time required for the overall analysis, provide real-time assessment and feedback on the effect of changes in the configurations, and ultimately form more effective policies. The results from this research demonstrate the usefulness of computational approaches in addressing the complexity inherent in the formulation of policy packages. This new approach has been applied to the formulation of policies to advance sustainable transportation.

Remote sensing, powerful computing engines, and agent-based models offer new ways to interpret data and broaden data collection, moving archaeologists closer to their ultimate goal of approximating the individual within an extensive, interpreted, digital environment. The first Web extra is a video that demonstrates how the advanced acquisition and processing of magnetic data has led to new discoveries and insights, such as the "Henge" monument excavated near Stonehenge in 2010. The second Web extra is a video that illustrates how researchers used 3D seismic data, initially collected for use in oil and gas exploration, to reconstruct Doggerland, a lost Mesolithic landscape that was inundated by the North Sea during the last great period of global warming.