Social Simulation with Repast Simphony
Michael J. North, MBA, Ph.D.
Deputy Director
Center for Complex Adaptive Agent Systems Simulation
Argonne National Laboratory
Decision and Information Sciences Division
The free and open source Repast toolkit is widely used for agent-based simulation of social systems. Example application areas include the modeling of social networks, social norms, knowledge networks, closed political regimes, global politics, and economic markets. This presentation will introduce the latest version of the Repast, namely Repast Simphony (Repast S). Repast S is designed to support recombinant ontological and theoretical exploration/experimentation in the domain of social science simulation. The Repast S approach is designed to be recombinant in that components can be quickly coupled, integrated, and fused as needed. The approach is designed to allow exploration and experimentation by supporting rapid testing of alterative formalisms. This tutorial will introduce Repast S and provide an example of its application to social simulation. The tutorial will cover the following topics:
1. Introduction to agent-based modeling and simulation:
a. What is agent-based modeling and simulation?
b. What is agent-based modeling and simulation useful for?
c. How does agent-based modeling and simulation compare to other modeling techniques?
d. How are agent-based models developed?
e. How are agent-based models used?
2. Repast S (please note that the questions about Repast S will be answered using an example social simulation):
a. What is Repast S?
b. What is the architecture of Repast S?
c. How are Repast S models defined?
d. How are Repast S agents defined using the visual behavior editor?
e. How Repast S models are configured including the following:
i. How are agents created, linked, and modified?
ii. How is data saved and loaded?
iii. How are results logged?
iv. How are results visualized?
f. How Repast S models are executed including the following:
i. How are agent data and connections modified?
ii. How can models be run?
iii. How can models results be sent to external analysis tools such as spreadsheets, R, Weka, and VisAD?
More information on Repast, as well as free downloads, can be found at http://repast.sourceforge.net/
Length of Time: Either One Half Day or One Full Day, Depending on the Available Time
Required Facilities: A video projector is needed.
Contact Person:
Michael J. North, MBA, Ph.D.
- Deputy Director
- Center for Complex Adaptive Agent Systems Simulation
- Argonne National Laboratory
- Decision and Information Sciences Division 9700 S. Cass Avenue Argonne, IL 60439
- E-mail: north@anl.gov
- Office Telephone: (630) 252-6234
- Mobile Telephone: (630) 400-6313
- Facsimile: (630) 252-6073
