[Simulchaord-discuss] More annotated agent links

[Paul Fernhout]

Agent-Based Computational Economics (ACE) Research Area: Building
Agent-Based Computational Laboratories
  http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/acomplab.htm
Various annotated links.

Page also links to:
  http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/acecode.htm

Some free packages from the first link:
  REPAST
  http://repast.sourceforge.net/
  BSD License
  "The University of Chicago's Social Science Research Computing's
RePast is a software framework for creating agent based simulations
using the Java language (requires version Java 1.3 or greater). It
provides a library of classes for creating, running, displaying and
collecting data from an agent based simulation. In addition, RePast can
take snapshots of running simulations, and create quicktime movies of
simulations. RePast borrows much from the Swarm simulation toolkit and
can properly be termed "Swarm-like." In addition, RePast includes such
features as run-time model manipulation via gui widgets first found in
the Ascape simulation toolkit." 

  TNG
  http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/tnghome.htm
  Artistic License Agreement
  "The Trade Network Game (TNG) is a framework for studying the
formation and evolution of trade networks among strategically
interacting traders (buyers, sellers, and dealers) operating under
variously specified market protocols. Successive generations of
resource-constrained traders choose and refuse trade partners on the
basis of continually updated expected utility, engage in trade
interactions modelled as 2-person games, and evolve their trade
strategies over time. The TNG framework permits evolutionary outcomes to
be studied at four different levels: trader attributes (endogenous
evolution of personality types); trade network formation (who is trading
with whom, and with what regularity); expressed trade behavior
(cooperative, predacious,...); and individual and social welfare
measures (market efficiency, market power, individual utility
levels,...).  The TNG framework has been implemented in C++ with the
support of SimBioSys, a C++ class framework for general evolutionary
simulations. "

  Swarm
  http://www.swarm.org/
  GPL (Why is LGPL mentioned in linking page?)
  http://www.swarm.org/release-license.html
  "Swarm is essentially a collection of software libraries, written in
Objective C, developed by researchers at the Santa Fe Institute for
constructing discrete event simulations of complex systems with
heterogeneous elements or agents. Some lower-level libraries, which
interface with Objective C, are also written in Tk, a scripting language
that implements basic graphical tools such as graphs, windows, and input
widgets. "

  Evo -- built on top of Swarm
  http://omicrongroup.org/evo/
  GPL
  "Evo is a software development framework that allows developers to
build complex alife simulations. Using Evo, researchers can easily build
systems of independent agents interacting with one another and with
their environment. Evo implements biological operators such as genetic
recombination and mutation to evolve the behavior of agents so that they
are more adapted to their environment. "

  And from a linked page on Evo:
  http://omicrongroup.org/evo/overview/html/node5.html
  "Although the examples discussed in this paper and in the Programmer's
Guide are biologically based, Evo was designed to be useful for
exploring any complex system of autonomous agents regardless of problem
domain. Social systems and economic simulations are also candidate
applications for Evo. Also, it is not necessary that there be a spatial
component to the simulation. For example, a simulation of trading
activity in a stock market would probably not have any notion of space.

-Paul Fernhout
Kurtz-Fernhout Software 
=========================================================
Developers of custom software and educational simulations
Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com