(Fwd) My project

[Mr X.Y.Huang]

Dear members,
Yesterday I sent the following message to the swarm-support lists and 
got Chris Langton's reply.  Following his suggestion, I send this 
message to the modelling mailing list   and hope get further 
opinions from you. 
Thank you very much!

I am seeking help from you about what multi-agent 
language I should choose for my project: Implemtation model for 
simulating travellers' behaviour under the influence of  road 
information and road price policies. Following Vladimir's suggestion 
(see his/her message attached below), I give a brief description of 
my current project. I took my Ph.D degree in Artificial Intelligence 
at DAI, University of Edinburgh, UK. My Ph.D project was multiple 
autonomous agent negotiation (on scheduling for  Automated Guided 
Vehicles (AGVs)). Due to this background, I am employed by the Center 
for Transport Studies, Imperial College, UK. My task is to provide a 
implementation model for simulating travellers' behaviour under the 
influence of road price policies and advanced traffice information 
systems).  According to my understanding, there are two steps for 
simulating travellers' behaviour: the first step is what I called 
transport modelling  which focuses on HOW travellers make various 
travelling decisions such as departure times, transport modes (e.g., 
bus, car, walking, cycling, etc.), route choices, etc. The result of 
transport modelling is a TRANSPORT MODEL. The second step is to 
simulate travellers' behaviour according to the transport model to 
test whether the model is correct, or to see the aggregate 
performance of travellers under this model.  We call the second step 
the implementation modelling which is also my main task.  More 
specifically, the implementation model is a tool for testing the 
transport model(s).  We consider the implementation model should have 
the following features: (1) accomodating most transport models (some 
have been developped, some are been developing, and there might be 
new transport models in future), (2) agent-based --- taking each 
traveller or a group of homogeneous travellers as an agent, (3) 
activity-based --- each agent will have a chain of activities (e.g., 
geting up --- departure --- arriving work place --- working --- lunch 
--- working ---- going home).   So, in the implementation model, each 
agent should make various decisions at the right time: what 
activities it will have for the day (trip plans), what is route 
choice, what is the departure time, etc. As we said how to make the 
decision is a matter of transport modelling, so when the agent should 
make a decision, it will call  a suitable transport model which will 
produce the required decision. As far as the transport model 
researchers are concerned, the implementation model should also 
consider the possibility of interaction between agents in future 
transport models. I would like to get help from you relating to what 
multi-agent language I should choose. Swarm may be a candidate, but I 
do not know whether it is suitable for my project? 

> Date:          Thu, 15 May 1997 17:15:34 +0200 (MET DST)
> From:          Vladimir Jojic <address@hidden>
> To:            "Mr X.Y.Huang" <address@hidden>
> Subject:       Re: simpleExperBug crashed ...

> 
> 
> On Thu, 15 May 1997, Mr X.Y.Huang wrote:
> 
> > Dear members of the swarm support,
> > implementing such a simulation system as a multiagent system where an 
> > agent could be a traveller or a group of homogeneous travellers. 
> > These agents may interact each other.  One of the problems I face is 
> > what computing language I should choose. I think multiagent languages 
> > should be very good candidates. However, my knowledge about 
> > multiagent languages is very shallow. Does any of the members know 
> > how many multiagent languages (such as Swarm) there exist? I want to 
> > do a survey, and probably decide to choose one of them as my 
> > implementation language. 
> 
> Wow! Wait a minute. Swarm is a library (mechanism), based on tcl and
> objective c. You use these libraries (there are several different
> libraries, like libneuro, that supports neural networks) to construct your
> own applications.
>  
> > In particular, most of you may already have started to use Swarm in 
> > your application, so you may have very good experiences about this 
> > language. Could anyone tell me about your opinions about it (is it 
> > easy to be mastered?  
> 
> You could take a look, at the paper written by Howard Gutowitz Artificial
> Life Simulators and Their Applications. Try with Yahoo:Sciences:Artificial
> Life: ... I think that this paper is mentioned there. This a nice survey
> (dated january 1995, still you will find useful information there). If you
> fail to find it, send me an e-mail, I'll find the url, and send it to you.
> If everything else fails -- I have a copy here on my machine ... Or write
> to address@hidden (Howard Gutowitz) and ask for some pointers ... 
> 
> > is it easy to set the software in your 
> > computer? what is the most serious problem(s) you met?, etc.).  My 
> > computer is a pentium 150 with a sizable memory space and window 95 
> > operation system. Is this good enough to down load Swarm and use it?
> 
> Hmh, did you consider putting linux on your machine? Swarm works just nice
> under linux (and most of other unices), but it doesn't work under Windows
> 95. (Actually it could be possible to compile it with cygnus gcc for win,
> but, nobody actually tried it. If you were to decide to try this out, send
> me an e-mail, and I will dig out, all of the necessary urls from which you
> can dl all of the apps and software (gcc, gdb, gnu make, tcl ....)
> 
> > Ok, I think I have raised too many questions. I have to stop and wait 
> > for your response.
> 
> If you think of anything else you would like to ask, feel free to send an
> e-mail to me, I will do my best to help you out. Mostly, because I am
> interested in some of those things you mentioned in your project
> description (no, I am not planning to work on anything similar, I just
> don't have the time for that now, but I will be glad to help you out with
> configuring your os to support swarm).
> 
> In my opinion, Swarm is the best choice for your purpose (but judge for
> yourself, read the Howard's paper) ... and try to install Linux on your
> machine (I can help you with that, too, with some useful advices) ...
> 
> Good Luck,
> Vladimir  
>  
> PS. Please, don't forget to post your abstract (project description) to
> the swarm-modelling, so that people who are working on a similar project,
> could get in contact with you (and you with them)... 
> 
> 
> 
> 
---
Xueyue Huang
Center For Transport Studies
Imperial College
London SW7 2BU
Tel: (+44) 171 594 6037
Fax: (+44) 171 594 6102


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