Introduction to the Modeling and Analysis of Complex Systems

19.2. BUILDING AN AGENT-BASED MODEL 431Exercise 19.1 Do a quick online literature search to learn how ABMs are usedin various scientific disciplines. Choose a few examples of your interest and learnmore about how researchers developed and used their ABMs for their research.19.2 Building an Agent-Based ModelLet’s get started with agent-based modeling. In fact, there are many great tutorials alreadyout there about how to build an ABM, especially those by Charles Macal and MichaelNorth, renowned agent-based modelers at Argonne National Laboratory [84]. Macal andNorth suggest considering the following aspects when you design an agent-based model:1. Specific problem to be solved by the ABM2. Design of agents and their static/dynamic attributes3. Design of an environment and the way agents interact with it4. Design of agents’ behaviors5. Design of agents’ mutual interactions6. Availability of data7. Method of model validationAmong those points, 1, 6, and 7 are about fundamental scientific methodologies. Itis important to keep in mind that just building an arbitrary ABM and obtaining results bysimulation wouldn’t produce any scientifically meaningful conclusion. In order for an ABMto be scientifically meaningful, it has to be built and used in either of the following twocomplementary approaches:A. Build an ABM using model assumptions that are derived from empirically observedphenomena, and then produce previously unknown collective behaviors by simulation.B. Build an ABM using hypothetical model assumptions, and then reproduce empiricallyobserved collective phenomena by simulation.