This paper describes and evaluates a process of using qualitative field research data to extend the pre-existing FEARLUS agent-based modelling system through enriching its ontological capabilities, but without a deep level of involvement of the stakeholders in designing the model itself. Use of...

This paper will explore the effects of errors in floating point arithmetic in two published agent-based models: the first a model of land use change (Polhill et al. 2001; Gotts et al. 2003), the second a model of the stock market (LeBaron et al. 1999). The first example demonstrates how branching...

Agent-based models, perhaps more than other models, feature large numbers of parameters and potentially generate vast quantities of results data. This paper shows through the FEARLUS-G project (an ESRC e-Social Science Initiative Pilot Demonstrator Project) how deploying an agent-based model on...

This paper summarises some previously published work on imitation, experimentation (or innovation) and aspiration thresholds using the FEARLUS modelling system and reports new work with FEARLUS extending these studies. Results are discussed in the context of existing literature on imitation and...

In this paper social dilemmas are modelled as n-player games. Orthodox game theorists have been able to provide several concepts that narrow the set of expected outcomes in these models. However, in their search for a reduced set of solutions, they had to pay a very high price: they had to make...

In this paper we replicate and advance Macy and Flache\'s (2002; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 99, 7229–7236) work on the dynamics of reinforcement learning in 2×2 (2-player 2-strategy) social dilemmas. In particular, we provide further insight into the solution concepts that they describe,...

In this paper we compare models of two different kinds of processes in multi-agent-based social simulations (MABSS): military conflict within a states-system (GeoSim), and land use and ownership change (FEARLUS). This is a kind of model-to-model comparison which is novel within Multi-Agent Based...

Using OWL ontologies to represent the state and structure of a simulation at any one time has been argued to improve the transparency of a social simulation, on the basis that this information is then not embedded in the source code of the model, or in the computer’s memory at run-time....

We consider here issues of open access to social simulations, with a particular focus on software licences, though also briefly discussing documentation and archiving. Without any specific software licence, the default arrangements are stipulated by the Berne Convention (for those countries...

This paper describes work undertaken converting the Artificial Stock Market (LeBaron et al., 1999; Johnson, 2002) to using interval arithmetic instead of floating point arithmetic, the latter having been shown in an earlier article to be the cause of changed behaviour in the ASM (Polhill et al., in...