Challenge the future

DelftUniversity ofTechnology

Agent-based Modeling and Simulation for the Social Scientist

MAIA Amineh Ghorbani, Virginia Dignum, Pieter Bots, Gerard Dijkema,

Bert Belder

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Goal• Framework for agent-based conceptualization and simulation

• Rich enough to capture a diverse range of social systems• Support developers with little/no programming/software

engineering knowledge

• Application areas• Policy design / public goods problems• Social systems: complex behavior / discrete entities

• Approach• Collaborative modelling• Institutional analysis (Ostrom)• Model driven engineering (MDE)

• meta-modeling and semi-automatic code generation

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Applications

Domains

•Wood-fuel market

•E-Waste recycling

•Consumer lighting

•Basic income grants

•Family-based care

•…

Commonalities

•Domain characteristics

•‘What-if’ analysis of

policies

•Problem-owners /domain

experts had limited

simulation knowledge

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Common characteristics

• Effect of incentives / policies

• Social networks and institutions

• Individual interests

• Global consequences

• Multi-criteria decision making

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What is MAIA?

•MModeling AAgents based on IInstitutional AAnalysis• Formal meta-model• Institutional perspective (IAD – Ostrom)• Web based design tool

• Declarative rather than procedural

• Semi-automatic simulation generation

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MAIA Architecture

• The MAIA meta-model

finetuning

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Institutions

An institution is any structure or mechanism of social order

and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of

individuals within a given human community.

Institutions are identified with a social purpose and

permanence, transcending individual human lives and

intention by enforcing rules that govern cooperative human

behavior

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Individuals do activities

(repetitive)

Rules created to manage

activities

1- Rules accepted by everyone2- Used in practice3- Durability

Institutions

outcomes affect others

too

By product of interactions

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Institutional frameworks

• Institutions have two sides: • Enable interactions, provide stability, certainty, and form the basis for trust.• Cause power relations and may hamper reform.

• Important to understand effects of institutions

Institutional (re)design

Analyze and Understand for Design Institutional Frameworks

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Institutional Analysis and Design

Elinor OstromNobel laureate

1933-2012

unit of analysis

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Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IAD)

Physical world

Community

Rules

Action Arena

Patterns of interaction

Action Situation

Participants

Outcomes

Evaluation Criteria

1. Position rules2. Boundary rules3. Authority rules4. Aggregation

rules5. Scope rules6. Information

rules7. Payoff rules

Resources, preferences, information and selection

criteria

1. Participants 2. Positions3. Actions4. Potential

outcomes5. Functions

that map actions into outcomes

6. Information7. Cost and

benefits

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Extending IAD

• Formalization of concepts• MAIA formal model

• Robust information and consensus• MAIA online tool supports flexible conceptualization through

participatory exploration• Supports reflection and discussion

• Outward looking• Information collected directly reflects the experiences and

perceptions of stakeholders themselves

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MAIA Meta model

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Collective structure = set of agents

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Constitutive Structure

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Institutions: ADICO

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Physical components

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Operational structure

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MAIA Modelling Environment

http://test1.eeni.tbm.tudelft.nl/maia/

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Translation to Java Code

• MAIA MM is developed as an e-core model• EMF environment in Eclipse for model-driven software development.• XML specification.

• Output of MAIA web-tool is based on MAIA MM

• Explicit, fixed, rules to convert MAIA model (XML) to Java

simulation

• Current work: translator code, for automatic generation of code

from a MAIA-based model.

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From rules to code

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Agent behaviour

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MAIA Approach

declarative

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Conclusions

MAIA framework for agent-based simulation

•Rich enough to capture a diverse range of social systems

•Support developers with little/no programming/software

engineering knowledge

•Based on Institutional analysis (Ostrom)

•Formal model• Verification• Model driven engineering (MDE) for semi-automatic code generation

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Future work

• Extend and validate code generation

• Visualisation of simulation results

• Library of agent behaviours

• Extensive evaluation

• Transformation of MAIA models into other simulation

environments (e.g. Netlogo or Repast)

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MAIA Architecture

More info:a.ghorbani@tudelft.nl