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Checking Simulations: Detecting and Avoiding Errors and Artefacts

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Simulating Social Complexity

Part of the book series: Understanding Complex Systems ((UCS))

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to simulations. The reader with a set of concepts and a range of suggested activities that will enhance his or her ability to understand agent-based simulations. To do this in a structured way, we review the main concepts of the methodology (e.g. we provide precise definitions for the terms “error” and “artefact”) and establish a general framework that summarises the process of designing, implementing, and using agent-based models. Within this framework we identify the various stages where different types of assumptions are usually made and, consequently, where different types of errors and artefacts may appear. We then propose several activities that can be conducted to detect each type of error and artefact.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    By input parameters in this statement, we mean “everything that may affect the output of the model”, e.g. the random seed, the pseudorandom number generator employed, and, potentially, information about the microprocessor and operating system on which the simulation was run, if these could make a difference.

  2. 2.

    The reader can see an interesting comparative analysis between agent-based and equation-based modelling in Parunak et al. (1998).

  3. 3.

    Note that the thematician faces a similar problem when building his non-formal model. There are potentially an infinite number of models for one single target system.

  4. 4.

    Each individual member of this set can be understood as a different model or, alternatively, as a different parameterisation of one single—more general—model that would itself define the whole set.

  5. 5.

    There are some interesting attempts with INGENIAS (Pavón and Gómez-Sanz 2003) to use modelling and visual languages as programming languages rather than merely as design languages (Sansores and Pavón 2005; Sansores et al. 2006). These efforts are aimed at automatically generating several implementations of one single executable model (in various different simulation platforms).

  6. 6.

    See a complete epistemic review of the validation problem in Kleindorfer et al. (1998).

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Acknowledgements

The authors have benefited from the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (projects CSD2010-00034, DPI2004-06590, DPI2005-05676, and TIN2008-06464-C03-02) and of the Junta de Castilla y León (projects BU034A08 and VA006B09). We are also very grateful to Nick Gotts, Gary Polhill, Bruce Edmonds, and Cesáreo Hernández for many discussions on the philosophy of modelling.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Universidad de Burgos, E-09001, Burgos, Spain

    José M. Galán, Luis R. Izquierdo, José I. Santos & Ricardo del Olmo

  2. Departamento de Organización de Empresas y C.I.M., Universidad de Valladolid, E-47011, Valladolid, Spain

    Segismundo S. Izquierdo & Adolfo López-Paredes

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  1. José M. Galán
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  2. Luis R. Izquierdo
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  3. Segismundo S. Izquierdo
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  4. José I. Santos
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  5. Ricardo del Olmo
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Correspondence to José M. Galán .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University, Business School, Manchester, United Kingdom

    Bruce Edmonds

  2. Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University, Business School, Manchester, United Kingdom

    Ruth Meyer

Further Reading

Further Reading

Gilbert (2007) provides an excellent basic introduction to agent-based modelling. Chapter 4 summarises the different stages involved in an agent-based modelling project, including verification and validation. The paper entitled “Some myths and common errors in simulation experiments” (Schmeiser 2001) discusses briefly some of the most common errors found in simulation from a probabilistic and statistical perspective. The approach is not focused specifically on agent-based modelling but on simulation in general. Yilmaz (2006) presents an analysis of the life cycle of a simulation study and proposes a process-centric perspective for the validation and verification of agent-based computational organisation models. An antecedent of this chapter can be found in Galán et al. (2009). Finally, Chap. 9 in this volume (David et al. 2017) discusses validation in detail.

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Galán, J.M., Izquierdo, L.R., Izquierdo, S.S., Santos, J.I., del Olmo, R., López-Paredes, A. (2017). Checking Simulations: Detecting and Avoiding Errors and Artefacts. In: Edmonds, B., Meyer, R. (eds) Simulating Social Complexity. Understanding Complex Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66948-9_7

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