An agent model is presented that aims to capture the impact of cheap talk on collective action in a commons dilemma. The commons dilemma is represented as a spatially explicit renewable resource. Agent’s trust in others impacts the speed and harvesting rate, and trust is impacted by observed harvesting behavior and cheap talk. We calibrated the model using experimental data (DeCaro et al. 2021). The best fit to the data consists of a population with a small frequency of altruistic and selfish agents, and mostly conditional cooperative agents sensitive to inequality and cheap talk. This calibrated model provides an empirical test of the behavioral theory of collective action of Elinor Ostrom and Humanistic Rational Choice Theory.

AncientS-ABM is an agent-based model for simulating and evaluating the potential social organization of an artificial past society, configured by available archaeological data. Unlike most existing agent-based models used in archaeology, our ABM framework includes completely autonomous, utility-based agents. It also incorporates different social organization paradigms, different decision-making processes, and also different cultivation technologies used in ancient societies. Equipped with such paradigms, the model allows us to explore the transition from a simple to a more complex society by focusing on the historical social dynamics; and to assess the influence of social organization on agents’ population growth, agent community numbers, sizes and distribution.

AncientS-ABM also blends ideas from evolutionary game theory with multi-agent systems’ self-organization. We model the evolution of social behaviours in a population of strategically interacting agents in repeated games where they exchange resources (utility) with others. The results of the games contribute to both the continuous re-organization of the social structure, and the progressive adoption of the most successful agent strategies. Agent population is not fixed, but fluctuates over time, while agents in stage games also receive non-static payoffs, in contrast to most games studied in the literature. To tackle this, we defined a novel formulation of the evolutionary dynamics via assessing agents’ rather than strategies’ fitness.

As a case study, we employ AncientS-ABM to evaluate the impact of the implemented social organization paradigms on an artificial Bronze Age “Minoan” society, located at different geographical parts of the island of Crete, Greece. Model parameter choices are based on archaeological evidence and studies, but are not biased towards any specific assumption. Results over a number of different simulation scenarios demonstrate better sustainability for settlements consisting of and adopting a socio-economic organization model based on self-organization, where a “heterarchical” social structure emerges. Results also demonstrate that successful agent societies adopt an evolutionary approach where cooperation is an emergent strategic behaviour. In simulation scenarios where the natural disaster module was enabled, we observe noticeable changes in the settlements’ distribution, relating to significantly higher migration rates immediately after the modeled Theran eruption. In addition, the initially cooperative behaviour is transformed to a non-cooperative one, thus providing support for archaeological theories suggesting that the volcanic eruption led to a clear breakdown of the Minoan socio-economic system.

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Agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS) is a class of computational models for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous agents with the goal of assessing their effects on a system as a whole. Several frameworks for generating parallel ABMS applications have been developed taking advantage of their common characteristics, but there is a lack of a general benchmark for comparing the performance of generated applications. We propose and design a benchmark that takes into consideration the most common characteristics of this type of applications and includes parameters for influencing their relevant performance aspects. We provide an initial implementation of the benchmark for RepastHPC one of the most popular parallel ABMS platforms, and we use it for comparing the applications generated by these platforms.

Agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS) is a class of computational models for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous agents with the goal of assessing their effects on a system as a whole. Several frameworks for generating parallel ABMS applications have been developed taking advantage of their common characteristics, but there is a lack of a general benchmark for comparing the performance of generated applications. We propose and design a benchmark that takes into consideration the most common characteristics of this type of applications and includes parameters for influencing their relevant performance aspects. We provide an initial implementation of the benchmark for FLAME one of the most popular parallel ABMS platforms, and we use it for comparing the applications generated by these platforms.

Contact Tracing Repast HPC agent model

This model simulates the opinion dynamics of COVID-19 vaccination to examine especially how fears and cognitive bias contribute to the opinion polarisation and vaccination rate. In studying the opinion dynamics of COVID-19 vaccination, this model refers to the HUMAT framework (Antosz et al, 2019). Many psychological and social processes are included in the model, such as dynamical decision-making processes of information exchange and fear formation, satisfaction evaluation, preferred decision selection and dissonance reduction.

This model is a more comprehensive version of the original model; descriptions and expanations are added

Infantry Company Engagement model including command and control functions for the scenario of an offensive operation of the blue force

In our model, individual agents are distributed over a two-dimensional square lattice. The agents play the prisoner’s dilemma game with their neighbors, imitate the highest strategy, and then migrate to empty sites based on their tag preference.

The program simulate the functioning of an italian health and social public information office (SPUN) on the basis of the real data collected in the first five years of functioning.