In 1985 Dr Michael Palmiter, a high school teacher, first built a very innovative agent-based model called “Simulated Evolution” which he used for teaching the dynamics of evolution. In his model, students can see the visual effects of evolution as it proceeds right in front of their eyes. Using his schema, small linear changes in the agent’s genotype have an exponential effect on the agent’s phenotype. Natural selection therefore happens quickly and effectively. I have used his approach to managing the evolution of competing agents in a variety of models that I have used to study the fundamental dynamics of sustainable economic systems. For example, here is a brief list of some of my models that use “Palmiter Genes”:
- ModEco - Palmiter genes are used to encode negotiation strategies for setting prices;
- PSoup - Palmiter genes are used to control both motion and metabolic evolution;
- TpLab - Palmiter genes are used to study the evolution of belief systems;
- EffLab - Palmiter genes are used to study Jevon’s Paradox, EROI and other things.

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This computational model is an agent-based model (ABM) developed to investigate how repeated failures of emerging niches accumulate and influence the trajectory of socio-technical transitions. Built in AnyLogic 8.7.11, the model simulates the dynamic interactions between a dominant regime and sequential niche entrants within a two-dimensional practice space. It models alignment, movement, and competition based on technological maturity and market penetration. The model utilizes a reinforcing feedback structure linking consumer support, output, resource accumulation, and capacity development (Physical and Institutional Capacity). A complete model specification following the ODD+D (Overview, Design concepts, Details, and Decision) protocol is included in the documentation.

The model represents urban commuters’ transport mode choices among cars, public transit, and motorcycles—a mode highly prevalent in developing countries. Using an agent-based modeling approach, it simulates transport dynamics and serves as a testbed for evaluating policies aimed at improving mobility.

The model simulates an ecosystem of human agents who decide, at each time step, which mode of transportation to use for commuting to work. Their decision is based on a combination of personal satisfaction with their most recent journey—evaluated across a vector of individual needs—the information they crowdsource from their social network, and their personal uncertainty regarding trying new transport options.

Agents are assigned demographic attributes such as sex, age, and income level, and are distributed across city neighborhoods according to their socioeconomic status. To represent social influence in decision-making, agents are connected via a scale-free social network topology, where connections are more likely among agents within the same socioeconomic group, reflecting the tendency of individuals to form social ties with similar others.

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The aim of the model is to define when researcher’s assumptions of dependence or independence of cases in multiple case study research affect the results — hence, the understanding of these cases.

We model interpersonal dynamics and study behavior in the classroom in the hypothetical case of a single teacher who defines students’ seating arrangements. The model incorporates the mechanisms of peer influence on study behavior, on attitude formation, and homophilous selection in order to depict the interrelated dynamics of networks, behavior, and attitudes. We compare various seating arrangement scenarios and observe how GPA distribution and level of prejudice changes over time.

This model computes the guaranteed viability kernel of a model describing the evolution of a population submitted to successive floods.
The population is described by its wealth and its adaptation rate to floods, the control are information campaigns that have a cost but increase the adaptation rate and the expected successive floods belong to given set defined by the maximal high and the minimal time between two floods.

The Mobility Transition Model (MoTMo) is a large scale agent-based model to simulate the private mobility demand in Germany until 2035. Here, we publish a very much reduced version of this model (R-MoTMo) which is designed to demonstrate the basic modelling ideas; the aim is by abstracting from the (empirical, technological, geographical, etc.) details to examine the feed-backs of individual decisions on the socio-technical system.

The aim of our model is to investigate the team dynamics through two types of task allocation strategies, with a focus on the dynamic interplay between individual needs and group performance. To achieve this goal, we have formulated an agent-based model (ABM) to formalize Deci & Ryan’s self-determination theory (SDT) and explore the social dynamics that govern the relationship between individual and group levels of team performance.

This is the code for the model described in an article in the International Journal of Microsimulation. Lawson (2013) ‘Modelling Household Spending Using a Random Assignment Scheme’, International Journal of Microsimulation, 6(2) Autumn 2013, 56-75.

Industrial clustering patterns are the result of an entrepreneurial process where spinoffs inherit the ideas and attributes of their parent firms. This computational model maps these patterns using abstract methodologies.