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From: Zhang, Y. <yiwen@u.arizona.edu> - 2005-06-27 06:43:21
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Hi, Dear all I have a multi-agent modeling of online community. Finding the right = software has been torturing me for a while. I happened to find Repast = last week, and I was wondering whether Rapast is suitable for my model. = I would appreciate it a lot if any of you can give me some ideas of the = viability. Basically, in my model, I have agents and public place. --------------------------------------- Agents:=20 1) each participant of the online community is modeled as an agent, and = it has a lot of parameters describing their learning capabilities, = social capabilities, communities's attactiveness to the agent, etc. = These parameters are randomly assigned when the agents are generated, = and will dynamically change over the time.=20 2) Agents are not always in the community. Each agent periodically = visits the community once it is generated(based on some time = distribution), and when the attractivenss of the community to the agent = decrease to zero, it will never come back again (it's like it died) 3) every time an agent visit the community, agent will initiate message, = read others' message, and reply others' message.The detail of the = activities, such as how many message to generate, which message to = reply, are controlled by the learning and social parameters of the = agent.=20 Public place:=20 1) The online community is simplified as a public place, where the = agents can post messages, read messages, and reply others' messages. = Each message is represented by a set of parameters determined by the = parameters of the agent who posted the message. Public place is = represented by a list of messages. Messages are not necessary stored = forever, and they will be cleared up after a period of time. 2) The interactions among agents are the achieved through the public = place. This means that there is no direct agent-to-agent interaction. = When agents post messages, it potentially will affect other agents if = other agents read the message and even respond to them. -------------------------------------------------------- I have a set of interesting questions to answer based on the simulation = results. For example, I want to study how the different composition of = population (different types of agents with different learning = capabilities and social capability) lead to the different growth pattern = of the online community.=20 Do you think Repast is good for my purpose? If it is, could you please = provide me some suggestions on which components or steps I should take = when implementing my model in Repast. If it is not, do you have any = suggestions on other software? Thanks a ton! Yiwen=20 |