[Repast-developer] Help! How can I use Repast for my multi-agent model

[Zhang, Y. <yiwen@u.arizona.edu>]

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