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Discussion on: Julia ♥ ABM #0: Agent-based modelling in Julia

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Jason Thompson

We'd love to have you along to ABMUS 2023, Frederick!

Our main goal with AgentsX.jl is to take the existing functionality of the base package but make a very specific and easy to use version specifically for social scientists that gives a head start focused on core social science problems common to socio-technical systems (assuming there are some...). We want to depart from ODD (a nightmare, imho) to make the 'code as the model' and also want to prompt people to think about the structure of problems in social science by easily incorporating multi-level modelling 'layers' - analogous to socio-ecological conceptualisations in some respects (e.g., moving from psychological and physiological through the behavioural, social, cultural, physical (e.g., maps and space ) and technical (e.g., policiies)). Layers will be set by default but could also be designed. We have come across restrictions with Agents.jl on defining multiple agent types (e.g., machine vs person) as opposed to agents with multiple characteristics (e.g., male or female person), so we've got a fix for that which makes coding things a bit cleaner.

So, yes, it will have all of the existing Agents.jl functionality but will add a few tweaks and 'ready-made' code blocks and functions especially targeted at social scientists.

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fbanning profile image
Frederik Banning

Interesting, thanks for elaborating on it. I'll just watch how AgentsX.jl evolves. I will try to incorporate a model including "men and machines" in this series, to showcase how I would do it with the already existing tools. :)

On a sidenote, I agree about the unwieldiness of ODD. To me it feels too strict and seems to attempt to overly standardise very heterogeneous modelling processes.