Comparing system dynamics with agent-based modeling

[Russ Abbott]

Yesterday, a friend (Franzi Poldy for those of you who know him) and I were discussing the relationship between system dynamics and agent-based modeling. I've written up a brief (5 pages) discussion. It's fairly rough, but if anyone gets a chance to read it, I'd appreciate your comments. To motivate your looking at it I'll claim that it comes to some interesting conclusions.

Thanks.

-- Russ


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[Robert Holmes]

Your paper concludes that: "Any SD model can be converted to an equivalent agent-based model". However it begs the question: why would I carry out the conversion? Are ABM in some sense "better" than SD?

-- Robert

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 6:42 AM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yesterday, a friend (Franzi Poldy for those of you who know him) and I were discussing the relationship between system dynamics and agent-based modeling. I've written up a brief (5 pages) discussion. It's fairly rough, but if anyone gets a chance to read it, I'd appreciate your comments. To motivate your looking at it I'll claim that it comes to some interesting conclusions.

Thanks.

-- Russ


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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[Douglas Roberts-2]

My response was more along the lines of, what's the point of forcing this comparison?   If an agent in an ABM has equations that define one or more of its rules, then (if you absolutely feel some compelling need to) you can think of the model as a systems dynamics model.

So what?  Same response to the abstract:

"This paper compares System Dynamics (SD) and Agent-Based Modeling (ABM). As normally understood, ABM subsumes SD. But if SD variables and rules are generalized sufficiently, SD  and ABM can be considered equivalent."

What does this buy you?  Is this just an academic exersize in preparation to writing a paper with the sole purpose of concluding that a comparison between ABM and SD methodologies exists, or does thinking about an ABM as an SD, or vice versa actually provide some hidden benefit to developers and users of models?

--Doug

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:

Your paper concludes that: "Any SD model can be converted to an equivalent agent-based model". However it begs the question: why would I carry out the conversion? Are ABM in some sense "better" than SD?

-- Robert

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 6:42 AM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yesterday, a friend (Franzi Poldy for those of you who know him) and I were discussing the relationship between system dynamics and agent-based modeling. I've written up a brief (5 pages) discussion. It's fairly rough, but if anyone gets a chance to read it, I'd appreciate your comments. To motivate your looking at it I'll claim that it comes to some interesting conclusions.

Thanks.

-- Russ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Louis Macovsky, Dynamic BioSystems]

 

From a lurker:

 

Here is a paper on which I participated that might be of some interest.

 

Wakeland et al. 2004, A Comparison of System Dynamics and Agent-Based Simulation Applied to the Study of Cellular Receptor Dynamics, Proceedings of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

 

- Lou

 

 

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