Abstract: This study outlines the main objectives and defining
characteristics of agent-based computational economics (ACE), clarifying
similiarities and distinctions between ACE and artificial life research.
Eight ACE application areas are identified, and a number of publications in
each area are highlighted for concrete illustration. Open questions and
directions for future ACE research are also considered. The study concludes
with a discussion of the potential benefits of the ACE approach, as well as
some potential difficulties.
Note: Pointers to the journals listed below can be found on
the
journal and publisher information page
linked to the ACE website home page.
- Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
- The fourth issue of volume 4 of the Journal of Artificial
Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS) was published on October
31st. This issue has six refereed articles, two contributions to
the Forum section, and six book reviews and a review essay. JASSS
is an electronic refereed journal devoted to the exploration and
understanding of social processes by means of computer simulation.
It is freely available, with no subscription, at
http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/
- ComPlexUs: New Journal
- ComPlexUs is a new quarterly interdisciplinary
journal by S. Karger Publishers, Inc. to appear in 2002. The
journal will focus on the modelling and understanding of functional
interactions in the life sciences. Original articles are sought
that offer significant new insights into the functioning of
biological systems at a `complex' or integrated level. Especially
welcome are articles on the molecular, genetic, and cellular
mechanisms underlying the networks involved in gene regulation and
organism development, intercellular transport, and the functioning
of the immune and central nervous systems. A novel concept of the
journal is to supplement original scientific articles, where
necessary, with companion `translation' texts, written by qualified
scientific writers, and aimed at helping all professionals involved
in the life sciences to comprehend the articles. For more
information, visit
http://www.karger.com/journals/cpu/cpu_jh.htm
- Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence
- From the publisher: "The Electronic Transactions on
Artificial Intelligence (ETAI) is a novel kind of scientific
journal, with a radically new approach to reviewing procedures,
communication between peers, information services within a research
community, and even to the very concept of scientific publication.
The actual work for the ETAI is shared between: The Editor-in-Chief,
working together with the ETAI secretariat; The Area Editors for the
various ETAI research areas." For more information, visit
http://www.ida.liu.se/ext/etaij/gen/intro/ident.html
Book Announcements
Note: The following book announcements have been incorporated
into the
annotated syllabus of ACE-related readings
linked to the ACE website home page. Links to publishers (for ordering
purposes) can be found on the
journal and publisher information page
linked to the ACE website home page.
- Sunny A Auyang, Foundations of Complex-Systems Theories: In
Economics, Evolutionary Biology, and Statistical Physics,
Cambridge University Press, 416 pp., September 1999. ISBN:
0-521-77826-3.
- From the publisher: "(This book) analyzes, for the first
time, the key concepts and general methods used in studying
complexity in statistical physics, evolutionary biology, and
economics. It highlights the features common to each area, and
describes how we understnad and deal with complexity. This detailed
yet nontechnical book will appeal to anyone who wants to know more
about complex systems and their behavior. It will also be of great
interest to specialists studying complexity in the physical,
biological, and social sciences."
- Lee Alan Dugatkin, The Imitation Factor: Evolution Beyond the
Gene, Free Press, 243 pp., January 2001. ISBN: 0-684-86453-3.
- From Booklist: "Dugatkin, biologist and science writer,
spares the reader what he calls `the nasty mathematics' backing up
his findings but provides a fascinating look at how the act of
imitating affects evolution and culture. He offers interesting
examples to prove theories on sexual and mating habits of barn
swallows, scorpion flies, stalk-eyed flies, guppies, and humans as
they imitate the behavior of others of their species and, thereby,
transmit physical and cultural traits."
- Geoffrey Underwood and Richard L. Gregory (eds.), Oxford Guide to the
Mind, Oxford University Press, 416 pp., April 2001, ISBN: 0-198-60083-6.
- This volume consists of a selection of articles from the much more
comprehensive collection, Oxford Companion to the Mind. These
selected articles cover the following topics: the software of the mind; the
hardware of the mind; brain, mind and consciousness; when minds are damaged;
disturbed minds; and minds in action.
-
Angelo Cangelosi and Domenico Parisi (eds.), Simulating the
Evolution of Language, Springer-Verlag, October 2001. ISBN:
1-852-33428-2.
- From the publisher: "This volume provides a comprehensive
survey of the computational models and methodologies used for
studying the origin and evolution of language and communication.
With contributions from the most influential figures in the field,
(this book) presents and summarises current computational approaches
to language evolution and highlights new lines of development. Among
the main discussion points are: analysis of emerging linguistic
behaviours and structures; demonstration of the strict interaction
and interdependence between language and other non-linguistic
abilities; and direct comparisons between simulation studies and
empirical research. Essential reading for researchers and students
in the areas of evolutionary and adaptive systems, language
evolution, modelling and linguistics, it will also be of particular
interest to computer scientists working on multi-agent systems,
robotics and Internet agents."
-
Sarit Kraus, Strategic Negotiation in Multiagent
Environments, The MIT Press, 280 pp., September 1, 2001, ISBN:
0-262-11264-7.
- From the publisher: "Sarit Kraus is concerned here with the
cooperation and coordination of intelligent agents that are
self-interested and usually owned by different individuals or
organizations. Conflicts frequently arise, and negotiation is one
of the main mechanisms for reaching agreement. Kraus presents a
strategic-negotiation model that enables autonomous agents to reach
mutually beneficial agreements efficiently in complex environments.
The model, which integrates game theory, economic techniques, and
heuristic methods of artificial intelligence, can be automated in
computer systems or applied to human situations. The book provides
both theoretical and experimental results."
- Sarit Kraus is Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science
at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and Professor of Computer Scinece in
the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of
Maryland, College Park.
-
Alessandro Lomi and Erik R. Larsen (eds.), Dynamics of
Organizations: Computational Modeling and Organizational
Theories, AAAI Press, 352 pp., 2001. ISBN: 0-262-62152-5.
- From the publisher: "An organization is more than the sum
of its parts, and the individual components that function as a
complex social system can be understood only by analyzing their
collective behavior. This book shows how state-of-the-art simulation
methods, including genetic algorithms, neural networks, and cellular
automata, can be brought to bear on central problems of
organizational theory related to the emergence, permanence, and
dissolution of hierarchical macrostructures. The emphasis is on the
application of a new generation of equation- and agent-based
computational models that can help students of organizations to
reformulate their basic research questions starting from assumptions
about how to link -- rather than separate -- different levels of
organizational analysis."
- Alessandro Lomi is Professor of Organizational Theory and
Behavior at the School of Economics, University of Bologna. Erik R.
Larsen is Professor of Management at City University Business
School, London.
- Steven N. Durlauf and H. Peyton Young (eds.), Social Dynamics,
The MIT Press, 234 pp., 2001. ISBN: 0-262-04186-3.
- From the publisher: "(This book) is based on the assumption
that individuals are directly influenced by the choices and
characteristics of others, creating a feedback loop from the past
choices of some people to the current context and hence future
choices of others. The essays in this book, by some of the creators
of the field, provide an overview of social economics and represent
a variety of approaches, including theoretical model building,
empirical studies, statistical analyses, and philosophical
reflections."
- Steven N. Durlauf is Professor of Economics at the
University of Wisconsin and former Director of the Economics Program
of the Santa Fe Institute. H. Peyton Young is the Scott and Barbara
Black Professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins University and Senior
Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution.
- Roland H. Lamberson (ed.), Natural Resource Modeling: Special
Issue on Individual-Based Models, The Rocky Mountain Mathematics
Consortium, Volume 15, Number 1, March 2002.
- This special issue is based on the symposium "Advancing the
Individual-Based Modeling Approach: New Tools and Concepts," at the
annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Snowbird, Utah,
August 10, 2000. The goal of the volume is to reconsider the status
of individual-based models, present some promising new approaches,
and give some examples of successful new models. For more
information about this volume, visit
http://math.humboldt.edu/~simsys/NRMSpecialIssue.html
- Francesco Luna and Alessandro Perrone (eds.), Agent-Based
Methods in Economics and Finance: Simulations in Swarm, Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 344 pp., October 2001. ISBN: 0-792-37419-3.
- From the publisher: "Swarm's principal foundation is an
object-oriented representation of active agents interacting among
themselves and with their environment. To this base layer it adds
its own structures to drive, record and portrait the events that
occur across this world. The specific contents of any world,
however, are up to the experimenter to provide, either by building
them from scratch or by tapping previous contributions. This book
(assembles) a rich array of such contributions, which are
significant in their own right, but which can also be mined to
extract the reusable elements in their respective areas of finance
and economics. It also presents three interesting software
additions with tutorials in the form of simple financial and
economic applications: a Swarm meta-language closer to a `natural
language'; the use of Internet-augmented Swarm for experimental
economics; and a Swarm visual builder..."
- Christian Jacob, Illustrating Evolutionary Computation with
Mathematica, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 616 pp., February 2001.
ISBN: 1-558-60637-8.
- From an amazon.com editorial review by Rob Lightner:
"Living organisms manage to solve all kinds of deviously complex
problems with a natural simplicity that leaves programmers
speechless. Incorporating techniques based on principles elaborated
by Darwin and his intellectual descendents, a new generation of
hackers has tackled hairy challenges with surprising success.
Christian Jacob introduces interested programmers and scientists
to these tools... The basics of biological evolution through mutation
and adaptation are covered quickly before they are adapted
themselves to the purposes of computer-aided problem solving. Jacob
then explores the fundamentals of evolutionary computing through
well-illustrated examples and a good balance of text, formulae, and
code. Genetic algorithms, evolutionary strategies, and finite state
automata each get their share of attention and integration with
Evolvica, Jacob's Mathematica-based genetic programming system. The
system and Web enhancements to the book are available through the
University of Calgary's site and are essential for getting the most
from the text. The last few chapters cover advanced applications
like the classic `hungry ants' programs, cellular automata, and
artificial plant evolution, suggesting further possibilities for this
programming frontier."
Software
Note: Pointers to the following materials have been
incorporated into the
software page
linked to the ACE website home page.
- NetLogo
- NetLogo is a new multi-platform complexity modeling and
simulation environment from the developers of StarLogoT at the
Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling (CCL),
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. For the final beta
version (Beta 8) before release, plus a user's guide, visit
http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/
- Moduleco: Multi-Agent Social Simulation
- Moduleco is an object-oriented modular framework designed
to simulate multi-agent social phenomena such as markets,
organizations, network effects, and population dynamics. The
developers are Denis Phan and Antoine Beugnard, both at the
École Nationale Supérieure des
télécommunications de Bretagne in France. For more
information, including downloadable applications and bibliographical
information, visit
http://www-eco.enst-bretagne.fr/~phan/moduleco/
- Virtual Reality Toolbox (MATLAB and Simulink)
- The Virtual Reality Toolbox, from The MathWorks, is a
solution for visualizing and interacting with dynamic systems in a
3-dimensional virtual reality environment. These dynamic systems
are described with MATLAB (a language for technical computing) and
Simulink (model-based and system level design). For more
information, visit
http://www.mathworks.com/
- VRMLworks: The 3D Web
- From the developer of the VRMLworks site (Bob Crispen):
"The 3D Web is here. The technology that's making it happen today
is Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). You can get started on
the 3D Web right now. That's what the VRMLworks is here for ---
from picking a free browser, to visiting some of the worlds and
virtual communities on the Web, to building your own worlds, to
populating those worlds with free 3D models, to books, tutorials,
tools, and resources, the VRMLworks is here to help." For more
information, visit
http://home.hiwaay.net/~crispen/vrmlworks/intro.html
Research Groups and Sites
Note: Pointers to the following research groups and sites
have been incorporated into the
ACE-related research groups and sites page
linked to the ACE website home page.
- Reinforcement Learning Repository
- The Autonomous Agents Laboratory at Michigan State
University maintains an online repository of resources on
reinforcement learning (RL), which is currently an actively
researched topic in artificial intelligence. The website provides
resources on both RL research and applications to areas such as
robotics and industrial problems. Resources available include
technical publications, sample testbeds, implementations of various
algorithms, online simulation packages, workshop information, and
discussion forums for a variety of research areas within RL. The
website is supported by the National Science Foundation. For more
information, visit
http://www.cse.msu.edu/rlr/rlmain.html
- Artificial Intelligence in Games
- A repository of resources on the use of artificial intelligence in
the design of games can be found at
http://www.gameai.com/aimain.html
The site stresses practical approaches to the problem of building better
computer opponents and is aimed at both game developers and game players.
- Framsticks: Artificial Life
- From the Framsticks home page, maintained by Maciej
Komosinski and Szymon Ulatowski (Institute of Computer Science,
Poznan University of Technology): "Framsticks is a
three-dimensional life simulation project. Both physical structure
of creatures and their control systems are evolved. Evolutionary
algorithms are used with selection, crossovers, and mutations.
Finite elements method is used for simulation. Both spontaneous and
directed evolutions are possible." For more information, visit
http://www.frams.poznan.pl/
- Self-Organizing Innovation Networks
- A report on a project (now completed) on innovation networks
(networks of firms, academic institutions, and government) in four case study
areas (biotechnology, cell phones, combined heat and power, and
knowledge-intensive business services) is available at a website titled
Self-Organizing Innovation Networks (SEIN)/
The theory was formalized as an agent-based simulation model by Nigel Gilbert
(University of Surrey, UK), Andreas Pyka (University of Augsburg, Germany),
and Petra Ahrweiler (University of Hamburg, Germany) in a paper titled
"Innovation Networks -- A Simulation Approach",
which appeared in the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social
Simulation, Volume 4, No. 3, 2001.
- Agent-Based Electricity Modeling
- A website on agent-based modeling of restructured electricity
markets has been constructed by Leigh Tesfatsion (Economics, Iowa State
University). Resources provided at this site include a listing of key
issues, readings, software, and pointers to individual researchers and
research groups. For more information, visit
http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/aelect.htm
- The pLab Project: Pseudo-Random Number Generation
- A server on the theory and practice of pseudo-random number
generation is maintained by a team of Austrian mathematicians and computer
scientists led by Peter Hellekalek at the University of Salzburg's
Mathematics Department. Resources provided at the site include specific
pseudo-random number generators, tests for randomness, news, literature,
software, and related links. For more information, visit
http://random.mat.sbg.ac.at/
Miscellaneous News Items
Note: The following announcements have been incorporated into
the
Miscellaneous site
linked to the ACE website home page.
Summer Internship Opportunity in Applied Computational Economics (November
2001)
- From an announcement by John Douceur (29 November 2001): "The Systems
and Networking Research Group at Microsoft Research is seeking a graduate
student with an educational background in the area of computational economics
for an internship position over the summer of 2002. The duration of the
position will be approximately 12 weeks; exact dates will be determined in
accordance with the student's availability. The goal of the internship will
be to develop an economic approach to managing the allocation of storage
resources in a large-scale serverless distributed file system. The candidate
should have a basic understanding of micro- and macro-economic theory,
familiarity with the application of economic techniques to resource
allocation in computer systems, and an interest in applying these skills
toward the solution of a real and relevant problem in distributed
peer-to-peer systems. The position will involve close work with researchers
on the (Farsite Distributed File System) project team who have extensive
system-building experience but limited familiarity with computational
economics."
- Please send CV and recommendation letters to John Douceur. For more information
about the Farsite project, visit
http://research.microsoft.com/farsite
Trading Competition 2001 Results
- Results for the Second Trading Agent Competition, held at
the ACM Electronic Commerce Conference, are now in. Livingagents,
the bot entered by Living-systems AG, has won the competition, with
AT&T finishing second and Cornell third. Other teams in the final
eight included Penn State, CMU, Southhampton, Essex and Stanford.
For more information, visit
http://auction2.eecs.umich.edu/tac01-scores-finals/
Reminder: Items Requested for ACE News Notes and Complexity
Just a reminder that if you have any ACE-related news items, or
any information about ACE-related teaching materials, software,
books, journals, or conferences that you would like to have
considered for inclusion in the ACE news notes, and/or the
Complexity-at-Large section of the John Wiley journal
Complexity, please email them to me (along with website
information if available) at the following address:
tesfatsi@iastate.edu
Copyright © 2001 Leigh Tesfatsion. All Rights Reserved.