Re: [Swarm-Modelling] Literature on modeling concurrency

[gepr]

Steve Railsback writes:
 > Does anyone know of useful, citable literature on the theory/concepts of 
 >   scheduling concurrent events in simulation models?
 > 
 > Much of Swarm's guts is about specifying the order in which actions are 
 > executed, when the underlying assumption of time-step models is that all 
 > the actions occur concurrently each step. What are different ways to 
 > schedule concurrent events and what are their consequences? I want to 
 > know where I can send people to get smart on such problems.
 > 
 > I realize there are shelves-full of books on simulation, but the handful 
 > I have looked at do not seem to be helpful on this topic. (Some of them 
 > do not include the word "schedule" in their index.)

What you're looking for lies in the literature on concurrency.  So,
take a look at things like "process algebras", "pi-calculus", "CCS"
(calculus of communicating systems), rewriting logic, discrete-event
scheduling, parallel/distributed computing, bisimulation, etc.

You can get a pretty solid, basic, understanding of the issues
studying operations research (or management science) where they solve
problems like designing efficient shop floors.

There is no definitive text.  This topic is horizontal.  It spans 
everything from compiler and operating systems design to organizational
design to clinical psychology and back to embedded systems engineering.

There are highly particular algorithms like "rate-monotonic scheduling"
in embedded systems to Edelman's "Darwin" for connectionist theories
of cognition.

A good source of practical knowledge is the SCS (www.scs.org) and 
their publications.  A good source of theoretical knowledge are the
various journals and books on discrete mathematics.

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glen e. p. ropella              =><=                           Hail Eris!
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