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[Swarm-Support] I'm going to Swarmfest in Italy. You should too!
From: |
Paul Johnson |
Subject: |
[Swarm-Support] I'm going to Swarmfest in Italy. You should too! |
Date: |
Sun, 01 May 2005 20:32:56 -0500 |
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Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2-1.3.2 (X11/20050324) |
The deadline for registration for 2005 Swarmfest in Torino, Italy, is
rapidly approaching. I've just spoken with conference Organizer
Professor Pietro Terna and there are some openings available.
If you are new to Swarm, you might want to sign up for the tutorial
session that I will be offering on June 5. That evening, there will be
a reception and papers & speeches will be held the 6th & 7th. You can
read all about it here: http://www.swarm.org/wiki/SwarmFest2005. I'll
be in the Ukraine during the 2 weeks before the Swarmfest, and I expect
to be in Torino by June 3 (barring transportation difficulty, of
course). A rough list of what I plan for the Swarm tutorial is pasted
at the bottom of this message.
The tentative list of the Swarmfest 2005 submissions is:
P.E. Johnson, E S. Herron, University of Kansas, Assessing Variation in
Mixed Electoral Rules Using Agent-Based Models
G.A. Britton, S.B. Tor, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore,
Expert Systems for Design: The Challenge for SWARM
E. Cadario, University of Torino, Italy, R & D for innovation
F. Coulon, Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden, Schumpeterian
competition with SWARM, an agent-based framework for computational modelling
G. Ferraris, R. Marras, University of Torino, Italy, The value of the
security
G. Fioretti and A. Lomi, University of Bologna, Italy, An Agent-Based
Version of the “Garbage Can” Model of Organizational Decision-Making
T. Freeman, University of Saskatchewan, Canada, Agent-based modeling of
farming and rural change in Western Canada
M. L'Episcopo, A. Sgroi, Proteo Inc., Italy, Citrus Tristeza Virus
desease modelling
M. Richiardi, F. Paladi, LABORatorio R. Revelli Center for Employment
Studies, Italy, Jesus, Hillel and the Man of the Street. Moral and
Social Norms in Heterogeneous Populations
P. Terna, University of Torino, Italy, The co-evolution of enterprise
systems and employment structures
A. Cappellini, A. Raimondi, University of Torino, Italy, An hybrid
simulation of banks lending process
M. Lamieri, M. Remondino, University of Torino, Italy, Theory of Social
Networks Applied to an Evolutionary Minority Game: an AgentBased Model
in Swarm
D.Ietri, M.Lamieri, University of Torino, Italy, Networks between
markets and hierarchical structures: an agent based simulation framework
R.Boero, University of Surrey, UK, Public Goods Provision in the Field:
ABMs of a Local Production System Considering Empirical Behaviour and
Communication
Abstract or papers are at
http://eco83.econ.unito.it/terna/swarmfest2005papers/
Now, about the tutorial. Here's the outline, such as it is right now.
I have more work to do on the last 3 sections, but I have already done
most of the heavy lifting.
I.Power Tour of Swarm Applications (1 hour)
A. Consider an agent-based simulation. What are the defining
characteristics?
i.What do the agents do?
ii. How do they interact (sense & effect each other)?
a) Do they “find each other” as individuals?
b) Do they respond to “environmental traces”?
iii. What is the Scheduling framework?
a) Do all agents act simultaneously?
b) Do they take “steps” in turn?
c) Dynamic, event-driven scheduling
d) Synchronous vs Asynchronous is a conceptual, not a Swarm,
distinction
B.Survey and graphical demonstration:
i.Conway's Game of Life
ii. Schelling's Neighborhood Segregation Model
iii. Savage's Arborgames
iv. Santa Fe Artificial Stock Market
v. Latane & Nowak's Social Impact Model
vi. Heatbugs
vii. Mousetrap
viii. Huckfeldt & Johnson Opinion Formation Model
II. How to get started (45 minutes)
A. Installing Swarm
B. What Programming background is required
C. What every Swarm programmer needs these things
i.The Apple Obj-C book
ii. Swarm docs & user guide & Swarm FAQ
iii. swarmapps & the tutorial
III.Swarm Idioms
A. Memory “zones”
B. createBegin/createEnd
C. Protocols (id <Activity>) versus (id) and (Activity *)
D. This will continue along with basic concepts I think are important.
IV.Anatomy of a Swarm Program: Swarm Sugar Scape (sss)
A. This will not be massively different from the outline I have
online already at
http://lark.cc.ku.edu/~pauljohn/Presentations/ESA-Portland-2004/Presentations/SSS_Swarm_Tutorial1.pdf
V.Adding a New Class in a Swarm Model: A Predator on the Sugar Scape
A. The Handouts that go with this are online here:
http://lark.cc.ku.edu/~pauljohn/Presentations/ESA-Portland-2004/Handouts/sss-2.2-Handouts.tar.gz
Message to Swarm Tutorial Students:
It is not possible for you to learn all nuances and details of Swarm in
a single afternoon. You can, however, gain a solid understanding of the
kinds of problems for which Swarm programs have proven useful and some
ideas about how you might apply these models in your own research.
I think the best way to prepare for the tutorial is to find a computer
that has Swarm-2.2 installed, or install it for yourself, and then try
to download the swarmapps-objc package of demonstration programs. In
particular, inside that package, there is a step-by-step tutorial for
Swarm. If you read through the README files in those directories, and
perhaps try to compile and run some of the examples, I think it will
give you a good frame of mind for the tutorial.
If you can't get access to a computer that has a working copy of Swarm,
I'd urge you to take a couple of steps in preparation. First, get a
good book on the C programming language. If you can find a book that
has the coverage of Objective-C as well, such as Steven Kochan's recent
book, "Programming with Objective-C" then that will be fine. But the
Objective-C part is not really necessary. After you understand C, you
can download a free book from the Apple website. That's the one we
colloquially call “the objective-C book” because, for a long time, it
was the only book to be found on the subject. I keep a copy of that
book stashed here: http://lark.cc.ku.edu/~pauljohn/ps905/ObjC.pdf
If you've only used programs before, but never written one, you will
have to travel up a steep learning curve. I've made that transition
myself, and would urge you to be patient and to keep trying. I think
the best thing you could do for yourself is to avoid using MS Windows.
Get a Unix or Linux Operating system of some sort, or get a Macintosh OS
X, because that is a BSD Unix system underneath. I've seen it with my
own eyes—you can open up a terminal and interact with it as if it were
really a Unix system. MS Windows is still too frustrating for me. I
understand, lots of people use it, but that doesn't mean its right.
When I come to the Swarm tutorial, I'll bring some installation disks
for the Fedora Core Linux distribution. If you want to erase a laptop,
or if you have some free space, I'll walk you through an installation.
Contact me ahead of time, we can schedule that. I'll be in Torino by June 4.
--
Paul E. Johnson email: address@hidden
Dept. of Political Science http://lark.cc.ku.edu/~pauljohn
1541 Lilac Lane, Rm 504
University of Kansas Office: (785) 864-9086
Lawrence, Kansas 66044-3177 FAX: (785) 864-5700
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