[Swarm-Modelling] Capturing Business Complexity with Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation: Useful, Usable, and Used Techniques

[North, Michael]

Capturing Business Complexity with Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation:
Useful, Usable, and Used Techniques

An Argonne National Laboratory, University of Chicago, and Santa Fe
Institute Course
Monday, April 19, 2004 to Friday, April 23, 2004
Chicago, IL

General Description:  The course is an intensive introduction to
agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS) with a focus on business
applications.  The first half of the course will focus on ABMS concepts
from the perspective of company managers and analysts.  The second half
of the course will focus on ABMS implementation from the perspective of
company software developers and will include extensive hands-on
exercises. Participants are invited to attend the first session, the
second session, or both depending on their interests.  The instructors
include:

        Eric Bonabeau (Icosystem Corporation)
        John Casti (Technical University of Vienna)
        Nick Collier (Argonne National Laboratory)
        Michelle Girvan (Santa Fe Institute)
        George Gumerman (Santa Fe Institute)
        Charles Macal (Argonne National Laboratory)
        Michael North (Argonne National Laboratory)
        David Sallach (University of Chicago)

Format and Topics:  An intensive series of lectures and hands-on
laboratories will be used to introduce the foundational ideas and tools
of ABMS and their application to business questions.   The topics will
include the definition of agents, the design and construction of agents,
the design and construction of agent environments, understanding of ABMS
results, effective presentation of ABMS results, and applications of
these core topics to specific examples.  The examples will include
supply chain and market models.  A Mathematica supply chain ABMS, a
Repast market ABMS, a Repast supply chain ABMS, and a Swarm supply chain
ABMS will be discussed in detail.  Registrants will be asked to provide
a paragraph on the ABMS applications they are most interested in to help
focus instruction on the business issues of greatest relevance to the
audience.

Who Should Attend:  Three groups should attend the course: strategic
planning or operations department managers, analysts who design and
operate models, and software developers who build models.  The course
will introduce managers to ABMS, will show managers how ABMS can be
useful to their businesses, and will describe how managers can present
ABMS results to senior decision makers.  Managers should attend the
first session of the course.  The course will give analysts the
principles of ABMS design, will discuss the fundamental features of the
leading ABMS development tools and how these features affect ABMS
design, and will teach analysts how to present ABMS results to decision
makers.  Analysts should attend both sessions of the course.  The course
will give software developers the basic principles of ABMS design, and
will show how to effectively use the leading ABMS development tools.
Software developers should attend both sessions of the course.

Prerequisites and Requirements:  There are no prerequisites for the
first session.  Prerequisites for the second session are a good
knowledge of general ABMS concepts and a basic familiarity with
programming in a high-level language.  A review of the relevant
object-oriented programming concepts, as applied to ABMS, will be given
during the course.

Course Dates: The course dates are Monday, April 19, 2004, to Friday,
April 23, 2004.  Session I runs from Monday, April 19, 2004, through the
morning of Wednesday, April 21, 2004.  Session II runs from the
afternoon of Wednesday, April 21, 2004, though Friday, April 23, 2004.
 

For more information, including a detailed course syllabus, please visit
http://www.dis.anl.gov/abms/ or contact:

Michael J. North
Course Director and Software Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory
Decision and Information Sciences Division
9700 S. Cass Avenue
Argonne, IL 60439
E-mail: address@hidden
Telephone: (630) 252-6234
Facsimile: (630) 252-6073

Ann Stagg
Manager, Marketing and Business Relations
Santa Fe Institute
1399 Hyde Park Road
Santa Fe, NM 87501 USA
505-946-2724
address@hidden