Abstract
Messy systems have no clear boundaries; they are composed of so many natural and/or artificial entities with patterns of interaction so dense that they cannot be understood by inspection and system behaviour cannot be predicted by statistical or qualitative analysis. Obvious examples are real social systems and the Internet. Analysing and designing software to exploit such systems requires a different approach to software engineering and mechanism design. The issue addressed in the MABS-2000 workshop and in this volume is the development of a methodology and technology to identify which techniques hold promise and which cannot possibly lead to useful applications for messy software or social systems.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Axtell, R, R. Axelrod, J. M. Epstein and Cohen, M. D. (1996) Aligning Simulation Models: A Case Study and Results. Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 1: 123–141.
Brainov, S. and T. Sandholm, “Reasoning About Others: Representing and Processing Infinite Belief Hierarchies” in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Multi Agent Systems, (ICMAS-2000), (IEEE Computer Society), 71–78.
Bussmann, S and K. Schild (2000), “Self-Organizing Manufacturing Control: An Industrial Application of Agent Technology” in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Multi Agent Systems, (ICMAS-2000), (IEEE Computer Society), 87–94.
Castelfranchi, C. and R. Falcone (1998), “Principles of Trust for MAS: Cognitive anatomy, Social Importance and Quantification” in Y. Demazeau, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Multi Agent Systems, (ICMAS98).
Chandler, A.D. Jnr (1961), Strategy and Structure (Cambridge MA: MIT Press).
Cohen, P.R. (1985), Heuristic Reasoning: An Artificial Intelligence Approach, (Boston: Pitman Advanced Publishing Program).
Conte, R. and C. Castelfranchi (1996), “Simulating Multi Agent Interdependencies: A Two-Way Approach to the Micro-Macro Link” in K. Troitzsch, Y, Mueller, N. Gilbert and J. Doran, Social Science Microsimulation (Berlin: Springer Verlag).
Edmonds, Bruce (1998), “Social Embeddedness and Agent Development”, Centre for Policy Modelling Technical Report 98-46 http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/cpmrep46.html.
Fisher, Michael (1997), “A Normal Form for Temporal Logic and its Application in Theorem-Proving and Execution”, Journal of Logic and Computation 7(4): 429–456.
Giddens, Anthony (1984), the Constitution of Society (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Gilbert (1995)
Granovetter, Mark (1985), “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness”, American Journal of Sociology 91(3): 481–510
Moss, Scott (1999), “Relevance, Realism and Rigour: A Third Way for Social and Economic Research”, Centre for Policy Modelling Technical Report 99-56 http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/cpmrep56.html.
Moss, S. (2000), “Applications-Centred Multi Agent Systems Design (with Special Reference to Markets and Rational Agency)” in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Multi Agent Systems, (ICMAS-2000), (IEEE Computer Society), 199–206.
Nwana, H.S. and D.T. Ndumu (1999), “A perspective on software agents research”, Knowledge Engineering Review 14:(2) pp. 125–142
Parunak H.V.D., R. Savit and R.L. Riolo (1998), “Agent-based Modelling versus Equation Based Modelling: A Case Study and Users’ Guide”, in J.S. Sichman, R. Conte and G.N. Gilbert, Multi Agent Systems and Agent-Based Simulation, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1534: 10–26.
Penrose, E.T. (1959), On the Theory of the Growth of the Firm, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).
Rosenberg, N. (1983), Inside the Black Box (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Sullivan, D., B. Grosz and S. Kraus (2000), “Intention Reconciliation by Collaborative Agents” in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Multi Agent Systems, (ICMAS-2000), (IEEE Computer Society), 293–300.
Wooldridge, M. and N. Jennings (1998), “Pitfalls of Agent-Oriented Development” in K. P. Sycara and M. Wooldridge, Agents’ 98: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Autonomous Agents, ACM Press
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Moss, S. (2000). Editorial Introduction: Messy Systems ‐ The Target for Multi Agent Based Simulation. In: Moss, S., Davidsson, P. (eds) Multi-Agent-Based Simulation. MABS 2000. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1979. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44561-7_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44561-7_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-41522-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-44561-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive