Netlogo

Οι μαθητές της Β' τάξης του σχολείου μας εισήχθησαν στις έννοιες θετική ανάδραση και αρνητική ανάδραση και στο ρόλο τους στα Πολύπλοκα Συστήματα μέσα από το παράδειγμα της Παγκόσμιας Κλιματικής Αλλαγής στο πλαίσιο του μαθήματος Χημείας. Για το σκοπό αυτό χρησιμοποιήθηκε ελεύθερο διαδικτυακό περιεχόμενο και μια προσομοίωση με το λογισμικό Πολλαπλών Πρακτόρων, Μοντελοποίησης και Οπτικής Αναπαράστασης Netlogo. Η κλιματική αλλαγή παρουσιάστηκε στους μαθητές μέσω ενός βίντεο – πτυχιακή εργασία φοιτητών του Πανεπιστημίου του Αιγαίου - και με άλλο υλικό από το διαδίκτυο. Οι μαθητές πειραματίστηκαν με το μοντέλο Climate Change της NetLogo μελετώντας τις επιπτώσεις των παραμέτρων ηλιακή δράση, αέρια θερμοκηπίου, λευκαύγεια και νέφωση στη μέση θερμοκρασία του πλανήτη. Στη συνέχεια υπέθεσαν την ύπαρξη διαφόρων θετικών και αρνητικών αναδράσεων τις οποίες κατέγραψαν μαζί με τις προβλέψεις τους για την εξέλιξη της θερμοκρασίας του πλανήτη και τις προσομοίωσαν χρησιμοποιώντας το μοντέλο. Οι αλ...

The problem of evacuating crowded closed spaces, such as discotheques, public exhibition pavilions or concert houses, has become increasingly important and gained attention both from practitioners and from public authorities. A simulation implementation using NetLogo, an agent-based simulation framework that permits the quickly creation of prototypes, is presented. Our aim is to prove that this model developed using NetLogo, albeit simple can be expanded and adapted for fire safety experts test various scenarios and validate the outcome of their design. Some preliminary experiments are carried out, whose results are presented, validated and discussed so as to illustrate their efficiency. Finally, we draw some conclusions and point out ways in which this work can be further extended.

In this paper, the effectiveness of the NetLogo programming environment is investigated, as regards assisting students (of various levels of achievement) of the Greek Higher Secondary Education, to understand how some simple ecosystems are structured and to model the systemic behaviour of such ecosystems by conceptualising their Complexity features. This paper is part of a wider research on teaching Ecosystem Complexity to high-school students, with the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’s). Specific models from the NetLogo Models’ Library were used and students of the 2nd class of the Greek Lyceum (aged between 16 and 17) participated in the investigation. Apart from oral instruction, the students were asked to run the NetLogo simulations and do specific things with the models, answering simultaneously questions on worksheets provided to them. The studying and the evaluation of the worksheets by the researchers, as well as the post- instructional evaluation of t...

This chapter focuses on environments that support the fostering of SDML. This research drew on constructionism as theoretical lens and its implementation by means of microworlds. The aim of this chapter is to determine what features of microworlds enable them to be supportive multimodal learning environments for SDL. The design features of selected microworlds are investigated, focusing on the requirements of SDL, problem-solving, opportunities for collaboration and the specific resources available to
students and facilitators. The qualitative study that this chapter is based on was completed from within a pragmatist paradigm and involved document analyses and multimodal content analyses to do an exploratory evaluation of the selected microworlds. The exploratory evaluation focused on the creation of a rubric for evaluation of the features of microworlds. Specific aspects in the selected microworlds were identified that can potentially support SDML.

With progressively increased people living in cities, and lately the global COVID-19 outbreak, human mobility within cities has changed. Coinciding with this change, is the recent uptake of the '15-Minute City' idea in urban planning around the world. One of the hallmarks of this idea is to create a high quality of life within a city via an acceptable travel distance (i.e., 15 minutes). However, a definitive benchmark for defining a '15-Minute City' has yet to be agreed upon due to the heterogeneous character of urban morphologies worldwide. To shed light on this issue, we develop an agent-based model named 'D-FMCities' utilizing realistic street networks and points-of-interest, in this instance the borough of Queens in New York City as a test case. Through our modeling we grow diverse communities from the bottom up and estimate the size of such local communities to delineate 15-minute cities. Our findings suggest that the model could be helpful to detect the flexibility of defining the extent of a '15-minute city' and consequently support uncovering the underlying factors that may affect its various definitions and diverse sizes throughout the world.

Ortony Clore and Collins (OCC) model Prospect-based emotions Fuzzy logic NetLogo a b s t r a c t This paper introduces the novel idea of using human social norms and human emotions to improve the collision avoidance of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). Until now, the literature has been concerned with theoretical debates regarding ethical issues connected to AVs, while no practical steps have yet been undertaken. This paper introduces the concept of an artificial society of AVs with different personalities and with social norms coded into their autopilot so that they act like well-behaved drivers. For proof of concept, the standard agent modelling tool Netlogo is utilized to simulate the artificial society of AVs. Furthermore , comparisons are made with random walk-based non-social-based collision avoidance techniques. Extensive testing has been carried out using the behaviour space tool to determine the performance of the proposed approach regarding the number of collisions. A comparative study undertaken with a random walk method indicates that the proposed approach provides a better option for tailoring the autopilots of future AVs, while also promising to be more socially acceptable and trustworthy regarding safe road travel.

Corso di Laurea in Scienze cognitive e processi decisionali Attività alternativa allo stage Modellizzazione ad agenti come strumento di analisi delle dinamiche sociali. Relazione del Corso Netlogo svoltosi presso l'istituto di Sistemi Complessi del CNR a Roma, 8-12 Ottobre 2012. Indice Introduzione 1. Modellizzazione ad agenti (Agent-Based Modeling, ABM): Principi e Applicazioni 2. Linguaggi a oggetto e linguaggi ad agenti: Lavorare con Netlogo 3. Esplorando le potenzialità di Netlogo: il modello di segregazione di Schelling. 4. Conclusioni e prospettive Bibliografia Introduzione La presente relazione si propone di riassumere l'importanza della modellizzazione ad agenti per le scienze sociali. In particolare, è presentato l'impiego della piattaforma di programmazione Netlogo (Northwestern University), un linguaggio ad agenti dal codice intuitivo e relativamente semplice, ma che si presta molto bene per questo tipo di impiego. Dopo un'introduzione sull'inserimento della modellizzazione ad agenti nel panorama delle metodologie di ricerca delle scienze sociali nonchè i diversi tipi di algoritmi generalmente impiegati. Si passa poi nel paragrafo successivo ad evidenziare la differenza di approccio tra i linguaggi di programmazione più classici, ad oggetto, e i linguaggi di programmazione ad agenti, come Netlogo, rimarcandone pregi e difetti. La sezione successiva si propone di mostrare l'impiego di Nelogo con un esempio pratico. Questi è rappresentato dal classico modello di segregazione di Thomas Schelling (1971). La sezione finale si occupa di tirare le somme e di delineare le prospettive che la modellizzazione ad agenti apre nelle scienze sociali, specialmente per quanto riguarda la possibilità di comprendere l'emergenza di fenomeni macro (livello delle organizzazioni o indicatori macroeconomici) a partire da interazioni micro (livello degli agenti).

This book on self-directed learning (SDL) is devoted to original academic scholarship within the field of education, and is the 6th volume in the North-West University (NWU) SDL book series. In this book the authors explore how self-directed learning can be considered an imperative for education in a complex modern society.
Although each chapter represents independent research in the field of self-directed learning, the chapters form a coherent contribution concerning the scholarship of self-directed learning, and specifically the effect of environmental and praxis contexts on the enhancement of self-directed learning in a complex society. The publication as a whole provides diverse perspectives on the importance of self-directed learning in varied contexts. Scholars working in a wide range of fields are drawn together in this scholarly work to present a comprehensive dialogue regarding self-directed learning and how this concept functions in a complex and dynamic higher education context.
This book presents a combination of theory and practice, which reflects selected conceptual dimensions of self-directed learning in society, as well as research-based findings pertaining to current topical issues relating to implementing self-directed learning in the modern world. The varied methodologies provide the reader with different and balanced perspectives, as well as varied and innovative ideas on how to conduct research in the field of self-directed learning.

In old Wolf Sheep Predator and Prey model a relationship among two different types of models is shown in a relatively natural ecosystem using NetLogo. One of these is a simple mobile agent-based model for simulation while other is an aggregate model. Evaluation of both the models can be done in one by one manner or by using parallel comparison button to see behavior of both the models for the same inputs. Agent based model also captures very basics of the reality to make simulation. In this model, a random procedure is used to simulate wandering of predator (Wolves) and Prey (Sheep) in specified area. A fixed gain in energy is awarded to the Wolf on each interaction with Prey while each step on which this type of interaction is not taking place, causes a constant decrease in energy. Thus, for wolves to survive it is necessary to eat sheep to regain their energies otherwise they will start dying due to lack of energy. This construct has an assumption that reproduce rate or birth rates of wolves and sheep have a constant probability and is proportional to the population of both species. Aggregate model is a construct that is modelled using system dynamics and only consists of standard LotkaVolterra equations of predator and prey. But our new extension to this old model introduced a third agent property Food (Grass) as a competitor to make it more realistic. Now the interaction of these agents has introduced more complexity in the model and also altered the equilibrium parameters. When sheep encounters a cell with grass it eats it only if his energy is not reached to its maximum limit. Each grassy cell adds in energy of the sheep. Model initially have the assumption that probability of reproduction time of grass at each cell is constant. After, we also have introduced a new docked model for comparison between newly created Wolf-Sheep agent based model and chained aggregated model. The comparison shown that for all equilibrium states actual Wolves in agent-based model are 3 times lesser than in system dynamics aggregated model.

StarLogo NOVA y NetLogo son dos entornos programables de modelización basada en agentes descendientes del lenguaje LOGO creado por Seymour Papert en el Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts (M.I.T) en la década de 1960. Estos entornos programables permiten a docentes y estudiantes crear modelos de simulación para integrar el pensamiento computacional en las clases de STEM. Con estas herramientas es posible abrir la caja negra de los modelos de simulación computacionales (conocidos también como simuladores) para ver cómo están construidos. En este artículo se presentará el concepto de simuladores computacionales, la modelización basada en agentes como abordaje para la construcción de estos modelos, tres herramientas disponibles para el nivel escolar y la forma de utilización por docentes y estudiantes. Este artículo es complementario a "Entornos programables de modelización basada en agentes: una revisión", disponible en Academia.edu.

This paper explores the polycentric city model of the Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR); the foremost urbanized region in Thailand. The aim of this study is to observe the dynamics of the city pattern formation in the BMR through economical features by using agent-based modeling (ABM) in NetLogo together with GeoDa. ABM is useful in observing heterogeneous agents' behaviors, while GeoDa shows empirical spatial data analysis of the city pattern.
The research introduces a T-period household consumption-saving model in which households face the utility maximization problem from trading off between housing surface and numeraire. Simulation results from NetLogo have three interesting conclusions. First, there are bipolar housing locations near workplaces shown clearly by view and also by population density near workplace over time. Second, the housing rent profile satisfies the rent theory; rent increases as the distance to workplace and housing surface decreases. Third, the Gini coefficient for wealth has a slow increasing trend after time passes by which is close to real BMR evidence.
Spatial data analysis from Thailand's socioeconomic survey (SES) in 2010 also support NetLogo's findings; workers and firms are likely to alternate the cluster around the BMR creating many job centers.

The aim of the research is to give a contribution and an insight on the complex field of stakeholder involvement in transport planning, by analysing the role of decision-support methods and agent-based modelling in guiding a participation process.
The approach is twofold: from one side it is about to deeply understand the process of making a collective decision, by studying how the interaction among different actors can lead to a convergence of opinions towards a shared collective decision. From the other side, it is based on finding appropriate decision-support methods to help the group decision-making process.
Agent-based modelling and simulations have been used, in order to guide real participation processes and predict the results of an interaction process, and group multi criteria decision-making methods, to help taking consistent decisions based on several judgment criteria. The results of the research should help decision-makers and practitioners in dealing with multiple stakeholders and complex decisions and guiding the participation process.

This work presents a multi-agent-based computational model of an artificial fractional reserve banking system. The model is implemented in NetLogo. The computational experiments and simulations we performed to analyse the proposed model show that different scenarios can lead to bank insolvency. We show that both the minimum reserve rate and the loss of confidence have large contributions to the insolvency of a bank, suggesting them as likely destabilizing economic forces driving the dynamics of the model.

In the paper the consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for green energy is discussed. Based on the literature review and the findings from the pilot study a simple agent-based model in Netlogo is created to examine the development of the WTP towards renewables (RES) among consumers. The model shows that to increase positive appraisal of green energy and hence encourage consumers to support the development of RES, some external incentives are necessary. Hence, promoting advantages of renewables and making consumers more familiar with them, as well as offering some financial support may play a great role.

Agent-based models (ABMs) are powerful tools for population-environment research but are subject to trade-offs between model complexity and abstraction. This study strikes a compromise between abstract and highly specified ABMs by designing a spatially explicit, stylized ABM and using it to explore policy scenarios in a setting that is facing substantial conservation and development challenges. Specifically, we present an ABM that reflects key Land Use/Land Cover dynamics and livelihood decisions on Isabela Island in the Galápagos Archipelago of Ecuador. We implement the model using the NetLogo software platform, a free program that requires relatively little programming experience. The landscape is composed of a satellite-derived distribution of a problematic invasive species (common guava) and a stylized representation of the Galápagos National Park, the community of Puerto Villamil, the agricultural zone, and the marine area. The agent module is based on publicly available data and household interviews and represents the primary livelihoods of the population in the Galápagos Islands-tourism, fisheries, and agriculture. We use the model to enact hypothetical agricultural subsidy scenarios aimed at controlling invasive guava and assess the resulting population and land cover dynamics. Findings suggest that spatially explicit, stylized ABMs have considerable utility, particularly during preliminary stages of research, as platforms for sharpening conceptualizations of population-environment systems, (2) testing alternative scenarios, and (3) uncovering critical data gaps.

The construction of computer models has become an increasingly useful, and popular, way of testing theories in the cognitive sciences. This paper intends to give a brief overview of the methods for testing computer models for not only efficiency, but also for appropriateness.  Examples will focus on theoretical continuity, stress testing, and data replication. Special focus will be given to its application to data gathered in the field and when social multi-agent AI may be less appropriate than other forms of computer modeling/AI within the sub-field of the cognitive science of religion. Of particular interest will be how to spot and combat “garbage in-garbage out” modeling and what measures should be taken to negotiate the inverse relationship between specificity and ecological validity of computer models.
This paper will present critiques of models that have already been developed as well as those still in development and how close attention to both method and theory allow for computer modeling to supplement the toolbox of cognitive scientists interested in human social phenomena.

This paper is based on the assumption that a key challenge of good design is spatial organisation as a result of functional requirements. The authors present a new NetLogo application that assists designers to understand the proposed functional relationships (of spaces) by visualizing them graphically. In more detail, the tool translates adjacency matrices as representation of functional relationships into a graph (in architecture known as bubble diagram). The latter can be considered as a pre-step of the actual design, by which the information about functional interrelations becomes more readable and understandable for the designer.

Der Einsatz von Fertigteilen aus Stahlbeton stellt in der Architektur ein komplexes Thema dar. Diese sind aus der heutigen europäischen Baukultur nicht mehr wegzudenken. Dabei liegen die Vorteile auf der Hand: verkürzte Bauzeiten aufgrund der Vorproduktion (Serienanfertigung), geringere Kosten, höhere Terminsicherheiten (geringere Witterungsabhängigkeiten), mehr Präzision und Maßgenauigkeit sowie bessere Oberflächenqualitäten.
Im Zuge der Lehrveranstaltung wurden algorithmische Lösungsmethoden gesucht und daraus eine neue gestalterische Formensprache entwickelt.

In a situation of peer disagreement, peers are usually assumed to share the same evidence. However they might not share the same evidence for the epistemic system used to process the evidence. This synchronic complication of the peer disagreement debate suggested by Goldman (In Feldman R, Warfield T (eds) (2010) Disagreement. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 187–215) is elaborated diachronically by use of a simulation. The Hegselmann–Krause model is extended to multiple epistemic systems and used to investigate the role of consensus and difference splitting in peer disagreement. I find that the very possibility of multiple epistemic systems downgrades the epistemic value of consensus and makes difference splitting a suboptimal strategy.

Religion is, at the very least, a highly complex social phenomenon. The theories we use to understand religion Á and sociocultural systems more generally Á are often so complex that even experts in the field may not be able to see all their consequences. Social simulations can help us understand and communicate the consequences of a theory, provided we can describe the theory with sufficient precision and comprehensiveness in order to run it on a computer. In this article we demonstrate the benefits of simulating the predictions of a well-known theory in the Cognitive Science of Religion, the theory of Divergent Modes of Religiosity. Many of these predictions have already been tested against contemporary and longitudinal evidence, using the methods of both qualitative case study and largescale survey, and some of the mechanisms responsible for the patterns observed have been investigated by means of controlled experiments. Nevertheless, in simulating the patterns of religious transmission and transformation predicted by the modes theory we discovered numerous aspects that were underspecified, generating new hypotheses for investigation in future empirical research. This back-and-forth between simulation and theory testing has the potential to accelerate progress in the scientific study of religion.

This article reports on ''MaterialSim'', an undergraduate-level computational materials science set of constructionist activities which we have developed and tested in classrooms. We investigate: (a) the cognition of students engaging in scientific inquiry through interacting with simulations; (b) the effects of students programming simulations as opposed to only interacting with ready-made simulations; (c) the characteristics, advantages, and trajectories of scientific content knowledge that is articulated in epistemic forms and representational infrastructures unique to computational materials science, and (d) the principles which govern the design of computational agent-based learning environments in general and for materials science in particular. Data sources for the evaluation of these studies include classroom observations, interviews with students, videotaped sessions of model-building, questionnaires, and analysis of artifacts. Results suggest that by becoming 'model builders,' students develop deeper understanding of core concepts in materials science, and learn how to better identify unifying principles and behaviors within the content matter.

Using OWL ontologies to represent the state and structure of a simulation at any one time has been argued to improve the transparency of a social simulation, on the basis that this information is then not embedded in the source code of the model, or in the computer's memory at run-time. Should transparency of such a form be desirable, it would be preferable to enable it by extracting the information automatically from a running model. However, semantic differences between traditional objectoriented programming languages and description logics pose an obstacle to this. This paper presents arguments that Netlogo does not have the same semantic challenges to automated ontology extraction, and describes an extension to Netlogo (5.0) using the OWL-API (3.1.0) that extracts state and structure ontologies from an existing Netlogo model. The extension is freely available from https://github.com/garypolhill/netlogo-owl.

Управление образованием на основе анализа данных становится одним из основных образовательных трендов. Учебная аналитика на основе больших данных позволяет выявить связи в школьном коллективе и отследить формирование сообществ практики. Извлечение данных из школьного домена позволяет получить необходимый материал для такого исследования. Пакет NetLogo содержит необходимые возможности для анализа такого рода данных. Проведенное исследование позволило выявить в структуре школьного коллектива группы наиболее тесно связанных между собой учителей и сотрудников, а также обнаружить документы, являющиеся граничными объектами, которые выступают в роли связующих звеньев между школьными администраторами, учителями, преподающими разные предметы, и другими сотрудниками.

Data driven education governance is one of the main contemporary educational trends. Learning analytics and diagrams methodology help to analyze and discuss situations that develop during a network collaboration and build school communities of practice. The data, required for such a research can be extracted from a school domain. Netlogo package contains all the features, needed for such data analysis. Our research has shown clusters of most connected teachers and staff and located collaborative documents that play the role of boundary objects, connecting clusters of school administrators, classroom teachers and staff members.

This paper is based on the assumption that a key challenge of good design is spatial organization as a result of functional requirements. The authors present a new NetLogo application that assists designers in understanding proposed functional relationships (of spaces) by visualizing them graphically. In more detail, the tool translates adjacency matrices (as representation of functional relationships) into a graph (in architecture known as bubble diagram). The latter can be considered as a pre-step of the actual design, by which the information about functional interrelations becomes more readable and understandable for the designer.

Los sistemas complejos adaptativos están en la médula de las ciencias de la complejidad. Ellos comprenden autómatas celulares, redes booleanas aleatorias, modelos basados en agentes, vida artificial y sociedades (y culturas) artificiales. Sus usos en ciencias sociales han sido diversos; la técnica, en rigor, se origina en los modelos de tablero de Sakoda y Schelling antes que en modelos formales o matemáticos.

Los SCA permiten comprender además las dificultades de predicción en modelos deterministas, la imposibilidad de la retrodicción en escenarios caóticos, la sensitividad a las condiciones iniciales y el surgimiento de orden a partir del azar. Habitualmente se piensa que los modelos basados en agentes (MBA) constituyen una instancia apenas un poco más realista, algo más saturada de significación y más ligada a un dominio empírico que lo que es el caso con los autómatas celulares. La cuestión no es tan simple.

Los MBA no son una bala de plata. El comportamiento de un sistema fundado en este formalismo es polimorfo; por un lado, resulta de la lógica relacional que rige la descripción del escenario; por el otro, todo sistema de este tipo involucra un abanico potencialmente infinito de trayectorias posibles. El comportamiento mismo es difícil de evaluar, pues (dado el carácter no lineal de las relaciones) la comparación en términos de similitud o diferencia entre la conducta de un sistema y la que se manifiesta en un caso real tampoco se puede establecer con simplicidad. Los modelos basados en agentes son, por lo tanto, intensamente problemáticos.

En materia de análisis y diseño complejo, sin embargo, los modelos microscópicos basados en agentes han llegado a ser esenciales en la comprensión de fenómenos dinámicos en condiciones críticas (evacuaciones, pánico, congestiones de tráfico, paradojas de Braess o de Downs-Thompson, etcétera). Puede que carezcan de una fundamentación matemática y epistemológica perfectamente en regla; pero hoy en día emprender un diseño complejo sin su asistencia no es en absoluto una opción razonable.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are becoming more important in the medical and environmental field. The authors propose an on-demand routing protocol using sensor attractiveness-metric (Pa) gradients for data forwarding decisions within the network. Attractiveness-based routing provides an efficient concept for data-centric routing in wireless sensor networks. The protocol works on-demand, is source-initiated, has a flat hierarchy and has its origin in the idea of pheromone-based routing. The algorithm supports node-to-sink data traffic and is therefore a lightweight approach to generalized multihop routing algorithms in WSNs. The performance evaluation of the proposed protocol is done by extensive simulation using a multi-agent based simulation environment called NetLogo. The efficiency of the attractiveness-based routing algorithm is compared in simulations with the well known Dynamic Source Routing algorithm (DSR). The authors conclude that the Pabased routing algorithm is well s...

Resumen El objetivo es presentar un método de enseñanza-aprendizaje de tecnologías de software libre para el uso y manipulación de información estadística, así como la construcción de modelos econométricos y computacionales en ciencias socioeconómicas. El método se aplicó con estudiantes de nivel licenciatura, particularmente en grupos de Seminario de Investigación, esto es, con estudiantes en la fase de conclusión de sus estudios de licenciatura. El procedimiento se utilizó para la enseñanza de cuatro tecnologías, Quantum-GIS, R, NetLogo y GeoDa. En este trabajo el principal aporte es la propuesta del método de enseñanza-aprendizaje de software libre para alumnos no especializados en programación, se encuentra que el método favorece una postura científica sobre la difusión de los productos de investigación, el autoaprendizaje, la cooperación y el conocimiento compartido en el aula. Introducción En esta ponencia se plantea un método para la enseñanza-aprendizaje de paquetería de software libre para estudiantes del área de ciencias socioeconómicas, al reconocerse que los alumnos insertos en estas disciplinas son por lo general inexpertos en el uso de paquetes que implican algún nivel de programación o, en otros casos, de habilidades de autoaprendizaje en referencia a la utilización de paquetería computacional, el método consiste en fomentar dichas habilidades. Además de esto se asume que con la adopción y puesta en práctica de la propuesta el alumno se reconoce a sí mismo como parte de una comunidad científica, con la convicción de comunicar y compartir sus conocimientos, tanto en el aula, como en un espectro más amplio, a partir de la publicación de sus métodos y resultados fundamentalmente por medio de internet. El trabajo está organizado de la siguiente forma: se expone el método propuesto, comenzando en este punto por la descripción de las actividades de los cursos donde fue aplicado, se aborda la propuesta paso por paso, se abordan algunos resultados, ejemplos del trabajo de los alumnos y finalmente se exponen los resultados y conclusiones sobre la aplicación de este proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje, así como la experiencia adquirida en los cursos. 1 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Having explored the theory of complex adaptive systems and agent-based
modelling, resulting in theoretical foundations of important concepts such as socio-technical system, complexity, and agent, this theory can now be put into practice. This chapter introduces ten steps for creating an agent-based model of a socio-technical system. From the early and inherently ambiguous stages of agreeing what exactly we are interested in, through formalisation and implementation all the way to setting up and presenting detailed experimental analysis, detailed instructions for each step are provided. Examples drawn from published models and recommendations for procedures and tools are given, allowing the reader to start developing their own models.

NetLogo3D is an Agent-Based Simulation which uses a three-dimensional raster as environment for its agents. It has three different ways to represent geometry, (1.) as wireframe made out of vertices and edges, (2.) as solid faces of a shape or (3.) as voxel grid. Sadly, loading geometry is only supported for the second option, through a proprietary text format for which no converter exists. The other two options are completely left to the programmer. I find that this is a pity, and have therefore worked on loading geometry from a standard format (Wavefront .obj) and representing it as one of the three mentioned options. The description of the resulting model is the aim of this technical report.

This book on self-directed learning (SDL) is devoted to original academic scholarship within the field of education, and is the 6th volume in the North-West University (NWU) SDL book series. In this book the authors explore how self-directed learning can be considered an imperative for education in a complex modern society. Although each chapter represents independent research in the field of self-directed learning, the chapters form a coherent contribution concerning the scholarship of self-directed learning, and specifically the effect of environmental and praxis contexts on the enhancement of self-directed learning in a complex society. The publication as a whole provides diverse perspectives on the importance of self-directed learning in varied contexts. Scholars working in a wide range of fields are drawn together in this scholarly work to present a comprehensive dialogue regarding self-directed learning and how this concept functions in a complex and dynamic higher education context. This book presents a combination of theory and practice, which reflects selected conceptual dimensions of self-directed learning in society, as well as research-based findings pertaining to current topical issues relating to implementing self-directed learning in the modern world. The varied methodologies provide the reader with different and balanced perspectives, as well as varied and innovative ideas on how to conduct research in the field of self-directed learning.

Flibs’NLogo implements in NetLogo modelling environment, a genetic algorithm whose purpose is evolving a perfect predictor from a pool of digital creatures constituted by finite automata or flibs (finite living blobs) that are the agents of the model. The project is based on the rules drafted by Alexander K. Dewdney in “Exploring the field of genetic algorithms in a primordial computer sea full of flibs” from the vintage Scientific American column “Computer Recreations”
As Dewdney summarized: “Flibs […] attempt to predict changes in their environment. In the primordial computer soup, during each generation, the best predictor crosses chromosomes with a randomly selected flib. Increasingly accurate predictors evolve until a perfect one emerges. A flib […] has a finite number of states, and for each signal it receives (a 0 or a 1) it sends a signal and enters a new state. The signal sent by a flib during each cycle of operation is its prediction of the next signal to be received from the environment”

This is an interim report on a project to construct an agent-based simulation that reproduces some of the interactions between students and their teacher in classroom lessons. In a pilot study, the activities of 67 students and 7 teachers during 40 lessons were recorded using a data collection instrument that currently captures 17 student states and 15 teacher states. These data enabled various conceptual models to be explored, providing empirical values and distributions for the model parameters. Using these data, a lesson can be 'played back' using a visualization program implemented in NetLogo. A visualization and simulation can be viewed side-by-side and their outputs compared in various ways, e.g. overall class state-transition matrices or individual student state trajectories. The main challenges are the formulation of descriptive rules, establishing what metrics to use to compare lessons, and determining how to validate a simulation.