Internet resources for agent-based modelling

Abstract

The use of agent-based models (ABMs) is steadily increasing in all the disciplines including environmental chemistry and toxicology. This growth is mainly driven by their ability to address problems that conventional modelling techniques cannot, such as the change of scale or the emergence of unanticipated phenomena resulting from interactions between their constitutive goal-directed agents. After a brief introduction on the basic principles of agent-based modelling and the presentation of selected case studies, the main software resources available on the Internet are presented. An attempt is made to estimate the complexity of these tools versus their potentialities and flexibility.

Keywords:

• agent-based modelling
• bottom-up model
• stochastic model
• toolkit
• the Internet

Acknowledgements

The financial support from the French Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Sea is gratefully acknowledged (PNRPE program). This work was partially presented at CMTPI 2009: Computational Methods in Toxicology and Pharmacology Integrating Internet Resources (Istanbul, Turkey, 4–8 July 2009).