Affiliations: [a] Department of Artificial Intelligence, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands | [b] Punjab University College of Information Technology (PUCIT), University of The Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan | [c] Department of Computer Science, Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Tibor Bosse, Department of Artificial Intelligence, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1081a, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: tbosse@few.vu.nl
Note: [1] Parts of this paper have been presented at the conferences ECMS’08 [23] and IEA/AIE’10 [7]. The current paper extends these conference papers by providing additional simulation experiments, simulation results relating to empirical data, more detailed analyses of simulation results, and a more extensive discussion of related work and of the differences between agentbased and population-based modelling.
Abstract: This paper addresses comparative evaluation of population-based simulation in comparison to agent-based simulation for different numbers of agents. Population-based simulation, such as for example in the classical approaches to predator-prey modelling and modelling of epidemics, has computational advantages over agent-based modelling with large numbers of agents. Therefore the latter approaches can be considered useful only when the results are expected to deviate from the results of population-based simulation, and are considered more realistic. However, there is sometimes also a silent assumption that for larger numbers of agents, agent-based simulations approximate population-based simulations, which would indicate that agent-based simulation just can be replaced by population-based simulation. The paper evaluates such assumptions by two detailed comparative case studies: one in epidemics, and one in economical context. The former case study addresses the spread of an infectious disease over a population. The latter case study addresses the interplay between individual greed as a psychological concept and global economical concepts. It is shown that under certain conditions agent-based and population-based simulations may show similar results, but not always.
Keywords: Agent-based and population-based modelling, simulation, epidemics, economics, greed
