From Steve at LangRailsback.com Tue Jan 8 18:58:10 2013 From: Steve at LangRailsback.com (Steve Railsback) Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:58:10 -0800 Subject: [Swarm-Modelling] Summer short courses in agent/individual-based modeling In-Reply-To: <50EBA9ED.8090408@humboldt.edu> References: <50EBA9ED.8090408@humboldt.edu> Message-ID: <50ECB292.8010503@LangRailsback.com> Here are announcements for two short courses this summer. Humboldt State's "Teaching Individual-based Modeling" short course, June 24-28 2013 Humboldt State University will again offer a one-week short course on individual-based modeling, in June 2013, with instructors Steve Railsback, Volker Grimm, and Steve Lytinen. The course is directed primarily at college-level faculty interested in teaching individual-based (or "agent-based") modeling classes based on the new textbook by Railsback and Grimm (http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9639.html). However, we should also be able to accommodate others interested more in research applications. The course is interdisciplinary and open to people in all fields, although the instructors' experience is mainly in ecology. Topics include theoretical and methodological issues in agent-based science, but a major goal will be developing enough experience with the NetLogo software platform for participants to subsequently teach themselves and others how to implement and analyze scientific models in NetLogo. This year the class will be co-sponsored by DePaul University's College of Computing and Digital Media and held near their campus in downtown Chicago. Low-cost dormitory housing will be available. Because the class size is limited, there is a very simple application process, with applications due by 28 February. Additional information and the on-line application are at: http://www.humboldt.edu/ibm ----------------------------------------------- Dresden University of Technology Summer School in Individual-based Modeling This summer course has been offered since 2007. The course will provide an overview of the state-of-the art in individual- and agent-based modelling, model development, implementation, parameterization, and sensitivity analysis. Further topics are handling uncertainty in data, designing simulation experiments, and statistical analysis of simulation results. The class is intended primarily for PhD students in relevant subject areas (e.g., ecology, biology, forest ecology, environmental sciences, physics, systems analysis, social sciences etc.) strongly interested in using IBMs/ABMs in their study, and those looking for effective strategies for analyzing models and conducting simulation experiments. The course will use NetLogo modelling software in combination with the R platform for statistical analyses. Basic knowledge of both Netlogo and R is required. Material introducing NetLogo and R will be provided before the course. The lecturers are Uta Berger (TUD, Germany), Volker Grimm (UFZ, Germany), Steve Railsback (USA), and Cyril Piou (CIRAD, France). All of them are ecologists, so most of their example models will be from ecology. Scholars from other disciplines are also welcome. The course will consist of lectures, exercises, and extensive modelling projects to be presented in groups at the end of the course. Credit Points: 4 ECTS Schedule 9 days + tutorial-driven self-study in advance Date 4. - 12.July 2013 Location National Park House ?Saxon Switzerland? Bad Schandau, Germany Number of Participants max 25 Course fee 800 Euro including tuition, accommodation and breakfast. Accommodation includes cooking facilities available for other meals. Application via http://www.forst.tu-dresden.de/summerschool/ Application deadline: 28. February 2013 Contact: summerschool at forst.tu-dresden.de From forrest at u.northwestern.edu Fri Jan 11 21:18:33 2013 From: forrest at u.northwestern.edu (Forrest Stonedahl) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:18:33 -0600 Subject: [Swarm-Modelling] CFP: ECoMASS 2013 Workshop In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi, In case any of you are working on projects that involve a combination of multi-agent simulation and evolutionary computation, I wanted to mention this upcoming workshop. The Call For Papers is included below, or you can find the same info on the workshop website: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/ecomass/ Best regards, ~Forrest Stonedahl (and Bill Rand), Workshop Co-Chairs -- Forrest Stonedahl Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics Centre College (http://www.centre.edu/) Website: http://forrest.stonedahl.com/ - CALL FOR PAPERS - CALL FOR PAPERS - SEVENTH ANNUAL WORKSHOP ON Evolutionary Computation and Multi-Agent Systems and Simulation Workshop (ECoMASS-2013) to be held as part of the 2013 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2013) July 06-10, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Organized by ACM SIGEVO http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2013 PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE FOR WORKSHOP: March 28, 2013 Workshop URL: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/ecomass/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- Evolutionary computation (EC) and multi-agent systems and simulation (MASS) both involve populations of agents. EC is a learning technique by which a population of individual agents adapt according to the selection pressures exerted by an environment; MASS seeks to understand how to coordinate the actions of a population of (possibly selfish) autonomous agents that share an environment so that some outcome is achieved. Both EC and MASS have top-down and bottom-up features. For example, some aspects of multi-agent system engineering (e.g., mechanism design) are concerned with how top-down structure can constrain or influence individual decisions. Similarly, most work in EC is concerned with how to engineer selective pressures to drive the evolution of individual behavior towards some desired goal. Multi-agent simulation (also called agent-based modeling) addresses the bottom-up issue of how collective behavior emerges from individual action. Likewise, the study of evolutionary dynamics within EC (for example in coevolution) often considers how population-level phenomena emerge from individual-level interactions. Thus, at a high level, we may view EC and MASS as examining and utilizing analogous processes. It is therefore natural to consider how knowledge gained within EC may be relevant to MASS, and vice versa; indeed, applications and techniques from one field have often made use of technologies and algorithms from the other field. Studying EC and MASS in combination is warranted and has the potential to contribute to both fields. The goal of this workshop is to facilitate the examination and development of techniques at the intersection of evolutionary computation and multi-agent systems and simulation. The ECoMASS workshop welcomes original submissions in the theory and practice on all aspects of Evolutionary Computation and Multi-Agent Systems and Simulation, which include (but are not limited to) the following topics and themes: - Multi-agent systems and agent-based models utilizing evolutionary computation - Optimization of multi-agent systems and agent-based models using evolutionary computation - Evolutionary computation models which rely not on explicit fitness functions but rather implicit fitness functions defined by the relationship to other individuals / agents - Applications utilizing MASS and EC in combination - Biological agent-based models (usually called individual-based models) involving evolution - Evolution of cooperation and altruism - Genotypic representation of the complex phenotypic strategies of MASS - Evolutionary learning within MASS (including Baldwinian learning and phenotypic plasticity) - Emergence and feedbacks - Open-ended strategy spaces and evolution - Adaptive individuals within evolving populations *Paper Submission Each accepted paper will be presented orally at the workshop and distributed in the workshop proceedings to all GECCO attendees. Authors should follow the format of the GECCO manuscript style; refer to http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2013/ for details. Manuscripts should not exceed 8 pages. Papers should be submitted by 28 March, 2013 in PDF format to: forrest.stonedahl at centre.edu with "ECoMASS paper submission" in the subject line. *Important Dates Paper submission deadline: 28 March, 2013 Notification of acceptance: April 15, 2013 Camera-Ready Accepted Papers Due: April 25, 2013 *Workshop Chairs Bill Rand, University of Maryland Forrest Stonedahl, Centre College *Workshop Program Committee Mitchell Colby, Oregon State University Matt Knudson, NASA Ames Research Center Rinde van Lon, KU Leuven (Belgium) Michael North, Argonne National Laboratory Jim Reggia, University of Maryland Robert G. Reynolds, Wayne State University Rick Riolo, University of Michigan Moshe Sipper, Ben-Gurion University Logan Yliniemi, Oregon State University Tina Yu, Memorial University of Newfoundland GECCO is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (SIGEVO). SIG Services: 2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701, New York, NY, 10121, USA, 1-800-342-6626 (USA and Canada) or +212-626-0500 (Global).