Data-parallel structural optimisation in agent-based models

Abstract

Agent-based models offer valuable simulations of various phenomena found in disciplines such as ecology [1], microbiology [2] and social science [3]. Even the spatial distribution of crime can be simulated [4] using this method. Representing discrete entities in a system as autonomous, interactive and situated in some manner, gives rise to the notion of "bottom-up" modelling, as opposed to "top-down" approaches commonly done using partial differential equations [5]. While not considered a replacement for these, agent-based modelling (ABM) is another potent computational science tool.