Measuring the complexity of migration transition: an attempt using metrics

Abstract

ABSTRACTMigration transition occurring in artificial agent societies is one of the vital transitions which is responsible for their development and growth in addition to fertility and mortality transitions occurring in them. The migration transition introduces while its realisation, into a society or societies, a set of macro, micro, and meso-level dynamics depending upon whether migration process is realised externally (at inter-societal level), internally (at intra-societal level), or at coalition (group level). In this paper, a set of software measurements (called migration metrics) are proposed to measure the complexity and dynamics existing in the vital migration transition in artificial agent societies at macro (inter-societal) level. The proposed set of metrics measure the dynamics of migration transition by measuring population distribution, change and structuring during realisation and perpetuation of migration transition in artificial agent societies at run-time. Furthermore, a set of dynamic software measurements (called population metrics) are proposed in this paper, which is used to measure the population count and complexity of fertility and mortality transitions occurring in artificial agent societies. The above-proposed sets of metric suites are then verified and validated by using case studies modelled in a dual-unit artificial world in NetLogo.