Model-driven agent-based simulation: Procedural semantics of a MAIA model

Abstract

Agent-based modelling and simulation (ABMS) is highly instrumental for studying socio-technical systems. MAIA – Modelling Agents using Institutional Analysis – is an ABMS modelling framework that formalises social sciences knowledge. It enables handling the complexity of large complex systems, allows collaborative model development and the reuse of model components when building simulations. We detail the procedural semantics for transforming a MAIA model into an executable simulation. Its evaluation through various case studies of model development and simulation is described. The MAIA meta-model is a declarative language to conceptualise an ABM. A model description in MAIA thus provides sufficient information to translate it into a simulation model – it defines the agents, their decision-making process and their actions, all within an institutional and physical context, to affect system states that are defined in the MAIA model. A modeller can use MAIA to specify and document her model and to build her simulation by using MAIA’s semi-automatic code generation option.