Designing X-Agents Using FLAME
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• Agents are also assumed to have perfect foresight.
• All agents are homogeneous or heterogeneous, represented as different values for the same memory variables.
• All agents have a maximum expected utility in decision-making.
The lack of networks. Most agent communications are based on networks
formed [75]. FLAME models are independent agents with no links between them. FLAME does not create neighborhoods, unless specified.
There are additional restrictions in FLAME, because of its parallelization
ability and synchronization points in agent functions and messages. These
points ensure that all prior agent functions are finished, before the simulation
progresses. At these points, the message board is locked, until all agents have
finished sending their messages to that particular message board. The board
is only unlocked when it is read by agents. Figure 3.14 depicts this along with
a time line to show when these occur.
Synchronization points are useful to remove deadlocks, but makes agents
wait to finish processing before it can continue. However, this architecture also
makes the system extremely predictable. The agents have pre-knowledge of
what to do and makes it impossible for them to learn and change their behavior. This prevents emergence to occur at lower levels of these systems, only
seen above by predictable behavior below. In order to encourage emergence,
as in real systems, modelers need to overcome these assumptions:
• Adaptability of agents is ignored.
• Cannot allow agents to think.
• Allow emergence in the model at lower levels.
• Somehow not to compromise on the parallelism effort of the models, else
it will crash during execution.
59
• Agents are also assumed to have perfect foresight.
• All agents are homogeneous or heterogeneous, represented as different values for the same memory variables.
• All agents have a maximum expected utility in decision-making.
The lack of networks. Most agent communications are based on networks
formed [75]. FLAME models are independent agents with no links between them. FLAME does not create neighborhoods, unless specified.
There are additional restrictions in FLAME, because of its parallelization
ability and synchronization points in agent functions and messages. These
points ensure that all prior agent functions are finished, before the simulation
progresses. At these points, the message board is locked, until all agents have
finished sending their messages to that particular message board. The board
is only unlocked when it is read by agents. Figure 3.14 depicts this along with
a time line to show when these occur.
Synchronization points are useful to remove deadlocks, but makes agents
wait to finish processing before it can continue. However, this architecture also
makes the system extremely predictable. The agents have pre-knowledge of
what to do and makes it impossible for them to learn and change their behavior. This prevents emergence to occur at lower levels of these systems, only
seen above by predictable behavior below. In order to encourage emergence,
as in real systems, modelers need to overcome these assumptions:
• Adaptability of agents is ignored.
• Cannot allow agents to think.
• Allow emergence in the model at lower levels.
• Somehow not to compromise on the parallelism effort of the models, else
it will crash during execution.