Hello MASON users:

I would like to bring your attention to several activities of the Swarm 
Development Group that are intended to support the agent-based modeling 
community in general.

First, we are happy to announce SwarmFest 2006, our tenth annual 
agent-based modeling conference. SwarmFests are highly 
interdisciplinary, informal, and international meetings where we share 
what we have learned, make contacts and meet collaborators, find out 
what is new and exciting, and have a good time. This year SwarmFest will 
be at Notre Dame, 22-24 June. See: http://www.nd.edu/~swarm06/.

Second, we continue to operate [log in to unmask], a general 
agent-based modeling interest email list. This list is for finding 
people working on related problems; locating examples, algorithms, or 
software; discussing modeling theory and philosophy; announcing meetings 
and publications; or just about anything related to agent-based modeling 
except user support for specific platforms. Information and subscription 
is at: http://www.swarm.org/mailman/listinfo/modelling

Finally, the SDG wiki at www.swarm.org now includes many resources of 
general interest (while still supporting Swarm). Some of the new 
materials are:
* A series of template models designed to show how to build an extremely 
simple agent-based model, show how to add commonly-needed functions 
(e.g., spatial elements, graphics, file input and output), and serve as 
a starting place for real models. The template models are implemented in 
MASON as well as 4 other platforms. (Sean is currently helping update 
the MASON implementations.)
* Guidance for using the Eclipse integrated development environment with 
MASON and other platforms.
* A wide variety of example agent-based models in many fields.
Please pay a visit and perhaps even contribute material to the site.

For the Swarm Development Group,

Steve Railsback