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Stephen Upton on 12/07/2007 08:20 AM:
> Another idea is to use JADE, or some other similar MAS (multi-agent
> system). There is no simulation infrastructure since it was built as
> middleware for constructing MAS's. However, the basics are there for
> having agents on different machines, migration of agents, communication
> between agents, etc.. It would be interesting if the ABM community got
> together with the MAS community to share ideas, if they haven't done so
> already. I haven't seen much. These agents are typically more
> heavyweight than agents used in ABM/IBM's, e.g., having an expert system
> as a decision making component, but if you're headed that route, it
> might be an avenue to look into.

I definitely will.  It's an interesting idea.  I tend to slice up my
simulations so that a big agent (composed of smaller agents) manages
it's sub-agents and bottlenecks communication between sibling big
agents.  In the rare situation that a sub-agent needs to talk to another
sub-agent managed by a different big agent, I sometimes violate that and
build special dongles specifically for those sub-agents in interfaces of
the big agent.

So, it would be reasonable to use JADE's distribution for these big
agents and have each of them manage a MASON SimState, which contained
the sub-agents.

My only question now is whether gymnastics like this are more or less
effort (initial, maintenance, and training) than just hand-rolling my
own inter-agent management (e.g. RMI).  My first inclination is to do it
myself, unfortunately.

Thanks!
- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're
talking about. -- John Von Neumann

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