Abstract:

The basic CoSMoS process concerns the design, implementation, and use of a simulation built from scratch. However, the CoSMoS approach may be tailored and adapted for other styles of use. Here we describe how it has been applied to analyse and re-engineer an existing simulation, that of Schelling’s Bounded Neighbourhood Model. We find that using a principled approach to the analysis of an existing simulation facilitates formalisation of the model and reimplementation of the simulation. In the process, several ambiguities in implementing a simulation from the model were revealed. This highlights the importance of formalising a model for clarity and reproducibility in simulation studies, and also for providing new avenues for exploration of, and insight into, the factors influencing its emergent behaviour.

@inproceedings(SS-CoSMoS14-schelling,
  author = "Ali Afshar Dodson and Susan Stepney and Emma Uprichard and Leo Caves",
  title = "Using the {CoSMoS} approach to study {Schelling's}
            {Bounded Neighbourhood Model}",
  pages = "1-12",          
  crossref = "CoSMoS14"
)

@proceedings(CoSMoS14,
  editor = "Susan Stepney and Paul S. Andrews",
  title = "Proceedings of the 2014 Workshop on Complex Systems Modelling and Simulation,
           New York, USA, July 2014",
  booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2014 Workshop on Complex Systems Modelling and Simulation,
           New York, USA, July 2014",
  publisher = "Luniver Press",
  year = 2014
)