Paul Davidsson & Brian Logan 
Multi-Agent and Multi-Agent-Based Simulation [PDF ebook] 
Joint Workshop MABS 2004

This volume presents revised and extended versions of selected papers presented at the Joint Workshop on Multi-Agent and Multi-Agent-Based Simulation, a workshop federated with the 3rd International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2004), which was held in New York City, USA, July 19-23, 2004. The workshop was in part a continuation of the International Workshop on Multi-Agent-Based Simulation (MABS) series. – vised versions of papers presented at the four previous MABS workshops have been published as volumes 1534, 1979, 2581, and 2927 in the Lecture Notes in Arti?cial Intelligence series. The aim of the workshop was to provide a forum for work in both appli- tions of multi-agent-based simulation and the technical challenges of simulating large multi-agent systems (MAS). There has been considerable recent progress in modelling and analyzing multi-agent systems, and in techniques that apply MAS models to complex real-world systems such as social systems and organi- tions. Simulation is an increasingly important strand that weaves together this work. In high-risk, high-cost situations, simulations provide critical cost/bene?t leverage, and make possible explorations that cannot be carried out in situ: – Multi-agentapproachestosimulatingcomplexsystemsarekeytoolsinint- disciplinary studies of social systems. Agent-based social simulation (ABSS) researchsimulatesandsynthesizessocialbehaviorinordertounderstandreal social systems with properties of self-organization, scalability, robustness, and openness. – Inthe MAScommunity, simulationhasbeenappliedtoawiderangeof MAS research and design problems, from models of complex individual agents – ploying sophisticated internal mechanisms to models of large-scale societies of relativelysimple agents which focus more on the interactions between agents.