Re: SwarmFest letter....

[Matthew Hare]

Hi,
I'm getting in to the Homewood Suites just before midnight on the 14th Feb.
My presentation on capturing modllilng assumptions in Swarm will last 30 
minutes max (I can shorten it if time is short!) and I'll need an overhead 
projector too!

I'd certainly be interested in group discussions about 
i) the methodological use of Swarm and A-Life  - how can we formalise the 
presentation of information about swarm experiments such that they can be 
easily repeated by other experimenters - ( I think this has been mentioned 
before)
ii) the thorny application issue worrying me at the moment: how to shift 
modelling paradigms and take existing domain researchers with you, e.g. how to 
re-implement a mathematical population model in terms of a spatial 
individual-based A-Life model, whilst, at the same time, convincing the 
original model authors that the integrity of their model has been retained, and 
therefore that the new paradigm can be trusted. Re-implementation decisions 
regarding such models does not appear to be as clear-cut as I first thought ...
iii) whether and how to provide automatic output analysis tools for swarm 
experiments. e.g. Tools for looking at multiple runs of a simulation experiment 
and deciding whether or not the population data tend to be 
cycling/falling/rising etc.

Looking forward to meeting everyone!


cheers
Matt