Seldon v.3.0

Software · Tue Jun 03 04:00:00 EDT 2008

OSTI ID:1231086

Berry, Nina; Ko, Teresa; Shneider, Max; pancerella, Carmen

Seldon is an agent-based social simulation framework that uniquely integrates concepts from a variety of different research areas including psychology, social science, and agent-based modeling. Development has been taking place for a number of years, previously focusing on gang and terrorist recruitment. The toolkit consists of simple agents (individuals) and abstract agents (groups of individuals representing social/institutional concepts) that interact according to exchangeable rule sets (i.e. linear attraction, linear reinforcement). Each agent has a set of customizable attributes that get modified during the interactions. Interactions create relationships between agents, and each agent has a maximum amount of relationship energy that it can expend. As relationships evolve, they form multiple levels of social networks (i.e. acquaintances, friends, cliques) that in turn drive future interactions. Agents can also interact randomly if they are not connected through a network, mimicking the chance interactions that real people have in everyday life. We are currently integrating Seldon with the cognitive framework (also developed at Sandia). Each individual agent has a lightweight cognitive model that is created automatically from textual sources. Cognitive information is exchanged during interactions, and can also be injected into a running simulation. The entire framework has been parallelized to allow for larger simulations in an HPC environment. We have also added more detail to the agents themselves (a"Big Five" personality model) and their interactions (an enhanced relationship model) for a more realistic representation.

• Short Name / Acronym: Seldon v.3.0; 002237MLTPL00
• Version: 00
• Programming Language(s): Medium: X; OS: PC/Mac/Linux; Compatibility: Multiplatform
• Research Organization: Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• OSTI ID: 1231086
• Country of Origin: United States