Distributed MASON: A scalable distributed multi-agent simulation environment
Distributed MASON: A scalable distributed multi-agent simulation environment
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DOI：
10.1016/j.simpat.2018.09.002
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发表时间：
2018-12-01
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
Spagnuolo, Carmine
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Cordasco, Gennaro;Scarano, Vittorio;Spagnuolo, Carmine
计算社会科学（Computational Social Science，CSS）是一门跨学科的学科，它利用社会网络分析和计算机模拟等计算方法来更好地理解社会现象。基于主体的模型（Agent-Based Models，ABM）是一种有效的研究工具，它是一类通过简单规则（即，独立的动作、交互和适应），由多个代理执行。ABM系统的效率和可扩展性通常是通过将整体计算分布在多台机器上来获得的，这些机器彼此交互以模拟特定的模型。不幸的是，分布式仿真模型的设计是特别具有挑战性的，特别是对于领域专家谁偶尔是计算机科学家，不习惯开发并行代码。D-MASON框架是MASON库的分布式版本，用于在分布式环境中设计和执行ABM，确保可扩展性和易用性。D-MASON使开发人员能够以透明的方式利用分布式环境的计算能力;开发人员必须对现有的MASON模型进行简单的增量修改，而无需重新设计它们。本文介绍了D-MASON框架中引入的几个新功能和架构改进：改进的空间划分策略、分布式3D场、分布式网络场、分布式通信层一种新的内存一致性机制和集成到云环境。
Computational Social Science (CSS) involves interdisciplinary fields and exploits computational methods, such as social network analysis as well as computer simulation with the goal of better understanding social phenomena.Agent-Based Models (ABMs) represent an effective research tool for CSS and consist of a class of models, which, aim to emulate or predict complex phenomena through a set of simple rules (i.e., independent actions, interactions and adaptation), performed by multiple agents. The efficiency and scalability of ABMs systems are typically obtained distributing the overall computation on several machines, which interact with each other in order to simulate a specific model. Unfortunately, the design of a distributed simulation model is particularly challenging, especially for domain experts who sporadically are computer scientists and are not used to developing parallel code.D-MASON framework is a distributed version of the MASON library for designing and executing ABMs in a distributed environment ensuring scalability and easiness. D-MASON enable the developer to exploit the computing power of distributed environment in a transparent manner; the developer has to do simple incremental modifications to existing MASON models, without re-designing them.This paper presents several novel features and architectural improvements introduced in the D-MASON framework: an improved space partitioning strategy, a distributed 3D field, a distributed network field, a decentralized communication layer, a novel memory consistency mechanism and the integration to cloud environments.