Table of Contents

List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Acknowledgements xv
I ESTABLISHING THE RESEARCH FRAMEWORK 1
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Research Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Research Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.5 Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2 Theoretical Foundations 11
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Social Science Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Computational Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
II CONCEPTUALIZATION OF AGENT-BASED MODELS 25
3 MAIA 27
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2 Describing a Typical Socio-technical System . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.3 The MAIA Meta-model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.4 Using MAIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.5 Evaluating the MAIA Meta-model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.6 Compliance with the IAD Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.7 Soundness of MAIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
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Contents
4 Case Study Evaluation 57
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.2 Case Study I: Consumer Lighting Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.3 Case Study II: The Wood-Fuel Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.4 Case Study III: E-waste Recycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.5 Case Study IV: Manure-based Bio-gas Production . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.6 User Survey Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
III FORMALIZED INSTRUMENT FOR AGENT-BASED
MODELLING 97
5 Model-driven Development for MAIA 99
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.2 Agent-based Simulation Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.3 A Model-driven Approach to Build Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.4 From Model to Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.5 Platform Independence for MAIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6 Formal Specification of MAIA 123
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6.2 MAIA Formal Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
6.3 ADICO Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
IV INSIGHTS 145
7 An Evaluation Framework for ABMS Platforms 147
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
7.2 Tools and Methods for ABMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
7.3 A Framework to Compare and Evaluate ABMS Platforms . . . . . . 151
7.4 Feature-based Evaluation of ABMS Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
7.5 Comparison between the Four Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
7.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
8 Discussion and Conclusion 163
8.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
8.2 Development Process of MAIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
8.3 Research Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
8.4 Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
8.5 Lessons Learnt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
8.6 Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Appendices 175
vi
Contents
A Evaluation Form for Usability and Usefulness of MAIA 177
B MAIA Syntax 179
C Evaluation Form for ABMS Platforms 181
Bibliography 185
Summary 199
Samenvatting 203
Curriculum vitae 207
NGInfra PhD thesis series on infrastructures 209

Abstract

Socio-technical systems consist of many heterogeneous decision making entities and technological artefacts. These systems are governed through public policy that unravels in a multi-scale institutional context, which ranges from norms and values to technical standards. Simulation, agent-based modelling and simulation (ABMS) in particular, is an exploratory approach to gain insights into socio-technical systems and investigate the possible outcomes of policy interventions. However, to really understand and link various levels of behaviour in these systems and increase the usability of ABMS, we need to overcome the conceptual and practical limitations of this approach. In this research, we investigate how we can build social structures in agent-based models and how to increase the utility of ABMS for problem owners. To give social structure to agent-based models of socio-technical systems, we designed a modelling framework based on the Institutional Analysis and Development framework of Elinor Ostrom. To facilitate the use of ABMS by modellers with different levels of expertise, we provided tool support which also facilitates participatory model development. The overall outcome of this research is the MAIA modelling platform which consists of (1) a modelling framework for conceptualizing agent-based models of socio-technical systems, (2) a web tool that facilitates the conceptualization process, (3) transformation protocols that enable the translation of models into simulations and (4) software modules that facilitate semi-automatic translation of MAIA models to simulation code.

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