Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of... more Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of Sugarscape are supplied as examples in almost all Agent Based Model (ABM) toolkits. It has been used for demonstrating the applicability of different approaches to ABM. However a lack of agreement on the precise definition of the rules within Sugarscape has curtailed its usefulness. We provide a formal specification of Sugarscape using the Z specification language. This demonstrates the ability of formal specification to capture the definition of an ABM in a precise manner. It shows that formal specifications could be used as an approach to tackle the replication problem in the field of ABM. It also provides the first clear interpretation of Sugarscape identifying areas where information is missing and/or ambiguous. This enables researchers to make proper comparisons between different implementations of this model.
2019 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)
In this paper we present a new initiative to promote collaborative learning through industry part... more In this paper we present a new initiative to promote collaborative learning through industry partnered, interdisciplinary, student and user centred projects. This was achieved through the development of rehabilitation devices augmented with gamified software. Today development of software systems often requires people from different specialities who can work in multidisciplinary teams to achieve a common objective. A key challenge, therefore, is producing graduates with an understanding of a number of disparate skills across many discipline boundaries. Undergraduates may be knowledgeable in one specific discipline but will not be aware of the issues brought to bear by other relevant disciplines. In an effort to overcome this limitation, a cross-discipline course "Serious Games and Welfare Technology" was developed that allows students from different disciplines to work together to produce innovative, technologysupported health solutions. The course, an EU funded Erasmus+ initiative, was supported by a MOOC and enabled multidisciplined and multinational teams to produce solutions for leading Health technology companies in the areas of rehabilitation and aging support. Following the first year of offering the course with a cohort of students from 5 countries, we report on the experiences and outcomes achieved from a number of viewpoints.
Reproducibility is a problem in Agent Based Modelling. It has proven difficult to replicate resul... more Reproducibility is a problem in Agent Based Modelling. It has proven difficult to replicate results obtained by other researchers so as to confirm their findings. A number of different solutions have been proposed to overcome this issue but the effectiveness of these approaches is still open to debate. Here we propose that formal methods, an approach developed by computer scientists for the production of high integrity systems, can be used to specify even complex Agent Based Models. In order to demonstrate the applicability of Formal Methods we specify Sugarscape, a well known Agent Based Social Simulation, using the Z Notation. Our specification uncovers many ambiguities in the original definition of Sugarscape thus demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach and providing a reference specification of Sugarscape for researchers to use.
Postgraduate research students often feel isolated studying in their own topic and the long-term ... more Postgraduate research students often feel isolated studying in their own topic and the long-term effect of isolation and lack of social connectedness brings negative impacts e.g. dropping out from the research program. Gamification is defined as the use of game design elements in non-gaming environments. It is envisaged that the two main classes of game elements to guide postgraduate research students along the journey are progression and social. We propose a system model using these two main classes of game elements to progress and connect postgraduate research students in increasing their learning efficacy and socializing among other postgraduate research students. Our proposed system model is grounded in the recent research presenting that one can be inspired extrinsically through fulfilment of the three basic psychological needs known as autonomy, competence and relatedness and these are influenced by autonomy support. Our future effort is to utilize this proposed system model t...
Agent based Modelling is now a standard form of modelling in the field of social simulations. One... more Agent based Modelling is now a standard form of modelling in the field of social simulations. One of the outstanding issues in this field is known as the Replication Problem. Simply stated this is the inability of researchers to independently replicate the results of Agent Based Models published by other researchers. This thesis outlines a two-part proposed solution to this problem that uses formal methods to precisely specify Agent Based Models and employs multiple updating strategies to demonstrate that any simulation results are independent of updating strategy. A novel synchronous updating algorithm is presented that allows synchronous updating to be extended from Cellular Automata based simulations to Agent Based Simulations. Asymptotic analysis of the novel synchronous algorithm shows that it is O(n log n) in time and O(n) in space. It is demonstrated that the new algorithm does not suffer from the deficiencies of existing asynchronous algorithms and that it also allows collis...
2019 International Conference on High Performance Computing & Simulation (HPCS), 2019
Today Cellular Automata (CA) and Agent Based Model (ABM) based simulations are used to make predi... more Today Cellular Automata (CA) and Agent Based Model (ABM) based simulations are used to make predictions and discover properties of real world scenarios, e.g. predicting the spread of influenza contagions. In these situations it is important that we have maximum confidence in the simulations we employ. One factor that is known to affect the outcomes of a simulation is the choice of updating strategy used. Specific strategies can cause artifacts – i.e. outcomes of a simulation not due to any intrinsic properties of the model itself but caused directly by the updating strategy. To guard against artifacts multiple strategies should be used on a model and the outcomes compared. Currently, while both Synchronous and asynchronous updating are used in CA based simulations, AU is used almost exclusively in ABM. This is due to: (i) until recently, the lack of any well-known SU algorithm that can handle complex ABM interactions and (ii) belief that AU is a better model of how the real world wo...
Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of... more Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of Sugarscape are supplied as examples in almost all Agent Based Model (ABM) toolkits. It has been used for demonstrating the applicability of different approaches to ABM. However a lack of agreement on the precise definition of the rules within Sugarscape has curtailed its usefulness. We provide a formal specification of Sugarscape using the Z specification language. This demonstrates the ability of formal specification to capture the definition of an ABM in a precise manner. It shows that formal specifications could be used as an approach to tackle the replication problem in the field of ABM. It also provides the first clear interpretation of Sugarscape identifying areas where information is missing and/or ambiguous. This enables researchers to make proper comparisons between different implementations of this model.
Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of... more Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of Sugarscape are supplied as examples in almost all Agent Based Model (ABM) toolkits. It has been used for demonstrating the applicability of different approaches to ABM. However a lack of agreement on the precise definition of the rules within Sugarscape has curtailed its usefulness. We provide a formal specification of Sugarscape using the Z specification language. This demonstrates the ability of formal specification to capture the definition of an ABM in a precise manner. It shows that formal specifications could be used as an approach to tackle the replication problem in the field of ABM. It also provides the first clear interpretation of Sugarscape identifying areas where information is missing and/or ambiguous. This enables researchers to make proper comparisons between different implementations of this model.
This paper describes an objective model for measuring online games quality of experience (QoE). M... more This paper describes an objective model for measuring online games quality of experience (QoE). Most of the existing game quality assessment models take into consideration mainly network impairments, therefore the measured games quality of experience is only correlated with network impairments. In addition to the traditional network-based parameters such as delay, jitter and packet loss, the model described in this paper is using new parameters based on subjective assessment. The aim is to estimate game quality as perceived by an online game player. In order to validate and calibrate the proposed model a subjective game quality assessment is also developed. Two 5-point scales are introduced: a game-quality scale and a game playing-effort scale. The mean average of each scale, termed the Mean Opinion Score (MOS), will indicate the experience of game quality. Reported evaluation results indicate a high level of correlation. This work extends previous work in this area by including end...
Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of... more Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of Sugarscape are supplied as examples in almost all Agent Based Model (ABM) toolkits. It has been used for demonstrating the applicability of different approaches to ABM. However a lack of agreement on the precise definition of the rules within Sugarscape has curtailed its usefulness. We provide a formal specification of Sugarscape using the Z specification language. This demonstrates the ability of formal specification to capture the definition of an ABM in a precise manner. It shows that formal specifications could be used as an approach to tackle the replication problem in the field of ABM. It also provides the first clear interpretation of Sugarscape identifying areas where information is missing and/or ambiguous. This enables researchers to make proper comparisons between different implementations of this model.
2019 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)
In this paper we present a new initiative to promote collaborative learning through industry part... more In this paper we present a new initiative to promote collaborative learning through industry partnered, interdisciplinary, student and user centred projects. This was achieved through the development of rehabilitation devices augmented with gamified software. Today development of software systems often requires people from different specialities who can work in multidisciplinary teams to achieve a common objective. A key challenge, therefore, is producing graduates with an understanding of a number of disparate skills across many discipline boundaries. Undergraduates may be knowledgeable in one specific discipline but will not be aware of the issues brought to bear by other relevant disciplines. In an effort to overcome this limitation, a cross-discipline course "Serious Games and Welfare Technology" was developed that allows students from different disciplines to work together to produce innovative, technologysupported health solutions. The course, an EU funded Erasmus+ initiative, was supported by a MOOC and enabled multidisciplined and multinational teams to produce solutions for leading Health technology companies in the areas of rehabilitation and aging support. Following the first year of offering the course with a cohort of students from 5 countries, we report on the experiences and outcomes achieved from a number of viewpoints.
Reproducibility is a problem in Agent Based Modelling. It has proven difficult to replicate resul... more Reproducibility is a problem in Agent Based Modelling. It has proven difficult to replicate results obtained by other researchers so as to confirm their findings. A number of different solutions have been proposed to overcome this issue but the effectiveness of these approaches is still open to debate. Here we propose that formal methods, an approach developed by computer scientists for the production of high integrity systems, can be used to specify even complex Agent Based Models. In order to demonstrate the applicability of Formal Methods we specify Sugarscape, a well known Agent Based Social Simulation, using the Z Notation. Our specification uncovers many ambiguities in the original definition of Sugarscape thus demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach and providing a reference specification of Sugarscape for researchers to use.
Postgraduate research students often feel isolated studying in their own topic and the long-term ... more Postgraduate research students often feel isolated studying in their own topic and the long-term effect of isolation and lack of social connectedness brings negative impacts e.g. dropping out from the research program. Gamification is defined as the use of game design elements in non-gaming environments. It is envisaged that the two main classes of game elements to guide postgraduate research students along the journey are progression and social. We propose a system model using these two main classes of game elements to progress and connect postgraduate research students in increasing their learning efficacy and socializing among other postgraduate research students. Our proposed system model is grounded in the recent research presenting that one can be inspired extrinsically through fulfilment of the three basic psychological needs known as autonomy, competence and relatedness and these are influenced by autonomy support. Our future effort is to utilize this proposed system model t...
Agent based Modelling is now a standard form of modelling in the field of social simulations. One... more Agent based Modelling is now a standard form of modelling in the field of social simulations. One of the outstanding issues in this field is known as the Replication Problem. Simply stated this is the inability of researchers to independently replicate the results of Agent Based Models published by other researchers. This thesis outlines a two-part proposed solution to this problem that uses formal methods to precisely specify Agent Based Models and employs multiple updating strategies to demonstrate that any simulation results are independent of updating strategy. A novel synchronous updating algorithm is presented that allows synchronous updating to be extended from Cellular Automata based simulations to Agent Based Simulations. Asymptotic analysis of the novel synchronous algorithm shows that it is O(n log n) in time and O(n) in space. It is demonstrated that the new algorithm does not suffer from the deficiencies of existing asynchronous algorithms and that it also allows collis...
2019 International Conference on High Performance Computing & Simulation (HPCS), 2019
Today Cellular Automata (CA) and Agent Based Model (ABM) based simulations are used to make predi... more Today Cellular Automata (CA) and Agent Based Model (ABM) based simulations are used to make predictions and discover properties of real world scenarios, e.g. predicting the spread of influenza contagions. In these situations it is important that we have maximum confidence in the simulations we employ. One factor that is known to affect the outcomes of a simulation is the choice of updating strategy used. Specific strategies can cause artifacts – i.e. outcomes of a simulation not due to any intrinsic properties of the model itself but caused directly by the updating strategy. To guard against artifacts multiple strategies should be used on a model and the outcomes compared. Currently, while both Synchronous and asynchronous updating are used in CA based simulations, AU is used almost exclusively in ABM. This is due to: (i) until recently, the lack of any well-known SU algorithm that can handle complex ABM interactions and (ii) belief that AU is a better model of how the real world wo...
Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of... more Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of Sugarscape are supplied as examples in almost all Agent Based Model (ABM) toolkits. It has been used for demonstrating the applicability of different approaches to ABM. However a lack of agreement on the precise definition of the rules within Sugarscape has curtailed its usefulness. We provide a formal specification of Sugarscape using the Z specification language. This demonstrates the ability of formal specification to capture the definition of an ABM in a precise manner. It shows that formal specifications could be used as an approach to tackle the replication problem in the field of ABM. It also provides the first clear interpretation of Sugarscape identifying areas where information is missing and/or ambiguous. This enables researchers to make proper comparisons between different implementations of this model.
Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of... more Sugarscape is a well known and influential Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS). Various parts of Sugarscape are supplied as examples in almost all Agent Based Model (ABM) toolkits. It has been used for demonstrating the applicability of different approaches to ABM. However a lack of agreement on the precise definition of the rules within Sugarscape has curtailed its usefulness. We provide a formal specification of Sugarscape using the Z specification language. This demonstrates the ability of formal specification to capture the definition of an ABM in a precise manner. It shows that formal specifications could be used as an approach to tackle the replication problem in the field of ABM. It also provides the first clear interpretation of Sugarscape identifying areas where information is missing and/or ambiguous. This enables researchers to make proper comparisons between different implementations of this model.
This paper describes an objective model for measuring online games quality of experience (QoE). M... more This paper describes an objective model for measuring online games quality of experience (QoE). Most of the existing game quality assessment models take into consideration mainly network impairments, therefore the measured games quality of experience is only correlated with network impairments. In addition to the traditional network-based parameters such as delay, jitter and packet loss, the model described in this paper is using new parameters based on subjective assessment. The aim is to estimate game quality as perceived by an online game player. In order to validate and calibrate the proposed model a subjective game quality assessment is also developed. Two 5-point scales are introduced: a game-quality scale and a game playing-effort scale. The mean average of each scale, termed the Mean Opinion Score (MOS), will indicate the experience of game quality. Reported evaluation results indicate a high level of correlation. This work extends previous work in this area by including end...
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Papers by Joseph Kehoe