Agent-based Ecological Model Calibration - on the Edge of a New Approach

The purpose of this paper is to present a new approach to ecological model calibration -- an agent-based software. This agent works on three stages: 1- It builds a matrix that synthesizes the inter-variable relationships; 2- It analyses the steady-state sensitivity of different variables to different parameters; 3- It runs the model iteratively and measures model lack of fit, adequacy and reliability. Stage 3 continues until some convergence criteria are attained. At each iteration, the agent knows from stages 1 and 2, which parameters are most likely to produce the desired shift on predicted results.

ECOLANG - Communications Language for Ecological Simulations Network

This document describes the communication language used in one multiagent system environment for ecological simulations, based on EcoDynamo simulator application linked with several intelligent agents and visualisation applications, and extends the initial definition of the language. The agents actions and perceptions are translated into messages exchanged with the simulator application and other agents. The concepts and definitions used follow the BNF notation (Backus et al. 1960) and is inspired in the Coach Unilang language (Reis and Lau 2002).