This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 21st International Workshop on Multi-Agent-Based Simulation, MABS 2021, held in May 2021 as part of AAMAS 2021. The conference was held virtually due to COVID 19 pandemic. The 14 revised full papers included in this volume were carefully selected from 23 submissions. The workshop focused on finding efficient solutions to model complex social systems, in such areas as economics, management, organizational and social sciences in general. In all these areas, agent theories, metaphors, models, analysis, experimental designs, empirical studies, and methodological principles, all converge into simulation as a way of achieving explanations and predictions, exploration and testing of hypotheses, better designs and systems and providing decision-support in a wide range of applications.

Fifteen papers were presented at the first workshop on Multi-Agent Systems and Agent-Based Simulation held as part of the Agents World conference in Paris, July 4-- 6, 1998. The workshop was designed to bring together two developing communities: the multi-agent systems researchers who were the core participants at Agents World, and social scientists interested in using MAS as a research tool. Most of the social sciences were represented, with contributions touching on sociology, management science, economics, psychology, environmental science, ecology, and linguistics. The workshop was organised in association with SimSoc, an informal group of social scientists who have arranged an irregular series of influential workshops on using simulation in the social sciences beginning in 1992. While the papers were quite heterogeneous in substantive domain and in their disciplinary origins, there were several themes which recurred during the workshop. One of these was considered in more depth in a round table discussion led by Jim Doran at the end of the workshop on 'Representing cognition for social simulation', which addressed the issue of whether and how cognition should be modelled. Quite divergent views were expressed, with some participants denying that individual cognition needed to be modelled at all, and others arguing that cognition must be at the centre of social simulation.

Methodological Guidelines for Modeling and Developing MAS-Based Simulations The intersection of agents, modeling, simulation, and application domains has been the subject of active research for over two decades. Although agents and simulation have been used effectively in a variety of application domains, much of the supporting research remains scattered in the literature, too often leaving scientists to develop multi-agent system (MAS) models and simulations from scratch. Multi-Agent Systems: Simulation and Applications provides an overdue review of the wide ranging facets of MAS simulation, including methodological and application-oriented guidelines. This comprehensive resource reviews two decades of research in the intersection of MAS, simulation, and different application domains. It provides scientists and developers with disciplined engineering approaches to modeling and developing MAS-based simulations. After providing an overview of the field’s history and its basic principles, as well as cataloging the various simulation engines for MAS, the book devotes three sections to current and emerging approaches and applications. Simulation for MAS — explains simulation support for agent decision making, the use of simulation for the design of self-organizing systems, the role of software architecture in simulating MAS, and the use of simulation for studying learning and stigmergic interaction. MAS for Simulation — discusses an agent-based framework for symbiotic simulation, the use of country databases and expert systems for agent-based modeling of social systems, crowd-behavior modeling, agent-based modeling and simulation of adult stem cells, and agents for traffic simulation. Tools — presents a number of representative platforms and tools for MAS and simulation, including Jason, James II, SeSAm, and RoboCup Rescue. Complete with over 200 figures and formulas, this reference book provides the necessary overview of experiences with MAS simulation and the tools needed to exploit simulation in MAS for future research in a vast array of applications including home security, computational systems biology, and traffic management.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 18th International Workshop on Multi-Agent-Based Simulation, MABS 2017, held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in May 2017. The workshop was held in conjunction with the 16th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, AAMAS 2017. The 15 revised full papers included in this volume were carefully selected from 23 submissions. The topic of the papers is about applying agent-based simulation techniques to real-world problems focusing on the confluence of socio-technical-natural sciences and multi-agent systems with a strong application/empirical vein.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Multi-Agent-Based Simulation, MABS 2005, held in Utrecht, The Netherlands in July 2005 as an associated event of AAMAS 2005, the main international conference on autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. The 12 revised full papers presented together with 1 invited talk were carefully reviewed. The papers are organized in topical sections on coalition emergence, theories and models, applications, and environments.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed postproceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Multi-Agent-based Simulation, MABS 2008, held in Estoril, Portugal, in May 2008. The 16 revised full papers presented have gone through two rounds of reviewing, selection, and improvement and were selected from 44 submissions; they present state-of-the-art research results in agent-based simulation and modeling. The papers are organized in topical sections on simulation of economic behaviour; modelling and simulation of social behaviou; applications; techniques, infrastructure and technologies as well as methods and methodologies.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 16th International Workshop on Multi-Agent-Based Simulation, MABS 2015, held in Istanbul, Turkey, in May 2015. The workshop was held in conjunction with the 14th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems, AAMAS 2015. The 12 revised full papers included in this volume ware carefully selected from 22 submissions. The papers focus on the influence of social sciences and multi-agent systems, with a strong application/empirical vein, and its emphasis is stressed on exploratory agent based simulation as a principled way of undertaking scientific research in the social sciences and using social theories as an inspiration to new frameworks and developments in multi-agent systems.