ABS2
Agent Based  
Spatial Simulation

International Workshop
 24-25 November 2008  
ISC-PIF, Paris, France

 
Organisers

Arnaud Banos, Image et Ville (UMR 7011 CNRS/ULP)
Frederic Amblard, IRIT (UMR 5055 CNRS/Université de Toulouse)
Christophe Lang, LIFC (EA 4157, Université de Franche-Comté)
 
Scientific Committee  

Mike Batty (CASA-UCL, London)
Nigel Gilbert (University of Surrey, Guildford)  
Tim Kholer (Washington State University)
Lael Parrott (Complex Systems Laboratory, University of Montreal)
Denise Pumain (Géographie-Cités, Paris)
Frank Schweitzer (ETH, Zurich)
 
Keynote speakers  

Volker Grimm, UFZ Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig-Halle, Germany:
Individual-based models in ecology  
 
Philippe Mathieu, LIFL, University of Lille, France: New approaches for Situated Agent
Systems

Topic of the Workshop

Agent Based Models are privileged tools in many different disciplines, when it comes to
the exploration of complex systems. Indeed, they allow to model processes from the
bottom-up and to simulate the behaviour of a large variety of phenomena, ranging from
physical, biological, social, cultural and cognitive domains.
 
In some specific communities, including geography, planning, architecture, archaeology,
sociology, spatial economics, computer sciences, ecology, to name but a few, some
specific models have also been imagined, designed and tested, which allow exploring
complex spatial systems.  
 
In that perspective, spatially explicit agent based models are the focus of this
international workshop, organised as a joint event between the Paris-Île de France
Complex Systems Institute (ISC-PIF) and the European Network “Spatial Simulation for
the Social Sciences” (S4), and especially its SIMBAAD working group: “Simulation
Based of Agents to Aid Decision”.  
 
Contributions dealing with (but not limited to) the following fields of spatially explicit ABM
are encouraged:
 
• Formalising spatial structures and processes in agent based models
• Coupling environmental and social processes
• Formalising incomplete information and/or bounded rationality in space
• Modelling perception of space by agents  
• Identifying and comparing emerging spatial patterns
 
• Feeding and calibration of agent models with heterogeneous and multi-
sources data
• Verification and validation of individual and global behaviour  
• Real-time coupling between empirical data and model
• Parallelisation and grid computing for large spatial models, including
distributed problems: distributed clocks, synchronisation, load-sharing.  
 
• Re-interpreting classic macroscopic models using an ABM approach
• Spatial agent based models for exploration, optimisation, decision
support  



Submitting a proposal

Please send before 15 september an extended abstract (3 pages, times 12) in English
to arnaud.banos@lorraine.u-strasbg.fr and christophe.lang@lifc.univ-fcomte.fr  
 
During the workshop, people will be encouraged to provide a full original paper of their
talk, which will be evaluated by the scientific committee for a collective publication in one
or several of the following journals, from which we obtained an agreement:
 
• Advances in Complex Systems (http://www.worldscinet.com/acs/acs.shtml)
• Cybergeo (http://www.cybergeo.eu/?lang=en)
• European Journal of GIS and Spatial Analysis (http://geo.e-revues.com/)
• Journal of Artificial Society and Social Simulation
(http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS.html)
 

Registration fees

No registration fees are required, as the event is granted by Region Ile de France, ISC-
PIF and S4. However, for practical reasons, the workshop is limited to 30 persons.
Therefore a “first come, first served” procedure will be adopted.
 
 
Important dates
 
• Deadline for extended abstract: 15 September
• Acceptance notification: 1st October
• Deadline for registration: 10 November
 
Venue

The Complex Systems Institute is located 57-59 rue Lhomond F-75005 Paris, France