Approaching simulation to modelers: a user interface for large-scale demographic simulation

Abstract

Agent-based modeling is one of the promising modeling tools that can be used in the study of population dynamics. Two of the main obstacles hindering the use of agent-based simulation in practice are its scalability when the analysis requires large-scale models such as policy studies, and its ease-of-use especially for users with no programming experience. While there has been a significant work on the scalability issue, ease-of-use aspect has not been addressed in the same intensity. This paper presents a graphical user interface designed for a simulation tool which allows modelers with no programming background to specify agent-based demographic models and run them on parallel environments. The interface eases the definition of models to describe individual and group dynamics processes with both qualitative and quantitative data. The main advantage is to allow users to transparently run the models on high performance computing infrastructures.