DRAMS - A DECLARATIVE RULE-BASED AGENT MODELLING SYSTEM

This paper presents a snapshot of the Declarative Rule based Agent Modelling System (DRAMS), which is currently being developed with the goal of providing declarative rule engine functionality to agent-based simulation models. While the incentive for this effort is to allow stakeholders in policy modelling activities to better understand and, hence, to be more deeply involved in modelling and simulation of policy processes, the approach chosen appears to be valuable for many other areas. After a short literature review on similar approaches, the paper briefly outlines the FP7 project OCOPOMO, the context in which DRAMS is developed, in order to underpin some of the requirements and related design decisions presented subsequently. On the basis of this information, the software architecture is described in some detail, followed by a few notes about implementation and user interfaces. Finally, a small "toy" model illustrates the use of DRAMS.