Multi-Agent and Multi-Agent-Based Simulation ; Joint Workshop MABS 2004

The aim of the workshop was to provide a forum for work in both appli- tions of multi-agent-based simulation and the technical challenges of simulating large multi-agent systems (MAS). There has been considerable recent progress in modelling and analyzing multi-agent systems, and in techniques that apply MAS models to complex real-world systems such as social systems and organi- tions. Simulation is an increasingly important strand that weaves together this work. In high-risk, high-cost situations, simulations provide critical cost/benefit leverage, and make possible explorations that cannot be carried out in situ: – Multi-agent approaches to simulating complex systems are keytools in interdisciplinary studies of social systems. Agent-based social simulation (ABSS) research simulates and synthesizes social behavior in order to understand real social systems with properties of self-organization, scalability, robustness, and openness. – In the MAS community, simulation has been applied to awide range of MAS research and design problems, from models of complex individual agents - ploying sophisticated internal mechanisms to models of large-scale societies of relatively simple agents which focus more on the interactions between agents.