About

Ethos is a Multi-Agent System (MAS) for modeling simulation and simulation of agent-based models of human social behavior and cultural processes. The framework takes a step further than current generic MAS by providing a set of features that help the modeler to shape the model structure. This includes: flexible behavior selection mechanisms, social influence through participation in shared activities, management of agents' social relationships, and flexible event scheduling.

Documentation
Click here to access online the documentation of the API generated by javadoc.

Software
Click here to dowload a zip file with the software distribution of a prototype version.

Installation Notes
Jargs: Currently Ethos use Jargs package. It is included in the distribution for convinience. Make sure the .jar is included in your classpath directories.

Overview
Ethos is a generic multi-agent simulation framework for agent-based modeling of social phenomena.
This includes: individual and collective social behavior, dynamics of cultural phenomena, emergence
of social structure, etc. Its main motivation was to study human related model, but nothing in the
framewok precules other uses. Ethos framework is divided into two conceptualy distinct parts.
First, Ethos meta-model provides a set of abstraction useful to structure specific models of social
behavior, culture, and social organization. These are coded in the Java package ethos.model. A
related set of objects classes used in collecting statistical data generate during model execution is
provided in the library ethos.stats. Data exporting also allows data objects to be visualized in more
specialized program enviroments such as Gun Plot, and S/R Programing Environment for Data
Analyes and Graphics. Other Ethos utility features are provided in the package ethos.util. This
includes mechanisms for object selection based on generic and flexible criteria. The second set of
abstraction relates to on-line graphical visualization and control of a model excecution. These are
more related with the traditional features provided in other MAS for agent-based modeling, such as:
Repast, Ascape, and Swarm. Package ethos.sim provides a basic generic infrastructure where GUI
controlers and viewers can be plugged in. Package ethos.gui provides specific definitions for the
implementation of a specific GUI, but also layout the backbones for smooth integration of other
modeler created GUI. Package ethos.viewer contains several component objects to display in a
GUI model objects and statistics data objects. User can use this or create and/or use other viewers.
We have brifged Ethos with other publicaly available visualization packages, to enlarge the set
availabe to the modeler. The framework is implemented in Java, and can be used standalone or in
conjunction (on top) of existing simulation frameworks.

Snapshot of Ethos GUI