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Netlogo vs. Julia: Evaluating Different Options for the Simulation of Opinion Dynamics

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Digital Human Modeling and Applications in Health, Safety, Ergonomics and Risk Management. Human Communication, Organization and Work (HCII 2020)

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Abstract

Analysing complex phenomena, such as the world we live in, or complex interactions, also requires methods that are suitable for considering both the individual aspects of these phenomena and the resulting overall system. As a method well suited for the consideration of complex phenomena, we consider agent-based models in this study. Using two programming languages (Netlogo and Julia) we simulate a simple bounded-rationality opinion formation model with and without backfire effect. We analyzed, which of the languages is better for the creation of agent-based models and found, that both languages have some advantages for the creation of simulations. While Julia is much faster in simulating a model, Netlogo has a nice Interface and is more intuitive to use for non-computer scientists. Thus the choice of the programming language remains always a trade-off and in future more complex models should be considered using both programming languages.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Digital Society research program funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

We used the following packages to create this document: knitr [28], tidyverse [25], rmdformats [1], scales [26], psych [19], rmdtemplates [5].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human-Computer Interaction Center, RWTH Aachen University, Campus-Boulevard 57, Aachen, Germany

    Laura Burbach, Poornima Belavadi, Patrick Halbach, Lilian Kojan, Nils Plettenberg, Johannes Nakayama, Martina Ziefle & André Calero Valdez

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  1. Laura Burbach
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  2. Poornima Belavadi
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  3. Patrick Halbach
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  4. Lilian Kojan
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  5. Nils Plettenberg
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  6. Johannes Nakayama
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  7. Martina Ziefle
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  8. André Calero Valdez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laura Burbach .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Vincent G. Duffy

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Burbach, L. et al. (2020). Netlogo vs. Julia: Evaluating Different Options for the Simulation of Opinion Dynamics. In: Duffy, V. (eds) Digital Human Modeling and Applications in Health, Safety, Ergonomics and Risk Management. Human Communication, Organization and Work. HCII 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12199. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49907-5_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49907-5_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-49906-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-49907-5

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