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Validating Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems

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Advances in Modeling and Simulation

Part of the book series: Simulation Foundations, Methods and Applications ((SFMA))

Abstract

Undesired or unexpected properties are frequent, as large-scale complex systems with nonlinear interactions are being designed and implemented to answer real-life scenarios. Identifying these behaviors as they happen as well as determining whether these behaviors are beneficial for the system is crucial to highlight potential faults or undesired side effects early in the development of a system, thus promising significant cost reductions. Beyond the inherent challenges in identifying these behaviors, the problem of validating the observed emergent behavior remains challenging, as this behavior is, by definition, not expected or envisaged by system designers. This chapter presents an overview of existing work for the automated detection of emergent behavior and discusses some potential solutions to the challenge of validating emergent behavior. Building on the idea of comparing an identified emergent behavior with previously seen behaviors, we propose a two-step process for validating emergent behavior. Our initial experiments using a Flock of Birds model show the promise of this approach but also highlight future avenues of research.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

    Claudia Szabo & Lachlan Birdsey

Authors
  1. Claudia Szabo
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  2. Lachlan Birdsey
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Claudia Szabo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The MITRE Corporation, Hampton, Virginia, USA

    Andreas Tolk

  2. Department of Supply Chain Management, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA

    John Fowler

  3. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA

    Guodong Shao

  4. T&OM Area, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France

    Enver Yücesan

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Szabo, C., Birdsey, L. (2017). Validating Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems. In: Tolk, A., Fowler, J., Shao, G., Yücesan, E. (eds) Advances in Modeling and Simulation. Simulation Foundations, Methods and Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64182-9_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64182-9_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-64181-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-64182-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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