Global Dynamics Emerging from Local Interactions: Agent-Based Modeling for the Life Sciences - Mathematical Concepts and Methods in Modern Biology - page 124

a. Run the experiment effect of environmental-reservoir , and create
a spreadsheet that contains only the header row, and the averaged output from
each separate reservoir value, including the baseline averages. (The command
paste special-values in spreadsheet is helpful here to copy the averaged values
and not the formulas.)
What does this slider change, in real-life terms, in the simulation? (In answering
this question, it may be helpful to both look at how environmental-reservoir
is defined in the Procedures as well as to watch portions of several simulations
in which differing values for environmental-reservoir are chosen.).
What effect, if any, did changing the reservoir value have? What would happen
if the reservoir value was set to 0?
b. Run the experiment prob-mvmt-exp , and create a spreadsheet that contains only
the header row, and the five averaged output rows for each separate movement
value. What does this slider change, in real-life terms, in the simulation?
What effect, if any, did changing the movement slider have?
How can you make intuitive meaning of this perhaps surprising result?
c. Run the experiment population size , and create a spreadsheet that contains
only the header row, and the five averaged output rows for each separate move-
ment value. What slider does this experiment change?
What conclusions can you draw from this experiment?
d. Run the experiment effect of time-in-common , and create a spreadsheet that
contains only the header row, and the five averaged output rows for each sep-
arate movement value. What does this slider change, in real-life terms, in the
simulation?
What effect, if any, did changing the time-in-common slider have?
Do you think the effect is significant?
e. Let's see if the results are the same above if the village is more crowded. Click
the mouse on the experiment effect of time-in-common , but before you run
the experiment, edit it and change the value of num-in-house to 40. Run this
new experiment. Of course, more will be sick than before because there are
more people, but is it a greater percentage? Also, does the slider effect of
time-in-common have any more impact now? Any thoughts?
f. Run the experiment rate-bacteria-remain , and create a spreadsheet that con-
tains only the header row, and the five averaged output rows for each separate
movement value. What does this slider change, in real-life terms, in the simula-
tion?
What conclusions can you draw from this experiment?
g. Run the experiment prob-inf , and create a spreadsheet that contains only the
header row, and the five averaged output rows for each separate movement value.
What does this slider change, in real-life terms, in the simulation?
What conclusions can you draw from this experiment?
h. Where might there be some gaps to the numbers suggested for prob-inf . Mod-
ify the experiment to include a few needed values (and do not repeat the values