Replicating computational experiments using simulation systems
David R. Balsley, George Dickinson, Amber Hinkle, Pamela J. Vermeer · 1999
Simulation is an important part of various scientific disciplines.Researchers in these fields often use computers to construct simulations of their work.In order to confirm that results generated by these simulations are reliable, scientists must replicate the model and generate similar data.A variety of simulation systems have been developed that should make this task easier.The goal of our research was to compare three of these systems: Extend, Swarm and SimPack.To achieve our goal, we implemented three models using each of these three simulation systems.Our models draw from ecology, neuroscience and economics.As we developed our models, we evaluated the systems according to various criteria, including their ease of use, their ability to generate meaningful output and the overhead time needed to begin using each system.