design precedents are available instances of architectural projects by high profile architects and designers, which can be studied and analyzed as knowledge resources for a given project. developing a design knowledge based on a critical study of precedents will be referred to in this paper as precedent-based knowledge. in all stages of designing, design reasoning based on precedents can save d...

Agent-based modelling approaches are usually based on logical languages, whereas in many areas dynamical system models based on differential equations are used. This paper shows how to model complex agent systems, integrating quantitative, numerical and qualitative, logical aspects, and how to combine logical and mathematical analysis methods.

Members of bacterial communities communicate and cooperate via diffusible chemical materials they emit into the environment, and at the same time, they also compete for nutrients and space. Agent-based models (ABMs) are useful tools for simulating the growth of communities containing multiple interacting microbial species. In this work we present numerical indices characterizing spatial distrib...

We propose a framework based on Hierarchical Clustering (HC) to perform multiagent negotiations where we can specify the type of agreements needed in terms of utility sharing among the agents.The proposed multi-round mediation process is based on the analysis of the agents’ offers at each negotiation round and the generation of a social contract at each round as a feedback to the agents, which ...

The Peter principle has been recently investigated by means of an agent-based simulation and its validity has been numerically corroborated. It has been confirmed that, within certain conditions, it can really influence in a negative way the efficiency of a pyramidal organization adopting meritocratic promotions. It was also found that, in order to bypass these effects, alternative promotion st...

Various themed streets have recently been developed by local governments in order to stimulate local economies and to establish the identity of the corresponding places. However, the motivations behind the development of some of these themed street projects has been based on profit, without full considerations of people’s perceptions of their local areas, resulting in marginal effects on the lo...