DISCRETE EVENT SIMULATION SOFTWARE AVAILABLE FOR FREE EVALUATION

******* Watch here for OpEMCSS seminars at UCI ( 3 Saturdays - 2, 9, and 16 June - 2007 )

JOHN R. CLYMER
Applied Research Center for Systems Science
California State University Fullerton

During the last few years, computer simulation has become an essential tool for the design and evaluation of complex systems. Such systems include air and ground transportation networks, military C4ISR multi-agent systems, and complex, international business organizations.  These systems are difficult to understand because each agent (subsystem) in the network adapts its behavior in response to knowledge received from other agents. Agents adapting in collaboration with other agents leads to emergent behavior that is much more complex than any agent could achieve alone. Such Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) have the potential of much greater capability and effectiveness than traditional systems if designed properly.

A state-of-the-art graphical, discrete event simulation library that works with EXTEND (ImagineThatInc) is available for your evaluation. This library is called Operational Evaluation Modeling for Context-Sensitive Systems (OpEMCSS), and it has the power of much more costly, general-purpose simulation products.  OpEMCSS provides the ability to examine important elements in the problem space and to allow the formulation of alternative solution concepts. OpEMCSS facilitates unconventional “out-of-the-box” thinking to discover the underlying system problems and exploit the best alternatives in the solution space without focusing on a point design too soon. In order to simulate various operational scenarios, OpEMCSS includes blocks to model agent motion and spatial interactions, agent communication and knowledge sharing, and intelligent rule-based decision-making. See OpEMCSS documents or textbook for further details.

The latest version of the Classifier Event Action block in OpEMCSS6 can learn a sequence of rules that optimizes the total reward from the environment. Such behavior is called reinforcement learning. Run GRIDWORLD.mox as a demonstration of reinforcement learning. See COPYRIGHT for policy information before downloading OpEMCSS6 for your evaluation. 

Also available is the new, user tested version of the textbook “Simulation-Based Engineering of Complex Systems.” This book can be ordered directly from the CSUF TITAN bookstore. Order your copy on-line today. Go to top left corner of CSUF TITAN bookstore web-page and click on “books.” URL is “http://www.titanbookstore.com/ .”

The textbook instructs the reader in how to use the OpEMCSS library blocks to simulate complex systems. While learning to use the OpEMCSS library blocks you will also gain an understanding of the basic principles of complex systems and methods for simulation-based engineering of complex systems.

You can download any of the following WINZIP files containing libraries, models, or documents by clicking on the highlighted name.

OpEMLIB6.ZIP is a zip file that contains four simulation libraries.  OpEMCSS6.LIX and OpEMAUX6.LIX are two of the simulation libraries that work with the regular EXTEND6, EXTEND6LT and the EXTEND6 DEMO. DEMO is available free from Imagine That Inc. OpEMLIB5.ZIP is also still available.

Also contained in the OpEMLIB6.ZIP file are two other simulation libraries, OpEMCSS6.LRX and OpEMAUX6.LRX. These libraries work with the EXTEND6 player available free from Imagine That Inc.

DOCUMENTS.ZIP contains two papers that document some of the OpEMCSS library blocks and how to use them to build a simulation of your system.  Each of the OpEMCSS blocks has a help button at the bottom of its dialog box that provides more detailed documentation.

The EXTEND player only allows you to run models that already exist.  Here is a zip file MODELS6.ZIP containing a set of OpEMCSS6 simulation models you can run using OpEMCSS6.LRX, OpEMAUX6.LRX, and the EXTEND player. You can also run these models using OpEMCSS6.LIX, OpEMAUX6.LIX, and the regular EXTEND6 or EXTEND6LT. MODELS5.ZIP is also still available.

Watch this location for an announcement of a one-week short course on how to use the OpEMCSS6.lix library to solve your simulation problems.  Send an E-mail message describing your interest in participating in such a course in your area.

KEY WORDS: Graphical Simulation Library, Systems Design and Evaluation, Business Process Reengineering (BPR), Simulation-Based Systems Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Complex Adaptive Systems, Context-Sensitive Systems, Software Resources.

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