-dynamic behavior simulated by differential equations. The simulation
-of the system thus often relay on the resolution of a linear system
-that can be efficiently computed on a graphical processing unit as
-shown in the preceding chapters. But when the behavior of the system
-elements is not uniformly driven by the same law, when these elements
-have their own behavior, the modeling process is too complex to rely
-on formal expressions. In this context MAS is a recognized approach to
-model and simulate systems where individuals have an autonomous
-behavior that cannot be simulated by the evolution of a set of
-variables driven by mathematical laws. MAS are often used to simulate
-natural or collective phenomenons whose individuals are too numerous or
-various to provide a unified algorithm describing the system
-evolution. The agent-based approach is to divide these complex systems
-into individual self-contained entities with their smaller set of
-attributes and functions. But, as for mathematical simulations, when
-the size of the Multi-Agent System (MAS) increases the need of computing
-power and memory also increases. For this reason, multi-agent systems
-should benefit from the use of distributed computing
-architectures. Clusters and Grids are often identified as the main
-solution to increase simulation performance but Graphical Processing
-Units (GPU) are also a promising technology with an attractive
-performance/cost ratio.
-
-Conceptually a MAS is a distributed system as it favors the definition
-and description of large sets of individuals, the agents, that can be
-run in parallel. As a large set of agents could have the same behavior
-a SIMD model should fit the simulation execution. Most of the
-agent-based simulators are however designed with a sequential scheme
-in mind and these simulators seldom use more than one core for their
-execution. Due to simulation scheduling constraints, data sharing and
-exchange between agents and the huge amount of interactions between
-agents and their environment, it is indeed rather difficult to
-distribute an agent based simulator, for instance, to take advantage of new
-multi-threaded computer architectures. Thus, guidelines and tools
-dedicated to MAS paradigm and HPC is now a need for other complex
+dynamic behavior is simulated by differential equations. The
+simulation of the system thus often relies on the resolution of a
+linear system that can be efficiently computed on a graphical
+processing unit as shown in the preceding chapters. But when the
+behavior of the system elements is not uniformly driven by the same
+law, when these elements have their own behavior, the modeling process
+is too complex to rely on formal expressions. In this context MAS is a
+recognized approach to model and simulate systems where individuals
+have an autonomous behavior that cannot be simulated by the evolution
+of a set of variables driven by mathematical laws. MAS are often used
+to simulate natural or collective phenomena whose individuals are too
+numerous or various to provide a unified algorithm describing the
+system evolution. The agent-based approach is to divide these complex
+systems into individual self-contained entities with their smaller set
+of attributes and functions. But, as for mathematical simulations,
+when the size of the MAS increases, the need of computing power and
+memory also increases. For this reason, multi-agent systems should
+benefit from the use of distributed computing architectures. Clusters
+and grids are often identified as the main solution to increase
+simulation performance but GPUs are also a promising technology with
+an attractive performance/cost ratio.
+
+Conceptually a MAS\index{multi-agent system} is a distributed system
+as it favors the definition and description of large sets of
+individuals, the agents, that can be run in parallel. As a large set
+of agents could have the same behavior, a Single Instruction Multiple
+Data (SIMD) execution architecture should fit the simulation
+execution. Most of the agent-based simulators are, however, designed
+with a sequential scheme in mind, and these simulators seldom use more
+than one core for their execution. Due to simulation scheduling
+constraints, data sharing and exchange between agents and the huge
+amount of interactions between agents and their environment, it is
+indeed rather difficult to distribute an agent based simulator, for
+instance, to take advantage of new multithreaded computer
+architectures. Thus, guidelines and tools dedicated to MAS paradigm
+and High Performance Computing (HPC) are now a need for other complex