Infrastructures for Social SimulationInfrastructures for Social Simulation

Rob ProcterNational e-Infrastructure for Social

Simulation

ISGC 2010 Social Simulation Tutorial

Rationale for NeISS

Growing demand for social simulation models

Build capacity in social simulation

Encourage multi-disciplinary research

Leverage existing UK investments in computation and data resources

Health and Social Care

2001

20312016

2006

Infrastructures for Social Simulation

We need infrastructure to make most effective use of powerful, new research tools

must provide more than simulation software and computational resources

Infrastructures for social simulation should

provide secure access to diverse datasets

support the simulation research lifecycle from problem formulation to publishing of results

enable collaboration through sharing of simulation resources, including models and results

ESNW 2007

The Research Lifecycle

Share results and conclusions and

discuss with collaborators

Explore datasets and determine suitability

Analyse results and compare with

hypothesis

Review literature and generate hypothesis

Write papers

Build models and execute

them

Publish papers

Find datasets related to proposed area of

work

NeISS Architecture Overview

NeISS Architecture

Simulation service layer comprising fundamental components

Composition layer in which individual services composed into workflows

Architecture layer provides tools and methods needed to access simulation services and workflows, and combines them into domain-specific exemplars

Deployment layer provides user access to tools and exemplars

NeISS Architecture

Simulation Service Layer

Data

Embedding tools for documentation, standardisation, enhancement and management of data

Models

Dynamic microsimulation, behavioural modelling and activity analysis

Visualisation

MapTube, SecondLife

Visualisation

Composition Layer

Enactment

enactment, management, monitoring and creation of workflows

Publishing

Social curation and sharing of research resources

myExperiment

Workflows

A workflow is a means to compose and orchestrate services so that they co-operate to implement desired behaviour of a system

scientists

LocalWeb

Repositories

Graduate Students

Undergraduate Students

Virtual Learning Environment

Technical Reports

Reprints

Peer-Reviewed Journal &

Conference Papers

Preprints &

Metadata

Certified Experimental

Results & Analyses

experimentation

Data, Metadata, Provenance, Scripts, Workflows, Services,Ontologies, Blogs, ...

Digital Libraries

Publishing: Science 2.0

Next Generation Researchers

Architecture Layer

Portal

plug-and-play services

Frameworks and standards

Service Oriented Architecture

Secure access to distributed resources

single sign-on

Core data and computation services

Data repositories, grids, clouds, …

NeISS Portal

NeISS Portal

Deployment Layer

User engagement

naive, sophisticated, power

researchers

policy users

• city and regional (land use) planning

• health and social services

• transport

Thanks to

Mark Birkin, Andy Turner, Carole Goble, Dave De Roure and everyone else in the NeISS

project team

www.neiss.org.uk