Just a quick question about the model I am currently working on.
The model: I have a discrete event model (that uses the enterprise library) + ABM (people in the DE model are agents).
Question: I have implemented a change in the model so that the people in the DE model work shifts (coming and going
from work using events to trigger the transition from work to home). How do I make this carry over to the animation.
Right now, when people go to work they are added to the "AtWork" collection variable and when they go home
they get removed from the "AtWork" collection variable and added to the "AtHome" collection
variable.
However, currently all of the people are still in the DE model. Within the "Network" I have "people,
rooms at work and home" when people get added to the "AtHome" collection variable I want them to move to
the Resource Unit "Home" and be removed from the work flow until they are triggered by an event to go back to
the "AtWork" group at which point I want to move them back into the main workplace animation. How do I go
about this? I was thinking I could put some code into the "Network Resource Pool - People" in the field: on
release. So that whenever the person is released from an enterprise library block the agent would check to see which
collection variable they are in and move to and from work based on this. Any suggestions or easier ways to do this?
Thanks,
Amy.
Pavel — 30.05.08
Probably it will be easier to create 2 "Network Resource Pools" - "atHome" and "atWork".
So you will be able to choose one of them and send resources to work and then allow them return home. You may add a
parameter to the class that is used as resources that will define how long does this resource work. This parameter can
be changed in time and when it get the required value this resource can go home.
Iqbal — 22.07.08
Do you have any examples/samples of a DES + ABM model that we could look at to better understand the structure and
connections between the DES and ABM?
Thanks
Pavel — 24.07.08
Let the "master" representation of the person is agent, i.e. an ActiveObject (let us call the class
PersonAsAgent) that is created at a certain point, has behavior, e.g. statecharts, timers, can communicate with others,
be destroyed, etc.
At the point in time when the person becomes involved in another type of activity that is best described by e.g. a
flowchart, the agent generates an entity (we will call its class PersonAsEntity, a subclass of Entity) and injects it
into the flowchart through e.g. "Enter" block.
The entity and the agent must be linked: the entity must contain a reference to the agent (a field of type e.g.
PersonAsAgent) and the agent must remember the entity by having a field of type PersonAsEntity.
Then they can affect each other: the agent is able to change the properties of the entity that may affect its progress
through the flowchart, and vice versa: the entity may call agent's methods and send him messages at some particular
stages of the flowchart activity.
