ABM Basics 2 & 3 (1)

Question 1

What does ABM stand for

Answer 1

Agent Based Modelling

Question 2

In an ABM what do we use to represent the terrain?

Answer 2

Patches

Question 3

What can turtles do in Netlogo?

Answer 3

Turtles can move, act and change the properties of the patches. Their behaviours and interactions can be defined using set rules, conditions or random events

Question 4

What is the purpose of the “random” command?

Answer 4

The purpose is to introduce variability or unpredictability into simulations or models

Question 5

What is a “floating-point number”?

Answer 5

A decimal number (e.g., 0.23)

Question 6

What would you write to place turtle 0 at a random x-coordinate and y-coordinate = 2 in the command centre?

Answer 6

> ask turtle 0 [set xcor random-xcor set ycor 2]
ask turtle 0 [setxy random-xcor 2]

Question 7

What is the primary purpose of using conditionals?

Answer 7

To allow agents or patches to make decisions based on conditions

Question 8

In which situation would you use the IF conditional without an accompanying ELSE?

Answer 8

An agent needs to perform an action if a condition is met; meaning NO ACTION when NOT MET

Question 9

How can we tell turtles to move forward 2 patches if their colour is red, move forward 1 patch otherwise?

Answer 9

> ask turtles [ ifelse color = red [forward 2] [forward 1] ]

Question 10

What is the purpose of a list?

Answer 10

A list is meant to group and manage multiple values together

Question 11

What line of code would you write to create a list called my_list comprising the elements 2 and 3?

Answer 11

set my_list [2 3]

Question 12

What would you write to add a value (5) to the beginning of an existing list called my_list?

Answer 12

set my_list fput 5 my_list

Question 13

What would you write to add a value (6) to the end of an existing list called my_list?

Answer 13

set my_list lput 6 my_list

Question 14

What’s the difference between Global Variable and Local Variable?

Answer 14

Global variables are known to all procedure, local variables are only known to one procedure you are creating the variable in

Question 15

how can we create a list of 10 random numbers between 0 and 100 using the repeat command?

Answer 15

let the_list []
repeat 10
[
set the_list lput (random 101) the_list
]

Question 16

how can we create a list of 10 random numbers between 0 and 100 using the ‘while’ command?

Answer 16

let the_list []
while [length the_list , 10]
[
set the_list lput (random 101) the_list
]

Question 17

list_a is: [ 1 3 5 7 ], how can we create a new list (b_list) that contains the square value of the items in list_a?

Answer 17

let the_list [1 3 5 7 ]
foreach list_a
[
x -> set list_b lput (x*x) list_b
]

Question 18

What’s the difference of using the following loop structures? Repeat, while and forreach

Answer 18

Repeat - when you want the code to run the instructions several times
While - when you want the code to run the instructions as long as the condition remains true
Forreach - when you want the code to run a set of instructions for each of the elements within a set of elements

Question 19

You want to create a procedure called rainbow-sheep in a separated file from the rest of the Wolf sheep predation code. This procedure should ask sheep to change to a random colour. What do you do?

Answer 19

Write the procedure rainbow-sheep in Notepad and save it as a .nls file

File name will be rainbowCode.nls

Code:
To rainbow-sheep
Ask sheep [ set color random 141 ]
End

Question 20

What’s the purpose of a CSV:from-row?

Answer 20

Csv:from-row: takes data from a row and creates a list that contains the elements in the row

Question 21

How do you read a .csv file?

Answer 21

file-close-all

if not file-exists? “name of file.csv”
[
user-message “No file ‘name of file.csv’ exists!”
Stop
]
file-open “london_crime.csv”

while [ not file-at-end? ]
[
let data csv: from-row file-read-line
]

file-close