A general-purpose graph dynamical system modeling framework

Abstract

We describe InterSim, a general purpose flexible framework for simulating graph dynamical systems (GDS) and their generalizations. GDS provide a powerful formalism to model and analyze agent-based systems (ABS) because there is a direct mapping between nodes and edges (which denote interactions) in a GDS and agents and interactions in an ABS, thereby providing InterSim with great expressive power. We describe the design, implementation, capabilities, and features of InterSim; e.g., it enables users to quickly produce simulations of ABS in many application domains. We present illustrative case studies that focus on the simulation of social phenomena. InterSim has been used to simulate networks with 4 million agents and to execute large parametric simulation studies.