Hi,

I'd like to thank all of you, who helped me, to get literature for my 
problem. I got about a dozen mails with links and helpful hints.

I try to summarise those now:


There are two sites at which one should begin:
1. For validation in general:
       http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/empvalid.htm
   especially the articel of  „Fagiolo, Windrum, and Moneta“
       http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/EmpValid.Fagiolo.2006-14.pdf
   An other good work is the JASSS-article of Richiardi, Leombruni et 
al.  (2006). They recommend "A Common Protocol for Agent-Based Social 
Simulation" http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/9/1/15.html.

2. For the topic of error propagation and uncertainty (there is still no 
hint for this special task for MAS)
       www.nusap.net
   especially the site with the guide and the tool catalogue
       http://www.nusap.net/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=17



Unfortunately I formulated my question not very clear and so I got lots 
of hints about the normal validation like cross-validation. Since that 
is kind of basic and summed up very god at the site 
http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/empvalid.htm
I will not summarise any of these articles.



Two techniques should be mentioned also. First the  "Active Nonlinear 
Tests (ANTs) of Complex Simulations Models" of John H. Miller. Because 
the sensitivity analysis can become quite complex, he suggest a genetic 
algorithm approach to test model boundaries.
      http://zia.hss.cmu.edu/miller/papers/ant.pdf

Second: "An Architecture-Independent Cognitive-Trace Analysis Tool for 
Real-World Human Behavior Models"  Scott Neal Reilly,  Karen A. Harper & 
   Andrew Young. It is a tracer tool for not too abstract agents and 
their cognitions and behaviours.



Last but not least Doug Samuelson gave me the last hint, which I will 
just cite to the list:
"I think it is fair to say that the profession has not come close to a 
consensus on this subject.  There are serious problems in trying to 
assess the quality of models whose complexity approaches that of the 
situations they purport to represent.  Try searching for the literature 
on "docking" simulation models -- it's scattered, and I wouldn't venture 
to say I know all the key papers in this area, but it's worthwhile and 
highly relevant to your question.  Robert Axelrod, in particular, did 
some good papers on this; perhaps you can get a pretty good set, for 
starters, by finding the earliest of his papers and then finding 
everything else that cited it."




Thanks again to all the active readers and writers of this list,

Carsten Schulz










Carsten Schulz wrote:
> 
> 
> Dear modellers,
> 
> I am interested in the validation of multi-agent simulations, because in 
> our project we have modelled a quite large and spatially explicit 
> multi-agent simulation, which imports data from other models and exports 
> data also to coupled models. Now we would like to validate the MAS and 
> e.g. investigate the error propagation. But how?
> 
> Is there already a known technique for validating agent-based models - 
> like sensitivity analysis and Monte-Carlo simulation are techniques for 
> validating statistical models?
> 
> I thank you in advance for all the abstracts and literature you can
> provide me, I will write a short summary and send it back to the list.
> 
> 
> Carsten Schulz
> [log in to unmask]
>