Cell-DEVS for Social Phenomena Modeling

Motivated by the need for formal methods as well as supporting tools to model and simulate social systems, we propose cellular discrete-event system specification as a formalism for modeling social systems. We also propose the use of a toolkit that implements the formalism of cellular discrete-event system specifications to implement and visualize models of social systems. We present examples of social system models that are different in sizes, nature, and rules controlling the interactions within those systems. We show that cellular discrete-event system specification with its unique features can successfully deal with the shortcoming of other modeling techniques. In addition, we show that together with its supporting toolkit, cellular discrete-event system specification is suitable for modeling, simulating, implementing, and visualizing social systems.