EffLab was built to support the study of the efficiency of agents in an evolving complex adaptive system. In particular:
- There is a definition of efficiency used in ecology, and an analogous definition widely used in business. In ecological studies it is called EROEI (energy returned on energy invested), or, more briefly, EROI (pronounced E-Roy). In business it is called ROI (dollars returned on dollars invested).
- In addition, there is the more well-known definition of efficiency first described by Sadi Carnot, and widely used by engineers. It is usually represented by the Greek letter ‘h’ (pronounced as ETA). These two measures of efficiency bear a peculiar relationship to each other: EROI = 1 / ( 1 - ETA )

In EffLab, blind seekers wander through a forest looking for energy-rich food. In this multi-generational world, they live and reproduce, or die, depending on whether they can find food more effectively than their contemporaries. Data is collected to measure their efficiency as they evolve more effective search patterns.

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This is an implementation of an agent based model for the evolution of ethnocentrism. While based off a model published by Hammond and Axelrod (2006), the code has been modified to allow for a more fine-grained analysis of evolutionary dynamics.

SONG is a simulator designed for simulating the process of transportation network growth.

This model simulates the form and function of an idealised estuary with associated barrier-spit complex on the north east coast of New Zealand’s North Island (from Bream Bay to central Bay of Plenty) during the years 2010 - 2050 CE. It combines variables from social, ecological and geomorphic systems to simulate potential directions of change in shallow coastal systems in response to external forcing from land use, climate, pollution, population density, demographics, values and beliefs. The estuary is over 1000Ha, making it a large estuary according to Hume et al. (2007) - there are 12 large estuaries in the Auckland region alone (Suyadi et al., 2019). The model was developed as part of Andrew Allison’s PhD Thesis in Geography from the School of Environment and Institute of Marine Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand. The model setup allows for alteration of geomorphic, ecological and social variables to suit the specific conditions found in various estuaries along the north east coast of New Zealand’s North Island.
This model is not a predictive or forecasting model. It is designed to investigate potential directions of change in complex shallow coastal systems. This model must not be used for any purpose other than as a heuristic to facilitate researcher and stakeholder learning and for developing system understanding (as per Allison et al., 2018).

A curious aspect of the Covid-19 pandemic is the clustering of outbreaks. Evidence suggests that 80\% of people who contract the virus are infected by only 19% of infected individuals, and that the majority of infected individuals faile to infect another person. Thus, the dispersion of a contagion, $k$, may be of more use in understanding the spread of Covid-19 than the reproduction number, R0.

The Virus Transmission with Super-spreaders model, written in NetLogo, is an adaptation of the canonical Virus Transmission on a Network model and allows the exploration of various mitigation protocols such as testing and quarantines with both homogenous transmission and heterogenous transmission.

The model consists of a population of individuals arranged in a network, where both population and network degree are tunable. At the start of the simulation, a subset of the population is initially infected. As the model runs, infected individuals will infect neighboring susceptible individuals according to either homogenous or heterogenous transmission, where heterogenous transmission models super-spreaders. In this case, k is described as the percentage of super-spreaders in the population and the differing transmission rates for super-spreaders and non super-spreaders. Infected individuals either recover, at which point they become resistant to infection, or die. Testing regimes cause discovered infected individuals to quarantine for a period of time.

ABMIND, the Agent-Based Model of Individual Psychological Distance, is a modeling framework developed to examine how psychological distance influences environmental protection behavior in coastal farming communities in southern China. Using household survey data and empirically estimated behavioral pathways, the model represents how uncertainty shapes four dimensions of psychological distance, namely temporal, spatial, social and hypothetical distance, and how these dimensions guide protection and degradation decisions. Agents include households, government actors and mangrove ecosystem patches, connected through social networks and ecological feedbacks that affect learning, expectations and perceived benefits. Policy interventions such as rewards, penalties and publicity guidance efforts work by modifying uncertainty and psychological distance rather than directly controlling behavior. ABMIND is implemented as a spatially explicit model following the ODD protocol, and a concise user guide is provided. In developing ABMIND we introduce a structured validation workflow that links statistical mediation analysis with simulation-based diagnostics, allowing empirical cognitive mechanisms to be systematically embedded and tested within the ABM. This integrated approach strengthens the credibility of psychological-mechanism models and supports their use in policy evaluation. The framework offers a methodological platform for integrating cognitive mechanisms into agent-based environmental behavior modeling and for evaluating policy strategies that support ecosystem protection.
Model paper:
ABMIND: An empirically informed agent-based model of psychological distance and environmental protection behaviour
Ecological Modelling
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2026.111700

A stylized scale model to codesign with villagers an agent-based model of bushmeat hunting in the periphery of Korup National Park (Cameroon)

We seek to improve understanding of roles enzyme play in soil food webs. We created an agent-based simulation of a simple food web that includes enzymatic activity. The model was used in a publication, Moore et al. (in press; Biochemistry).

A simplified Arthur & Polak logic circuit model of combinatory technology build-out via incremental development. Only some inventions trigger radical effects, suggesting they depend on whole interdependent systems rather than specific innovations.

The model explores how two types of information - social (in the form of pheromone trails) and private (in the form of route memories) affect ant colony level foraging in a variable enviroment.