A case study and method development research of online simulation gaming to enhance youth care knowlegde exchange. Youth care professionals affirm that the application used has enough relevance as an additional tool for knowledge construction about complex cases. They state that the usability of the application is suitable, however some remarks are given to adapt the virtual environment to the special needs of youth care knowledge exchange. The method of online simulation gaming appears to be useful to improve network competences and to explore the hidden professional capacities of the participant as to the construction of situational cognition, discourse participation and the accountability of intervention choices.
Agent-based modeling is used for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous entities aiming to assessing their effects on the system as a whole. At an abstract level, an agent-based model (ABM) is a representation of the many simple agents and interactions among them. The decision making of the agents is based on the rules given to them. In an ABM, the model output is the result of internal decision-making and may differ with alteration in the decision path. On the contrary, with the set of rules embedded in agents, their behavior is modeled to take a ‘certain action’ in a ‘certain situation’. It suggests that the internal decision making behavior of agents is truly responsible for the model output and thus it cannot be ignored while validating ABMs. This research article focuses on the validating agents’ behavior by evaluating decision-making processes of agents. For this purpose, we propose a validation framework based on a participatory simulation game. Using this framework we engage a human player (i.e. a domain stakeholder) to allow us to collect information about choices and validate the behavior of an individual agent. A proof-of-concept game is developed for a city logistics ABM to test the framework.
Waste separation at companies is considered a priority to achieve a circular and sustainable society. This research explores behaviour change poli-cies for separating the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) at Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), particularly in cities. At SMEs, co-work-ers are responsible for waste disposal. Therefore, their behavioural intention to-wards pro-environmental action plays a major role. In this study, we have used agent-based modelling and simulation to explore the waste behaviour of the ac-tors in the system. The models were co-created in participatory workshops, sur-veys and interviews with stakeholders, domain experts and relevant actors. Ad-ditionally, we co-created and tested practical social and technical interventions with the model. We used the collaborative modelling method Lange reported to conceptualise, implement, test and validate the models. Five policies that affect waste separation behaviour were included in the model. The model and simula-tion results were cross-validated with the help of a literature study. The results were validated through experts and historical data to sketch a generalisable idea of networks with similar characteristics. These results indicate that combinations of behaviour profiles and certain policy interventions correlate with waste sepa-ration rates. In addition, individual waste separation policies are often limitedly capable of changing the behaviour in the system. The study also shows that the intention of co-workers concerning environmental behaviour can significantly impact waste separation rates. Future work will include the role of households, policies supporting separating multiple waste types, and the effect of waste sep-aration on various R-strategies.
