MASON is an multi-agent simulation environment developed in Java

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

 at George Mason University

George Mason University

George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...

's Evolutionary Computation Laboratory in conjunction with the GMU Center for Social Complexity. First released in 2003, the environment continues to be maintained and kept up to date. The name, as well as referring to the parent institution, derives from the acronym

Acronym and initialism

Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be individual letters or parts of words . There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the various terms , nor on written usage...

 Multi-Agent Simulator Of Neighborhoods (or Networks).

Development

Until recently MASON was developed within the Java.net

Java.net

java.net is a Java technology related community website. It also offers a web-based source code repository for Java projects.-History:java.net was announced by Sun Microsystems during JavaOne 2003....

 environment , active development is now moving to Google Code

Google Code

Google Code is Google's site for developer tools, APIs and technical resources. The site contains documentation on using Google developer tools and APIs—including discussion groups and blogs for developers using Google's developer products....

.

Applets

Applets developed using MASON include Craig Reynolds

Craig Reynolds (computer graphics)

Craig W. Reynolds , is an artificial life and computer graphics expert, who created the Boids artificial life simulation in 1986. Reynolds worked on the film Tron as a scene programmer, and on Batman Returns as part of the video image crew. He is the author of the OpenSteer library.-External...

' Boids

Boids

Boids is an artificial life program, developed by Craig Reynolds in 1986, which simulates the flocking behaviour of birds. His paper on this topic was published in 1987 in the proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH conference...

 algorithm, Balls and Bands, a simulation of Hooke's Law

Hooke's law

In mechanics, and physics, Hooke's law of elasticity is an approximation that states that the extension of a spring is in direct proportion with the load applied to it. Many materials obey this law as long as the load does not exceed the material's elastic limit. Materials for which Hooke's law...

, an L-system

L-system

An L-system or Lindenmayer system is a parallel rewriting system, namely a variant of a formal grammar, most famously used to model the growth processes of plant development, but also able to model the morphology of a variety of organisms...

 generator, Conway's Game of Life

Conway's Game of Life

The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970....

 and Sugarscape

Sugarscape

Sugarscape is a model artificially intelligent agent-based social simulation following some or all rules presented by Joshua M. Epstein & Robert Axtell in their book Growing Artificial Societies.-Origin:...

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