This is an introduction to the special section of JASSS on the above topic. It argues for the importance of qualitative evidence in social science, and particularly in the specification of agent-based models. It ends by suggesting some criteria for judging methods for using qualitative evidence for this purpose.

In recent decades, qualitative approaches to probabilistic uncertainty have been receiving wider and wider attention. We propose a new characterization of some of the most adopted partial preference orders by providing an uniform axiomatic treatment of a variety of qualitative uncertainty notions. We prove a representation result that connects qualitative notions of partial uncertainty to their...

In the last decades, qualitative approaches to probabilistic uncertainty are receiving wider and wider attention. We propose a characterization of partial preference orders through an uniform axiomatic treatment of a variety of qualitative uncertainty notions. To this aim we prove a representation result that connects qualitative notions of partial uncertainty to their numerical counterparts. W...

This chapter presents the hybrid Temporal Trace Language (TTL) for formal specification and analysis of dynamic properties of multi-agent systems. This language supports specification of both qualitative and quantitative aspects, and subsumes languages based on differential equations and temporal logics. TTL has a high expressivity and normal forms that enable automated analysis. Software envir...

Purpose: A qualitative inquiry was conducted to investigate the qualification requirements of medical doctors in different professional fields and from different perspectives. The inquiry was part of an empirical workplace analysis. Methods: Seventy-four structured interviews were conducted and analyzed to examine critical incidents and behaviors of medical doctors working in different professi...

This paper addresses the relationship between functional (qualitative) behaviour and the more quantitative nature of performance constraints. We propose an approach based on aspect-oriented specification, which exploits the diversity and power of existing formal specification languages. Importantly, we illustrate our approach by specifying an example of an adaptive algorithm. The chosen example...

The behavior composition problem involves the automatic synthesis of a controller that is able to “realize” (i.e., implement) a desired target behavior specification by suitably coordinating a set of already available behaviors. While the problem has been thoroughly studied, one open issue has resisted a principled solution: if the target specification is not fully realizable, is there a way to...

Rational agents programmed in agent programming languages derive their choice of action from their beliefs and goals. One of the main benefits of such programming languages is that they facilitate a high-level and conceptually elegant specification of agent behaviour. Qualitative concepts alone, however, are not sufficient to specify that this behaviour is also nearly optimal, a quality typical...

Informal validation techniques such as simulation are extensively used in the development of embedded systems. Formal approaches such as model-checking and testing are important means to carry out Verification and Validation (V&V) activities. Model-checking consists in exploring all possible behaviors of a model in order to perform a qualitative and quantitative analysis. However, this method r...