The York Research Database

A collaboration between cancer biologists and
academic software engineers has been exploring the
development of an agent-based simulator to inform and
support work on the dynamics of cell proliferation in the
study of prostate disorders. The research has influenced and
been informed by the CoSMoS project. This paper presents
the simulation project (which is not yet complete). We
reflect on the reality of following CoSMoS principles; we
describe the domain exploration and show how software
modelling approaches (here, Petri nets, state diagrams) can
be used to express both biological and software models.
We explore fitness for purpose and consider ways to
present a fitness argument. We consider issues in choosing
simulation media and mapping from domain models
through to code. The implementation emphasis is on
traceability to support reuse and extension of the simulator,
as well as demonstrable fitness for purpose. Initial work on
calibration is presented. We discuss the calibration results,
that both support and challenge the design and assumptions
captured in the domain modelling and development
activities.