Random Number Generation

Random Numbers in vivarium

This module contains classes and functions supporting common random numbers.

Vivarium has some peculiar needs around randomness. We need to be totally consistent between branches in a comparison. For example, if a simulant gets hit by a truck in the base case it must be hit by that same truck in the counter-factual at exactly the same moment unless the counter-factual explicitly deals with traffic accidents. That means that the system can’t rely on standard global randomness sources because small changes to the number of bits consumed or the order in which randomness consuming operations occur will cause the system to diverge.

The current approach is to generate hash-based seeds where the key is the simulation time, the simulant’s id, the draw number and a unique id for the decision point which needs the randomness. These seeds are then used to generate numpy.random.RandomState objects that can be used to create pseudo-random numbers in a repeatable manner.

For more information, see the Common Random Numbers concept note.

• Randomness System Exceptions
• RandomnessError
• Randomness IndexMap
• IndexMap
• Randomness System Manager
• RandomnessManager
• RandomnessInterface
• Randomness Streams
• get_hash()
• RandomnessStream