Glossary

Attribute

A variable associated with each simulant. For example, each simulant may have an attribute to describe their age or position.

Component

Any self-contained piece of code that can be plugged into the simulation to add some functionality. In vivarium we typically think of components as encapsulating and managing some behavior or attributes of the simulants.

Configuration

The configuration is a set of parameters a user can modify to adjust the behavior of components. Components themselves may provide defaults for several configuration parameters.

Metrics

A special pipeline in the simulation that produces the simulation outputs.

Model Specification

A complete description of a vivarium model. This description details all plugins, components, and configuration required to run the model. A model specification is stored in a yaml model specification file which is parsable by the simulation framework.

Pipeline

A vivarium value pipeline. A pipeline is a framework tool that allows users to dynamically construct and share data across several components.

Plugin

A plugin is a python class intended to add additional functionality to the core framework. Unlike a normal component which adds new behaviors and attributes to simulants, a plugin adds new services to the framework itself. Examples might include a new simulation clock, a results handling service, or a logging service.

Simulant

An individual or agent. One member of the population being simulated.

State Table

The core representation of the population in the simulation. The state table consists of a row for each simulant and a column for each attribute the simulant possesses.