----------------------- REVIEW 1 ---------------------
PAPER: 21
TITLE: Time in Discrete Agent-based Models of Socio-economic Systems
AUTHORS: Nicola Botta, Antoine Mandel and Cezar Ionescu

OVERALL RATING: -1 (weak reject)
Relevance: 2 (poor)
Originality: 2 (poor)
Technical Soundness: 3 (fair)
Presentation: 2 (poor)

The aim of this paper is to `compute time in discrete dynamical
agent-based models in the context of socio-economic modeling'.

If I understand it well, the idea is simply that an external entity
observes the system `from outside' and when all agents are done with
their current cycle, the time advances one unit.

I do not really understand the problem, I do not understand the
solution, I do not understand why this model is specific of
`socio-economic' systems, and I do not understand why the problem and
the solution needs the use of the Haskell programming language.

What if the agents are involved in a multi-party exchange protocol,
where agent 1 asks agents 2 for a quote, who asks then 3 and 4 for a
subquote, for which 4 needs again information from agent 1, etc
etc. Although sometimes the currecnt cycle of interaction between two
agents comes to a clear end, this is not necessarily the case for the
system overall.

The authors says that since we take the external observer's viewpoint,
"the messages sent by the agents -- their outgoing messages -- are
incoming. The observer's outgoing messages are those dispatched to the
agents." I find this quite absurd use of terminology. But I also do not
understand the latter part of this: does the observer decided what kind
of messages the agents receive? How about a genuine exchange of
information between agents i and j?



----------------------- REVIEW 2 ---------------------
PAPER: 21
TITLE: Time in Discrete Agent-based Models of Socio-economic Systems
AUTHORS: Nicola Botta, Antoine Mandel and Cezar Ionescu

OVERALL RATING: 0 (borderline paper)
Relevance: 2 (poor)
Originality: 3 (fair)
Technical Soundness: 4 (good)
Presentation: 3 (fair)

The authors introduce a systematic approach to time in discrete
agent-based models.

The paper is written in excellent language and the preserntation of the
paper is good.

The formal representation/specification in Haskal is comprehensible and
adquate for the time modeling.

However, there is no discussion of time concepts from the field of
agent-based simulation, which are relevant to this paper (esp. in
context of the MATES-conference) !  It is difficult to see the benefits
of the paper in the agent-research context, as there is no case study
nor simulation model discussed within the paper.



----------------------- REVIEW 3 ---------------------
PAPER: 21
TITLE: Time in Discrete Agent-based Models of Socio-economic Systems
AUTHORS: Nicola Botta, Antoine Mandel and Cezar Ionescu

OVERALL RATING: -2 (reject)
Relevance: 1 (very poor)
Originality: 3 (fair)
Technical Soundness: 2 (poor)
Presentation: 3 (fair)

There are plenty of ABM and MABS platforms around, and they provide some
notion of time. None of them is even considered here, and a new
"independent" notation is developed throughout the paper. No way to
understand what is new here, and the relevance in the MAS / ABM / MABS
field.