Patch agent actions

Table of Contents

• Action creation
  • Example: Initializing one agent action
  • Example: Initializing two agent actions
• Action parameters
  • Example: Modifying action parameters
• Registration to populations
  • Example: Registering one population to an action
  • Example: Registering two populations to an action

The action tag defines a single action. Nested tags include action.parameter for parameters and action.register for registration to a population.

<actions>
    <action id="[ID]" class="[CLASS]">
        <action.parameter id="[ID]" value="[VALUE]" scale="[SCALE]" />
        <action.register id="[ID]" />
        ...
    </action>
    ...
</actions>

Action creation

The action tag attributes are used to create an action.

• Each action must have a unique id
• Each action must specify a class

Valid options for classes include:

insert

Inserts cell agents into the simulation

remove

Remove cell agents from the simulation

convert

Converts cell agents to a different population

ATTRIBUTE	DESCRIPTION	TYPE	REQUIRED
id	unique name for the action	string	Y
class	action class option	string	Y

Example: Initializing one agent action

Specifies an agent action, A, with the insert action class.

<actions>
    <action id="A" class="insert" />
</actions>

Example: Initializing two agent actions

Specifies two agent actions, A and B. Action A uses the insert action class, and action B uses the convert action class.

<actions>
    <action id="A" class="insert" />
    <action id="B" class="convert" />
</actions>

Action parameters

The action.parameter tag defines action parameters. Unless modified, default values are used for all parameters. Defaults are listed in parameter.patch.xml.

• Either or both value and scale attributes can be applied, with value applied first
• Only numeric parameters can be modified using scale

ATTRIBUTE	DESCRIPTION
id	parameter name
value	new parameter value
scale	scaling factor applied to parameter value

Example: Modifying action parameters

The insert radius parameter is set to the new value 2000.

<action.parameter id="INSERT_RADIUS" value="2000" />

The default value of the insert radius parameter is scaled by 2.

<action.parameter id="INSERT_RADIUS" scale="2" />

The insert radius parameter is set to the new value 10 * 2 = 20.

<action.parameter id="INSERT_RADIUS" value="10" scale="2" />

Registration to populations

The action.register tag registers the action to a specific population. The registered population id must match a population defined in the cell population setup. Actions may or may not need to have registered populations, depending on the specific action class. For example, the remove action does not need a registered population while the insert action may be registered to multiple populations.

ATTRIBUTE	DESCRIPTION
id	population id

Example: Registering one population to an action

The action is registered to population A.

<action.register id="A" />

Example: Registering two populations to an action

The action is registered to population A and B.

<action.register id="A" />
<action.register id="B" />