pyvote - Project Hosting on Google Code

Older Dec 05, 2008 issue 5 (Installation Script(s)) reported by MarkRoddy - 1) For the framework to be installed script(s) to generate python style installers are needed, this can be handled easily with the distutils module. 2) Once said scripts have been implemented, it would be benefitially to have some easy method of running all said scripts. A new target in the makefile could easily accomplish this. Note that this task will most like not be desirable to be worked on until after the next major iteration as major changes are expected which would break any installation scripts 1) For the framework to be installed script(s) to generate python style installers are needed, this can be handled easily with the distutils module. 2) Once said scripts have been implemented, it would be benefitially to have some easy method of running all said scripts. A new target in the makefile could easily accomplish this. Note that this task will most like not be desirable to be worked on until after the next major iteration as major changes are expected which would break any installation scripts Dec 02, 2008 issue 4 (Automate Creation of API documentation) reported by MarkRoddy - API documentation existing at http://dibon.homelinux.org/pyvote is currently being manually created and uploaded. This process should be automated so that the source code is checked for updates and automatically regenerated whenever a change is observed. API documentation existing at http://dibon.homelinux.org/pyvote is currently being manually created and uploaded. This process should be automated so that the source code is checked for updates and automatically regenerated whenever a change is observed. Dec 02, 2008 issue 2 (Move from TwoParty to MultiParty) commented on by MarkRoddy - Suggested possible changes (note this is note meant to be all inclusive): 1) Add a class that defines the set of available parties that gets supplied to classes that care about the differentiation between agent parties. At first inspection this would be the Legislature and Committee classes. 2) Remove methods for getting agents or information on them based on their party in favor of a AgentCollection mixin class (see Issue 3). Suggested possible changes (note this is note meant to be all inclusive): 1) Add a class that defines the set of available parties that gets supplied to classes that care about the differentiation between agent parties. At first inspection this would be the Legislature and Committee classes. 2) Remove methods for getting agents or information on them based on their party in favor of a AgentCollection mixin class (see Issue 3). Dec 02, 2008 issue 3 (PartyAgent Container Mixin Class) reported by MarkRoddy - A single mixin class that defines methods for a class that can be considered a conceptional collection of Agents. Legislature and Committee classes are example of these. This will allow changes to how agents are aggregated in a central class rather then having to make such changes in multiple classes. For example, the desired work for Issue 2 will require changing the aggregation of Agents in the Committee and Legislature classes. This would be easier if there was a single class to make these changes in. A single mixin class that defines methods for a class that can be considered a conceptional collection of Agents. Legislature and Committee classes are example of these. This will allow changes to how agents are aggregated in a central class rather then having to make such changes in multiple classes. For example, the desired work for Issue 2 will require changing the aggregation of Agents in the Committee and Legislature classes. This would be easier if there was a single class to make these changes in. Dec 02, 2008 issue 2 (Move from TwoParty to MultiParty) reported by agconway - Outstanding issue that we have talked about before. We need to consider how to move forward with generalizing the framework to multi-party experiments. Outstanding issue that we have talked about before. We need to consider how to move forward with generalizing the framework to multi-party experiments. Dec 02, 2008 issue 1 (Agent utility function needs to be generalized) reported by agconway - Currently, the agent utility function is hard-coded into the framework. This needs to be made general, where the user can pass one or several utility functions to the Legislature object, and agents then calculate utility appropriately. Currently, the agent utility function is hard-coded into the framework. This needs to be made general, where the user can pass one or several utility functions to the Legislature object, and agents then calculate utility appropriately. Dec 02, 2008 GCS_experiment.zip (The 'greedy conservative' simulation) file uploaded by agconway - Labels: Featured Type-Source Labels: Featured Type-Source Dec 02, 2008 r45 (MAJOR UPDATE: The TwoPartyAgent and Committee classes have ...) committed by agconway - MAJOR UPDATE: The TwoPartyAgent and Committee classes have undergone substantial change. These changes have been to support the "greedy conservative" experiment. 1. The framework now accounts for how much time (in voting periods) it is taking agents to pass a bill 2. Agent utility is now based on a function that accounts for this time, and in the current formulation, the agents are punished for taking longer 3. Agents can look ahead to calculate the amount of utility lost by holding out from voting 4. Agent's internal voting mechanism has become more intricate, and will likely need additional testing. MAJOR UPDATE: The TwoPartyAgent and Committee classes have undergone substantial change. These changes have been to support the "greedy conservative" experiment. 1. The framework now accounts for how much time (in voting periods) it is taking agents to pass a bill 2. Agent utility is now based on a function that accounts for this time, and in the current formulation, the agents are punished for taking longer 3. Agents can look ahead to calculate the amount of utility lost by holding out from voting 4. Agent's internal voting mechanism has become more intricate, and will likely need additional testing. Nov 14, 2008 r44 (Added ability to predefine committee members in Committee cl...) committed by agconway - Added ability to predefine committee members in Committee class. Added ability to predefine committee members in Committee class. Nov 07, 2008 r43 (Added function to Bill class that will tell user if the Bill...) committed by agconway - Added function to Bill class that will tell user if the Bill passed Added function to Bill class that will tell user if the Bill passed Nov 05, 2008 r42 (Removed some debugging output from voting procedures.) committed by agconway - Removed some debugging output from voting procedures. Removed some debugging output from voting procedures. Nov 05, 2008 r41 (Fixed major bug in TwoPartyAgent.vote that was causing agent...) committed by agconway - Fixed major bug in TwoPartyAgent.vote that was causing agents with 100% probability of voting for a bill to NOT vote for the bill. Agents now behave as intended, and no bill will ever receive 0 votes, as there will always be 1 agent for which there is a 100% probability of getting a YAY. Fixed major bug in TwoPartyAgent.vote that was causing agents with 100% probability of voting for a bill to NOT vote for the bill. Agents now behave as intended, and no bill will ever receive 0 votes, as there will always be 1 agent for which there is a 100% probability of getting a YAY. Oct 29, 2008 r40 (Removed verbose print outputs from Agent class testing) committed by agconway - Removed verbose print outputs from Agent class testing Removed verbose print outputs from Agent class testing Oct 29, 2008 r39 (Agent class now contains internal voting mechanism that retu...) committed by agconway - Agent class now contains internal voting mechanism that returns Boolean. This voting mechanism has two options: 1. Probabilistic - the probability an agent will vote YAY for a change in the status quo is based on the distance a new bill is from the agent's ideology. This is defined as 1-distance(agent_ideology,new_ideology), meaning the shorter the distance, the higher the probability. Probability is executed by a single draw from a uniform distribution of the [0.0,1.0]. This adds stochastic noise to voting, because agents will no longer vote by strictly maximizing utility 2. Strict utility maximizing - agents will only vote YAY for bills that move the status quo closer to their ideal points. Agent class now contains internal voting mechanism that returns Boolean. This voting mechanism has two options: 1. Probabilistic - the probability an agent will vote YAY for a change in the status quo is based on the distance a new bill is from the agent's ideology. This is defined as 1-distance(agent_ideology,new_ideology), meaning the shorter the distance, the higher the probability. Probability is executed by a single draw from a uniform distribution of the [0.0,1.0]. This adds stochastic noise to voting, because agents will no longer vote by strictly maximizing utility 2. Strict utility maximizing - agents will only vote YAY for bills that move the status quo closer to their ideal points. Oct 23, 2008 r38 (Fixed a bug in the Committee class that was not creating eve...) committed by agconway - Fixed a bug in the Committee class that was not creating even evenly divided committees when the committee size was given as an even integer. The class now creates an evenly split committee was the size is even, and a +1 advantage to the party in power when the committee size is odd. Fixed a bug in the Committee class that was not creating even evenly divided committees when the committee size was given as an even integer. The class now creates an evenly split committee was the size is even, and a +1 advantage to the party in power when the committee size is odd. Oct 19, 2008 r37 (Adding initial unit test case for the TwoPartyLegislature cl...) committed by MarkRoddy - Adding initial unit test case for the TwoPartyLegislature class. More tests to follow. Adding initial unit test case for the TwoPartyLegislature class. More tests to follow. Oct 19, 2008 r36 (Fixed bug in TwoPartyAgent class constructor. Conservative ...) committed by MarkRoddy - Fixed bug in TwoPartyAgent class constructor. Conservative agents are meant to subtract the tolerance function result from the tolerance, and not add it as is the case of liberal agents. A unit test has been added to check for this issue. Fixed bug in TwoPartyAgent class constructor. Conservative agents are meant to subtract the tolerance function result from the tolerance, and not add it as is the case of liberal agents. A unit test has been added to check for this issue. Oct 18, 2008 r35 (Added equals() function to the TwoPartyAgent class and overr...) committed by MarkRoddy - Added equals() function to the TwoPartyAgent class and overrode the == and != operators. Also added unit tests to check this functionality Added equals() function to the TwoPartyAgent class and overrode the == and != operators. Also added unit tests to check this functionality Oct 18, 2008 r34 (Removed extranious white space from the makefile) committed by MarkRoddy - Removed extranious white space from the makefile Removed extranious white space from the makefile Oct 18, 2008 r33 (Added new target 'dist' for creating distribution files. Cu...) committed by MarkRoddy - Added new target 'dist' for creating distribution files. Currently this creates a zip of python files in the current directory, but this can be expanded in the future to create other distributable files such as eggs, deb, and rpm. Added new target 'dist' for creating distribution files. Currently this creates a zip of python files in the current directory, but this can be expanded in the future to create other distributable files such as eggs, deb, and rpm. Oct 18, 2008 r32 (Updated version number in the TwoPartyLegistlature module to...) committed by MarkRoddy - Updated version number in the TwoPartyLegistlature module to reflect the current version. Also, create standard module level variable __version__ to store this information. Updated version number in the TwoPartyLegistlature module to reflect the current version. Also, create standard module level variable __version__ to store this information. Oct 18, 2008 r31 (Adding make file which contains targets for performing commo...) committed by MarkRoddy - Adding make file which contains targets for performing common commands. Adding make file which contains targets for performing common commands. Oct 18, 2008 r30 (Placed code to be run inside a main() function. This allows...) committed by MarkRoddy - Placed code to be run inside a main() function. This allows the api documentation to run over this module. It also allows the code to be run via the interpreter. Placed code to be run inside a main() function. This allows the api documentation to run over this module. It also allows the code to be run via the interpreter. Oct 18, 2008 r29 (Changed import of networkx. Now import the module and not en...) committed by MarkRoddy - Changed import of networkx. Now import the module and not entities from it. This way, if UbiGraph isn't installed yet an error will be observed at run time rather then compile time. In addition, it will allow for command line options being used so that users can specify whether or not they have this software installed. Changed import of networkx. Now import the module and not entities from it. This way, if UbiGraph isn't installed yet an error will be observed at run time rather then compile time. In addition, it will allow for command line options being used so that users can specify whether or not they have this software installed. Oct 18, 2008 r28 (Converted function code comments to doc strings in the Bill ...) committed by MarkRoddy - Converted function code comments to doc strings in the Bill class so that this information can be made available in api documentation generation systems. Converted function code comments to doc strings in the Bill class so that this information can be made available in api documentation generation systems. Oct 18, 2008 r27 (Added test fixtures for the get_record(), num_liberal_yays()...) committed by MarkRoddy - Added test fixtures for the get_record(), num_liberal_yays(), and num_conservative_yays() functions on the Bill class. Added test fixtures for the get_record(), num_liberal_yays(), and num_conservative_yays() functions on the Bill class. Oct 18, 2008 r26 (Added arguments to the constructor of the Bill class so that...) committed by MarkRoddy - Added arguments to the constructor of the Bill class so that the party, ideology, and id of the bill can be specified at the creation time of an object. Added arguments to the constructor of the Bill class so that the party, ideology, and id of the bill can be specified at the creation time of an object. Oct 18, 2008 r25 (Added test fixture for the new determine_party() method.) committed by MarkRoddy - Added test fixture for the new determine_party() method. Added test fixture for the new determine_party() method. Oct 18, 2008 r24 (Seperated the process of determining the party of an agent b...) committed by MarkRoddy - Seperated the process of determining the party of an agent based on their ideology into its own function. This will allow subclasses to easily specify their own method of determing what party an agent is in. For example, supporting more then two parties would require a change in how to determine what party an agent is in. Seperated the process of determining the party of an agent based on their ideology into its own function. This will allow subclasses to easily specify their own method of determing what party an agent is in. For example, supporting more then two parties would require a change in how to determine what party an agent is in. Oct 18, 2008 r23 (Refactored the TwoPartyAgent class constructor to only gener...) committed by MarkRoddy - Refactored the TwoPartyAgent class constructor to only generate a random ideology input if not specified caller instead of generating a party and a ideology input. This prevents the possiblity of an agent having a ideology that does not match their party affiliation. While small, the possiblity of this occuring exists in the previous desgin. Also, by placing the process of generating the ideology in a seperate function, consumers of the class can override this function and specify their own manner of generating ideology. For instance, to generate a set of agents in which the ideology of those agents is scewed in favor of one party over another. Refactored the TwoPartyAgent class constructor to only generate a random ideology input if not specified caller instead of generating a party and a ideology input. This prevents the possiblity of an agent having a ideology that does not match their party affiliation. While small, the possiblity of this occuring exists in the previous desgin. Also, by placing the process of generating the ideology in a seperate function, consumers of the class can override this function and specify their own manner of generating ideology. For instance, to generate a set of agents in which the ideology of those agents is scewed in favor of one party over another. Oct 18, 2008 r22 (Converted 8 space tab translation to 4 space tab translation...) committed by MarkRoddy - Converted 8 space tab translation to 4 space tab translation. 8 proved to be much too long. Converted 8 space tab translation to 4 space tab translation. 8 proved to be much too long. Oct 18, 2008 r21 (Converted tab characters to space characters to be uniform a...) committed by MarkRoddy - Converted tab characters to space characters to be uniform across the file. Converted tab characters to space characters to be uniform across the file. Oct 18, 2008 r20 (Simplified code used to generate the ideology for an agent i...) committed by MarkRoddy - Simplified code used to generate the ideology for an agent if it was not specified. Several pieces of code were duplicated between the if statement that checked if the party of conservative or liberal. The code has been changed so that only the conservative party is checked for, and if so the list of samples is reversed (to scale above .5). This allows all the other lines of code to not be repeated. Simplified code used to generate the ideology for an agent if it was not specified. Several pieces of code were duplicated between the if statement that checked if the party of conservative or liberal. The code has been changed so that only the conservative party is checked for, and if so the list of samples is reversed (to scale above .5). This allows all the other lines of code to not be repeated. Oct 18, 2008 r19 (Added option of passing a file like object to the TwoPartyAg...) committed by MarkRoddy - Added option of passing a file like object to the TwoPartyAgent.info() function so that the information can be printed to alternative destinations. By default the destination will be to sys.stdout which means that the behavior of this function will not change for code already written against it. Added option of passing a file like object to the TwoPartyAgent.info() function so that the information can be printed to alternative destinations. By default the destination will be to sys.stdout which means that the behavior of this function will not change for code already written against it. Oct 18, 2008 r18 (Converted function and class comments into doc string so the...) committed by MarkRoddy - Converted function and class comments into doc string so they may be consumed by API documentation. Converted function and class comments into doc string so they may be consumed by API documentation. Oct 18, 2008 r17 (Added 'constant' variables to represent the id's of the libe...) committed by MarkRoddy - Added 'constant' variables to represent the id's of the liberal and conservative parties and replaced hardcoded 1's and 0's with references to these constant variables in the TwoPartyAgent class. This makes the code straight forward by explicitly stating in the code what party is being assigned or queried rather then seeing a 0 or a 1 and having to worry about determining what party is being referenced. This will also make it easier to add more parties in the future by adding more party constants. Added 'constant' variables to represent the id's of the liberal and conservative parties and replaced hardcoded 1's and 0's with references to these constant variables in the TwoPartyAgent class. This makes the code straight forward by explicitly stating in the code what party is being assigned or queried rather then seeing a 0 or a 1 and having to worry about determining what party is being referenced. This will also make it easier to add more parties in the future by adding more party constants. Oct 18, 2008 r16 (Fixed error in the Bill.info() function that did not properl...) committed by MarkRoddy - Fixed error in the Bill.info() function that did not properly handle bills that had not yet been voted upon. Also added new unit test to check for this error. Fixed error in the Bill.info() function that did not properly handle bills that had not yet been voted upon. Also added new unit test to check for this error. Oct 18, 2008 r15 (Added initial unit test case for the Bill class. Test for n...) committed by MarkRoddy - Added initial unit test case for the Bill class. Test for num_liberal_yays() and num_conservative_yays() functions to be implemented shortly. Added initial unit test case for the Bill class. Test for num_liberal_yays() and num_conservative_yays() functions to be implemented shortly. Oct 17, 2008 r14 (Added functions with TwoPartyAgent and TwoPartyLegislature c...) committed by agconway - Added functions with TwoPartyAgent and TwoPartyLegislature class to return individual and aggregate utilities respectively Added functions with TwoPartyAgent and TwoPartyLegislature class to return individual and aggregate utilities respectively Oct 16, 2008 r13 (New simulation script based on additional functionality) committed by agconway - New simulation script based on additional functionality New simulation script based on additional functionality Oct 16, 2008 r12 (Added 'get_ideologies' function to TwoPartyLegislature' clas...) committed by agconway - Added 'get_ideologies' function to TwoPartyLegislature' class Added 'get_ideologies' function to TwoPartyLegislature' class Oct 16, 2008 r11 (Added missing 'majority' function to TwoPartyLegislature cla...) committed by agconway - Added missing 'majority' function to TwoPartyLegislature class Added missing 'majority' function to TwoPartyLegislature class Oct 16, 2008 r10 (A new simulation test that takes advantage of the new Agent ...) committed by agconway - A new simulation test that takes advantage of the new Agent and Committee functionality A new simulation test that takes advantage of the new Agent and Committee functionality Oct 16, 2008 r9 (1. Agents now seek to maximize 'utility', which is calculate...) committed by agconway - 1. Agents now seek to maximize 'utility', which is calculated as the one-dimensional distance between the agent's ideology and the status quo on any policy. NOTE: In this version, agents no longer care about their 'tolerance'. Accounting for how agents will try to maximize utility while having a tolerance will be part of the next iteration. 1. Complete overhaul of how a committee creates a bill. Committees are now given a 'status quo' based on the median voter of the majority party (by default, can also be provided by nature or the user). Then, an assigned 'agenda setter' agent decides if it is in its best interest to propose a bill that changes the status quo, ie increases its utility. The new bill, however, must be something that would be voted up by a majority of the committee members, as to inject committee level compromise. 1. Agents now seek to maximize 'utility', which is calculated as the one-dimensional distance between the agent's ideology and the status quo on any policy. NOTE: In this version, agents no longer care about their 'tolerance'. Accounting for how agents will try to maximize utility while having a tolerance will be part of the next iteration. 1. Complete overhaul of how a committee creates a bill. Committees are now given a 'status quo' based on the median voter of the majority party (by default, can also be provided by nature or the user). Then, an assigned 'agenda setter' agent decides if it is in its best interest to propose a bill that changes the status quo, ie increases its utility. The new bill, however, must be something that would be voted up by a majority of the committee members, as to inject committee level compromise. Oct 15, 2008 r8 (Added error check to ensure that id's are integer types and ...) committed by MarkRoddy - Added error check to ensure that id's are integer types and a unit test to assert that the proper exception is raised when this is not the case. Added error check to ensure that id's are integer types and a unit test to assert that the proper exception is raised when this is not the case. Oct 15, 2008 r7 (Added test to check that an error is raised when adding a vo...) committed by MarkRoddy - Added test to check that an error is raised when adding a vote to an agent when the vote is not 0 or 1 (as apposed to simply being outside the [0,1] range), and updated the check in the add_record() method to check that the vote is either 0 or 1 only and not values in between. Added test to check that an error is raised when adding a vote to an agent when the vote is not 0 or 1 (as apposed to simply being outside the [0,1] range), and updated the check in the add_record() method to check that the vote is either 0 or 1 only and not values in between. Oct 10, 2008 r6 (Completed initial version of TwoPartyAgentTests class for te...) committed by MarkRoddy - Completed initial version of TwoPartyAgentTests class for testing the TwoPartyAgent class. Several implementation details of this class need to be confirmed before this set of tests can be 'officially' completed. Completed initial version of TwoPartyAgentTests class for testing the TwoPartyAgent class. Several implementation details of this class need to be confirmed before this set of tests can be 'officially' completed. Oct 10, 2008 r5 (Modified the TwoPartyAgent to properly take user input on th...) committed by agconway - Modified the TwoPartyAgent to properly take user input on the 'ideology' value Modified the TwoPartyAgent to properly take user input on the 'ideology' value Oct 09, 2008 r4 (commit) committed by agconway - commit commit Oct 09, 2008 r3 (commit) committed by agconway - commit commit

r9 (1. Agents now seek to maximize 'utility', which is calculate...) committed by agconway - 1. Agents now seek to maximize 'utility', which is calculated as the one-dimensional distance between the agent's ideology and the status quo on any policy. NOTE: In this version, agents no longer care about their 'tolerance'. Accounting for how agents will try to maximize utility while having a tolerance will be part of the next iteration. 1. Complete overhaul of how a committee creates a bill. Committees are now given a 'status quo' based on the median voter of the majority party (by default, can also be provided by nature or the user). Then, an assigned 'agenda setter' agent decides if it is in its best interest to propose a bill that changes the status quo, ie increases its utility. The new bill, however, must be something that would be voted up by a majority of the committee members, as to inject committee level compromise.

1. Agents now seek to maximize 'utility', which is calculated as the one-dimensional distance between the agent's ideology and the status quo on any policy. NOTE: In this version, agents no longer care about their 'tolerance'. Accounting for how agents will try to maximize utility while having a tolerance will be part of the next iteration. 1. Complete overhaul of how a committee creates a bill. Committees are now given a 'status quo' based on the median voter of the majority party (by default, can also be provided by nature or the user). Then, an assigned 'agenda setter' agent decides if it is in its best interest to propose a bill that changes the status quo, ie increases its utility. The new bill, however, must be something that would be voted up by a majority of the committee members, as to inject committee level compromise.

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