Table 5. Equivalence between features of qualitative models developed within the IPSIM framework and quantitative simulation models.

Feature	Qualitative simulation models such as theones developed with the IPSIM framework	Quantitative simulation models
Type of input variables	Nominal, ordinal, or interval	Interval
Type of state variables	Ordinal	Interval
Type of output variables	Ordinal (can be transformed into static intervalor even dynamic interval)	Interval
Model structure	Aggregation tree	Equations
Specification of the model structure	Aggregating tables	Parameters
Analysis of model’s behaviour	Table of local and global weights for eachinput and aggregated attributes	Sensitivity analyses to inputvariables and parameters
Measures of agreement (non exhaustive)	Proportion of correctly predicted ordinal classes;non parametric Wilcoxon signed rank test to analyseif the distribution of errors is significantly biasedor not; matched marginal distribution analysisor joint distribution analysis in a squarecontingency table	Bias; Mean Absolute Error; Root MeanSquared Error; Efficiency