Table 1.

Table of ABM terminology

Entity	An independent element of the model, such as a cell or protein.
Finite state machine	A finite state machine consists of a set of states, which may include substates, some of which are orthogonal (simultaneous states). A finite state machine may exist in only one state for each orthogonal group at a time.
Agent	An autonomous, self‐directed representation of an entity, operating as a finite‐state machine.
Space	Computational representation of the physical spatial compartments within which agents are contained.
Environment	Features in space, which provide a context for agent interactions and behaviors, may contain distributions of molecular concentrations that both influence and can be influenced by agent behavior.
Neighborhood	The local environment in which an agent exists, often described as the agents adjacent to, or in contact with a specific agent.
Neighbor	An agent that exists within the neighborhood of another agent.
Model	A nonexecutable description of a system, which may be described in an abstract manner, or for a platform‐specific implementation as a simulation.
Simulation	An executable implementation of a model specification.
Step	An iteration in time of a discrete‐event simulation.
Hybridization	Using a combination of modeling techniques to capture aspects of the system at different scales in a tractable manner, to overcome the limitations associated with using each technique in isolation.
Multiscale	A model combining processes occurring at different orders of magnitude of time and length.
Richness	The detail contained within an agent, environment or model; comprising internal representations of properties such as cell‐surface protein levels, gene expression, etc.