S. D. Roberts
ABSTRACT
INSIGHT, a general purpose discrete event simulation language, has been designed to be easy to learn and use, making simulation accessible to a community of users having little or no previous simulation or programming experience. Because the language also presumes that its users have minimal statistical expertise, considerable attention has been given to statistical issues within the language, so users can enjoy the benefits of sound statistical analysis without the burden of detailed specifications. A wide range of statistical input distribution types are provided, including a time-varying arrival process and the univariate and multivariate Johnson System. INSIGHT simulations automatically produce a summary report, designed to represent the behavior of the simulation from several perspectives. The experimental framework of INSIGHT promotes proper computation of the variance of means. Variance reduction using correlation induction can be easily invoked. A non-procedural method of extending summary statistics and producing statistics on arbitrary values is available. INSIGHT's attention to statistical issues makes sound statistical analysis a natural partner of modeling. The convenience of such statistics facilities promotes the routine use of statistical concepts in examining and constructing simulations.
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Index Terms
- Statistical issues in a general-purpose simulation modeling language
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