Presentation at the IMA conference in Luxembourg
I will be giving a presentation titled “LIAM2 - overview and recently added features” at the Fifth World Congress of the International Microsimulation Association, 2-4 September 2015, Luxembourg.
Abstract
This presentation will be divided into two parts. First a quick overview of what is LIAM2, then a description of all the new features since the LIAM2 course at the IMA conference in 2013 and more briefly those since our initial presentation in 2011. Each of those features will be briefly explained with examples of how they were used in real models.
Overview
LIAM2 is a free, open source, user-friendly modelling and simulation framework. It is made as generic as possible so that it can be used to develop almost any type of discrete-time dynamic microsimulation model with cross-sectional dynamic ageing (i.e. all individuals are simulated at the same time for one period, then for the next period, etc.). LIAM2 is clearly aiming to free “modellers” from having to develop or care about having state-of-the-art methods for data-handling or expression evaluation and yet be able to handle relatively large datasets at a reasonable speed. For example, a model like MIDAS in Belgium simulated over 60 years with 2.2 million individuals initially could be developed in a user-friendly environment and is run in less than 4 hours. To date, LIAM2 has been adopted by modellers in at least 7 countries.
New features since 2011
- model imports and model variants
- many new functions including:
- charting functions
- aggregate functions: gini, percentile, ...
- new alignment options (using absolute values or on a linked entity using Chenard’s algorithm)
- debugging functions (assertions, ...)
- data viewer (HDF5 viewer)
- syntax changes
- officially open source and hosted on GitHub
New features since 2013
- user defined functions
- while loops
- improved handling of external data
- new matching algorithms
- more random number generators
