EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book Simulating Social Complexity

Download or read book Simulating Social Complexity written by Bruce Edmonds and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-24 with total page 838 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines all aspects of using agent or individual-based simulation. This approach represents systems as individual elements having their own set of differing states and internal processes. The interactions between elements in the simulation represent interactions in the target systems. What makes this "social" is that it can represent an observed society. Social systems include all those systems where the components have individual agency but also interact with each other. This includes human societies and groups, but also increasingly socio-technical systems where the internet-based devices form the substrate for interaction. These systems are central to our lives, but are among the most complex known. This poses particular problems for those who wish to understand them. The complexity often makes analytic approaches infeasible but, on the other hand, natural language approaches are also inadequate for relating intricate cause and effect. This is why individual and agent-based computational approaches hold out the possibility of new and deeper understanding of such systems. This handbook marks the maturation of this new field. It brings together summaries of the best thinking and practices in this area from leading researchers in the field and constitutes a reference point for standards against which future methodological advances can be judged. This second edition adds new chapters on different modelling purposes and applying software engineering methods to simulation development. Revised existing content will keep the book up-to-date with recent developments. This volume will help those new to the field avoid "reinventing the wheel" each time, and give them a solid and wide grounding in the essential issues. It will also help those already in the field by providing accessible overviews of current thought. The material is divided into four sections: Introduction, Methodology, Mechanisms, and Applications. Each chapter starts with a very brief section called ‘Why read this chapter?’ followed by an abstract, which summarizes the content of the chapter. Each chapter also ends with a section on ‘Further Reading’. Whilst sometimes covering technical aspects, this second edition of Simulating Social Complexity is designed to be accessible to a wide range of researchers, including both those from the social sciences as well as those with a more formal background. It will be of use as a standard reference text in the field and also be suitable for graduate level courses.

Book Simulating Social Complexity

Download or read book Simulating Social Complexity written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social systems are among the most complex known. This poses particular problems for those who wish to understand them. The complexity often makes analytic approaches infeasible and natural language approaches inadequate for relating intricate cause and effect. However, individual- and agent-based computational approaches hold out the possibility of new and deeper understanding of such systems. Simulating Social Complexity examines all aspects of using agent- or individual-based simulation. This approach represents systems as individual elements having each their own set of differing states and internal processes. The interactions between elements in the simulation represent interactions in the target systems. What makes these elements "social" is that they are usefully interpretable as interacting elements of an observed society. In this, the focus is on human society, but can be extended to include social animals or artificial agents where such work enhances our understanding of human society. The phenomena of interest then result (emerge) from the dynamics of the interaction of social actors in an essential way and are usually not easily simplifiable by, for example, considering only representative actors. The introduction of accessible agent-based modelling allows the representation of social complexity in a more natural and direct manner than previous techniques. In particular, it is no longer necessary to distort a model with the introduction of overly strong assumptions simply in order to obtain analytic tractability. This makes agent-based modelling relatively accessible to a range of scientists. The outcomes of such models can be displayed and animated in ways that also make them more interpretable by experts and stakeholders. This handbook is intended to help in the process of maturation of this new field. It brings together, through the collaborative effort of many leading researchers, summaries of the best thinking and practice in this area and constitutes a reference point for standards against which future methodological advances are judged. This book will help those entering into the field to avoid "reinventing the wheel" each time, but it will also help those already in the field by providing accessible overviews of current thought. The material is divided into four sections: Introductory, Methodology, Mechanisms, and Applications. Each chapter starts with a very brief section called 'Why read this chapter?' followed by an abstract, which summarizes the content of the chapter. Each chapter also ends with a section of 'Further Reading' briefly describing three to eight items that a newcomer might read next.

Book Social Self Organization

Download or read book Social Self Organization written by Dirk Helbing and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-05-05 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the principles that keep our society together? This question is even more difficult to answer than the long-standing question, what are the forces that keep our world together. However, the social challenges of humanity in the 21st century ranging from the financial crises to the impacts of globalization, require us to make fast progress in our understanding of how society works, and how our future can be managed in a resilient and sustainable way. This book can present only a few very first steps towards this ambitious goal. However, based on simple models of social interactions, one can already gain some surprising insights into the social, ``macro-level'' outcomes and dynamics that is implied by individual, ``micro-level'' interactions. Depending on the nature of these interactions, they may imply the spontaneous formation of social conventions or the birth of social cooperation, but also their sudden breakdown. This can end in deadly crowd disasters or tragedies of the commons (such as financial crises or environmental destruction). Furthermore, we demonstrate that classical modeling approaches (such as representative agent models) do not provide a sufficient understanding of the self-organization in social systems resulting from individual interactions. The consideration of randomness, spatial or network interdependencies, and nonlinear feedback effects turns out to be crucial to get fundamental insights into how social patterns and dynamics emerge. Given the explanation of sometimes counter-intuitive phenomena resulting from these features and their combination, our evolutionary modeling approach appears to be powerful and insightful. The chapters of this book range from a discussion of the modeling strategy for socio-economic systems over experimental issues up the right way of doing agent-based modeling. We furthermore discuss applications ranging from pedestrian and crowd dynamics over opinion formation, coordination, and cooperation up to conflict, and also address the response to information, issues of systemic risks in society and economics, and new approaches to manage complexity in socio-economic systems. Selected parts of this book had been previously published in peer reviewed journals.

Book Simulation For The Social Scientist

Download or read book Simulation For The Social Scientist written by Gilbert, Nigel and published by McGraw-Hill Education (UK). This book was released on 2005-02-01 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social sciences -- Simulation methods. Social interaction -- Computer simulation. Social sciences -- Mathematical models. (publisher)

Book Agent Based Modeling for Archaeology

Download or read book Agent Based Modeling for Archaeology written by Iza Romanowska and published by SFI Press. This book was released on 2021-08-02 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To fully understand not only the past, but also the trajectories, of human societies, we need a more dynamic view of human social systems. Agent-based modeling (ABM), which can create fine-scale models of behavior over time and space, may reveal important, general patterns of human activity. Agent-Based Modeling for Archaeology is the first ABM textbook designed for researchers studying the human past. Appropriate for scholars from archaeology, the digital humanities, and other social sciences, this book offers novices and more experienced ABM researchers a modular approach to learning ABM and using it effectively. Readers will find the necessary background, discussion of modeling techniques and traps, references, and algorithms to use ABM in their own work. They will also find engaging examples of how other scholars have applied ABM, ranging from the study of the intercontinental migration pathways of early hominins, to the weather–crop–population cycles of the American Southwest, to the trade networks of Ancient Rome. This textbook provides the foundations needed to simulate the complexity of past human societies, offering researchers a richer understanding of the past—and likely future—of our species.

Book Modeling Complexity in Economic and Social Systems

Download or read book Modeling Complexity in Economic and Social Systems written by Frank Schweitzer and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2002-12-09 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economics and the social sciences are, in fact, the “hard” sciences, as Herbert Simon argued, because the complexity of the problems dealt with cannot simply be reduced to analytically solvable models or decomposed into separate subprocesses. Nevertheless, in recent years, the emerging interdisciplinary “sciences of complexity” have provided new methods and tools for tackling these problems, ranging from complex data analysis to sophisticated computer simulations. In particular, advanced methods developed in the natural sciences have recently also been applied to social and economic problems. The twenty-one chapters of this book reflect this modern development from various modeling perspectives (such as agent-based models, evolutionary game theory, reinforcement learning and neural network techniques, time series analysis, non-equilibrium macroscopic dynamics) and for a broad range of socio-economic applications (market dynamics, technological evolution, spatial dynamics and economic growth, decision processes, and agent societies). They jointly demonstrate a shift of perspective in economics and the social sciences that is allowing a new outlook in this field to emerge. Contents:Market Dynamics:Trading Behavior and Excess Volatility in Toy Markets (M Marsili & D Challet)Percolation Models of Financial Market Dynamics (D Stauffer)Electrodynamical Model of Quasi-Efficient Financial Markets (K N Ilinski & A S Stepanenko)Multi-Agent Market Modeling of Foreign Exchange Rates (G Zimmermann et al.)Forecasting Price Increments Using an Artificial Neural Network (F Castiglione)Spectral Regularization, Data Complexity and Agent Behavior (A Ilyinsky)Technological Evolution:Dynamics of Economic and Technological Search Processes in Complex Adaptive Landscapes (W Ebeling et al.)New Results in a Self-Organized Model of Technological Evolution (A Arenas et al.)Firms' Decision-Making Process in an Evolutionary Model of Industrial Dynamics (W Kwasnicki)Spatial Dynamics and Economic Growth:Modelling Migration and Economic Agglomeration with Active Brownian Particles (F Schweitzer)The Evolution of Industrial Clusters — Simulating Spatial Dynamics (T Brenner & N Weigelt)The Growth Dynamics of German Business Firms (J Voit)A Dynamic Theory of a Firm: An Application of ‘Economic Forces’ (M Estola)Decision Processes:Adaptive Platform Dynamics in Multi-Party Spatial Voting (B M R Stadler)Subtle Nonlinearity in Popular Album Charts (R A Bentley & H D G Maschner)Dynamical Aspects in the Adoption of Agri-Environmental Measures (G Weisbuch & G Boudjema)Collective Choice and Mutual Knowledge Structures (D Richards et al.)Agent Societies:Evolutionary Study of Interethnic Co-Operation (V Kvasnicka & J Pospichal)Coalition Factor in the Evolution of Non-Kin Altruism (J-L Dessalles)Optimal Payoff Functions for Members of Collectives (D H Wolpert & K Tumer)A Day at the Beach: Human Agents Self-Organizing on the Sand Pile (H Ishii et al.) Readership: Researchers in the field of complex system science, economists, sociologists, physicists with an interdisciplinary focus, graduates, and professionals. Keywords:

Book New Thinking in Complexity for the Social Sciences and Humanities

Download or read book New Thinking in Complexity for the Social Sciences and Humanities written by Ton Jörg and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-08-09 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The underlying idea and motive for the book is that the notion of complexity may humanize the social sciences, may conceive the complex human being as more human, and turn reality as assumed in our doing social science into a more complex, that is a richer reality for all. The main focus of this book is on new thinking in complexity, with complexity to be taken as derived from the Latin word complexus: ‘that which is interwoven.’ The trans-disciplinary approach advocated here will be trans-disciplinary in two ways: firstly, by going beyond the separate disciplines within the fields of both natural sciences and social sciences, and, secondly, by going beyond the separate cultures of the natural sciences and of the social sciences and humanities.

Book The Complexity of Social Norms

Download or read book The Complexity of Social Norms written by Maria Xenitidou and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-05-28 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the view that normative behaviour is part of a complex of social mechanisms, processes and narratives that are constantly shifting. From this perspective, norms are not a kind of self-contained social object or fact, but rather an interplay of many things that we label as norms when we ‘take a snapshot’ of them at a particular instant. Further, this book pursues the hypothesis that considering the dynamic aspects of these phenomena sheds new light on them. The sort of issues that this perspective opens to exploration include: Of what is this complex we call a "social norm" composed of? How do new social norms emerge and what kind of circumstances might facilitate such an appearance? How context-specific are the norms and patterns of normative behaviour that arise? How do the cognitive and the social aspects of norms interact over time? How do expectations, beliefs and individual rationality interact with social norm complexes to effect behaviour? How does our social embeddedness relate to social constraint upon behaviour? How might the socio-cognitive complexes that we call norms be usefully researched?

Book Simulation of Financial Markets with Agent Based Model

Download or read book Simulation of Financial Markets with Agent Based Model written by Hajime Kita and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes up unique agent-based approaches to solving problems related to stock and their derivative markets. Toward this end, the authors have worked for more than 15 years on the development of an artificial market simulator called U-Mart for use as a research and educational tool. A noteworthy feature of the U-Mart simulator compared to other artificial market simulators is that U-Mart is an ultra-realistic artificial stock and their derivative market simulator. For example, it can simulate “arrowhead,” a next-generation trading system used in the Tokyo Stock Exchange and other major markets, as it takes into consideration the institutional design of the entire market. Another interesting feature of the U-Mart simulator is that it permits both human and computer programs to participate simultaneously as traders in the artificial market. In this book, first the details of U-Mart are explained, enabling readers to install and run the simulator on their computers for research and educational purposes. The simulator thus can be used for gaming simulation of the artificial market and even for users as agents to implement their own trading strategies for agent-based simulation (ABS).The book also presents selected research cases using the U-Mart simulator. Here, topics include automated acquisition of trading strategy using artificial intelligence techniques, evaluation of a market maker system to treat thin markets such as those for small and regional businesses, systemic risk analysis of the financial market considering institutional design of the market, and analysis of how humans behave and learn in gaming simulation. New perspectives on artificial market research are provided, and the power, potential, and challenge of ABS are discussed. As explained in this important work, ABS is considered to be an effective tool as the third approach of social science, an alternative to traditional literary and mathematical approaches.

Book Simulation of Complex Systems

Download or read book Simulation of Complex Systems written by Aykut Argun and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deals with the most fundamental and essential techniques to simulate complex systems, from the dynamics of molecules to the spreading of diseases, from optimization using ant colonies to the simulation of the Game of Life.

Book Introduction to Computational Social Science

Download or read book Introduction to Computational Social Science written by Claudio Cioffi-Revilla and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-06-29 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook provides a comprehensive and reader-friendly introduction to the field of computational social science (CSS). Presenting a unified treatment, the text examines in detail the four key methodological approaches of automated social information extraction, social network analysis, social complexity theory, and social simulation modeling. This updated new edition has been enhanced with numerous review questions and exercises to test what has been learned, deepen understanding through problem-solving, and to practice writing code to implement ideas. Topics and features: contains more than a thousand questions and exercises, together with a list of acronyms and a glossary; examines the similarities and differences between computers and social systems; presents a focus on automated information extraction; discusses the measurement, scientific laws, and generative theories of social complexity in CSS; reviews the methodology of social simulations, covering both variable- and object-oriented models.

Book Systems and Models

    Book Details:
  • Author : Hartmut Bossel
  • Publisher : BoD – Books on Demand
  • Release : 2007
  • ISBN : 3833481218
  • Pages : 374 pages

Download or read book Systems and Models written by Hartmut Bossel and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2007 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A multitude of complex systems and actors pursuing their own agenda shape the dynamics of our world. Better understanding of their actions and interactions is crucial, and can be achieved by a profound knowledge of systems and their properties, and their representation in models allowing simulation of probable behavior. Drawing on his extensive research and teaching experience in modeling and simulation of a wide range of systems - from engineering to social systems and ecosystems - the author presents the fundamental concepts and approaches for understanding and modeling the complex systems shaping the dynamics of our world. The book applies state space analysis and system dynamics to deal with the dynamic processes of "causal systems," discusses information processing approaches for modeling decision processes of "actors" and "agents," and uses aspects of the coevolutionary development of systems in their environment to deal with normative orientation, ethics, and evaluation of policies and long-term development. The concepts are applied in particular to the issue of sustainable development of human society in an evolving world. The book is complemented by a survey of system topics and of models from many fields, and by an extensive bibliography on the many systems-related subjects covered. Hartmut Bossel is Professor Emeritus of environmental systems analysis. He taught for many years at the University of California in Santa Barbara and the University of Kassel, Germany, where he was director of the Center for Environmental Systems Research until his retirement. He holds an engineering degree from the Technical University of Darmstadt, and a Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley. With a background in engineering, systems science, and mathematical modeling, he has led many research projects and future studies in different countries, developing computer simulation models and decision support systems in the areas of energy supply policy, global dynamics, orientation of behavior, agricultural policy, and forest dynamics and management. He has written numerous books on modeling and simulation of dynamic systems, social change and future paths, and has published widely in the scientific literature in several fields. Bossel is author of a System Zoo containing over one hundred simulation models of diverse systems.

Book Advances in Social Simulation

Download or read book Advances in Social Simulation written by Petra Ahrweiler and published by Springer. This book was released on 2022-04-28 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the state of the art in social simulation as presented at the Social Simulation Conference 2019 in Mainz, Germany. It covers the developments in applications and methods of social simulation, addressing societal issues such as socio-ecological systems and policymaking. Methodological issues discussed include large-scale empirical calibration, model sharing and interdisciplinary research, as well as decision-making models, validation and the use of qualitative data in simulation modeling. Research areas covered include archaeology, cognitive science, economics, organization science and social simulation education. This book gives readers insight into the increasing use of social simulation in both its theoretical development and in practical applications such as policymaking whereby modeling and the behavior of complex systems is key. The book appeals to students, researchers and professionals in the various fields.

Book Interacting Complexities of Herds and Social Organizations

Download or read book Interacting Complexities of Herds and Social Organizations written by Stanislaw Raczynski and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents examples of and the latest simulation studies on artificial societies and populations, highlighting innovative implementations of various models of artificial societies and populations using a new, C++-related simulation tool. It demonstrates that the prey-predator models—including spatial distribution, moving patterns, limited renewable food, fear, gregarious (herd) instinct, clustering, epidemics, and competition—are more complex than other publications have suggested, and highlights the great discrepancy between agent-based and conventional continuous models. The book also discusses the modeling and simulation of self-organization and interactions between organizations, including terror organizations, offering fascinating insights into organizational dynamics. The book provides a broad range of examples and comparisons with the classical dynamics approach, showing readers how to construct models of complex systems. It starts with descriptions of the behavior of interacting individuals and also includes important information on the macro-behavior of the whole system.

Book Policy Practice and Digital Science

Download or read book Policy Practice and Digital Science written by Marijn Janssen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-06-03 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The explosive growth in data, computational power, and social media creates new opportunities for innovating the processes and solutions of Information and communications technology (ICT) based policy-making and research. To take advantage of these developments in the digital world, new approaches, concepts, instruments and methods are needed to navigate the societal and computational complexity. This requires extensive interdisciplinary knowledge of public administration, policy analyses, information systems, complex systems and computer science. This book provides the foundation for this new interdisciplinary field, in which various traditional disciplines are blending. Both policy makers, executors and those in charge of policy implementations acknowledge that ICT is becoming more important and is changing the policy-making process, resulting in a next generation policy-making based on ICT support. Web 2.0 and even Web 3.0 point to the specific applications of social networks, semantically enriched and linked data, whereas policy-making has also to do with the use of the vast amount of data, predictions and forecasts, and improving the outcomes of policy-making, which is confronted with an increasing complexity and uncertainty of the outcomes. The field of policy-making is changing and driven by developments like open data, computational methods for processing data, opining mining, simulation and visualization of rich data sets, all combined with public engagement, social media and participatory tools.

Book Network Oriented Modeling

Download or read book Network Oriented Modeling written by Jan Treur and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-10-03 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a new approach that can be applied to complex, integrated individual and social human processes. It provides an alternative means of addressing complexity, better suited for its purpose than and effectively complementing traditional strategies involving isolation and separation assumptions. Network-oriented modeling allows high-level cognitive, affective and social models in the form of (cyclic) graphs to be constructed, which can be automatically transformed into executable simulation models. The modeling format used makes it easy to take into account theories and findings about complex cognitive and social processes, which often involve dynamics based on interrelating cycles. Accordingly, it makes it possible to address complex phenomena such as the integration of emotions within cognitive processes of all kinds, of internal simulations of the mental processes of others, and of social phenomena such as shared understandings and collective actions. A variety of sample models – including those for ownership of actions, fear and dreaming, the integration of emotions in joint decision-making based on empathic understanding, and evolving social networks – illustrate the potential of the approach. Dedicated software is available to support building models in a conceptual or graphical manner, transforming them into an executable format and performing simulation experiments. The majority of the material presented has been used and positively evaluated by undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in the cognitive, social and AI domains. Given its detailed coverage, the book is ideally suited as an introduction for graduate and undergraduate students in many different multidisciplinary fields involving cognitive, affective, social, biological, and neuroscience domains.

Book Complexity and Planning

Download or read book Complexity and Planning written by Gert de Roo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complexity, complex systems and complexity theories are becoming increasingly important within a variety disciplines. While these issues are less well known within the discipline of spatial planning, there has been a recent growing awareness and interest. As planners grapple with how to consider the vagaries of the real world when putting together proposals for future development, they question how complexity, complex systems and complexity theories might prove useful with regard to spatial planning and the physical environment. This book provides a readable overview, presenting and relating a range of understandings and characteristics of complexity and complex systems as they are relevant to planning. It recognizes multiple, relational approaches of dynamic complexity which enhance understandings of, and facilitate working with, contingencies of place, time and the various participants' behaviours. In doing so, it should contribute to a better understanding of processes with regard to our physical and social worlds.