An Interpretive Account To Agent Based Social Simulation

Using the investigation of criminal culture as an example application, this edited volume presents a novel approach to agent-based simulation: interpretive agent-based social simulation as a methodological and transdisciplinary approach to examining the potential of qualitative data and methods for agent-based modelling (ABM). Featuring updated articles as well as original chapters which provide a cohesive and novel approach to the digital humanities, the book challenges the common conviction that hermeneutics and simulation are two mutually exclusive ways to understand and explain human behaviour and social change. Exploring how methodology benefits from taking cultural complexities into account and bringing these methods together in an innovative combination of qualitative-hermeneutic and digital techniques, the book unites experts in the field to connect ABM to narrative theories, thereby providing a novel tool for cultural studies. An innovative methodological contribution to narrative theory, this volume will be of primary benefit to researchers, scholars, and academics in the fields of ABM, hermeneutics, and criminology. The book will also appeal to those working in policing, security, and forensic consultation.

Social simulation can be a difficult discipline to encompass fully. There are many methods, models, directions, and theories that can be discussed and applied to various social sciences. Anthropology, sociology, political science, economy, government, and management can all benefit from social simulation. Interdisciplinary Applications of Agent-Based Social Simulation and Modeling aims to bring a different perspective to this interdisciplinary topic. This book presents current discussions and new insights on social simulation as a whole, focusing on its dangers, pitfalls, deceits, and challenges. This book is an essential reference for researchers in this field, professionals using social simulation, and even students studying this discipline.

Aimed at readers with minimal experience in computer programming, this brief book provides a theoretical and methodological rationale for using ABM in the social sciences. It goes on to describe some carefully chosen examples from different disciplines, illustrating different approaches to ABM. It concludes with practical advice about how to design and create ABM, a discussion of validation procedures, and some guidelines about publishing articles based on ABM.

Agent-based simulation has become increasingly popular as a modeling approach in the social sciences because it enables researchers to build models where individual entities and their interactions are directly represented. The Second Edition of Nigel Gilbert's Agent-Based Models introduces this technique; considers a range of methodological and theoretical issues; shows how to design an agent-based model, with a simple example; offers some practical advice about developing, verifying and validating agent-based models; and finally discusses how to plan an agent-based modelling project, publish the results and apply agent-based modeling to formulate and evaluate social and economic policies. A website to accompany the book includes a simulation using NetLogo.

This collection of excellent papers cultivates a new perspective on agent-based social system sciences, gaming simulation, and their hybridization. Most of the papers included here were presented in the special session titled Agent-Based Modeling Meets Gaming Simulation at ISAGA2003, the 34th annual conference of the International Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA) at Kazusa Akademia Park in Kisarazu, Chiba, Japan, August 25–29, 2003. This post-proceedings was supported by the twenty-?rst century COE (Centers of Excellence) program Creation of Agent-Based Social Systems Sciences (ABSSS), established at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2004. The present volume comprises papers submitted to the special session of ISAGA2003 and provides a good example of the diverse scope and standard of research achieved in simulation and gaming today. The theme of the special session at ISAGA2003 was Agent-Based Modeling Meets Gaming Simulation. Nowadays, agent-based simulation is becoming very popular for modeling and solving complex social phenomena. It is also used to arrive at practical solutions to social problems. At the same time, however, the validity of simulation does not exist in the magni?cence of the model. R. Axelrod stresses the simplicity of the agent-based simulation model through the “Keep it simple, stupid” (KISS) principle: As an ideal, simple modeling is essential.

Agent-based modeling and social simulation have emerged as an interdisciplinary area of social science that includes computational economics, organizational science, social dynamics, and complex systems. This area contributes to enriching our understanding of the fundamental processes of social phenomena caused by complex interactions among agents. Bringing together diverse approaches to social simulation and research agendas, this book presents a unique collection of contributions from the Second World Congress on Social Simulation, held in 2008 at George Mason University in Washington DC, USA. This book in particular includes articles on norms, diffusion, social networks, economy, markets and organizations, computational modeling, and programming environments, providing new hypotheses and theories, new simulation experiments compared with various data sets, and new methods for model design and development. These works emerged from a global and interdisciplinary scientific community of the three regional scientific associations for social simulation: the North American Association for Computational Social and Organizational Science (NAACSOS; now the Computational Social Science Society, CSSS), the European Social Simulation Association (ESSA), and the Pacific Asian Association for Agent-bBased Approach in Social Systems Sciences (PAAA).

Agent-based modeling/simulation is an emerging field that uses bottom-up and experimental analysis in the social sciences. Selected research from that presented at the Third International Workshop on Agent-Based Approaches in Economic and Social Complex Systems 2004, held in May 2004 in Kyoto, Japan, is included in this book. The aim of the workshop was to employ the bottom-up approach to social and economic problems by modeling, simulation, and analysis using a software agent. This research area is an emerging interdisciplinary field among the social sciences and computer science, attracting broad attention because it introduces a simulation-based experimental approach to problems that are becoming increasingly complex in an era of globalization and innovation in information technology. The state-of-the-art research and findings presented in this book will be indispensable tools for anyone involved in this rapidly growing discipline.

Revolutionary volume demonstrates how crossing the positivist and post-positivist divide improves political science research