Search results for "Agent-Based model"
showing 10 items of 53 documents
The origins of agriculture in Iberia: a computational model
2015
Here we discuss the importance of using the rich and growing database of high-precision, audited radiocarbon dates for high-resolution bottom-up modelling to focus on problems concerning the spread of the Neolithic in the Iberia. We also compare the spread of the Late Mesolithic (so-called Geometric) and the Early Neolithic using our modelling environment. Our results suggest that the source of radiocarbon data used to evaluate alternative hypotheses plays an important role in the results and open up new lines of research for the future.
An Agent-Based Model of Extortion Racketeering
2016
Mafias can be considered as criminal organisations that are in the business of producing, promoting, and selling protection. Here, we describe the Palermo Scenario, an agent-based model of protection rackets aimed to deepen our understanding of protection rackets, and help policymakers to evaluate methods for destabilising them. Additionally, since the system is explicitly specified, we can use it to investigate the entire causal pathway from cause to effect: not only from actions to Mafia destabilisation, but also the intermediate actions along the path and actors' internal mental representations among the population.
InCREDulity in Artificial Societies
2021
This paper describes an artificial society in which the simulated agents behave and interact based on a computational architecture informed by insights from one of the leading social psychological theories in the scientific study of secularization and religion: “credibility-enhancing displays” (or CREDs) theory. After introducing the key elements of the theory and outlining the computational architecture of our CRED model, we present some of our initial simulation results. These efforts are intended to advance the quest within social simulation for more authentic artificial societies and more plausible human-like agents with complex interactive and interpretative capacities.
Contagion and Bank Runs in a Multi-Agent Financial System
2012
In this work we explore contagion from one institution to another that can stem from the existence of a network of financial contracts. In fact, in modern financial systems, an intricate web of claims and obligations links the balance sheets of a wide variety of intermediaries (banks, for instance) into a network structure of interdependencies that have created an environment for feedback elements to generate amplified responses to shocks to the financial system. Small shocks, which initially affect only a few institutions, can indeed spread by contagion to the rest of the financial sector and cause a crisis in the connected intermediaries. Whether the financial crisis does spread depends c…
Modeling Radicalization and Violent Extremism
2020
Given public anxiety about radicalization and violent extremism, it is not surprising that these topics have grabbed the attention of so many scholars in recent years. However, some have expressed concern over the fact that only a few studies in this relatively new field contain empirical data or systematic data analysis or develop causal models of the mechanisms generating these phenomena. We believe that computational modeling and simulation techniques can make a significant contribution to this scientific literature and eventually provide new tools for improving policy analysis. Here we briefly describe (1) an integrative theory of violent extremism proposed by Kruglanski and colleagues …
Modelling terror management theory: computer simulations of the impact of mortality salience on religiosity
2017
ABSTRACTThis article outlines the development – and reports on the experimental findings – of two computational models designed to simulate the dynamic systems and behavioural patterns identified and clarified by research on terror management theory. The causal architectures of these models are informed by empirical research on the effects of mortality salience on “religiosity” (and vice versa). They are also informed by research on the way in which perception of personal and environmental hazards activate evolved cognitive and coalitional precautionary systems that can intensify anxiety-alleviating behaviours such as imaginative engagement with supernatural agents postulated within a relig…
Computational Science of Religion
2021
This article provides a basic overview of the most common methods of computer modelling and simulation that are currently being used to study religion. It focuses on the use (and illustrates the value) of system dynamics models, agent-based models, including game theory and multi-agent artificial intelligence models, and artificial neural networks. General use case examples are provided, and considerations for future research are discussed. We conclude by encouraging scholars interested in religion and related fields to incorporate techniques from the computational science of religion into their collaborative methodological toolkits.
A Generic Agent-Based Model of Historical Social Behaviors Change
2016
The primary theme of this chapter is trying to describe, discuss and understand how human societies change over time using agent-based modeling. Agents become a major paradigm of social simulation allow us to model the complex social phenomena under the bottom-up approach. Certainly one of the key points of the bottom-up approach is the emergence of macro level phenomena from micro level actions and interactions. The main objective of this work is to build a Virtual Social Laboratory, from Rafael Pla Lopez Social evolution model, in order to explore the social evolution of a set of artificial societies/agents that evolve within a grid of cells which are characterized by a level of natural r…
Threshold rule and scaling behavior in a multi-agent supply chain
2010
In this paper an agent-based model of self organized criticality is developed in a network economy characterized by lead time and a threshold behavior of firms. Instead of considering the aggregate production of the economy as a whole, we focus on both the propagation and amplification effects of a demand shock in the sectorial productions of a multi-agent supply chain. We study a static network structure representing a relation of firms in a lower-upper stream in an industrial organization. In our model, the individual (R, nQ) policies play an important role in generating a propagation effect across the different layers of the economy, and the propagation turns into the large fluctuations …
On the Macroeconomic Effect of Extortion: An Agent-Based Approach
2021
This work proposes an agent-based approach to study the effect of extortion on macroeconomic aggregates, despite the fact that there is little data on this criminal activity given its hidden nature. We develop a Bottom-up Adaptive Macroeconomics (BAM) model that simulates a healthy economy, including a moderate inflation and a reasonable unemployment rate, and test the impact of extortion on various macroeconomic signals. The BAM model defines the usual interactions among workers, firms and banks in labour, goods and credit markets. Subsequently, crime is introduced by defining the propensity of the poorest workers to become extortionists, as well as the efficiency of the police in terms of…