Simulating Rural Environmentally and Socio-Economically Constrained Multi-Activity and Multi-Decision Societies in a Low-Data Context: A Challenge Through Empirical Agent-Based Modeling

Development issues in developing countries belong to complex situations where society and environment are intricate. However, such sites lack the necessary amount of reliable, checkable data and information, while these very constraining factors determine the populations' evolutions, such as villagers living in Sahelian environments. Beyond a game-theory model that leads to a premature selection of the relevant variables, we build an individual-centered, empirical, KIDS-oriented (Keep It Descriptive & Simple), and multidisciplinary agent-based model focusing on the villagers\' differential accesses to economic and production activities according to social rules and norms, mainly driven by social criteria from which gender and rank within the family are the most important, as they were observed and registered during individual interviews. The purpose of the work is to build a valid and robust model that overcome this lack of data by building a individual specific system of behaviour rules conditioning these differential accesses showing the long-term catalytic effects of small changes of social rules. The model-building methodology is thereby crucial: the interviewing process provided the behaviour rules and criteria while the context, i.e. the economic, demographic and agro-ecological environment is described following published or unpublished literature. Thanks to a sensitivity analysis on several selected parameters, the model appears fairly robust and sensitive enough. The confidence building simulation outputs reasonably reproduces the dynamics of local situations and is consistent with three authors having investigated in our site. Thanks to its empirical approach and its balanced conception between sociology and agro-ecology at the relevant scale, i.e. the individual tied to social relations, limitations and obligations and connected with his/her biophysical and economic environment, the model can be considered as an efficient "trend provider" but not an absolute "figure provider" for simulating rural societies of the Nigrien Sahel and testing scenarios on the same context. Such ABMs can be a useful interface to analyze social stakes in development projects.Rule-Based Modelling, Rural Sahel, Confidence Building, Low-Data Context, Social Criteria

Reconstituting family transitions of Sahelian western Niger 1950-2000 : an agent-based modelling approach in a low data context

International audienceThis research analyses the impacts of the family organization on the diversity of income sources and the sustainability and the dynamics of rainfed farming systems of Sahelian Niger, through an individual-centred agent-based model which variables were defined through anthropological investigation. Results show that family organisation has strong effects on wealth levels and distribution and on demographic growth. They also suggest a historic shift from the patriarchal mode to a mono-nuclear mode in the 70's in this specific area, due to a higher resilience of the latter thanks to a broader diversification and a better adequacy between wealth and family demograph

La parenté radiographiée. Un nouveau logiciel pour l'analyse des réseaux matrimoniaux

International audienceKinship under the Microscope : A New Software for the Analysis of Matrimonial Networks. — Marriage choices can not be treated as isolated phenomena. They draw their meaning from how they are distributed and combined so as to form complex patterns whose study requires the use of computerized tools. While computers have been used in the study of kinship for over forty years, an instrument capable of making a complete matrimonial census of a kinship network has been lacking. The software Puck (Program for the Use and Computation of Kinship Data) fills this gap. This article presents the main applications of this software, and discusses the theoretical issues and methodological choices that went into its development.Les choix matrimoniaux ne sauraient être traités comme des éléments isolés. Ils n'acquièrent leur signification que par la manière dont ils se distribuent et se combinent pour former des agencements complexes dont l'étude est difficilement envisageable sans recours à un traitement informatique. Si l'ordinateur a été introduit il y a une quarantaine d'années dans les études de la parenté, on manquait encore d'un instrument rendant possible un recensement matrimonial complet d'un réseau de parenté. Le logiciel Puck (Program for the Use and Computation of Kinship Data) remédie à ce manque. Cet article présente les principales applications de ce logiciel, en précisant les enjeux théoriques et les choix méthodologiques qui ont présidé à son élaboration

La parenté radiographiée

RésuméLes choix matrimoniaux ne sauraient être traités comme des éléments isolés. Ils n’acquièrent leur signification que par la manière dont ils se distribuent et se combinent pour former des agencements complexes dont l’étude est difficilement envisageable sans recours à un traitement informatique. Si l’ordinateur a été introduit il y a une quarantaine d’années dans les études de la parenté, on manquait encore d’un instrument rendant possible un recensement matrimonial complet d’un réseau de parenté. Le logiciel Puck (Program for the Use and Computation of Kinship Data) remédie à ce manque. Cet article présente les principales applications de ce logiciel, en précisant les enjeux théoriques et les choix méthodologiques qui ont présidé à son élaboration.Kinship under the Microscope : A New Software for the Analysis of Matrimonial NetworksMarriage choices can not be treated as isolated phenomena. They draw their meaning from how they are distributed and combined so as to form complex patterns whose study requires the use of computerized tools. While computers have been used in the study of kinship for over forty years, an instrument capable of making a complete matrimonial census of a kinship network has been lacking. The software Puck (Program for the Use and Computation of Kinship Data) fills this gap. This article presents the main applications of this software, and discusses the theoretical issues and methodological choices that went into its development

Demography and Social Network Differentiation

Nearly all societies in the world have completed or begun a demographic transition, but their experiences have varied in terms of timing, tempo and extent of mortality and fertility decline. I focus on understanding what implications such variation has for social interaction. Though prior literature has explored demographic contributions to opportunities for interaction between individuals of different ages, it has focused on social ties between very close kin (such as children and parents), particularly in the context of multi-generational co-residence. This paper extends this focus by considering broader kinship links in communities, which are important components of community integration. To do this, I use a simulation approach that combines the traditions of demographic micro-simulation and social network generation with techniques of agent-based modeling. Results are presented concerning how variations in demographic history manifest as differences in modern social networks. These are validated against a set of specific cases from Thailand

As the Den Turns: Pack Status as an Emergent Property of Interpack Mating Alliances and Occupation of Territory among Wolves in Yellowstone National Park, 1995-2000

This project represents a social scientific investigation of the emergence of patterned relations among wolf packs in a colonizing wolf population. Data analyzed were collected by the National Parks Service's Wolf Project. The formation of structurally endogamous mating alliances is explored using P-Graph methodology and Parente Suite software programs. Qualitative techniques were also employed to explore the social structure among wolf packs in Yellowstone National Park (YNP). Findings suggest that a multi-level social organization exists among YNP wolves

Agentes inteligentes difusos: uma ferramenta híbrida para exploração de processos espaciais em zonas costeiras

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Produção.A dinâmica das interações de grupos de usuários com o meio ambiente tem se intensificado a ponto de ameaçar a disponibilidade dos recursos naturais. As previsões para as zonas costeiras, em especial, apontam para o esgotamento de recursos e para a perspectiva de superpopulação. O estudo do impacto de ações humanas nessas zonas por meio de modelos matemáticos apresenta limitações em capturar a natureza da percepção dos atores e em expressar a sua conseqüente distribuição no espaço. A presente tese propõe um modelo de simulação baseado em agentes para a análise de cenários de ocupação de zonas costeiras, a partir da modelagem da percepção espacial desses agentes, construída através de Lógica Difusa. A modelagem baseada em agentes trata-se de novo enfoque para simulações e envolve a reprodução do mundo real em um virtual, onde são conduzidos experimentos. Nesse universo virtual, cada agente é representado como uma entidade independente, capaz de agir localmente, em resposta à sua percepção, comportamento e alterações de parâmetros ambientais. A Lógica Difusa vem sendo empregada com bastante sucesso no manuseio da incerteza associada ao mundo real e permite a utilização de termos lingüísticos em sistemas computacionais. O desenvolvimento de um protótipo possibilitou a comprovação da viabilidade de aplicação do modelo em casos reais, bem como a captura de comportamento real de indivíduos em zonas costeiras. Além disso, a aplicação do modelo em um caso real demonstra o seu poder de previsibilidade e o subsídio a estudos ambientais por meio de simulação computacional, indicando um grande potencial para testes de hipóteses sobre o papel que cada indivíduo representa no funcionamento global de um sistema

Controlled Simulation of Marriage Systems

This article presents and illustrates a new methodology for testing hypotheses about the departure of marriage choices from baseline models of random mating in an actual kinship and marriage network of a human population. The fact that demographic constraints can drastically affect the raw frequencies of different types of marriage suggests that we must reexamine or even throw out - as methodologically flawed - statistical conclusions regarding marriage "rules" from most of the existing empirical case studies. The development of the present methods, in contrast, enables researchers to decompose those behavioral tendencies that can be taken as agent-based social preferences, institutional "rules" or marriage structure from those behaviors whose divergent frequencies are merely a by-product or epiphenomena of demographic constraints on the availability of potential spouses. The family of random baseline models used here enables a researcher to identify overall global structures of marriage rules such as dual organization as well as more local of egocentric rules such as rules favoring marriage with certain kinds of relatives. Based on random permutations of the actual data in a manner that controls for the effects of demographic factors across different cases, the new methods are illustrated for three case studies: a village in Sri Lanka with a novel form of dual organization detected by this methodology, a cross-class analysis of a village in Indonesia, and an analysis of a farming village in Austria in which a structurally endogamous subset of villages is identified by the method and shown to form the backbone of a class-based landed property system.Population Studies, Marriage Rules, Demographic Constraints on Choice Behavior, Social Class, Social Anthropology