Methodological Investigations in Agent-Based Modelling: With Applications for the Social Sciences

This open access book examines the methodological complications of using complexity science concepts within the social science domain. The opening chapters take the reader on a tour through the development of simulation methodologies in the fields of artificial life and population biology, then demonstrates the growing popularity and relevance of these methods in the social sciences. Following an in-depth analysis of the potential impact of these methods on social science and social theory, the text provides substantive examples of the application of agent-based models in the field of demography. This work offers a unique combination of applied simulation work and substantive, in-depth philosophical analysis, and as such has potential appeal for specialist social scientists, complex systems scientists, and philosophers of science interested in the methodology of simulation and the practice of interdisciplinary computing research.

Monopsony Processing in an Open-Access Fishery

In a recent paper, Clark and Munro (1980) showed that monopsony processing more than offsets the effects of open-access in the harvesting sector of a commercial fishery, and leads to overconservation of the resource. We show here that this conclusion depends critically on the cost of capacity and consequent ease of entry and exit from the harvesting sector. In particular, for low entry and exit speeds the monopsonist has a high degree of monopoly power and by depressing the price overconserves the natural resource relative to the social optimum, while as the adjustment speed approaches infinity a monopsonist employing a discount rate equal to the social rate of discount will be induced to behave optimally from the viewpoint of society. By means of a simulation employing parameters from the Pacific halibut fishery, we also show that a monopsonist subject to relatively sluggish entry or exit may reap profits considerably less than the resource rents accruing if the resource were optimally managed.Environmental Economics and Policy, Production Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Realization of Analog Wavelet Filter using Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for On-line Epileptic Event Detection

© 2020 The Author(s). This open access work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.As the evolution of traditional electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring unit for epilepsy diagnosis, wearable ambulatory EEG (WAEEG) system transmits EEG data wirelessly, and can be made miniaturized, discrete and social acceptable. To prolong the battery lifetime, analog wavelet filter is used for epileptic event detection in WAEEG system to achieve on-line data reduction. For mapping continuous wavelet transform to analog filter implementation with low-power consumption and high approximation accuracy, this paper proposes a novel approximation method to construct the wavelet base in analog domain, in which the approximation process in frequency domain is considered as an optimization problem by building a mathematical model with only one term in the numerator. The hybrid genetic algorithm consisting of genetic algorithm and quasi-Newton method is employed to find the globally optimum solution, taking required stability into account. Experiment results show that the proposed method can give a stable analog wavelet base with simple structure and higher approximation accuracy compared with existing method, leading to a better spike detection accuracy. The fourth-order Marr wavelet filter is designed as an example using Gm-C filter structure based on LC ladder simulation, whose power consumption is only 33.4 pW at 2.1Hz. Simulation results show that the design method can be used to facilitate low power and small volume implementation of on-line epileptic event detector.Peer reviewe

Public Systems Modeling

This is an open access book discusses readers to various methods of modeling plans and policies that address public sector issues and problems. Written for public policy and social sciences students at the upper undergraduate and graduate level, as well as public sector decision-makers, it demonstrates and compares the development and use of various deterministic and probabilistic optimization and simulation modeling methods for analyzing planning and management issues. These modeling tools offer a means of identifying and evaluating alternative plans and policies based on their physical, economic, environmental, and social impacts. Learning how to develop and use the mathematical modeling tools introduced in this book will give students useful skills when in positions of having to make informed public policy recommendations or decisions

CBE Clima Tool: a free and open-source web application for climate analysis tailored to sustainable building design

Buildings that are designed specifically to respond to the local climate can be more comfortable, energy-efficient, and with a lower environmental impact. However, there are many social, cultural, and economic obstacles that might prevent the wide adoption of designing climate-adapted buildings. One of the said obstacles can be removed by enabling practitioners to easily access and analyse local climate data. The CBE Clima Tool (Clima) is a free and open-source web application that offers easy access to publicly available weather files (in EPW format) specifically created for building energy simulation and design. It provides a series of interactive visualization of the variables therein contained and several derived ones. It is aimed at students, educators, and practitioners in the architecture and engineering fields. Since its launch has been consistently recording over 3000 monthly unique users from over 70 countries worldwide, both in professional and educational settings.Comment: Submitted to Software

Formal Interpretation of a Multi-Agent Society as a Single Agent

Contains fulltext : 194702.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)In this paper the question is addressed to what extent the collective processes in a multi-agent society can be interpreted as single agent processes. This question is answered by formal analysis and simulation. It is shown for an example process how it can be conceptualised, formalised and simulated in two different manners: from a single agent (or cognitive) and from a multi-agent (or social) perspective. Moreover, it is shown how an ontological mapping can be formally defined between the two formalisations, and how this mapping can be extended to a mapping of dynamic properties. Thus it is shown how collective behaviour can be interpreted in a formal manner as single agent behaviour.23 p

Managing risks of capital mobility

Inherent in pursuing openness to international capital flows is an awareness that it brings both benefits and risks. Much of the current debate is about how best to balance them. Major benefits for developing countries include access to a broader menu of investment sources, options, and instruments, as well as enhanced efficiency of domestic financial institutions and the discipline of capital markets in conducting domestic macroeconomic policy. By easing financing constraints, the greater availability of international finance can extend the period for implementing needed adjustments. From the perspective of emerging market economies, the author highlights two sources of risk: the host governments'policy of liberalizing capital controls before having established the macroeconomic, regulatory, and institutional foundations required for capital openness. A shift in foreign leaders'and investors'sentiments and confidence, not necessarily related to a particular country's long-term creditworthiness. Risk management demands judicious strategies for both corporate and financial institutions and national policy. At the institutional level, with the advances in technology and communications, financial risk management practice has improved significantly in recent years through the use of statistical models, such as value at risk, computer simulation, and stress testing. At the national level, with the worldwide trend toward democracy, the author argues that managing the risks of financial openness will require developing national mechanisms through which to provide insurance to citizens-through the marketplace or through redistributive policy-and thus to avert political pressure for capital controls. To succeed, open democratic societies have to balance the threat of capital exit, made easier by the opening of capital markets, with the political voice of citizens-demanding protection through redistribution, social safety nets, and other insurance-like measures. These insurance measures have been critical increasing the tension between politics and financial openness in OECD countries. Indeed, cross-country empirical analysis confirms that countries that spend a large share of their GDP on social needs (education, health, and transfer payments) are more open to free international capital flows, and also score high on measures of political and civil liberty.Capital Markets and Capital Flows,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Intermediation,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Economics,Settlement of Investment Disputes

Optimal Pricing Strategy for Wireless Social Community Networks

The increasing number of mobile applications fuels the demand for affordable and ubiquitous wireless access. The traditional wireless network technologies such as EV-DO or WiMAX provide this service but require a huge upfront investment in infrastructure and spectrum. On the contrary, as they do not have to face such an investment, social community operators rely on subscribers who constitute a community of users. The pricing strategy of the provided wireless access is an open problem for this new generation of wireless access providers. In this paper, using both analytical and simulation approaches, we study the problem comprised of modeling user subscription and mobility behavior and of coverage evolution with the objective of finding optimal subscription fees. We compute optimal prices for wireless social community networks with both static and semi-dynamic pricing. Coping with an incomplete knowledge about users, we calculate the best static price and prove that optimal fair pricing is the optimal semi-dynamic pricing for social community operators in monopoly situations. Moreover, we have developed a simulator to verify optimal prices of social community operators with complete and incomplete knowledge. Our simulation results show that the optimal fair pricing strategy significantly improves the cumulative payoff of social community operators

Towards Bayesian Model-Based Demography

This open access book presents a ground-breaking approach to developing micro-foundations for demography and migration studies. It offers a unique and novel methodology for creating empirically grounded agent-based models of international migration – one of the most uncertain population processes and a top-priority policy area. The book discusses in detail the process of building a simulation model of migration, based on a population of intelligent, cognitive agents, their networks and institutions, all interacting with one another. The proposed model-based approach integrates behavioural and social theory with formal modelling, by embedding the interdisciplinary modelling process within a wider inductive framework based on the Bayesian statistical reasoning. Principles of uncertainty quantification are used to devise innovative computer-based simulations, and to learn about modelling the simulated individuals and the way they make decisions. The identified knowledge gaps are subsequently filled with information from dedicated laboratory experiments on cognitive aspects of human decision-making under uncertainty. In this way, the models are built iteratively, from the bottom up, filling an important epistemological gap in migration studies, and social sciences more broadly