Manchester-Complexity

Up-coming Informal Manchester Complexity Seminars

2012-01-19T15:37:00.002Z

January 27th: Joe Challenger "Nonnormality and noise: an investigation".

February 3rd: Diana Garcia Lopez: "Bacteria and their inhabitants".

February 10th: Tommaso Biancalani: "Noise-induced transition in the Kaneko-Togashi model".

All in the Neils Bohr Common Room, floor 6, Schuster Building. All welcome.

Upcoming SCID Seminars

2012-01-19T15:36:00.002Z

SCID Seminars

This seminar series is a compliment to the Social Complexity of Immigration and Diversity project: it provides invited speakers, with an interest in applying complexity theory-derived models to the social sciences, a supportive forum for debate and discussion.

The seminars are open to all and will be of interest both to those already engaged with complexity-based approaches and those wishing to explore this area for the first time.

Unless listed otherwise below, seminars are held on the last Friday of each month from 1pm – 2.15pm, and are held in The Board Room (2.016) Arthur Lewis Building. (no. 36 on campus map)

27^th January Dr. Jochem Tolsma (Radboud University, Nijmegen)
Residential mobility and the relationship between ethnic diversity and social cohesion (abstract)

24^th February Professor Robert Geyer (Lancaster University)
Is complexity the way forward for UK Child Protection policy? The case of the Munro Review

30^th March Professor Nick Crossley (University of Manchester)
Mass, social networks and collective action

Room Change – This Seminar will take place in Hanson Room, Humanities Bridgeford street

27^th April Professor Phil Rees (University of Leeds)
Macro and micro models for understanding change in population diversity at local and small area scales

25^th May Professor Graham Room (University of Bath)
Title TBC
For more information please email: scid@manchester.ac.uk

Manchester, 29th Nov: a public talk on 3D visualisation of complex biological data: The Allosphere

2011-11-23T14:18:00.001Z

==========================================

Subject: Public Lecture with scientific 3D

==========================================

In association with the Workshop "The Dynamics of Disease" there will be a public

talk on 3D visualisation of complex biological data:

The Allosphere

A 3D immersive multimedia event for scientific discovery

and artistic exploration

Prof. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Director of the AlloSphere Research Facility

University of California, Santa Barbara

Tuesday, 29 November 2011, 7pm

Great Hall, Sackville St Building, The University of Manchester

You can watch her TED talk as a teaser:

http://www.ted.com/talks/joann_kuchera_morin_tours_the_allosphere.html

Organised by Gerold Baier, MIB Systems Biology

Meeting 20th Jan, Leeds: "Patterns, Nonlinear Dynamics and Applications: 10 years on"

2011-11-23T11:13:00.001Z

Patterns, Nonlinear Dynamics and Applications: 10 years on

11am-4pm, Friday 20th January 2012, University of Leeds

The next PANDA meeting will be held in the School of Mathematics, University
of Leeds. There is a broad 'theme', combining a retrospective on the last
ten years (the first PANDA meeting was in December 2001) and a perspective
on the next.

There will be two review/pedagogical talks:

Rebecca Hoyle (University of Surrey), Natural history of a PANDA, and nonlinear dynamics in biology and sociology
Jonathan Dawes (University of Bath), Nonlinear dynamics in continuum mechanics: current challenges and future opportunities

We invite contributed half-hour research talks on any topic within the PANDA
remit, and particularly welcome offers of talks by postdocs and PhD students.
A limited amount of funding is available for the reimbursement of travel
expenses. We may also be able to make a contribution towards childcare
expenses incurred specifically for the purpose of attending the meeting.

Please contact Alastair Rucklidge (A.M.Rucklidge@leeds.ac.uk) if you would
like to speak at the meeting.

For further details see
http://www.maths.leeds.ac.uk/~alastair/12_panda/index.html

The PANDA network is organised by Rebecca Hoyle (Surrey), Jon Dawes (Bath),
Paul Matthews (Nottingham) and Alastair Rucklidge (Leeds), and is supported
by a London Mathematical Society Scheme 3 grant.

25th Nov. 4pm: Paper Discussion on "Twitter mood predicts the stock market"

2011-11-22T14:17:00.001Z

4pm, Neils Bohr Common Room, Schuster Building. All welcome!

Twitter mood predicts the stock market.
Johan Bollen; Huina Mao; and Xiao-Jun Zeng
(authors made equal contributions.)

Paper is at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1010.3003

Abstract:
Behavioral economics tells us that emotions can profoundly affect individualbehavior and decision-making. Does this also apply to societies at large, i.e.,can societies experience mood states that affect their collective decisionmaking? By extension is the public mood correlated or even predictive ofeconomic indicators? Here we investigate whether measurements of collectivemood states derived from large-scale Twitter feeds are correlated to the valueof the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) over time. We analyze the textcontent of daily Twitter feeds by two mood tracking tools, namely OpinionFinderthat measures positive vs. negative mood and Google-Profile of Mood States(GPOMS) that measures mood in terms of 6 dimensions (Calm, Alert, Sure, Vital,Kind, and Happy). We cross-validate the resulting mood time series by comparingtheir ability to detect the public's response to the presidential election andThanksgiving day in 2008. A Granger causality analysis and a Self-OrganizingFuzzy Neural Network are then used to investigate the hypothesis that publicmood states, as measured by the OpinionFinder and GPOMS mood time series, arepredictive of changes in DJIA closing values. Our results indicate that theaccuracy of DJIA predictions can be significantly improved by the inclusion ofspecific public mood dimensions but not others. We find an accuracy of 87.6% inpredicting the daily up and down changes in the closing values of the DJIA anda reduction of the Mean Average Percentage Error by more than 6%.

8th Conference of the European Social Simulation Association website is up

2011-11-15T13:23:00.001Z

See http://www.essa2012.org/

11 Nov: Ali Abbas on "Is facebook segregated?"

2011-10-21T11:27:00.002+01:00

A data set obtained from facebook is presented where the ethnicity of individual is estimated via their surname. This data is analysed to see if there is evidence of ethnic segregation in terms of facebook friend links. The data is further analysed in a number of ways to look at the preferences of individuals for friending.

ECCS 2012 is in Brussels, 3-7th September

2011-10-13T13:26:00.000+01:00

Thew European Conference on Complex Systems
http://www.eccs2012.eu/

ESSA 2012 will be in Salzburg. 10-14 September

2011-10-13T13:24:00.002+01:00

That is the European Social Simulation Association Conference, the most successful conference on social simulation. More will be posted when details are known.

Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis Seminars in October

2011-10-06T16:54:00.000+01:00

All the seminars will be held in HANSON ROOM, HBS
From 4pm – 6pm
No booking required, all welcome
They will be followed by drinks in the pub as usual

12th oct 11
Nick Crossley
Mitchell Centre
Unpacking Homphily: Network Formation in a Student Political World

19th oct 11
Jeffrey C. Johnson
East Carolina University
Accuracy in Cognitive Social Networks: Implications for Influence, Power and Well-being

26th oct 11
Cécile Emery*, Gianluca Carnabuci, David Brinberg
*London School of Economics
Great Men in an Iron Cage? Relational Schemas to Investigate the Process of Leadership Emergence

14th Oct: John Realpe gomez on ""Influence of intrinsic noise in semi-arid ecosystems"

2011-10-03T10:40:00.001+01:00

4pm, Neils Bohr Common Room, Schuster Building, Brunswich Street.

All Welcome.

7th Oct: Tim Rogers on "Is Noise the Origin of Species?"

2011-10-03T10:39:00.001+01:00

4pm Neils Bohr Common Room, Schuster Building, Brunswick Street.

A somewhat technical talk in that it will include maths, but all welcome!

2nd Aug, John Terry on "The role of biological oscillations in health and disease"

2011-07-29T11:02:00.003+01:00

Dr John Terry (SITraN)

The role of biological oscillations in health and disease

This talk will focus on two ongoing research problems. The first part will describe our approach to modelling clinically recorded data sets from patients with epilepsy and explore how theoretical models may be useful to clinicians faced with the challenges of predicting, diagnosing, characterising and ultimately treating seizures. The second part will focus on research with collaborators in neuroendocrinology and explore how model based hypotheses can alter biological understanding. The focus of this section is the generation of oscillations in blood hormone levels as a result of brain-periphery interactions within the Hypothalamus-Pituitary- Adrenal axis (the axis responsible for regulating the stress response in many mammals).

Tuesday 2 August 2011 at 3 pm in Frank Adams 1, Alan Turing Building.

All are welcome to attend.

5th Barbora Trubenova on "Phenotypic and evolutionary consequences of social interactions'"

2011-07-28T13:17:00.002+01:00

The talk is about our model of indirect genetic effects (effect of genes of other individuals on the phenotype of the focal individual).

4pm Neils Bohr Common Room, Schuster Building, all welcome.

This will be the last complexity seminar of the academic year, we will start again in September sometime!

8th July discussion of Duncan Watts's paper: A simple model of global cascades on random networks

2011-07-07T13:19:00.002+01:00

4pm Neil Bohr Common room, Schuster Building

Paper accessible at:
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/9/5766.full

All welcome!

15th July, Warren Mansell on "Perceptual Control Theory"

2011-07-06T18:18:00.001+01:00

Perceptual Control Theory as a Framework for Computer Modelling Across the Social Sciences
Dr Warren Mansell, Reader in Psychology, University of Manchester

Perceptual Control Theory is a psychological framework developed from control system engineering during the 1950s and 60s (Powers et al., 1960; Powers, 1973). The theory is supported by a range of empirical and theoretical papers (see www.pctweb.org) and yet its central premise - 'Behaviour is the control of perception' - remains dominated by the same assumptions of linear 'Stimulus-Response' or 'Input-Compute-Output' psychology that primed its development. In this talk I will describe examples of computer modelling using PCT across a wide range of domains (e.g. robotics, economics, sociology, speech and language). I will then describe and demonstrate the PCT simulator I have developed to model actively learning multi-layered control systems. One hypothesis we are testing is that psychological distress (i.e. mental health problems) represents chronic loss of control due to internal goal conflict, and that this is relieved by promoting changes in higher level, or deeper, systems. This would explain why psychotherapies that access 'deeper meanings', 'longer term goals' and 'broader values' are effective. To date, we have demonstrated that learning (termed 'reorganisation' in PCT) of higher level systems allows a more enduring optimisation of control than learning within the lower order, conflicted, systems. Related research will be discussed, as well as a discussion of how PCT could be utilised to improve existing computer models of psychological systems.

Key Reference
Mansell, W. (2011). Control of Perception Should be Operationalised as a Fundamental Property of the Nervous System. Topics in Cognitive Science, 3, 257-261.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1756-8765.2011.01140.x/abstract

4pm Neils Bohr Common room, Schuster Building.

All Welcome!

1st July, dicsussion on Helbing: "The outbreak of cooperation among success-driven individuals under noisy conditions"

2011-06-21T12:48:00.003+01:00

Dirk Helbing's paper

"The outbreak of cooperation among success-driven individuals under noisy conditions"

PNAS March 10, 2009 vol. 106 no. 10 3680-3685
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/10/3680.short

4pm Neils bohr Common room, Schuster building.

All welcome!

Friday (24th June): Joe Challenger on 'Using COPASI and van Kampen to estimate intrinsic noise in biochemical systems'

2011-06-21T12:46:00.001+01:00

4pm in Niels Bohr, Schuster Building, as usual.

All Welcome!

17 June, Vicente Botella on "Emergence of polysynchrony in a simple adaptive network model"

2011-06-14T12:32:00.005+01:00

Vicente Botella, Universitat de València and Manchester Mathematics will talk on
"Emergence of polysynchrony in a simple adaptive network model"

4pm Neils Bohr Common Room, Schuster Building.

All welcome.

4pm 10th June: John Realpe on "Resilience of Complex Systems"

2011-06-07T09:05:00.006+01:00

John Realpe on "Resilience of Complex Systems"

After a short presentation of the concept of resilience, I will discuss a recent attempt to quantify it, based on "viability theory", which is, in a sense, genuinely non-equilibrium, non-asymptotic and non-linear.

Reference:
Viability and Resilience of Complex Systems, Deff uant, G. and Gilbert, N. (Eds.), Springer, 2011 (in press), chapters 1-2. A draft is available online at http://www.patres-project.eu/images/5/51/Patres-V1.pdf

4pm, Neils Bohr room, Schuster Building.

All welcome

6th May, Maria Angela Ferrario on 'Extreme NLP, Natural Language Processing in Hard Conditions"

2011-05-04T12:46:00.002+01:00

Maria Angela Ferrario (Lancaster) will be visiting us on Friday (6th
May), and she has kindly offered to give a presentation in the
complexity discussion club series.

Title: 'Extreme NLP, Natural Language Processing in Hard Conditions"

At the Neils Bohr Common Room, Schuster Building 4pm. All welcome.

One-day workshop: Complexity of evolutionary processes, Manchester 13th June

2011-03-11T10:57:00.000Z

The Nonlinear and Complex Physics Group of the Institute of Physics is pleased to announce a one-day workshop on

‘Complexity of evolutionary processes in biology and the behavioural sciences’,

to be held at the University of Manchester on Monday 13th June 2011. Membership of the IOP is not required to come to the meeting, and there is no registration fee.

We are pleased to announce that

Alan Grafen
Professor of Theoretical Biology, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford

will deliver a keynote lecture titled,

A third kind of mathematical optimisation principle can help bring Darwinian order to equations of motion for gene frequencies.

With this email we would like to invite you to attend and submit an abstract for a short talk. Depending on the response we anticipate a series of 20-minute talks throughout the day, roughly from 10.30am to 4.00pm to facilitate travel to and from Manchester on the same day.

The theme of the meeting should be interpreted in a broad sense. We hope to attract participants and contributions from researchers interested in evolutionary complexity in a variety of disciplines, including for example biology, applied mathematics, and theoretical physics, but also from economics and the social sciences. We also hope that participants and speakers will include theoretical modellers as well as experimentalists, or researchers focusing on data-driven work.

If you would like to attend please let us know by 15th of April 2011, and indicate whether or not you would like to contribute to the programme - if you do please include a title and short abstract. We would like to encourage postgraduate students and post-docs as well as more experienced researchers to contribute.

We can be contacted at: tobias.galla@manchester.ac.uk and M.Mobilia@leeds.ac.uk.

Information about the meeting can also be found at http://www.theory.physics.manchester.ac.uk/~galla/ncpmeeting2011/ncpmeeting.html

Please feel free to forward this first announcement to interested colleagues, and to your post-docs and PhD students. Apologies for any potential double posting.

We look forward to welcoming you at the meeting in Manchester!

Mauro Mobilia and Tobias Galla
for the Nonlinear and Complex Physics Group of the Institute of Physics

MSNG seminar 2nd MArch, "After the Crash: The Effects of Financial Crisis on UK Director Interlocks"

2011-02-24T12:11:00.000Z

Given we were considering a paper about the crash and interrelations among banks this social network perspective might be interesting.

Bruce Cronin, University of Greenwich
After the Crash: The Effects of Financial Crisis on UK Director Interlocks

Humanities Bridgeford Street, Room G6
From 4pm – 6pm
No booking required, all welcome!

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of the 2008-09 financial crisis on the structure of director interlocking in the UK. Utilising a large dataset of 2300 firms with annual sales exceeding £500m, and their 14,000 directors, social network analytic techniques are used to examine changes to the composition of the interlocking core and the network positions of specific actors, in both inter-firm and inter-personal dimensions, between 2006 and 2009.

Established theory suggests the financial crisis could be expected to have four principal effects on the interlock structure. First, fissures in the structure, created by the exit of highly connected or otherwise central major players, and a general weakening of the effectiveness of the 'corporate scan'. Second, an expansion in board size, particularly with links to financial institutions, as firms attempted to co-opt resources to compensate for the disruption to funding lines and other sources of uncertainty. Third, in a contradictory manner decreased and increased executive director activism associated with both the withdrawal from specific exposed positions and specific attempts to capitalise on new opportunities created by the disruption. And fourth, increased executive director activism in political forums, aimed at securing a regulatory framework less vulnerable to such disruption in the future.

The findings are generally consistent with the theoretical expectations, revealing a dramatic disruption to the network and contraction of the main component, associated with the withdrawal of major players. Board size expands in a manner consistent with uncertainty reduction and contradictory trends in executive director activism are apparent.

The seminar will continue in the pub afterwards, as usual.

We hope to see you there,

Elisa and Martin

Feb 18th, Tobias Galla on the Black-Scholes Equation

2011-02-15T15:19:00.001Z

Tobias Galla will talk on and lead a discussion about the approach to risk and its assumptions, as captured in the Black-Scholes equation for pricing risky derivatives.

4pm Neils Bohr Common Room, Schuster building.

This talk is likely to be of a more technical nature.

All welcome.

Google Calendar of Manchester Complexity Events

2011-02-08T13:47:00.003Z

If you want to automatically include the Manchester Complexity events in your calendar here are the details. I am NOT an expert on how to use them however, but they are based on Google's Calendar.

XML feed:

http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/rrm55s1sur94sbtqc55q8hvdi0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic

ICAL format:

http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/rrm55s1sur94sbtqc55q8hvdi0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

HTML:

http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=rrm55s1sur94sbtqc55q8hvdi0%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/London

Feb 11th, 4pm: Tim Rogers "Why all Schelling-type models are the same (or not)"

2011-02-08T10:57:00.000Z

Tim Rogers will be talking about the work he has been doing looking at the commonalities in behaviour in the class of models derived from Schelling's "checkerboard" model of racial segregation. (The above title is my take on what Tim has said about his work ;-)

As usual in the Neils Bohr Common Room, Schuster Building, UoM.

All Welcome.

ESSA Summer School on Agent-Based Modelling

2011-01-27T16:02:00.002Z

Following the successful first ESSA Summer School on Agent-Based Modelling, held in Brescia, Italy in September 2010, a second Summer School is planned for 18-22 July 2011 at the University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom.

The Summer School is aimed at those who have a basic understanding of social simulation and are taking their first steps in agent-based modelling. It is expected that most participants will be actively engaged in developing a simulation model.

The programme will consist of lectures from experienced modellers, together with group sessions led by tutors when participants can discuss their modelling plans and experience. The lectures will focus on the stories behind successful examples of agent-based modelling, and will cover issues from defining a research question to writing effective reports.

Lecturers will include:

• Iqbal Adjali (Unilever, UK)
• Edmund Chattoe-Brown (University of Leicester, UK)
• Bruce Edmonds (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
• Nigel Gilbert (University of Surrey, UK)
• Paul Ormerod (Volterra Consulting, UK)
• Flaminio Squazzoni (University of Brescia, Italy)
• Pietro Terna (University of Torino, Italy)
• Klaus G Troitzsch (University of Koblenz, Germany)

By the end of the Summer School, students can expect to have absorbed a great deal of 'tacit' knowledge about how to go about model building, as well as having had opportunities to discuss their research with experts and peers.

The Summer School welcomes postgraduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and professionals.

The School is located at the University of Surrey. The campus overlooks Guildford, a market town in the Surrey countryside with good links to London Heathrow and London Gatwick airports, and about 50 kms from the centre of London. See http://www.surrey.ac.uk/about/visitors/travel/

Application procedure
Please send (a) a brief CV, (b) a summary of your current research, including a description of modelling planned or achieved and, if you are a postgraduate student (c) a letter of support from your supervisor, as attachments to an email with the subject line "ESSA Summer School application" to <lu.yang@surrey.ac.uk> by 15 March 2011 at the latest. Notification of acceptance/rejection will be sent by 1 April 2011.

Fees
• For university and research institute students, including bed and breakfast (B&B) on the University Campus: £350
• For staff of Higher Education institutions, including B&B on the University Campus: £450
• For others, not including accommodation: £400
• For others, with B&B on the University Campus: £600
All registration fees include lunches, coffee/tea during the day and a social dinner. The University accommodation is in single rooms with shared bathroom. These fees need to be paid by 15 April, 2011.

Bursaries
ASSYST http://www.assystcomplexity.eu/ are providing up to five bursaries to assist PhD students, each worth up to €300. To apply, ask your supervisor to include a statement about why you should be awarded a bursary in the letter of support you will send as part of your application. Priority in awarding the bursaries will be given to those who have no alternative means of funding their attendance at the Summer School.

Bursary for UK applicants only: The UK National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) is offering training bursaries to UK staff engaged in research, teaching research methods or supervising research. For further information about the bursaries and to apply please see http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/about/funding/training/ . This scheme is not open to PhD students.

The Summer school is sponsored by the SIMIAN project, Unilever plc, ASSYST and the University of Surrey, to whom we are grateful for their support.

Further details are available on the Summer School website: http://cress.soc.surrey.ac.uk/essasummerschool2011/

Complex Systems Dynamics 2 - 14 February 2011

2011-01-21T21:45:00.002Z

Complex Systems Dynamics 2: A Valentine’s Day Meeting on Networks and Society
Monday 14 February 2011
12.15 pm – 5.10 pm

Talks will take place in the Frank Adams room, Alan Turing Building, The University of Manchester

Programme:
12:15 – Buffet Lunch, (Atrium Bridge, first floor)
13:05 – Welcome by Dave Broomhead (Manchester)
13:10 – 13:55 Dr Timothy Rogers (Manchester)
Schelling's model of segregation
14:00 - 14:25 Mr Robert Goudie (Warwick)
Graphical models for social networks
14:30-14:55 Mr Franck Kalala Mutombo (Strathclyde)
Long-range contacts in social networks. The case of epidemic spreading
15:00 – Tea and Coffee (Atrium Bridge, first floor)
15:30 – 15:45 Mr Anthony Woolcock (Warwick)
Linked and weighted opinions: Extensions to the axelrod model
15:50 – 16:35 Prof Mark Peletier (University of Eindhoven, visiting
University of Bath)
TBA
16:40 – 17:05 Ms Karin Mora (University of Bath)
Dynamics of maps with gaps
17:10 Wine and snacks on the Atrium Bridge

Attendance is free but please register with Helen Harper
(Helen.Harper@manchester.ac.uk) .

Further information about the event can be found at:
http://www.cicada.manchester.ac.uk/events/CoSyDy2/index.php

Financial support has been provided by The London Mathematical Society & CICADA

14th Feb, 4pm: Tobias Galla on "Coarsening and Smoluchowski ripening in conserved voter models"

2011-01-11T16:24:00.000Z

Tobias will discuss some past work on the voter model (work with Luca Dall'Asta of ICTP) and some ongoing work with Luca and with Fabio Caccioli (Santa Fe).

Tentative title: "Coarsening and Smoluchowski ripening in conserved voter models".

If you are interested, then you could read the paper Luca and I published a few years ago:

Algebraic coarsening in voter models with intermediate states
J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 41 435003
http://iopscience.iop.org/1751-8121/41/43/435003

In the Neils Bohr Common Room, floor 6, Schuster Building, University of Manchester, at 4pm.

All welcome.

10th Dec Michalis Smyrnakis on "Learning in Games using Fictitious Play"

2010-12-08T20:31:00.000Z

THE TALK WILL NOT BE IN THE USUAL ROOM, instead it will take place
in Room 3.21 on the third floor of the Schuster Building. To get
to this room, take the lifts to the 3rd floor and go through the
double doors straight ahead. It is the first room on the right
after the doors.

All welcome

19th Nov. 4pm Diana Garcia and Alan McKane "The different ways of analysing social evolution"

2010-11-05T11:09:00.000Z

At the Neils Bohr Common Room, floor 6 Schuster Building, UoM.

All welcome!

Artificial Life: Promises and Pitfalls, October 26th

2010-10-15T11:18:00.000+01:00

Artificial Life: Promises and Pitfalls

Tuesday October 26th, 6-8pm (wine reception at 7.30pm)
John Dalton Building, MMU, Oxford Road, Manchester.

Event website: http://www.nanoinfobio.org/Alife

Confirmed speakers:

Prof. Ron Weiss (MIT, USA)
Dr. Maureen O'Malley (Exeter)
Prof. Steve Yearley (Edinburgh)

Admission is free, but please reserve your seat through the website.

For more information, please see the website, or contact:

Dr. Martyn Amos (M.Amos@mmu.ac.uk)
Phone: 0161 247 1534

Organized in association with the Manchester Science Festival.
Sponsored by MMU and the EPSRC-supported Bridging the Gaps:
NanoInfoBio project.

20 Oct, 4pm Mike Pearson on “Dynamic networks and substance use behavior: separating selection from influence”

2010-10-13T09:36:00.000+01:00

A Manchester Social Networks Group seminar, Arthut Lewis Building, Manchester University, room G033.

4pm 15th October, Tobias Galla: How do local transformations affect complexity in coupled maps?

2010-10-07T18:03:00.000+01:00

This is the second half of the previous week's talk. Also at the same venue. This is again a more mathematical talk, but all welcome!

4pm 8th Oct. Tobias Galla: Information geometry, interaction structures and measures of correlation (M)

2010-10-05T16:58:00.000+01:00

This talk is at the Neils Bohr Common room, floor 6 of the Schuster Building, UoM.

This talk is of a more mathematical nature, but all are welcome!

22nd Oct: worshop on "Synthetic data meets simulation"

2010-10-01T11:46:00.000+01:00

Synthetic data meets simulation workshop
Date: 22nd October 2010 10AM - 4PM
Venue: University Manchester

Sponsored by SIMIAN and CCSR (http://www.ccsr.ac.uk)

A workshop to explore synergies between synthetic data generation and agent-based modelling

Agent based modelling and synthetic data generation both produce artificial data based on theories or models. Synthetic data generation produces simulated population data usually from real data samples and/or data restricted in some way for confidentiality reasons. Agent based modelling generates data about simulated populations and could also be seen as a means of producing synthetic data.

This workshop has been conceived to explore whether research in both fields could be mutually informative and whether the techniques, methods and data products of each could enhance the other. Some ideas that may be worth exploring include: the use of synthetic data to assign properties to agents so that they possess the multivariate properties of the population of interest; and the use of agent based models to enhance longitudinal aspects of synthetic data (which may well have been generated cross-sectionally).

The workshop is free to attend. Lunch and refreshments will be provided. However places are limited, so please book early.

Speakers:

Jerry Reiter is Professor of Statistics Science at Duke University. He has is one of the world leading researchers on synthetic data generation, with particular reference to its applications to data privacy. More generally, he is interested in research involving survey methodology, especially dealing with missing data in complex surveys.
Mark Elliot has worked at the Centre for Census and Survey Research(CCSR) since 1996, mainly in the field of statistical confidentiality, founding the international recognised Confidentiality and Privacy Research Group (CAPRI) in 2002, and has managed numerous research projects within CAPRI remit. In 2005 he became Director of CCSR. He is one of the key international researchers in the field of Statistical Disclosure and has an extensive portfolio of research grants and publications in the field.
Bruce Edmonds is the Director of the Centre for Policy Modelling, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Manchester Metropolitan Unviserity Businesss School. He is interested in far too many things for his own good, but including social simulation, complexity, context, social intelligence, and alternative ways of distributing/organising society.
Nigel Gilbert is professor of Sociology at the University of Surrey and editor of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. He has written on the methodology of agent-based modelling and authored two textbooks on social simulation, as well as directing a number of large projects that used agent-based models.
Edmund Chattoe-Brown’s research addresses decisions with significant social components. Flows of information/influence through networks are obvious examples. He is interested in how agent-based modelling can systematically be informed by data routinely collected in social science, steering between data free “toy” models and “number crunching” for existing theories.

Registration

Register here: http://www.simian.ac.uk/courses/course-registration

1st Oct 4pm: the Schelling model of segregation and possible extensions of it

2010-09-30T11:31:00.000+01:00

4pm on the 1st October, Bruce Edmonds will talk informally on: "the Schelling model of segregation and some extensions of it"

Room 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building, Manchester. All welcome!

24th Sept 4pm: Andrew Black, The stochastic dynamics of childhood epidemics

2010-09-20T12:28:00.001+01:00

4pm Friday 24th Sept. 2010, Room 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building, Manchester. All welcome!

Paper discussion: The role of social networks in the projection of international migration flows: an agent-based approach

2010-06-09T17:44:00.000+01:00

4pm Thursday 9th June, Room 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building, Manchester. All welcome!

The role of social networks in the projection of international migration flows: an agent-based approach
Carla Anjos, University of Aveiro, and Pedro Campos1, Statistics Portugal and University of Porto, Portugal

Abstract

In recent years, migration has been modelled within the perspective of social networks. Models are based on the idea that migration flows are influenced by the social networks where the agents operate. In this work we use a Multi-Agent System to simulate social networks of migrants and analyse the impact of the structure of these networks in the flow of migrants. The model we propose uses information of a IPUMS database of immigrants in the United States. We focused in four different countries of origin: Germany, Mexico, Portugal and China and in six variables: age, educational level, income, number of people in the household, labour status and number of individuals in the social network of the agent. We have analysed four important measures of network structure: density and three measures of degree centralization: input, output and general. Results indicate that Mexicans have higher input and general degree centralization, meaning that their networks have higher levels of influence of the agents. We concluded that the agents that stay in the U.S. (and do not go away to their country of origin), have network connections that are weaker than those of other agents.

Available at: http://www.unece.org/stats/documents/ece/ces/ge.11/2010/wp.24.e.pdf

3rd June 4pm: Paper discusson on "Catastrophic cascade of failures in interdependent networks"

2010-06-02T15:45:00.000+01:00

4pm in the Niels Bohr, common room, physics.

Catastrophic cascade of failures in interdependent networks

Sergey V. Buldyrev1,2, Roni Parshani3, Gerald Paul2, H. Eugene Stanley2 & Shlomo Havlin3

Complex networks have been studied intensively for a decade, but research still focuses on the limited case of a single, non-interacting network1–14. Modern systems are coupled together15–19 and therefore should be modelled as interdependent networks. A fundamental property of interdependent networks is that failure of nodes in one network may lead to failure of dependent nodes in other networks. This may happen recursively and can lead to a cascade of failures. In fact, a failure of a very small fraction of nodes in one network may lead to the complete fragmentation of a system of several interdependent networks. A dramatic real-world example of a cascade of failures (‘concurrent malfunction’) is the electrical blackout that affected much of Italy on 28 September 2003: the shutdown of power stations directly led to the failure of nodes in the Internet communication network, which in turn caused further breakdown of power stations20. Here we develop a framework for understanding the robustness of interacting networks subject to such cascading failures. We present exact analytical solutions for the critical fraction of nodes that, on removal, will lead to a failure cascade and to a complete fragmentation of two interdependent networks. Surprisingly, a broader degree distribution increases the vulnerability of interdependent networks to random failure, which is opposite to how a single network behaves. Our findings highlight the need to consider interdependent network properties in designing robust networks.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7291/full/nature08932.html

Registration open: Epistemological Perspectives on Simulation IV

2010-05-31T09:42:00.000+01:00

IV Edition of Epistemological Perspectives on Simulation, A
Cross-Disciplinary Workshop

June 23-25, 2010
Hamburg University of Technology, Germany

Keynote speakers: Thomas Lux and Thomas Brenner

Workshop Information & Program on http://www.tu-harburg.de/EPOS2010/

Like its predecessors the workshop wants to provide a forum for
researchers from various disciplines, such as the social sciences,
economics, computer science, engineering or the natural sciences, who
are interested in discussing epistemological aspects of simulation
across disciplinary boundaries.

If you are interested, please register at http://www.tu-harburg.de/EPOS2010/.

We are looking forward to welcome you in Hamburg!

MULTI_SCALE MODELLING OF BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS

2010-05-31T09:32:00.002+01:00

Second Call for Participation (note extended deadline for abstracts below)
5-6th July 2010
University of Stirling
Sponsored by EPSRC

IMPORTANT DATES
Abstract submission deadline: 5 June, 2010
Notification of programme: 7 June, 2010
Registration deadline 5 June, 2010

Computational and mathematical modelling of biological systems is now
commonplace and indeed essential to many projects. A particular problem
faced by modellers is that of choosing the most appropriate scale, or
level of abstraction, for their model, especially given that there may
be different important features at each scale. For example, in an
epidemiological model, we might wish to describe the way in which
individuals interact. Alternatively, we might be more interested in the
analysis of population level features, making ordinary differential
equations more appropriate. The aim of the workshop is to bring
together researchers working on techniques which allow exploration of
models spanning a range of scales, especially those in which the
different scales are rigorously related. At Stirling, we are interested
in modelling techniques such as Process Algebra that allow large scale
properties to emerge from small scale behaviour. We would welcome
contributions using other techniques. We also particularly welcome
biologists interested in how this sort of modelling across scales can
help them understand their system.

CONFIRMED INVITED SPEAKERS
Modelling and analysis of biological systems using process calculi
Federica Ciochetta (The Microsoft Research - University of Trento Center
for Computational and Systems Biology)

Data Driven Network Modelling for Epidemiology
Eiko Yoneki (Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge)

LOCATION
The workshop will be held at the Stirling Management Centre, in central
Scotland. The Centre is part of the University of Stirling campus, and
is easy to reach from most places in the UK. International connections
are available via nearby Glasgow and Edinburgh airports.
http://www.smc.stir.ac.uk/

REGISTRATION
Registration is now open via Eventbrite:
http://mmbs2010.eventbrite.com
The password for the event is "models".

Workshop Fees (including lunch both days, and dinner on the 5th)
Early Bird: (first 40) free!
Standard (non-student): £100
Standard (student): £80

Research students: There are 10 bursaries to support attendance,
covering conference fee, travel and accommodation costs. These will be
allocated on a first come, first served basis.

ACCOMMODATION
We have reserved accommodation at the Stirling Management Centre. Please
contact them directly, quoting ref: 48122, after you have registered to
book. SMC rooms: Bed and Breakfast at £35 per person per night. Double
en-suite bedroom (no single supplement). Visit their web site:
http://www.smc.stir.ac.uk/content/default.asp?page=s7, or call the sales
office (Mon-Fri 0900-1700) 01786 451712
Alternatively there are some slightly cheaper rooms in other campus
accommodation: Bed and Breakfast at £26.35 per person per night. Single
standard bedroom, with access to shared toilet and shower facilities. A
short walk from the conference venue. Please mail the organisers
(mmbs2010@cs.stir.ac.uk) to book these rooms stating your arrival date,
and departure date.

CONTRIBUTED TALKS
Participants are encouraged to present a contributed talk (30 minute
slots). Please submit an abstract when you register.

Please forward this message on to anyone who you think may be
interested.

Many thanks and looking forward to seeing you there

Organisers: Carron Shankland and Rachel Norman.

Thurs 27th May: Richard Taylor, Exploring the many drivers of environmental migration and system tipping behaviour with the Diasporiom model

2010-05-22T13:14:00.001+01:00

This thursday, 4pm, Richard Taylor of the oxford branch of the Stockport Environment Institute will talk on:

Exploring the many drivers of environmental migration and system tipping behaviour with the Diasporiom model

As usual room 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building, Manchester. All welcome!

2oth May 4pm, discussion on paper: Human strategy updating in evolutionary games

2010-05-17T12:27:00.000+01:00

As usual room 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building, Manchester. All welcome!

An informal discussion of:

Human strategy updating in evolutionary games

Arne Traulsen^a,^b,¹, Dirk Semmann^b,^c, Ralf D. Sommerfeld^b, Hans-Jürgen Krambeck^b, and Manfred Milinski^b

Abstract

Evolutionary game dynamics describe not only frequency-dependent genetic evolution, but also cultural evolution in humans. In this context, successful strategies spread by imitation. It has been shown that the details of strategy update rules can have a crucial impact on evolutionary dynamics in theoretical models and, for example, can significantly alter the level of cooperation in social dilemmas. What kind of strategy update rules can describe imitation dynamics in humans? Here, we present a way to measure such strategy update rules in a behavioral experiment. We use a setting in which individuals are virtually arranged on a spatial lattice. This produces a large number of different strategic situations from which we can assess strategy updating. Most importantly, spontaneous strategy changes corresponding to mutations or exploration behavior are more frequent than assumed in many models. Our experimental approach to measure properties of the update mechanisms used in theoretical models will be useful for mathematical models of cultural evolution.

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/7/2962.abstract

(suggested by Alex)

Lab Experiments for the Study of Social-Ecological Systems - discussion

2010-05-14T11:32:00.000+01:00

In this weeks discussion of

Lab Experiments for the Study of Social-Ecological Systems
Marco A. Janssen, Robert Holahan, Allen Lee, Elinor Ostrom
Science 30 April 2010:
Vol. 328. no. 5978, pp. 613 - 617
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/328/5978/613

There was some wish to see what the communication and transcripts consisted of. The supplementary material at:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5978/613/DC1

does include this sort of information. They are quite interesting, also the punishments are analysed into the reasons why people punished in each case.

13th May 4pm, a discussion of: Lab Experiments for the Study of Social-Ecological Systems

2010-05-12T13:10:00.000+01:00

This week there will be a discussion of:

Lab Experiments for the Study of Social-Ecological Systems
Marco A. Janssen,1,* Robert Holahan,2 Allen Lee,1 Elinor Ostrom1,2
Science 30 April 2010:
Vol. 328. no. 5978, pp. 613 - 617
DOI: 10.1126/science.1183532

Governance of social-ecological systems is a major policy problem of the contemporary era. Field studies of fisheries, forests, and pastoral and water resources have identified many variables that influence the outcomes of governance efforts. We introduce an experimental environment that involves spatial and temporal resource dynamics in order to capture these two critical variables identified in field research. Previous behavioral experiments of commons dilemmas have found that people are willing to engage in costly punishment, frequently generating increases in gross benefits, contrary to game-theoretical predictions based on a static pay-off function. Results in our experimental environment find that costly punishment is again used but lacks a gross positive effect on resource harvesting unless combined with communication. These findings illustrate the importance of careful generalization from the laboratory to the world of policy.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/328/5978/613

as usual in room 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building. All welcome!

Tobias Galla: Measuring interaction complexity - information geometry in classical complex systems

2010-04-15T12:12:00.000+01:00

on Thursday 22nd April, 4pm Tobias Galla will talk on

Measuring interaction complexity - information geometry in classical complex systems

room 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building.

Richard Morris: A hand-waving introduction to combinatorial optimization problems

2010-03-31T14:26:00.001+01:00

Note change of Date!

On Friday 29th April Richar Morris will lead a discussion on

A hand-waving introduction to combinatorial optimization problems

4pm, room 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building.

With (possibly) the following outline:

I will continue to have a look for a nice simple example / well-written
paper. If I don't find anything I'll probably run through;

Some definitions (turing machines, random graphs, P/NP-complete etc.)
typical problems (random coloring, satisfiability)
typical behavior (phase transitions, solution clustering)
give the ideas behind the techniques being used...

Arjun Chandra: Co-evolution of Optimal Agents for the Alternating Offers Bargaining Game

2010-03-04T14:24:00.001Z

On March 25th, Arjun Chandra will talk on:

Co-evolution of Optimal Agents for the Alternating Offers Bargaining Game

4pm, room 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building.

Ali Abbas: A segregation model of Facebook

2010-02-26T16:17:00.000Z

On March 18th, Ali Abbas will talk on:

A segregation model of Facebook

4pm, room 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building.

Pablo Lucas: Conventional social behaviour amongst microfinance clients

2010-02-25T11:23:00.002Z

On the 11th March, Pablo Lucas (micro-credit.no-ip.org), will talk on:

Conventional social behaviour amongst microfinance clients

4pm, room 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building.

This research considers the role of conventional social behaviour amongst microfinance clients in terms of influencing groups' success or failure. Collective credit in question is subject to an adaptation of the Grameen Bank lending methodology in Mexico. An analysis has been made on the close interplay between institutional norms, i.e. repayment conditions imposed by the microfinance institution (MFI), and emergent cooperation or penalisation strategies that are entirely handled by clients to meet targets for managing debts and defaulters.

In this case, a sociological and financial fieldwork has been completed through surveying 600 MFI clients, their 2404 loans, 35 credit officers plus the MFI board of directors. This took place in the southernmost state of Chiapas, from September 2007 to February 2008, and analysis was carried out during that period until July 2009. All findings obtained in this process were discussed with relevant policy makers and this proved key in providing influential insights that helped improving the regulatory framework of the MFI. Main results include the following:

insights backed by up-to-date data that helped to adapt existing MFI credit policies by taking into consideration the predominant social norms in successful microcredit groups;
evidence deemed as reliable by the stakeholders, and that guided the development of a descriptive model for simulating how microcreditgroups deal with debt in adversity.

Individual agent decisions and memory properties in the simulation model are represented descriptively using a matrix data structure, which contain vectors chronologically organised with outcomes of endorsed events between members. A reactive model has also been developed to highlight issues such as sensitivity to initial conditions and how such such path-dependency can a priori influence results.

Alex Bladdon: The Heterogeneity of Price Impact in Financial Markets

2010-02-22T19:26:00.001Z

Alex Bladon will talk on:

The Heterogeneity of Price Impact in Financial Markets

4pm, Thursday 4th March, 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building.

Discussion: Heterogeneity, Subtle Coupling and the Law of Large Numbers

2010-02-19T14:43:00.003Z

Bruce Edmonds will lead a discussion on:

Heterogeneity, Subtle Coupling and the Law of Large Numbers

4pm, Thursday 25th Febuary, 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building.

Based around the paper:

K. Kaneko, "Globally Coupled Chaos Violates Law of Large Numbers", Phys. Rev. Lett. 65 (1990) 1391-1394

available at: http://chaos.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/papers/pr/kaneko90.pdf
(plus Erratum at http://prl.aps.org/pdf/PRL/v66/i2/p243_1)

Alex also found "

Do Globally Coupled Maps Really Violate the Law of Large Numbers? [PDF]

And maybe the results in section 5.3 of the paper at:

http://cfpm.org/cpmrep33.html

Informal Complexity Seminar: How to model risk aversion in game theory and economics ?

2010-02-15T14:13:00.005Z

This week Tobias Galla will be talking on the topic:

How to model risk aversion in game theory and economics ?

4pm, Thursday 18th Feb, in room 2.07B in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building of the University of Manchester.