'Dynamics of Agent-Based Models', leeds, 12th May

You are cordially invited to the next meeting of the CoSyDy network, which will take place at the School of Mathematics of the University of Leeds on Thursday 12th May 2016 (from 12:00 onwards).

The subject of the meeting is 'Dynamics of Agent-Based Models' and details of the location and (tentative) programme can be found in the enclosed poster. We would be grateful if you could bring this event to the attention of all those who may be interested.

All are welcome but, for catering purposes and due to space limitation, we would appreciate if you could confirm your attendance to Jon Ward (j.a.ward@leeds.ac.uk) by Wednesday 4th May. 

Directions: http://www.maths.leeds.ac.uk/home/visit-us.html and
http://www.maths.leeds.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/directions_2011-12.pdf

We look forward to seeing you in Leeds in May,

Mauro Mobilia and Jonathan Ward

Programme:

Tentative programme
All talks will be in the Mall, level 8 of the School of Maths on Thursday 12th May

• 12:00: Buffet lunch (School of Mathematics' foyer, level 9)

• 13:00-13:40: Dr. Thilo Gross (Bristol), “Opinion formation: Humans, Fish, and
  systems of equations”

• 13:40-14:00: Dario Bauso (Sheffield), “Mean-field games”

• 14:00-14:20: Guillem Mosquera (Warwick), “Bubble-Like Processes in Opinion
  Dynamics”

• 14:20-15:00: Coffee, tea & cookies (School of Mathematics' foyer, level 9)

• 15.00-15.40: Dr. Andrew Evans (Leeds), “Current challenges in agent-based
  modelling of social and ecological systems”

• 15:40-16:00: Dr. Bruce Edmonds (Manchester Met.), “Staged Models for
  Interdisciplinary Research”

• 16:00-16:20: Dr. Jerome Michaud (Edinburgh), “On the dynamics of the utterance
  selection model with preferences”

• 16:20-16:40: Jacopo Iacovacci (QMUL), “Emergence and characterization of
  communities in social multilayer networks”

• 16:40: Wine and nibbles (School of Mathematics' foyer, level 9)

Manchester Complexity Seminars for December

4th Dec, Bruce Edmonds, Intra-generational cultural evolution and ethnocentrism in an artificial society

11th Dec: Tobias Galla, You are a young and aspiring physicist, is working at the interface with economics & the social sciences a good idea? 

 

Both of these are suitable for those that dont like mathematics a lot and have a 12A certificate.

 

As usual at 4pm in the Niels Bohr Common Roo, Schuster building, University of Manchester.

 

All welcome.

Upcoming Informal Complexity Seminars in Manchester, Friday 4pm

Friday Complexity Seminars, 4pm, room TBC (but almost certainly in the Schuster Building, UoM):

• 23rd Oct: Michael Colman, Cardiac Modelling
• 30th Oct: Ahsan Nazir, Open quantum systems
• 6th Nov: Yen Ting Lin, Equilibrium polymer conformations
• 13th Nov.: Bruce Edmonds,  Intra-generational cultural evolution and ethnocentrism in an artificial society
• 20th Nov: Henri Kauhanen, Neutral change language modelling
• 27th Nov: Tobias Galla, You are a young and aspiring physicist, is working at the interface with economics & the social sciences a good idea?

More Complexity Seminars

February 6th: A journal club where we'll discuss the following paper:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.2592

Please look at this paper before we meet next Friday (it is only suitable
for those not averse to mathematics!)

February 13th:  Nick Phillips:  "The roles of nonlinearity and coupling in stochastic models of neural development with delay"

February 20th:  Yen Ting Lin:  TBA

February 27th:  Frensis Bras: "The relationship between ethnic density and racial discrimination: an agent based model".

Upcoming Manchester Complexity Seminars

The next four talks will be:

• January 16th: Marcelo de Oliveira "Phase diagram of the symbiotic contact process"
• January 23rd: Toby Brett  "Stochastic modelling of diseases with delay"
• January 30th: Luis Lafuerza and Louise Dyson  "A simplified version of an agent-based voting model" (an output from the SCID project)
• February 6th: Nick Phillips  "The roles of nonlinearity and coupling in stochastic models of neural development with delay"

Talks are at the Niels Bohr Common Room on the 6th floor of the Schuster Building at 4pm.  All welcome.

Friday 4pm 31st, Tamas David-Barrett on: "Some topics regarding the evolution of human sociality"

Title: Some topics regarding the evolution of human sociality

This talk will first introduce the behavioural synchrony model: a two-level agent-based model of collective action coordination, followed by the overview of three applications: social stratification, social brain, and language. The second half of the talk will focus on two empirical questions concerning ego networks: the universality of close friendship, and the role of propinquity in storytelling.

Tamas David-Barrett is interdisciplinary behavioural scientist with a grounding in economics and evolutionary anthropology. His theoretical work concerns the evolution of social traits that allow the emergence of large and complex human societies. His empirical work concerns ego centred social interactions, in particular the evolution of close friendship, network effects in pair choice, and friendship-kinship trade-offs.  Tamas David-Barrett is a post-doc in Experimental Psychology of University of Oxford, and economics fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.

Neils Bohr Common Room, Schuster Building, All Welcome

Short notice: Talk by Chris Blum on "Swarm Intelligence and Hybrid Metaheuristics" 17th Sept Manchester

Swarm Intelligence and Hybrid Metaheuristics

by Prof Christian Blum (http://www.ehu.es/cs-ikerbasque/blum/)

Abstract: The fields of swarm intelligence and hybrid metaheuristics are briefly introduced. Moreover, two application examples from the speakers' current/recent work are presented for each of the two main topics. Concerning swarm intelligence, the application examples will focus on recent work on self-synchronization found in colonies of ants and self-desynchronization to be observed in populations of Japanese tree frogs. Concerning hybrid metaheuristics, the application examples deal with combinations of metaheuristics with linear integer programming techniques.

*2pm* in *Lecture Theatre 1.3*, Computer Science, University of Manchester

Workshop on Modelling Routines 25th Nov 2014, Manchester

Guest speaker will be Professor Alan Warde, of the University of Manchester's Sustainable Consumption Institute.

Venue: the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School.
 

More details (when we know them) at: http://modellingroutines.wordpress.com

A free MOOC on "Complexity and Uncertainty" starting Sept 15 2014

Wander Jager, University of Gronigen, NL writes:

Over 9000 students have registered for our MOOC on complexity and
uncertainty. We expect this free MOOC to be a nice introduction in the
field for many interested people. I kindly ask you to share the following
link to inform potential participants...we start on September 15.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/complexity-and-uncertainty/

Upcoming Complexity Seminars in Manchester

All at 4pm, Friday, Neils Bohr Common Room, Schuster Building, Brunswick Street, University of Manchester. 

All welcome!

Today, 7th February : James Woodcock and team (Centre for Diet and Activity research, Cambridge) on "Learning what you need to cycle: an agent based model of cycle commuting"

February 14th, a Valentine Day's special, Luis Lafuerza on "Sex and noise in speciation"

February 21st:  Ruth Meyer on "DITCH - a model of inter-ethnic partnership"

February 28th:  George Constable TBA

March 7th:  Stefano Picascia on "An Agent Based Exploration of Urban Economic and Cultural Dynamics Under the Rent-Gap Hypotheses"

7th Feb: James Woodcock (Institute for public health, Cambridge) on "Learning what you need to cycle: an agent based model of cycle commuting"

James Woodcock, the programme lead in public health modelling at the Centre for Diet and Activity research at Cambridge, and two of his colleagues will talk about the model that they have been developing there concerning choices as to whether or not to bicyle.

The first versions of this model are up and running, and they would appreciate comments upon it.

4pm Neils Bohr Common room, UoM Physics building.

All welcome

Joint-funded PhD position on ABM and the environment available

A fully funded (fees, stipend and travel expenses) PhD studentship is available. This is jointly supervised by the James Hutton Institute (Scotlands internation research centre on the environment) and the Centre for Policy Modelling in Manchester (specialists in agent-based social simulation and evaluation).

Deadline for applications 17th Jan 2014.

Details at: http://www.findaphd.com/search/ProjectDetails.aspx?PJID=49146

Manchester Complexity Seminars starting again friday 4pm (27th Oct)

And the first talk will be:

Jordi Hidalgo will talk on:  "The emergence of criticality in living systems: Practice Makes Critical"

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

11 Sept. Symposium: Agent based models of landscape scale socio-ecological systems

Symposium: Agent based models of landscape scale socio-ecological systems at the 2013 European Congress of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), Manchester, UK (September 13-16, 2013) http://www.iale2013.eu/, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Manchester, UK) ABM Symposium date: Wednesday September 11, 2013 ABM Symposium programme: 14:00-15:40 - Session I  Flávia Cardoso Pereira dos Santos, Henrique Donancio, Glenda Dimuro, Diana Adamatti, Graçaliz Dimuro and Esteban De Manuel Jerez - Using artifacts to model

systems in social simulation: A case study in an urban vegetable garden [Cancelled]   Jon Pocock, Siôn Jones, Chris Counsell and Helen Wilkinson - Agent based models of water abstraction reform policy options   Laurence Jolivet, Marianne Cohen and Anne Ruas - Assessing the effect of landscape change on fauna by agent-based model simulation   Nic Elliot, Samuel Cushman, Andy Loveridge and David Macdonald - Simulating the effects of fencing protected areas on genetic diversity of lions in southern Africa   Shah Jamal Alam, Martha Bakker, Eleni Karali, J. van Dijk, Mark Rounsevell - A land exchange agent-based model for the Baakse Beek region in Netherlands 15:40-16:05 Tea and coffee 16:05-17:45 - Session II   James D.A Millington - Representing cultural change in agent-based models of landscape scale socio-ecological systems   Alessandro Gimona and Gary Polhill - Effect of food price spikes on the provision of ecosystem services: a coupled agent-based and environmental model   Thomas Dalang and Anna M. Hersperger - “Qualitative Comparative Analysis” as a tool for modeling agents

 Jasper van Vliet - A meta-analysis of agricultural land change in Europe to aid the design of an agent based land use model For details about attending the symposium, please visit: http://www.iale2013.eu Symposium organisers Jasper van Vliet, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Shah Jamal Alam, University of Edinburgh, UK.  All Welcome!

workshop 13th Sept: "Social complexity, emergence and institutions"

Social complexity, emergence and institutions

Second workshop in the ESRC-funded ‘Constructed Complexity’ Series

13^th September 2013

Manchester Institute of Innovation Research Conference Suite
10^th Floor, Harold Hankins Building, University of Manchester

Programme

10.00am          Arrivals and coffee

10.30am          Welcome and introductions:
Dr Ozge Dilaver Kalkan, Dr Kieron Flanagan & Dr Elvira Uyarra

10.45am          Keynote speaker: Prof Peter Allen (Cranfield University)

11.30am          Coffee break

11.50am          Response to Peter Allen: Prof Stan Metcalfe (University of Manchester)

12.20pm          Plenary discussion

12.40pm          Lunch

2.00pm                        Keynote speaker: Prof Robert Geyer (Lancaster University)

2.45pm                        Respondent: Prof Bruce Edmonds (Manchester Metropolitan University)

3.05pm            Plenary discussion

3.25pm            Panel discussion: Chair: Prof Frank Geels (University of Manchester)

3.55pm                        Rounding-up comments from Prof Nigel Gilbert (University of Surrey)

4.10pm                        Closing remarks and next steps: Dr Ozge Dilaver Kalkan

4.15pm                        Close and coffee

This small interactive meeting aims to explore the relationships between complexity and institutionalist perspectives in social science (particularly but not only in economics and political science/policy studies), as part of a broader programme of building a bridge between complexity perspectives and other meta-theories in social science.

Attendance is free but numbers are restricted. To apply to attend please email: kieron.flanagan@manchester.ac.uk

1pm friday 28th June: Nick Malleson and Alison Heppenstall (Leeds) on "When to channel the power of agent-based modelling for the simulation of behaviour in social systems"

1-2.15pm, Hanson Room, Humanities Building, University of Manchester.  All welcome!

SPEAKERS: Nick Malleson and Alison Heppenstall (Leeds)

TITLE: "The force is strong in this one"  When to channel the power of agent-based modelling for the simulation of behaviour in social systems

ABSTRACT:
Over the last decade, agent-based modelling (ABM) has become established as a commonplace research method for the simulation of social systems.  Examples can be found from the research domains of crime, health, transport, economics etc. One of ABMs most promising offerings is the potential to equip individual agents with cognitive models. This leads to the replication of important behaviour at both the micro and macro level. However, many published models do not explicitly incorporate human behaviour or do so inappropriately.

This paper will discuss the contexts in which ABM is the most suitable methodology for simulating social systems and present a general typology for discussion.  We will present cutting-edge work from crime, economics and archaeology, illustrating different approaches (through demonstrations) to simulating behaviour, including the role that new data sources (such as massive crowd-sourced data) will play.

5th June, Leeds, meeting on "Complexity Systems Dynamics"

This is a gentle reminder concerning the half-day LMS-funded "Complexity Systems Dynamics" (CoSyDy) Meeting on "Complexity in economics and social dynamics"  that will be held in the School of Mathematics of the University of Leeds on Wednesday 5th June 2013.

The speakers for the June CoSyDy meeting are Peter Grindrod (Reading), Hannah Fry (UCL), Sergio Morales (Warwick), Bruce Edmonds (Manchester Met.), and Jonathan Ward (Leeds).  I am here attaching a poster of the meeting on which you will find a tentative timetable (http://www1.maths.leeds.ac.uk/~amtmmo/CoSyDy_June2013_poster.pdf). The meeting's detailed programme (including the titles and abstracts of the talks) can also be found at http://www1.maths.leeds.ac.uk/~amtmmo/CoSyDy_June2013_programme.pdf

The meeting shall start at 12:45 (first talk at 13:30) and the last talk will end at 17:00. There is no registration fee and everyone is welcome to attend the meeting (within space limits). I would be most grateful if you could bring this event to interested colleagues (including postdocs and PhD students).

Directions to the Leeds School of Mathematics can be found here:
http://www.maths.leeds.ac.uk/home/visit-us.html
http://www.maths.leeds.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/directions_2011-12.pdf

For catering purposes and due to space limitation, I would greatly appreciate if those who are planning to attend the meeting could register by emailing me (M.Mobilia@leeds.ac.uk) by Friday 24th May.

Workshop 30th May london: Agentcy in Complex Information Systems

PhD studentship: Agent-Based Model approach to understanding changes in ethnic relations

An Agent-Based Model approach to understanding changes in ethnic relations: applications to neighbourhood ethnic composition and health.

Applications are invited for a 3-year Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) PhD Studentship based at CoDE under the supervision of Professor James Nazroo, Dr Laia Bécares, and Dr Nick Shryane. The project provides a studentship covering UK/EU tuition fees, an annual tax-free stipend at Research Council rates (£13,590 in 2012/13), plus the Advanced Quantitative Methods supplement (£3,000 per year) for a total of £16,590. Funding will be for three years of full-time study (+3 Scheme), starting in October 2013 with an expected submission date of September 2016.  

Background

Ethnic minority people living in areas with higher concentrations of other ethnic minority residents tend to be healthier, to report higher social cohesion and decreased experiences of racism. Neighbourhood effects on health consist of complex mutually dependent processes in which individuals interact with each other and with their neighbourhoods, and where both individuals and areas adapt and change over time. Incorporating the exploration of the role of ethnicity in the association between place and health adds an extra layer of complexity, involving the interaction between place and ethnicity in the racialisation of both areas and individuals. Recent years have seen a surge of national and international studies examining the association between neighbourhood ethnic composition and health, with a view of understanding the mechanisms by which residential composition impacts on health; however, work to date has been limited to statistical analyses of cross-sectional datasets which aim to isolate area-level from individual-level effects on health, failing to model the dynamic mechanisms by which individuals and areas interact with each other and change over time. Agent-based models provide an innovative way of understanding neighbourhood effects, as they can be used to model the dynamic process related to place and health by examining mechanisms that involve interactions between diverse individuals, and interactions between individuals and environments. Agent-based models also allow for the specification of agents at several levels (individuals, neighbourhoods, and higher-level organisms), providing additional information on how macro-level characteristics influence interactions occurring at the micro-level, and vice versa.

Research Objectives

This PhD project aims to model the dynamic processes related to changes in ethnic relations, and how these play out in terms of area effects on health.

The work is an independent course of enquiry that will add great value to the main aim of the project of understanding of the contemporary patterning of ethnic inequalities and how this relates to the ways in which ethnic identities are perceived, acted upon and experienced. 

Location and Supervision

The PhD will be hosted at the Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research (CCSR), University of Manchester. The University of Manchester is part of the ESRC North West Doctoral Training Centre (NWDTC), and the student will be based in the Social Statistics accredited pathway. The student will be embedded within the research team at the University of Manchester, and will be supervised by Professor James Nazroo, Dr Laia Bécares and Dr Nick Shryane.

Admissions Criteria

Applicants should hold a minimum upper-second honours degree (or equivalent) in sociology, geography, epidemiology, computational social science, or related area and a Masters-level degree in a relevant discipline. Experience of programming and/or simulation is a plus.

How to apply

Applicants are required to provide: (i) an academic CV; (ii) official academic transcripts; (iii) contact details of two suitable referees; and (iv) a cover letteroutlining your suitability for the study and your research experience to date.

Applications should be emailed to: laia.becares@manchester.ac.uk. The successful candidate will be required to submit a full University of Manchester on-line application, plus supporting documents (two academic references and degree transcripts) to fulfil the normal admissions process.

Any enquiries relating to the project and/or suitability should be directed to Dr Bécares at the address above.

Deadline

The deadline for applications is April 30^th 2013. Candidates may be called for interview in early May 2013.

CfP: Eighth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context

Eighth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context:

                      Context modeling and Management in Real-World Applications

                      Annecy, Haute Savoie, France, October 28 – November 1^st 2013

             http://www.polytech.univ-savoie.fr/index.php?id=context-13-home

Deadlines for submissions: 
          June 1^st, 2013                Full papers, posters, videos, and demonstration abstracts
          March 30, 2013             Workshop proposals

As with previous conferences of the CONTEXT series, CONTEXT’13 will provide a forum for presenting and discussing high-quality research and applications on context in an interdisciplinary way. Researchers and practitioners are invited to share insights and cutting-edge results from the wide range of disciplines concerned with context, including: Cognitive Sciences, Computer Science, Social Sciences and Organizational Sciences, and all application areas, like:  Business, Education, Ecology and Environment, Economics and finance, Engineering, Image management, Interactive Installation, Games, Geographical Information Systems, Law, Linguistics, Management, Medicine and Health care, Transportation, Robotics, etc.

Papers will be published in the Springer LNAI format. See the conference Web Site for details:  http://www.polytech.univ-savoie.fr/index.php?id=context-13-home