A thermostat is a device that allows to have the temperature in a room near a desire value.

On July 20th, James Holmes committed a mass shooting in a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises. The Aurora Colorado shooting was used as a test case to validate this framework for modeling mass shootings.

Norms@Risk ABM aim is to develop an explanation for the conditions under which people jointly take action to prevent disasters from happening, e.g. impacts from climate crisis, pandemic. The aim of the Norms@Risk work is to explore understudied dynamics between risk, social norms and cooperative behaviour and their role in overcoming collective threats. More specifically, Norms@Risk seeks to refine existing theory on cooperation by unpacking the role of collective risk interacting with social norms in ‘Collective Risk Social Dilemmas’*.

This simulation study takes on the next scientific iteration after a series of behavioural experiments. With the model we target to refine existing theory by capturing the heterogeneity in contributions that existing theories cannot fully explain as the behavioural responses are assumed to be more homogenous, particularly diversity regarding sensitivity to risk and norms.

*Collective Risk Social Dilemmas reflect a special type of social dilemma, unlike typical public goods, the collective risk dilemma involves individual contribution not to realise a gain, but to avoid a collective loss.

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An agent-based model which explores Creativity and Urban Development

The DITCH model has been developed to investigate partner selection processes, focusing on individual preferences, opportunities for contact, and group size to uncover how these may lead to differential rates of inter-­ethnic marriage.

The objective of this agent-based model is to test different language education orientations and their consequences for the EU population in terms of linguistic disenfranchisement, that is, the inability of citizens to understand EU documents and parliamentary discussions should their native language(s) no longer be official. I will focus on the impact of linguistic distance and language learning. Ideally, this model would be a tool to help EU policy makers make informed decisions about language practices and education policies, taking into account their consequences in terms of diversity and linguistic disenfranchisement. The model can be used to force agents to make certain choices in terms of language skills acquisition. The user can then go on to compare different scenarios in which language skills are acquired according to different rationales. The idea is that, by forcing agents to adopt certain language learning strategies, the model user can simulate policies promoting the acquisition of language skills and get an idea of their impact. In this way the model allows not only to sketch various scenarios of the evolution of language skills among EU citizens, but also to estimate the level of disenfranchisement in each of these scenarios.

PSoup is an educational program in which evolution is demonstrated, on the desk-top, as you watch. Blind bugs evolve sophisticated heuristic search algorithms to be the best at finding food fast.

Due to the role of education in promoting social status and facilitating upward social mobility, individuals and their families spare no effort to pursue better educational opportunities, especially in countries where education is highly competitive.

In China, the enrollment of senior high schools and universities mainly follows a ranking system based on students’ scores in national entrance exams (Zhongkao and Gaokao). Typically, students with higher scores have priority in choosing schools and endeavor to get into better senior high schools to increase their chances of entering a prestigious university.

However, students can only select “better” senior high schools based on their average Gaokao grades, which are strongly influenced by the initial performance (Zhongkao grades) of enrolled students. The true quality indicator of school education (schooling effect, defined as the grade improvement achieved through education at the senior high school) is unknowable. This raises the first question: will school rankings reflect the real educational quality of schools over decades of educational competition, or merely the initial quality of the students they enroll?

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The TERROIR agent-based model was built for the multi-level analysis of biomass and nutrient flows within agro-sylvo-pastoral villages in West Africa. It explicitly takes into account both human organization and spatial extension of such flows.

The MeReDiem model aims to simulate the effect of socio-agricultural practices of farmers and pastors on the food sustainability and soil fertility of a serrer village, in Senegal. The model is a central part of a companion modeling and exploration approach, described in a paper, currently under review)

The village population is composed of families (kitchens). Kitchens cultivate their land parcels to feed their members, aiming for food security at the family level. On a global level , the village tries to preserve the community fallow land as long as possible.

Kitchens sizes vary depending on the kitchens food production, births and migration when food is insufficient.
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