The model formalizes a situation where agents embedded in different types of networks (random, small world and scale free networks) interact with their neighbors and express an opinion that is the result of different mechanisms: a coherence mechanism, in which agents try to stick to their previously expressed opinions; an assessment mechanism, in which agents consider available external information on the topic; and a social influence mechanism, in which agents tend to approach their neighbor’s opinions.

Three policy scenarios for urban expansion under the influences of the behaviours and decision modes of four agents and their interactions have been applied to predict the future development patterns of the Guangzhou metropolitan region.

Confirmation Bias is usually seen as a flaw of the human mind. However, in some tasks, it may also increase performance. Here, agents are confronted with a number of binary Signals (A, or B). They have a base detection rate, e.g. 50%, and after they detected one signal, they get biased towards this type of signal. This means, that they observe that kind of signal a bit better, and the other signal a bit worse. This is moderated by a variable called “bias_effect”, e.g. 10%. So an agent who detects A first, gets biased towards A and then improves its chance to detect A-signals by 10%. Thus, this agent detects A-Signals with the probability of 50%+10% = 60% and detects B-Signals with the probability of 50%-10% = 40%.
Given such a framework, agents that have the ability to be biased have better results in most of the scenarios.

HUMLAND Fire-in-the-Hole is a conceptual agent-based model (ABM) designed to explore the ecological and behavioral consequences of fire-driven hunting strategies employed by hunter-gatherers, specifically Neanderthals, during the Last Interglacial period around the Neumark-Nord (Germany) archaeological site.

This model builds on and specializes the HUMLAND 1.0.0 model (Nikulina et al. 2024), integrating anthropogenic fires, elephant group behavior, and landscape response to simulate interactions between humans, megafauna, and vegetation over time.

In this paper we introduce an agent-based model of elections and government formation where voters do not have perfect knowledge about the parties’ ideological position. Although voters are boundedly rational, they are forward-looking in that they try to assess the likely impact of the different parties over the resulting government. Thus, their decision rules combine sincere and strategic voting: they form preferences about the different parties but deem some of them as inadmissible and try to block them from office. We find that the most stable and durable coalition governments emerge at intermediate levels of informational ambiguity. When voters have very poor information about the parties, their votes are scattered too widely, preventing the emergence of robust majorities. But also, voters with highly precise perceptions about the parties will cluster around tiny electoral niches with a similar aggregate effect.

This model simulates a group of farmers that have encounters with individuals of a wildlife population. Each farmer owns a set of cells that represent their farm. Each farmer must decide what cells inside their farm will be used to produce an agricultural good that is self in an external market at a given price. The farmer must decide to protect the farm from potential encounters with individuals of the wildlife population. This decision in the model is called “fencing”. Each time that a cell is fenced, the chances of a wildlife individual to move to that cell is reduced. Each encounter reduces the productive outcome obtained of the affected cell. Farmers, therefore, can reduce the risk of encounters by exclusion. The decision of excluding wildlife is made considering the perception of risk of encounters. In the model, the perception of risk is subjective, as it depends on past encounters and on the perception of risk from other farmers in the community. The community of farmers passes information about this risk perception through a social network. The user (observer) of the model can control the importance of the social network on the individual perception of risk.

This is an agent-based model, simulating wolf (Canis Lupus) reappearance in the Netherlands. The model’s purpose is to allow researchers to investigate the reappearance of wolves in the Netherlands and the possible effect of human interference. Wolf behaviour is modelled according to the literature. The suitability of the Dutch landscape for wolf settlement has been determined by Lelieveld (2012) [1] and is transformed into a colour-coded map of the Netherlands. The colour-coding is the main determinant of wolf settlement. Human involvement is modelled through the public opinion, which varies according to the size, composition and behaviour of the wolf population.

[1] Lelieveld, G.: Room for wolf comeback in the Netherlands, (2012).

We model interpersonal dynamics and study behavior in the classroom in the hypothetical case of a single teacher who defines students’ seating arrangements. The model incorporates the mechanisms of peer influence on study behavior, on attitude formation, and homophilous selection in order to depict the interrelated dynamics of networks, behavior, and attitudes. We compare various seating arrangement scenarios and observe how GPA distribution and level of prejudice changes over time.

The purpose of the simulation is to evaluate alternative interventions by a value chain development program, aiming to improve rural livelihood and food and nutrition security. In northern Ghana, where distrust between the partners can be a problem in the functioning of value chains, the program supports the incorporation of smallholder farmers in soy clusters or agriculture APEX organization (farmers’ co-operatives) with a fair business environment. The goal is to to include the smallholder farmers in a strong value chain and reduce distrust.

This model simulates different seeding strategies for information diffusion in a social network adjusted to a case study area in rural Zambia. It systematically evaluates different criteria for seed selection (centrality measures and hierarchy), number of seeds, and interaction effects between seed selection criteria and set size.