We present a socio-epistemic model of science inspired by the existing literature on opinion dynamics. In this model, we embed the agents (or scientists) into social networks - e.g., we link those who work in the same institutions. And we place them into a regular lattice - each representing a unique mental model. Thus, the global environment describes networks of concepts connected based on their similarity. For instance, we may interpret the neighbor lattices as two equivalent models, except one does not include a causal path between two variables.

Agents interact with one another and move across the epistemic lattices. In other words, we allow the agents to explore or travel across the mental models. However, we constrain their movements based on absorptive capacity and cognitive coherence. Namely, in each round, an agent picks a focal point - e.g., one of their colleagues - and will move towards it. But the agents’ ability to move and speed depends on how far apart they are from the focal point - and if their new position is cognitive/logic consistent.

Therefore, we propose an analytical model that examines the connection between agents’ accumulated knowledge, social learning, and the span of attitudes towards mental models in an artificial society. While we rely on the example from the General Theory of Relativity renaissance, our goal is to observe what determines the creation and diffusion of mental models. We offer quantitative and inductive research, which collects data from an artificial environment to elaborate generalized theories about the evolution of science.

This version 2.1.0 of the uFunk model is about setting a business strategy (the S in the name) for an organization. A team of managers (or executives) meet and discuss various options on the strategy for the firm. There are three aspects that they have to agree on to set the strategic positioning of the organization.
The discussion is on market, stakeholders, and resources. The team (it could be a business strategy task force) considers various aspects of these three elements. The resources they use to develop the discussion can come from a traditional approach to strategy or from non-traditional means (e.g., so-called serious play, creativity and imagination techniques).
The S-uFunk 2.1.0 Model wants to understand to which extent cognitive means triggered by traditional and non-traditional resources affect the making of the strategy process.

Organizations are complex systems comprised of many dynamic and evolving interaction patterns among individuals and groups. Understanding these interactions and how patterns, such as informal structures and knowledge sharing behavior, emerge are crucial to creating effective and efficient organizations. To explore such organizational dynamics, the agent-based model integrates a cognitive model, dynamic social networks, and a physical environment.

In the “World of Cows”, dairy farmers run their farms and interact with each other, the surrounding agricultural landscape, and the economic and political framework. The model serves as an exemplary case of an interdependent human-environment system.

With the model, users can analyze the influence of policies and markets on land use decisions of dairy farms. The land use decisions taken by farms determine the delivered ecosystem services on the landscape level. Users can choose a combination of five policy options and how strongly market prices fluctuate. Ideally, the choice of policy options fulfills the following three “political goals” 1) dairy farming stays economically viable, 2) the provision of ecosystem services is secured, and 3) government spending on subsidies is as low as possible.

The model has been designed for students to practice agent-based modeling and analyze the impacts of land use policies.

We consider scientific communities where each scientist employs one of two characteristic methods: an “adequate” method (A) and a “superior” method (S). The quality of methodology is relevant to the epistemic products of these scientists, and generate credit for their users. Higher-credit methods tend to be imitated, allowing to explore whether communities will adopt one method or the other. We use the model to examine the effects of (1) bias for existing methods, (2) competence to assess relative value of competing methods, and (3) two forms of interdisciplinarity: (a) the tendency for members of a scientific community to receive meaningful credit assignment from those outside their community, and (b) the tendency to consider new methods used outside their community. The model can be used to show how interdisciplinarity can overcome the effects of bias and incompetence for the spread of superior methods.

If you have any questions about the model run, please send me an email and I will respond as soon as possible.
Under complex system perspectives, we build the multi-agent system to back-calculate this unification process of the Warring State period, from 32 states in 475 BC to 1 state (Qin) in 221 BC.

This project was developed during the Santa Fe course Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling 2022. The origin is a Cellular Automata (CA) model to simulate human interactions that happen in the real world, from Rubens and Oliveira (2009). These authors used a market research with real people in two different times: one at time zero and the second at time zero plus 4 months (longitudinal market research). They developed an agent-based model whose initial condition was inherited from the results of the first market research response values and evolve it to simulate human interactions with Agent-Based Modeling that led to the values of the second market research, without explicitly imposing rules. Then, compared results of the model with the second market research. The model reached 73.80% accuracy.
In the same way, this project is an Exploratory ABM project that models individuals in a closed society whose behavior depends upon the result of interaction with two neighbors within a radius of interaction, one on the relative “right” and other one on the relative “left”. According to the states (colors) of neighbors, a given cellular automata rule is applied, according to the value set in Chooser. Five states were used here and are defined as levels of quality perception, where red (states 0 and 1) means unhappy, state 3 is neutral and green (states 3 and 4) means happy.
There is also a message passing algorithm in the social network, to analyze the flow and spread of information among nodes. Both the cellular automaton and the message passing algorithms were developed using the Python extension. The model also uses extensions csv and arduino.

The model is based on the influence function of the Leviathan model (Deffuant, Carletti, Huet 2013 and Huet and Deffuant 2017) with the addition of group idenetity. We aim at better explaining some patterns generated by this model, using a derived mathematical approximation of the evolution of the opinions averaged.

We consider agents having an opinion/esteem about each other and about themselves. During dyadic meetings, agents change their respective opinion about each other, and possibly about other agents they gossip about, with a noisy perception of the opinions of their interlocutor. Highly valued agents are more influential in such encounters. Moreover, each agent belongs to a single group and the opinions within the group are attracted to their average.

We show that a group hierarchy can emerges from this model, and that the inequality of reputations among groups have a negative effect on the opinions about the groups of low status. The mathematical analysis of the opinion dynamic shows that the lower the status of the group, the more detrimental the interactions with the agents of other groups are for the opinions about this group, especially when gossip is activated. However, the interactions between agents of the same group tend to have a positive effect on the opinions about this group.

The model is based on the influence function of the Leviathan model (Deffuant, Carletti, Huet 2013 and Huet and Deffuant 2017). We aim at better explaining some patterns generated by this model, using a derived mathematical approximation of the evolution of the opinions averaged.

We consider agents having an opinion/esteem about each other and about themselves. During dyadic meetings, agents change their respective opinion about each other, and possibly about other agents they gossip about, with a noisy perception of the opinions of their interlocutor. Highly valued agents are more influential in such encounters.

We show that the inequality of reputations among agents have a negative effect on the opinions about the agents of low status.The mathematical analysis of the opinion dynamic shows that the lower the status of the agent, the more detrimental the interactions are for the opinions about this agent, especially when gossip is activated, while the interactions always tend to increase the opinions about agents of high status.

The Urban Traffic Simulator is an agent-based model developed in the Unity platform. The model allows the user to simulate several autonomous vehicles (AVs) and tune granular parameters such as vehicle downforce, adherence to speed limits, top speed in mph and mass. The model allows researchers to tune these parameters, run the simulator for a given period and export data from the model for analysis (an example is provided in Jupyter Notebook).

The data the model is currently able to output are the following:

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