Mason-Yale Joint Project on Computational Modeling of Complex Crises in East Africa
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Mission: To develop new agent-based spatial simulation models for analyzing scenarios of societal consequences of disasters in the East Africa region.
Principal Investigator: Dr Claudio Cioffi-Revilla, George Mason University
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Browsing Mason-Yale Joint Project on Computational Modeling of Complex Crises in East Africa by Author "Cioffi-Revilla, Claudio"
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Item Comparing Agent-Based Computational Simulation Models in Cross-Cultural Research(SAGE, 2011-05) Cioffi-Revilla, ClaudioMel Ember was co-Principal Investigator in the Mason-HRAF Joint Project on Eastern Africa, a multiyear project aimed at developing and analyzing advanced computational agent-based models of human societies across 10 countries and 12 ecosystems. A major unsolved challenge in this kind of social science research is to devise a systematic way to compare, contrast, and communicate different models of social dynamics along relevant dimensions and characteristics, given the inherent complexity of most computational agent-based models. This article proposes a viable systematic framework for comparing models and illustrates its application using some of the models that Mel helped inspire and develop as senior project participant.Item Complex Polities in the Age of Modern States(International Studies Association, 2011-03-16) Cioffi-Revilla, ClaudioComplex polities are political systems composed of both official "vertical" state institutions as well as one or more alternative set of "horizontal" institutions, such as religious, economic, paramilitary, or even criminal organizations. Both vertical and horizontal polities that compose complex polities have policy-making capacity engaged in the provision of public (and in some cases private) goods aimed at addressing various societal needs. While complex polities have existed since early antiquity, from a world historical perspective it is only since ca. 1500 CE and the formation of modern European states that contending vertical and horizontal polities have produced specialized institutions in competition and collaboration with the state. Moreover, complex polities for global governance also appear in the world system since ca. 1500 CE. This paper will present a theory of complex polities based on a computational perspective that is implemented in agent-based models of coupled socio-techno-natural systems - i.e., systems of governance that integrate societies and natural environments through artificial systems that mediate between the two at many scales, from local to global.Item Evolutionary Computation and Agent-based Modeling: Biologically-inspired Approaches for Understanding Complex Social Systems(Kluwer, 2012-06-18) Cioffi-Revilla, Claudio; De Jong, Kenneth; Bassett, JeffreyComputational social science in general, and social agent-based modeling (ABM) simulation in particular, are challenged by modeling and analyzing complex adaptive social systems with emergent properties that are hard to understand in terms of components, even when the organization of component agents is know. Evolutionary computation (EC) is a mature field that provides a bio-inspired approach and a suite of techniques that are applicable to and provide new insights on complex adaptive social systems. This paper demonstrates a combined EC-ABM approach illustrated through the RebeLand model of a simple but complete polity system. Results highlight tax rates and frequency of public issue that stress society as significant features in phase transitions between stable and unstable governance regimes. These initial results sug- gest further applications of EC to ABM in terms of multi-population models with heterogeneous agents, multi-objective optimization, dynamic environments, and evolving executable objects for modeling social change.Item Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Spatial Agent-Based Model (ABM) Simulations for Sustainable Development(Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2011-10) Cioffi-Revilla, Claudio; Roger, J. Daniel; Hailegiorgis, AtesmachewIn recent years the interdisciplinary field of Computational Social Science has developed theory and methodologies for building spatial Agent-Based Social Simulation (ABSS) models of human societies that are situated in ecosystems with land cover and climate. This article explains the needs and demand for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in these types of agent-based models, with an emphasis on models applied to Eastern Africa and Inner Asia and relevance for understanding and analyzing development issues. The models are implemented with the MASON (Multi-Agent Simulator Of Networks and Neighborhoods) system, an open-source simulation environment in the Java language and suitable for developing ABSS models with GIS for representing spatial features.Item MASON RebeLand: An Agent-Based Model of Politics, Environment, and Insurgency(2010-02) Cioffi-Revilla, Claudio; Rouleau, MarkProblem overview: explore the complex relationship between Society, Government, and Issues, using an explicit polity (political system) model; understand the feedback amongst Citizen Satisfaction, Issue Management, and Government Legitimacy; and generate emergence of civil unrest and polity instability from the “Bottom Up” within an Agent-Based Model.Item MASON RebeLand: An Agent-Based Model of Politics, Environment, and Insurgency(Wiley-Blackwell, 2010-03) Cioffi-Revilla, Claudio; Rouleau, MarkSocial simulation models from computational social science are beginning to provide significant advances in terms of implementing more complex social, human, and natural dynamics that are characteristic of how countries operate in the real world. In particular, increasingly realistic agent-based models can improve capacity for early warning, understanding, and prediction. The MASON RebeLand model presents three innovations over earlier models: (i) an explicit polity model with politically complete structure and processes; (ii) social and natural model components within an integrated socio-natural system; and (iii) generative dynamics where insurgency and the state of the polity (stable, unstable, failing, failed, and recovering) occur as emergent phenomena under a range of social and environmental conditions. Three scenarios are demonstrated, showing stable, unstable, and failing polity conditions. The MASON computational system for agent-based and network modeling also permits additional experiments and extensions.Item Pandemonium in Silico: Individual Radicalization for Agent-Based Modeling(International Studies Association, 2011-03) Cioffi-Revilla, Claudio; Harrison, Joseph F.How do individuals become radicalized, turning into terrorists, insurgents, violent actors.Computational agent-based models of irregular warfare, internal war, domestic political violence, and related conflicts require violent agents capable of carrying out attacks. Rather than introducing such agents as an exogenous process, as a Deus ex machina, this paper presents an agent-based model where radicalization is generated as an emergent phenomenon from within a population of individuals. The model (tentatively called “MASONRadicalAgent’’) is based on a new process-based theory of individual radicalization and is implemented in the MASON simulation system. Our paper describes the underlying theory, model structure, and some preliminary results intended for demonstration.This modeling effort is part of a broader project for modeling conflict in complex polities by combining computational simulations and network models.