Centre for Policy Modelling News
News from the Centre for Policy Modelling, including announcements of: new papers, special issues, books, workshops, projects, jobs and study opportunities.
20 November, 2009
New Project: SCID - the Social Complexity of Immigration and Diversity
The likely start date is 1st September 2010.
11 September, 2009
Visions of the Future of Social Simulation
In the epilogue we would like to look forward a bit to guesses about the future trends, issues and techniques in social simulation. Thus we are asking for contributions consisting of people's opinions on this.
If you are interested, please send a 1 page statement of an area or two that you think will become increasingly important within the next 10 years. There should be already a few indications of the trend or issue you describe, but it should not be already much researched. We will edit these all into the final epilogue to the handbook.
All contributions will be acknowledged, but contributors will not get a whole free copy of the handbook -- sorry!
Please send in word or RTF format to cpm@mmu.ac.uk by October 2nd 2009.
30 July, 2009
Talks Online from Introductory Lectures on Aspects of Complexity
Go to: http://www.theory.physics.manchester.ac.uk/complexitymeeting/
Click on >> Registration >> Overview >> Paper
Then on each talk.
(Sorry no easier way)
Bruce
10 June, 2009
International Workshop on 150 Years after Darwin
From Molecular Evolution to Language
Palma de Mallorca, November 23 - 27, 2009
http://ifisc.uib-csic.es/darwin09/
Two hundred years since the birth of Charles Darwin and a hundred and fifty years since the publication of ”On the Origin of Species”, the theory of evolution is now a conceptual cornerstone in a wide number of areas of research outside its original field of application. Evolutionary biologists, linguists, physicists, economists, and social scientists nowadays use the notions of evolution and adaptation in their research. In each of those areas, the mechanisms behind the relevant dynamics (stochastic appearance of mutants, cultural innovations or social strategies, inheritance or spread of a new variant, and selection through competition) take a specific form that, nonetheless, shapes the structure and organisation of each system in a way that can be recognised as arising from ”evolutionary dynamics” in its broadest sense. These anniversaries seem an ideal opportunity to bring together researchers from the variety of disciplines which now use the evolutionary paradigm, to review progress, learn from each other and initiate new collaborations.
Invited Speakers
For any information about the Workshop, please email:
darwin09@ifisc.uib-csic.es
15 May, 2009
Introductory Lectures on Aspects of Complexity
Three-day meeting
University of Manchester, 6-8 July 2009
A 3-day meeting exploring how physicists can contribute to the biological, economic and social sciences, aimed principally at graduate students and established physicists who are interested in learning about these novel applications.
On each day there will be a different theme, with one introductory lecture, three research talks, and ending with an overview lecture summarising the state of the subject, giving perspectives on current research and looking to the future.
The talks will be 50 minutes plus 10 minutes of questions.
Venue:
All talks will be held in the Niels Bohr Common Room in the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, M13 9PL, UK
More information from: http://www.theory.physics.manchester.ac.uk/complexitymeeting/
The meeting is essentially free, i.e. $5 day registration (compulsory) but you get lunch for that!
24 April, 2009
CPM Report 09-203: Understanding Observed Complex Systems – the hard complexity problem
By: Bruce Edmonds
Date: 22nd April 2009
Abstract
Two kinds of problem are distinguished: the first of finding processes which produce complex outcomes from the interaction of simple parts, and the second of finding which process resulted in an observed complex outcome. The former I call the easy complexity problem and the later the hard complexity problem. It is often assumed that progress with the easy problem will aid process with the hard problem. However this assumes that the “reverse engineering” problem, of determining the process from the outcomes is feasible. Taking a couple of simple models of reverse engineering, I show that this task is infeasible in the general case. Hence it cannot be assumed that reverse engineering is possible, and hence that most of the time progress on the easy problem will not help with the hard problem unless there are special properties of a particular set of processes that make it feasible. Assuming that complexity science is not merely an academic “game” and given the analysis of this paper, some criteria for the kinds of paper that have a reasonable chance of being eventually useful for understanding observed complex systems are outlined. Many complexity papers do not fare well against these critieria.
Available at: http://cfpm.org/cpmrep203.html
CPM Report 09-202: Usefulness of Simulating Social Phenomena
CPM Report No.: 09-202
By: Pablo Lucas
Lucas, Pablo; Usefulness of Simulating Social Phenomena, AISB 09 Symposium: Killer robots or friendly fridges: the social understanding of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh, Scotland, April 2009.
Date: March 16th 2009
Available at: http://cfpm.org/cpmrep202.html
CPM Report 09-201: Relating Financial characterisation of Microfinance Groups to Conventional Social Behaviour
CPM Report No.: 09-201
By: Pablo Lucas
Lucas, Pablo; Relating Financial characterisation of Microfinance Groups and their Conventional Social Behaviour. Second CFPM - ETH EMIL fieldwork report, Manchester, England, March 2009. (Segundo Reporte, Autonomous University of Mexico, PROIMMSE).
Date: March 16th 2009
This second report synthesises results from studying the effects of social conventions
within the internal organisation and evolution of micro-finance groups, also known as
solidarity groups, at a microfinance institution (MFI) in southern Mexico. According
to our publishing agreement, their precise identity and location is omitted. The next
section contains interpretations of all collected data and graphs, drawing on answers
from the second questionnaire to credit advisors and five financial databases. I thank
the MFI director, their team, economist Federico Morales, anthropologist Ignacio García
and Chris Catlin, along with CFPM and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology for the
support provided for this research.
Available at: http://cfpm.org/cpmrep201.html
04 February, 2009
CfP: ESSA 2009 Conference 14-18 Sept 2009
ESSA 2009 will, like its predecessors, attract the best papers from across the world, describing the newest and most significant social simulation work. These will cover: human, animal and artificial societies, and apply a wide range of techniques. Social Simulation seems to be at a "tipping point" between revolutionary and normal science where it is introducing more rigour into its methods.
Come to participate in the formation of a new science!
The invited speakers are:
- Mark Bedau, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Reed College and Editor of Artificial Life
- Jim Doran, Emeritus Professor of the Univ. of Essex and one of the founders of Social Simulation
- Tim Kohler, Professor in the Dept. of Anthropology, Washington State University and Santa Fe
Reasonably mature papers on all aspects of social simulation will be carefully and anonymously considered – however most papers will (1) describe an individual/agent-based computer simulation (2) exhibit the outcomes of running the simulation in more than a cursory way and (3) make some comparison of these with either: evidence from, or other models of, social phenomena (human, animal or artificial). If you are in doubt as to the relevance of a paper, you may email the Scientific Chair for his opinion (see below), however the decisions about relevance will be made by the Programme Committee. See the conference website for details as to submission procedure.
All the accepted papers will be included in the ESSA 2009 electronic proceedings. The best accepted papers will be published in a separate post-proceedings.
The Venue
The conference will be held at the University of Surrey, Guildford. The Sociology Department there is rated as one of the top centres for sociology research in the UK. It is just outside London in the pretty town of Guilford, near Heathrow Airport and easily accessible from Gatwick.Organizing Committee
The conference chair is Nigel Gilbert, University of Surrey, UK
Other members of the organising committee are:
- Edmund Chattoe, University of Leicester, UK
- Bruce Edmonds, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK (Scientific Chair)
- Fred Amblard, University of Toulouse, France
- Flaminio Squazzoni, University of Brescia, Italy
- Lu Yang, University of Surrey, UK (Admin)
Contact
For queries about the organisation of the conference, bookings, travel etc. see http://cress.soc.surrey.ac.uk/essa2009/contactUs.php and for the submission of papers, the reviewing process or the programme email: essa2009@cfpm.org
21 November, 2008
CPM Report 08-199: Bootstrapping Knowledge about Social Phenomena using Simulation Models - Bruce Edmonds
Available at: http://cfpm.org/cpmrep199.html
CPM Report 08-198: System Farming - Bruce Edmonds
Available at: http://cfpm.org/cpmrep198.html
CPM Report 08-197: Emotions in social interactions: unfolding emotional experience - Claudia Marinetti, Penny Moore, Pablo Lucas dos Anjos and Brian P
relationships with others and, more generally, with the environment surrounding us. Our emotional reactions to other people influence how those others react to us, and to a certain extent how future encounters will develop. At the same time, our own emotional behaviour is shaped by others’ thoughts and deeds. Although emotions undeniably have personal and subjective aspects, they are usually experienced in a social context and acquire their significance in relation to this context (see also the “Socially situated affective systems” chapter, WP7, in this handbook).
Available at: http://cfpm.org/cpmrep197.html
CPM Report 08-196: "Death to . . . !": On Opinion Dynamics in Conict-Torn Afghanistan - Armando Geller and Nanda Wijermans
Available at: http://cfpm.org/cpmrep196.html
CPM Report 08-195: Policy Modelling: Problems and Prospects - Scott Moss
Available at: http://cfpm.org/cpmrep195.html
24 October, 2008
Call for Silly Papers: the 200th CPM Discussion paper
The rules are as follows:
1. All submissions have to be recognisably a social simulation paper. However unlike other social simulation papers ;-), we are looking for papers that are silly, satirical, funny, nonsensical, off-beat or just plain weird (they do not have to be *all* of these things but at least one).
2. All submissions must be received by bruce@edmonds.name by the end of Friday 21st November in one of the following formats: txt, pdf, doc or html. Late submissions will be lost with a probability that is proportional to some very large number.
3. Submissions may be of any length. Papers that do not adhere to this requirement will be rejected out of hand.
4. The papers will be objectively judged by a panel of independent experts.
5. The opinions of those experts will be studiously ignored. The papers will then be judged by Bruce Edmonds, Shah Alam, David Hales and V. Lewskogski whose opinions shall be final (if sampled over a short enough time period).
6. The selected paper (or papers) will be published to world-wide acclaim as CPM Report number 200 (see http://cfpm.org/cpmreps.html).
7. Post -Modernist papers pretending to be silly social simulation papers to try and fool us (ala Sokal) will be physically deconstructed.
8. The recycling of papers is strongly encouraged on environmental grounds, so dig out all your past, rejected papers that you thought were sensible, seminal and serious.
9. The winner will be announced here at http://cfpm-news.blogspot.com/ and elsewhere.
Enjoy!
Bruce Edmonds, Shah Alam, David Hales, V. Lewscogski
30 September, 2008
Stream on "Simulating the Social Processes of Science" at ESSA 2009
At this it is planned that there will be a special stream of papers on "Simulating the Social Processes of Science", where papers that discuss simulations that try to capture the inter-personal or social processes that occur between scientists (in the broadest sense) will be presented.
If you are interested, please contact me on bruce@edmonds.name
29 August, 2008
1/2 PhD positions available at the Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester, UK
If you are interested, in the first instance contact either Bruce Edmonds (bruce@edmonds.name) or Scott Moss (scott@cfpm.org). We hope to fill these positions by December 2008.
09 July, 2008
The CPM Blog
Bruce