MERCURY aims to represent and explore two descriptive models of the functioning of the Roman trade system that aim to explain the observed strong differences in the wideness of distributions of Roman tableware.

This agent-based simulation model for group interaction is rooted in social psychological theory. The
model integrates affect control theory with networked interaction structures and sequential behavior protocols as they are often encountered in task groups. By expressing status hierarchy through network structure we build a bridge between expectation states theory and affect control theory, and are able to reproduce central results from the expectation states research program in sociological social psychology. Furthermore, we demonstrate how the model can be applied to analyze specialized task groups or sub-cultural domains by combining it with empirical data sources. As an example, we simulate groups of open-source software developers and analyze how cultural expectations influence the occupancy of high status positions in these groups.

This is an original model of (sub)culture diffusion.
It features a set of agents (dubbed “partygoers”) organized initially in clusters, having properties such as age and a chromosome of opinions about 6 different topics. The partygoers interact with a set of cultures (also having a set of opinions subsuming those of its members), in the sense of refractory or unhappy members of each setting about to find a new culture and trading information encoded in the genetic string (originally encoded as -1, 0, and 1, resp. a negative, neutral, and positive opinion about each of the 6 traits/aspects, e.g. the use of recreational drugs). There are 5 subcultures that both influence (through the aforementioned genetic operations of mutation and recombination of chromosomes simulating exchange of opinions) and are influenced by its members (since a group is a weighted average of the opinions and actions of its constituents). The objective of this feedback loop is to investigate under which conditions certain subculture sizes emerge, but the model is open to many other kinds of explorations as well.

We propose an agent-based model leading to a decrease or an increase of hostility between agents after a major cultural threat such as a terrorist attack. The model is inspired from the Terror Management Theory and the Social Judgement Theory. An agent has a cultural identity defined through its acceptance segments about each of three different cultural worldviews (i.e., Atheist, Muslim, Christian) of the considered society. An agent’s acceptance segment is composed from its acceptable positions toward a cultural worldview, including its most acceptable position. An agent forms an attitude about another agent depending on the similarity between their cultural identities. When a terrorist attack is perpetrated in the name of an extreme cultural identity, the negatively perceived agents from this extreme cultural identity point of view tend to decrease the width of their acceptance segments in order to differentiate themselves more from the threatening cultural identity

This is an empirically calibrated agent-based model that replicates spruce-budworm outbreaks, one of the most cited adaptive cycles reported. The adaptive-cycle metaphor by L. H. Gunderson and C. S. Holling posits the cross-case existence of repeating cycles of growth, conservation, collapse, and renewal in many complex systems, triggered by loss of resilience. This model is one of the first agent-based models of such cycles, with the novelty that adaptive cycles are not defined by system- […]

A simplified Arthur & Polak logic circuit model of combinatory technology build-out via incremental development. Only some inventions trigger radical effects, suggesting they depend on whole interdependent systems rather than specific innovations.

The SWE models firms search behaviour as the performance landscape shifts. The shift represents society’s pricing of negative externalities, and the performance landscape is an NK structure. The model is written in NetLogo.

CEDSS is an agent-based model of domestic energy demand at the level of a small community.

How do bots influence beliefs on social media? Why do beliefs propagated by social bots spread far and wide, yet does their direct influence appear to be limited?

This model extends Axelrod’s model for the dissemination of culture (1997), with a social bot agent–an agent who only sends information and cannot be influenced themselves. The basic network is a ring network with N agents connected to k nearest neighbors. The agents have a cultural profile with F features and Q traits per feature. When two agents interact, the sending agent sends the trait of a randomly chosen feature to the receiving agent, who adopts this trait with a probability equal to their similarity. To this network, we add a bot agents who is given a unique trait on the first feature and is connected to a proportion of the agents in the model equal to ‘bot-connectedness’. At each timestep, the bot is chosen to spread one of its traits to its neighbors with a probility equal to ‘bot-activity’.

The main finding in this model is that, generally, bot activity and bot connectedness are both negatively related to the success of the bot in spreading its unique message, in equilibrium. The mechanism is that very active and well connected bots quickly influence their direct contacts, who then grow too dissimilar from the bot’s indirect contacts to quickly, preventing indirect influence. A less active and less connected bot leaves more space for indirect influence to occur, and is therefore more successful in the long run.

We propose here a computational model of school segregation that is aligned with a corresponding Schelling-type model of residential segregation. To adapt the model for application to school segregation, we move beyond previous work by combining two preference arguments in modeling parents’ school choice, preferences for the ethnic composition of a school and preferences for minimizing the travelling distance to the school.