The model explores food distribution patterns that emerge in a small-scale non-agricultural group when sharing individuals engage in intentional consumption leveling with a given probability.

The model explores food distribution patterns that emerge in a small-scale non-agricultural group when individuals follow a set of spatially explicit sharing interaction rules derived from a theory on the evolution of the egalitarian social instinct.

We seek to improve understanding of roles enzyme play in soil food webs. We created an agent-based simulation of a simple food web that includes enzymatic activity. The model was used in a publication, Moore et al. (in press; Biochemistry).

The model explores the informational causes of polarization and bi-polarization of opinions in groups. To this end it expands the model of the Argument Communication Theory of Bi-polarization. The latter is an argument-based multi-agent model of opinion dynamics inspired by Persuasive Argument Theory. The original model can account for polarization as an outcome of pure informational influence, and reproduces bi-polarization effects by postulating an additional mechanism of homophilous selection of communication partners. The expanded model adds two dimensions: argument strength and more sophisticated protocols of informational influence (argument communication and opinion update).

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.

Riparian forests are one of the most vulnerable ecosystems to the development of biological invasions, therefore limiting their spread is one of the main challenges for conservation. The main factors that explain plant invasions in these ecosystems are the capacity for both short- and long-distance seed dispersion, and the occurrence of suitable habitats that facilitate the establishment of the invasive species. Large floods constitute an abiotic filter for invasion.

This model simulates the spatio-temporal spread of the woody invader Gleditsia. triacanthos in the riparian forest of the National Park Esteros de Farrapos e Islas del Río Uruguay, a riparian system in the coast of the Uruguay river (South America). In this model, we represent different environmental conditions for the development of G. triacanthos, long- and short-distance spread of its fruits, and large floods as the main factor of mortality for fruit and early stages.

Field results show that the distribution pattern of this invasive species is limited by establishment, i.e. it spreads locally through the expansion of small areas, and remotely through new invasion foci. This model recreates this dispersion pattern. We use this model to derive management implications to control the spread of G. triacanthos

WWHW is an agent-based model designed to allow the exploration of the emergence, resilience and evolution of cooperative behaviours in hunter-fisher-gatherer societies.

Plastics and the pollution caused by their waste have always been a menace to both nature and humans. With the continual increase in plastic waste, the contamination due to plastic has stretched to the oceans. Many plastics are being drained into the oceans and rose to accumulate in the oceans. These plastics have seemed to form large patches of debris that keep floating in the oceans over the years. Identification of the plastic debris in the ocean is challenging and it is essential to clean plastic debris from the ocean. We propose a simple tool built using the agent-based modeling framework NetLogo. The tool uses ocean currents data and plastic data both being loaded using GIS (Geographic Information System) to simulate and visualize the movement of floatable plastic and debris in the oceans. The tool can be used to identify the plastic debris that has been piled up in the oceans. The tool can also be used as a teaching aid in classrooms to bring awareness about the impact of plastic pollution. This tool could additionally assist people to realize how a small plastic chunk discarded can end up as large debris drifting in the oceans. The same tool might help us narrow down the search area while looking out for missing cargo and wreckage parts of ships or flights. Though the tool does not pinpoint the location, it might help in reducing the search area and might be a rudimentary alternative for more computationally expensive models.

The model represents a set of social actors engaged into a collegiate (composed of representants of civil society and public sector) to manage the Southern Rural Territory of Sergipe (SRTS), created by two territorial public policies, the National Program for the Sustainable Development of Rural Territories (PRONAT) and the Program Territories of Citizenship (PTC) which aim at balancing power relations between social actors of Rural Territories. The main gola of these public policies is to empower the civil society engaged in the territory to enable them to negotiate with the traditional power (mainly majors). It was designed two models of the SRTS, one that represents the situation in 2012, and other that represents the social interdependencies in 2017. For each period it is possible to measure the capability and power of each modeled social actor and see whether it is observed the empowerment of the civil society or not.

The model proposes a translation of some Luhmann’s concepts (social sub-system, perturbation, dissipation, social communication and power) into a model using a stylized spatial-society as a metaphor of a Luhmann’s social subsystem. The model has been used to improve the social theory understanding and to evaluate the effect of different parameterization in the global stabilization and individual/social power distribution.