Proceedings of the 2018 Conference of the Computational Social Science Society of the Americas


Book Description

This book contains a selection of the latest research in the field of Computational Social Science (CSS) methods, uses, and results, as presented at the 2018 annual conference of the CSSSA. This conference was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, October 25 – 28, 2018, at the Drury Plaza Hotel. CSS investigates social and behavioral dynamics in both nature and society, through computer simulation, network analysis, and the science of complex systems. The Computational Social Science Society of the Americas (CSSSA) is a professional society that aims to advance the field of CSS in all its areas, from fundamental principles to real-world applications, by holding conferences and workshops, promoting standards of scientific excellence in research and teaching, and publishing novel research findings. What follows is a diverse representation of new approaches and research findings, using the tools of CSS and Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) in exploring complex phenomena across many different domains. Readers will not only have the methods and results of these specific projects on which to build, but will also gain a greater appreciation for the broad scope of CSS, and have a wealth of case-study examples that can serve as meaningful exemplars for new research projects and activities. This book, we hope, will appeal to any researchers and students working in the social sciences, broadly defined, who aim to better understand and apply the concepts of Complex Adaptive Systems to their work.




Policy Practice and Digital Science


Book Description

The explosive growth in data, computational power, and social media creates new opportunities for innovating the processes and solutions of Information and communications technology (ICT) based policy-making and research. To take advantage of these developments in the digital world, new approaches, concepts, instruments and methods are needed to navigate the societal and computational complexity. This requires extensive interdisciplinary knowledge of public administration, policy analyses, information systems, complex systems and computer science. This book provides the foundation for this new interdisciplinary field, in which various traditional disciplines are blending. Both policy makers, executors and those in charge of policy implementations acknowledge that ICT is becoming more important and is changing the policy-making process, resulting in a next generation policy-making based on ICT support. Web 2.0 and even Web 3.0 point to the specific applications of social networks, semantically enriched and linked data, whereas policy-making has also to do with the use of the vast amount of data, predictions and forecasts, and improving the outcomes of policy-making, which is confronted with an increasing complexity and uncertainty of the outcomes. The field of policy-making is changing and driven by developments like open data, computational methods for processing data, opining mining, simulation and visualization of rich data sets, all combined with public engagement, social media and participatory tools.




Advances in System Dynamics and Control


Book Description

Complex systems are pervasive in many areas of science. With the increasing requirement for high levels of system performance, complex systems has become an important area of research due to its role in many industries. Advances in System Dynamics and Control provides emerging research on the applications in the field of control and analysis for complex systems, with a special emphasis on how to solve various control design and observer design problems, nonlinear systems, interconnected systems, and singular systems. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics, such as adaptive control, artificial neural network, and synchronization, this book is an important resource for engineers, professionals, and researchers interested in applying new computational and mathematical tools for solving the complicated problems of mathematical modeling, simulation, and control.




Corporate Governance Models and Applications in Developing Economies


Book Description

Virtually all developing, transitioning, and emerging-market economies are faced with one pressing concern at the moment: how to establish the groundwork for long-term economic performance and competitiveness in a diverse market. However, without the existence of good corporate governance in these economies, small enterprise will cease to exist in developing countries. Corporate Governance Models and Applications in Developing Economies is a collection of innovative research that contributes to the better understanding of corporate governance models by documenting the structures, principles, tenets, case studies, and applications for the development of good business practices in developing economies. While highlighting topics including risk management, financial distress, and insider trading, this book is ideally designed for corporate managers, executives, economists, strategists, investors, shareholders, students, researchers, academicians, business professionals, and policymakers.




Social Systems Engineering


Book Description

Uniquely reflects an engineering view to social systems in a wide variety of contexts of application Social Systems Engineering: The Design of Complexity brings together a wide variety of application approaches to social systems from an engineering viewpoint. The book defines a social system as any complex system formed by human beings. Focus is given to the importance of systems intervention design for specific and singular settings, the possibilities of engineering thinking and methods, the use of computational models in particular contexts, and the development of portfolios of solutions. Furthermore, this book considers both technical, human and social perspectives, which are crucial to solving complex problems. Social Systems Engineering: The Design of Complexity provides modelling examples to explore the design aspect of social systems. Various applications are explored in a variety of areas, such as urban systems, health care systems, socio-economic systems, and environmental systems. It covers important topics such as organizational design, modelling and intervention in socio-economic systems, participatory and/or community-based modelling, application of systems engineering tools to social problems, applications of computational behavioral modeling, computational modelling and management of complexity, and more. Highlights an engineering view to social systems (as opposed to a “scientific” view) that stresses the importance of systems intervention design for specific and singular settings Divulges works where the design, re-design, and transformation of social systems constitute the main aim, and where joint considerations of both technical and social perspectives are deemed important in solving social problems Features an array of applied cases that illustrate the application of social systems engineering in different domains Social Systems Engineering: The Design of Complexity is an excellent text for academics and graduate students in engineering and social science—specifically, economists, political scientists, anthropologists, and management scientists with an interest in finding systematic ways to intervene and improve social systems.




System Dynamics Modeling with R


Book Description

This new interdisciplinary work presents system dynamics as a powerful approach to enable analysts build simulation models of social systems, with a view toward enhancing decision making. Grounded in the feedback perspective of complex systems, the book provides a practical introduction to system dynamics, and covers key concepts such as stocks, flows, and feedback. Societal challenges such as predicting the impact of an emerging infectious disease, estimating population growth, and assessing the capacity of health services to cope with demographic change can all benefit from the application of computer simulation. This text explains important building blocks of the system dynamics approach, including material delays, stock management heuristics, and how to model effects between different systemic elements. Models from epidemiology, health systems, and economics are presented to illuminate important ideas, and the R programming language is used to provide an open-source and interoperable way to build system dynamics models. System Dynamics Modeling with R also describes hands-on techniques that can enhance client confidence in system dynamic models, including model testing, model analysis, and calibration. Developed from the author’s course in system dynamics, this book is written for undergraduate and postgraduate students of management, operations research, computer science, and applied mathematics. Its focus is on the fundamental building blocks of system dynamics models, and its choice of R as a modeling language make it an ideal reference text for those wishing to integrate system dynamics modeling with related data analytic methods and techniques.




Introduction to System Dynamic Modelling and Vensim Software


Book Description

System dynamics simulation modelling technique is taught to students at undergraduate and graduate levels. The students are taught how to develop a system dynamics model of the system under study. This book is written to help students understand the concepts and fundamental elements of system dynamics simulation, and provide a step-by-step guide in conducting a system dynamics study. This book is suitable for students who are studying system dynamics simulation modelling at undergraduate and graduate levels. It offers the concepts and application of system dynamics as well as provides an approach for modelling effectively. Having read this book, the reader will be able to: Learn the concept of system dynamics simulation and its application, Understand the important steps of modelling process, and Conduct a system dynamics study successfully.




Researching Health Together


Book Description

The challenges of addressing health disparities, the ethical imperative to include stakeholders in research, and the slow translation of research evidence into practice are all driving a movement towards more community-based and participatory approaches to research. Researching Health Together brings together authors who have produced innovative methods or implemented projects focused on different stages of the research process, from question development to evaluation and translation. Editor Emily B. Zimmerman gathers exemplary new methods and projects into one place for the benefit of students designing research projects and proposals, those learning stakeholder-engaged methods, and those involved in implementing and funding stakeholder-engaged projects. Each chapter addresses: how engagement was conceptualized, organized, and implemented; how engagement was evaluated; impacts on processes and outcomes of the project; and facilitators, barriers, and lessons learned. The book serves as a core textbook for courses in community-based health research at the graduate level. "[This book] focuses only on translational health research and expands beyond CBPR to include practice-based research networks (PBRN) and stakeholder-engaged research within health systems.... The overall strengths of this book are its in-depth and almost inspirational focus on CBPR methodology, be those actual geographic or cultural communities or disease-based communities.... Researching Health Together, in its first edition, is a necessary bridge from the theory of participatory health research to its application across research environments." - Journal of Participatory Research Methods




Handbook of Research on Developments and Trends in Industrial and Materials Engineering


Book Description

In today’s modernized world, new research and empirical findings are being conducted and found within various professional industries. The field of engineering is no different. Industrial and material engineering is continually advancing, making it challenging for practitioners to keep pace with the most recent trends and methods. Engineering professionals need a handbook that provides up-to-date research on the newest methodologies in this imperative industry. The Handbook of Research on Developments and Trends in Industrial and Materials Engineering is a collection of innovative research on the theoretical and practical aspects of integrated systems within engineering. This book provides a forum for professionals to understand the advancing methods of engineering. While highlighting topics including operations management, decision analysis, and communication technology, this book is ideally designed for researchers, managers, engineers, industrialists, manufacturers, academicians, policymakers, scientists, and students seeking current research on recent findings and modern approaches within industrial and materials engineering.




Progress in Artificial Intelligence


Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th EPIA Conference on Artificial Intelligence, EPIA 2017, held in Porto, Portugal, in September 2017. The 69 revised full papers and 2 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 177 submissions. The papers are organized in 16 tracks devoted to the following topics: agent-based modelling for criminological research (ABM4Crime), artificial intelligence in cyber-physical and distributed embedded systems (AICPDES), artificial intelligence in games (AIG), artificial intelligence in medicine (AIM), artificial intelligence in power and energy systems (AIPES), artificial intelligence in transportation systems (AITS), artificial life and evolutionary algorithms (ALEA), ambient intelligence and affective environments (AmIA), business applications of artificial intelligence (BAAI), intelligent robotics (IROBOT), knowledge discovery and business intelligence (KDBI), knowledge representation and reasoning (KRR), multi-agent systems: theory and applications (MASTA), software engineering for autonomous and intelligent systems (SE4AIS), social simulation and modelling (SSM), and text mining and applications (TeMA).