Simulating Social Complexity: A Handbook / Edition 1

by Bruce Edmonds, Ruth Meyer

Overview

Social simulation is the study of natural and artificial society-like structures through the use of computational tools (along with analytic techniques). The behavior of individual agents and interactions among the agents are defined on the basis of experiment, observation and, increasingly, engagement with decision-makers and domain experts.
Simulations explore emergent outcomes that result from the interactions among the individuals. Examples include: the formation of opinions in human societies, feeding patterns in ant colonies, the change in land-use, the evolution of animal ecologies, the emergence of ethical behavior, and the emergence and adaptation of social institutions. The present handbook comprehensively covers methodology, mechanisms and simulation tools. It provides a broad yet concise survey of those fields where this approach has been applied with success and documented.
An introduction and extensive glossary will assist non-specialists and graduate students in entering this necessarily interdisciplinary field, while the surveys themselves will be useful to specialists seeking to expand their range of techniques and designs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783540938125
Publisher:	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publication date:	04/04/2013
Series:	Understanding Complex Systems
Edition description:	2013
Pages:	754
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.06(d)

About the Author

Among his numerous responsibilities, Dr. Bruce Edmonds is the Director for the Centre of Policy Modeling at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has edited numerous books for Springer; he's a member of the Dalton Research Institute and a board member for the European Complex Systems Society.


Ruth Meyer is also a former Springer book editor. She's a Research Associate at the Center of Policy Modeling at Manchester Metropolitan University. Among others, her research interests lie in agent-based simulation and discrete-event simulation.

Table of Contents

Introduction.- Methodology .- Mechanisms .- Computational and Formal Tools .-Applications.- Prospects.- Appendices.- Glossary.- Index/bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

From the reviews:

“The handbook ‘Simulating Social Complexity’ identifies, compares, and debates existing approaches to simulation. … it consists of many very good chapters and can, thus, be recommended to anybody who wants to learn more about good practice in simulation modeling.” (Michael Mäs, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Vol. 17 (1), 2014)

From the Publisher