The necessity of intelligent agents in social simulation

2000 ◽  
Vol 03 (01n04) ◽  
pp. 19-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosaria Conte
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Social Simulation ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Receive

The social simulation field is here argued to show a history of growing complexity, especially at the agent level. The simulation of the emergence of Macro-social phenomena has required heterogeneous and dynamic agents, at least in the sense of agents moving in a physical and social space. In turn, the simulation of learning and evolutionary algorithms allowed for a two-way account of the Micro-Macro link. In this presentation, a third step is envisaged in this process, and a 3-layer representation is outlined: the Micro, Mental, and Macro layers. This complex representation is shown to be necessary for understanding the functioning of social institutions. The 3-layer model is briefly discussed, and specific cognitive structures, which evolved to cooperate with emerging Macro-social systems and institutions, are analysed. Finally, social intelligence is argued to receive growing attention is several fields and applications of the science of artificial, with which social simulation is interfaced or will soon be.

scholarly journals Structural violence and the 1962-1963 tuberculosis epidemic in Eskimo Point, N.W.T.

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank James Tester ◽  
Paule McNicoll ◽  
Quyen Tran
Keyword(s):  
Structural Violence ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Hudson Bay ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychological Harm ◽  
History Of ◽  
Arctic Coast

In the winter of 1962-1963, an epidemic of tuberculosis broke out in Eskimo Point, an Inuit community on the west coast of Hudson Bay in the Canadian Arctic. The outbreak was made possible by bad living conditions, among the worst ever documented in the history of the Canadian Arctic. The epidemic reveals the intersection of social attitudes, the economic logic of a postwar Canadian welfare state, and the difficult transition being made by Inuit moving from tents, igloos, and land-based camps to settlements along the Arctic coast. It is a case of “structural violence” where rules, policies, and social institutions operate in ways that cause physical and psychological harm to people lacking the power and/or resources necessary to changing the social systems and conditions in which they live. Both individuals and entire communities are affected. With regard to past—and present—Inuit housing conditions, we invoke the concept of structural violence to stress the importance of identifying and speaking about public health problems as a violation of internationally recognised human rights.

scholarly journals What is an institution? An ontological debate illustrating community forestry of Nepal

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 21-40
Author(s):  
Dilli Prasad Poudel
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Community Forestry ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Structuration Theory ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Local Environment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Anthony Giddens ◽  
History Of

Illustrating Community Forestry (CF) of Nepal, this article discusses the concept of ‘institution’ through the perspectives of the phenomenology of Peter Berger & Thomas Luckmann (1966), the structuration theory of Anthony Giddens (1984), and the conception of institution as people-nature relations. Phenomenologists concentrate on the structures of consciousness as individuals experienced and expressed while turning an objective world or phenomenon into a subjective one through objectivation, internalization and externalization/ institutionalization process. The structuralist holds that the creation of an institution is a reproduction of interaction between structures and actors. And other theorists (e.g., Leach et al., 1999; Ostrom 2005, 2009; Gupta et al., 2010; Young, 2010) consider that institutions for natural resources conflate with social institutions and mediate their relations. Although these theories are not explicit epistemologically in a pragmatic sense, they have indicated language, rules, (embedded) practices and knowledge are the referential artifacts of institutions. These theories are found applicable in the institutionalization/socialization history of CF as it had gone through the social rejection (i.e, objectivation) during the 1970s, internalization during the 1980s, and socialization of it during and after the 1990s. The socialization of CF after the 1990s was due to the formation of CF as a social space (a ‘structure’ or ‘institution’) to discuss social and environmental issues into one place where forest dependent users (‘actors’) rationalize the use of forest and its conservation for local environment in a more pragmatic sense (i.e., mediate people-nature relations). An institution for natural resources is, therefore, the combined perspectives of phenomenologists, structuralists, and those who think institutions as a mediator of people-nature relations. Thus, an institution is political (i.e., relations and interactions) and ecological/economic (i.e., access to natural resources, livelihood practices).

The Social Space of Terror: Towards a Civil Interpretation of Total War

1987 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
K Hewitt
Keyword(s):  
Social Space ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Total War ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Warfare ◽  
Urban Places ◽  
Second World

In the paper I seek to interpret modern warfare from the perspective of civil society and its geography. I emphasize the predicament of civilians who are subject to direct and deliberate armed assaults. Particular attention is given to enforced uprooting or removals of population, and to annihilation of urban places with weapons of mass destruction. Two case histories are explored, both taken from the last months of the Second World War. They are, the expulsion of German civilians from Eastern Europe, and the firebombing of Japanese cities, especially Tokyo. Damages and casualties are detailed. However, the main concern is to establish the composition, plight, and responses of civilian populations, and this includes their relation to national war efforts. It is concluded that the vast majority, because of gender, age, health, occupation, and class, were essentially marginal to, and little involved in, the war efforts of their respective states. This contrasts sharply with the assumptions or rhetoric of the theory of ‘total war’, and the practice of targetting civilians and nonmilitary areas. It is suggested that the majority of home populations remain civilians in the fullest sense of the term, even in wartime. From this it follows that assaults upon them by military forces are primarily strategies of terror, and that the ‘social space’ attacked is essentially civilian. Such uprootings and mass destruction of human settlements have, however, become an ever larger part of the war strategies, and the history of warfare, of most powers since 1945.

scholarly journals HISTORY OF DEVELOPING THE CONCEPT OF «LARGE SOCIAL GROUPS». PART 1: PERIOD FROM THE MID-19th CENTURY TO THE MID-1930-Х YEARS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

2020 ◽  
pp. 390-418
Author(s):  
Ю.В. Ковалева
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Psychological Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Two Stages

Представлен историографический анализ развития понятия большие социальные группы и историко-психологический анализ социальных феноменов , связанных с массовыми общественными явлениями в России. Сформулированы актуальные проблемы психологии больших социальных групп, к которым относятся неоднородность оснований для их выделения, недостаточная дифференцированность со сходными понятиями, неравномерность исследований в различные временные периоды и идеологическая нагруженность их разработки. Данная работа была ответом на необходимость восполнения знаний о процессах в таких группах, происходивших в различные исторические периоды развития социальной психологии, с соответствующим им уровнем научного осмысления, а также обобщением этой целостной картины на уровне современного понимания и формулировка перспективных направлений исследований. Целью исследования является установление связи между определением и основными свойствами понятия «большие социальные группы» (его синонимов, аналогов) и особенностями социальной ситуации в определенный период времени, а также реконструкция социальных процессов данного исторического этапа. Проверялась гипотеза о том, что большие социальные группы как феномены социальной жизни формировались в соответствии с историческим временем, а соответствующее им понятие и его свойства с одной стороны отвечали уровню развития гуманитарного знания, а с другой - пытались удовлетворить общественный и политический запрос в объяснении и управлении социальной ситуацией. Использовались методы историографии социальной психологии и психолого-исторической реконструкции . Первая часть статьи посвящена анализу первых двух этапов развития социальной психологии - с середины XIX до начала XX вв. и в 1920-е гг. XX в. The historiographic analysis of the development of the concept of large social groups and historical and psychological study of social phenomena associated with mass social phenomena was presented. Topical problems of the psychology of large social groups are formulated, including heterogeneity of the grounds for their isolation, insufficient differentiation with similar concepts, uneven research in various periods, and ideological loading of the history of its development. The study's main problem was the need to replenish the processes in such groups that took place in various historical periods of social psychology development as well as a synthesis of this holistic picture at the level of modern understanding and the formulation of promising areas of research. The study's purpose was to establish a connection between the definition and the basic properties of the concept of "large social groups" (and its synonyms, analogs) and the peculiarities of the social situation in a certain period, as well as the reconstruction of social processes of this historical segment. The hypothesis was tested that large social groups as phenomena of social life were formed under the past time. The concept and its properties were corresponding to them, on the one hand, compared to the level of development of humanitarian knowledge. On the other, they tried to satisfy the social and political requests to understand and manage the social situation. Methods of the historiography of the history of social psychology and psychological and historical reconstruction were used. The article's first part was devoted to the analysis of the early two stages of the development of social psychology - from the middle of the XIX to the beginning of the XX centuries and 1920 of the XX century.

scholarly journals Życie międzynarodowe rzeczy. Przedmioty luksusu i codziennego użytku w społecznej historii stosunków międzynarodowych

2018 ◽  
pp. 7-34
Author(s):  
Andrzej GAŁGANEK
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social History ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social World ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
Prestige Goods ◽  
The Social ◽  
Uneven And Combined Development ◽  
History Of

The paper discusses the potential of objects, broadly understood luxury ‘items’ and necessities, in order to present uneven and combined development as the foundation of the social history of international relations. The author evidences that this approach to ‘objects’ allows us to achieve, at the very least, the following: (1) to observe the single social world which emerges after the division into ‘internal’ and ‘international’ is rejected; (2) to ‘touch’ the international outside the realm that the science of international relations usually associates with international politics; (3) to examine the social history of international relations, abandoning the approach that dominates in traditional historiography where production processes are privileged over consumption processes; (4) to demonstrate how human activities create internationalism. Discussing apparently different processes related to the international life of broadly understood ‘objects’, such as African giraffes, Kashmiri shawls, silk, the importance of English items for the inhabitants of Mutsamudu, or the opera Madame Butterfly the author identifies similar patterns which, although sometimes concealed, demonstrate the consequences of uneven and combined development for the social history of international relations. Prestige goods express affluence, success and power. They are usually objects manufactured from imported raw materials or materials, with limited distribution, which require a significant amount of labor or advanced technology to create. In contrast to everyday necessities, owing to their high value, prestige goods are exchanged over long distances through networks established by the elite. The analysis of manufacturing, exchange and social contexts related to prestige goods constitutes a significant source for understanding the social history of international relations. The examples in the paper present control over these goods as a source of political power. The control of raw materials, production and distribution of prestige goods is perceived as key to maintaining hierarchical social systems. Objects are inescapably related to ideas and practices. Uneven and combined development leads to meetings between people and objects, either opening or closing the space, allowing for their transfer and domestication, or rejection and destruction respectively. Concentration on the analyses of objects outside of modernization models or comparisons between civilizations and the conscious narrowing of perspective offers a tool with a heuristic potential which is interesting in the context of international relations. Comparative observation of objects (‘single’ elements of reality) via cultures undergoing uneven and combined development protects us from historiographic western exceptionalism. It also shows that the division between the ‘internal’ and ‘international’ unjustifiably splits the social world and makes it impossible to understand.

Simulating Wildland Recreation Use and Conflicting Spatial Interactions using Rule-Driven Intelligent Agents

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Randy Gimblett ◽  
Merton T. Richards
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Management ◽  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Wildlife Habitat ◽  
Natural Setting ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Social Component ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wildland Recreation ◽  
Recreation Use

Ecosystem management, in the ideal sense, gives appropriate consideration to the complex and interdependent ecological and social systems that comprise forestlands. One prominent and growing arena where ecological and social systems interact is in the recreational use of wildlands. Recreational uses of forestlands are among an extensive array of commodities and amenities that are increasingly demanded of forest managers. An in-depth understanding of the relationships between recreational and other important uses is essential to effective ecosystem management. Within the human dimension of ecosystem management, recreation and amenity uses of forestlands and the associated benefits of those uses, constitute an important component of management decisions. Forestland recreation is a special form of leisure behavior not only because it takes place outdoors, but because it depends upon a “natural” setting. Particular environmental settings are crucial to the fulfillment of forest recreation goals, because the recreationist seeks meaningful and satisfying experiences rather than simply engagement in activities. Importantly, wildland recreation takes place in settings that result from management actions of one form or another, whether the management objective is recreation opportunity, wildlife habitat improvement, or timber production, among others. The recreation opportunity spectrum (ROS) provides a conceptual framework for relating opportunities for particular behaviors and experiences to specific settings. The ROS argues that recreator's pursuits of certain activities in specific settings reveals their demand for experiences that are satisfying and that may give long-term benefits. The ROS framework describes a spectrum of recreation opportunity classes that relate a range of recreation experiences to an array of possible settings and activities. Setting structure is composed of three components: an ecological component, a social component, and a managerial component. The ecological component comprises the physical-biological conditions of the setting. These are typically delineated by the relative remoteness of the setting, its size, and evidence of human impact (number and condition of trails, structures, or roads, alteration of vegetation, etc.). The social component is typically defined by the number of users at one time (density) in the setting, delineated by the number of encounters or sightings a recreation party has with others.

Revisiting the History of Socio-professional Classification in France

2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (04) ◽  
pp. 697-732
Author(s):  
Thomas Amossé
Keyword(s):  
Social Space ◽  
Labor Law ◽  
Social World ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Statistical Tool ◽  
Subsequent Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pragmatic Sociology

The result of a process begun in the nineteenth century, the French system of socio-professional classification (code des catégories socio-professionnelles) was drawn up between 1951 and 1954 and has only been slightly modified since. With no strong theoretical framework and conceived according to a realist approach, it gave substance to social classes in the description of postwar society. During a period of “reworking” (1978-1981), it became an exciting topic of sociological exploration, furnishing a representation of Pierre Bourdieu’s two-dimensional social space and serving as a laboratory for the pragmatic sociology of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot. In a subsequent period of “updating” (1995-2001), administrative caution regarding changes contrasted with the evolution of categories used in labor law and the goal of analytical purity underpinned by econometrics. The history of this classification details the peculiar position of a statistical tool for representing the social world, ostensibly static amidst constant changes to the institution that managed it, the actors who used it, the social categories—everyday or legal—to which it referred, and, finally, the sociological theories that gave it a conceptual grounding.

Introduction

2010 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela T. Ragusa
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Sandra Harding ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Over Time

Epistemology is the concept used to describe ways of knowing. In other words, how you know what you know. Sociologists have been interested in how knowledge is produced since the discipline was founded in the 19th Century. How we come to know our world and make sense of it are influenced by social institutions, individual attitudes and behaviors, and our demographic position within the social order. The social order is an historical product which continues to change over time. To facilitate our learning from our socio-historical experiences, sociologists frequently turn to ideas expressed by social theorists. Social theory, whether classical or contemporary, may thus be employed to help us make sense of changes in our social and material world. Although technology is arguably as ancient as our first ancestors, as the chapters in this book reveal, the characteristics of and communications within our postindustrial society vary greatly from those which occurred in the age of modernity. This introductory chapter identifies a few well-known social theorists who have historically attempted to explain how and why social systems, at macro and micro levels, change over time. Next, it contextualizes communication as a cultural product, arguing the best way to examine the topic is from multiple, local perspectives. In the feminist tradition of postmodernist Sandra Harding, it implores us to consider the premise and source of the knowledge sources we use and espouse while communicating and interacting in specific ways and environments. Finally, grounded in the systemic backdrop of social inequality, this chapter encourages readers to begin the task of critical thinking and reflecting about how each of us, as individuals and members of local communities, nations and the world, assuage or reproduces the structurally-derived inequalities which the globalization of communication and technical systems and interacting in a global environment manifests.

Social scientific inquiry and meta-theoretical fantasy: the case of International Relations

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 1447-1469 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN G. GUNNELL
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Basic Problem ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Philosophical Position ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe turn to the philosophy of scientific realism as a meta-theory for the study of International Relations manifests a reluctance to confront the basic problem of the relationship between philosophy and social scientific inquiry. Despite the realists' rejection of traditional empiricism, and particularly the instrumentalist account of scientific theory, the enthusiasm for realism neglects many of the same problems that, more than a generation earlier, were involved in the social scientific embrace of positivism. One of these problems was a lack of understanding regarding the character and history of the philosophy of natural science and its relationship and applicability to the study of social phenomena. Proponents of realism have also neither adequately articulated and defended realism as a philosophical position, and distinguished it from other perspectives, nor confronted the fundamental challenge to realism and other foundationalist philosophies which has been mounted by the contemporary critique of traditional representational philosophy.

ANALYZING THE AGENT-BASED MODEL AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

2003 ◽  
Vol 06 (03) ◽  
pp. 331-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
YUTAKA I. LEON SUEMATSU ◽  
KEIKI TAKADAMA ◽  
NORBERTO E. NAWA ◽  
KATSUNORI SHIMOHARA ◽  
OSAMU KATAI
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Internal Structure ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Agent Based Model ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

Agent-based models (ABMs) have been attracting the attention of researchers in the social sciences, becoming a prominent paradigm in the study of complex social systems. Although a great number of models have been proposed for studying a variety of social phenomena, no general agent design methodology is available. Moreover, it is difficult to validate the accuracy of these models. For this reason, we believe that some guidelines for ABMs design must be devised; therefore, this paper is a first attempt to analyze the levels of ABMs, identify and classify several aspects that should be considered when designing ABMs. Through our analysis, the following implications have been found: (1) there are two levels in designing ABMs: the individual level, related to the design of the agents' internal structure, and the collective level, which concerns the design of the agent society or macro-dynamics of the model; and (2) the mechanisms of these levels strongly affect the outcomes of the models.

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