This paper introduces and analyses the idea of the binding structure of a social interaction scheme. Binding structures are proposed as means to model the binding power that an interaction scheme imposes on agents interacting according to the scheme, in a social context. The paper considers the case of a basic interaction scheme, namely, the basic Producer-Consumer scheme, to explain the way th...

This paper studies the use of social simulation in linking micro level investor behaviour and macro level stock market dynamics. Empirical data from a survey on individual investors' decision-making and social interaction was used to formalize the trading and interaction rules of the agents of the artificial stock market SimStockExchange. Multiple simulation runs were performed with this artifi...

Agent-based simulations enable the simulation of social phenomenon by representing human behaviors using agents. Human actions such as evacuating to safe havens or extinguishing fires in disaster areas are important during earthquakes. The inclusion of human actions in calculating the damage at disaster sites provides useful data to local governments for planning purposes. In order to practical...

Discussions about simulation credibility tend to focus on the issue of "validation", i.e., how well simulation predictions match real world observations. While validation is certainly a most direct and intuitively accessible measure of simulation credibility, the validation process has numerous well-known limitations. Validation is by no means the only measure of simulation credibility, however...

This study describes the simulation of gas demand for greenhouses in the agricultural area. Using the data provided by an energy company providing gas to over 3600 individual greenhouses , several models are developed to predict the gas demand of an individual green house. Using these models peak smoothing strategies for the overall gas demand can be developed and tested. Three of such peak smo...

The event which eventually was to culminate in this special issue was the February 2007 Leiden University’s Lorentz Center workshop “Computational and Mathematical Approaches to Societal Transitions”. This workshop was intended to boost the exact-oriented research on societal transitions by bringing together researchers from diverse fields. During the cause of that week a couple of dozens of ph...

How can we understand the interaction between the social network topology of a population and the patterns of group affiliation in that population? Each aspect influences the other: social networks provide the conduits via which groups recruit new members, and groups provide the context in which new social ties are formed. While many social simulation models exhibit group formation as a part of...

An open problem in social simulation and MAS applications is the self-regulation of social exchange processes, aiming at the achievement/maintenance of equilibrated exchanges by the agents themselves, providing the continuation of the interactions in time. This paper faces this problem through an approach based on the proposed spatial and evolutionary Game of Self-Regulation of Social Exchange ...

A recent article by Watts and Dodds raises the question of whether or not the spread of information and change of opinions in a social network depend on the existence of “influentials.” We have developed a software simulation platform to analyze the impact of word-of-mouth and social networks on marketing and advertising. We use our simulation platform to test the relative impact of the structu...

We lay open a position concerning the difference between scientific processes and processes in science. Not all processes in science are scientific. This leads into the center of social simulation. More scientific theories should be incorporated in social simulations, and this should lead to more united structural approaches.