Ants in the genus Temnothorax use tandem runs (rather than pheromone trails) to recruit to food sources. This model explores the collective consequences of this linear recruitment (as opposed to highly nonlinear pheromone trails).

This is an adaptation and extension of Robert Axtell’s model (2013) of endogenous firms, in Python 3.4

This model studies the emergence and dynamics of generalized trust. It does so by modeling agents that engage in trust games and, based on their experience, slowly determine whether others are, in general, trustworthy.

The agent-based perspective allows insights on how behaviour of firms, guided by simple economic rules on the micro-level, is dynamically influenced by a complex environment in regard to the assumed relocation, decision-making hypotheses. Testing various variables sensitive to initial conditions, increased environmental regulations targeting global trade and upward shifting wage levels in formerly offshore production locations have shown to be driving and inhibiting mechanisms of this socio-technical system. The dynamic demonstrates a shift from predominantly cited economic reasoning for relocation strategies towards sustainability aspects, pressingly changing these realities on an environmental and social dimension. The popular debate is driven by increased environmental awareness and the proclaimed fear of robots killing jobs. In view of reshoring shaping the political agenda, interest in the phenomenon has recently been fuelled by the rise of populism and protectionism.

Individually parameterized mussels (Mytilus californianus) recruit, grow, move and die in a 3D environment while facing predation (in the form of seastar agents), heat and desiccation with increased tide height, and storms. Parameterized with data collected by Wootton, Paine, Kandur, Donahue, Robles and others. See my 2019 CoMSES video presentation to learn more.

Violence against women occurs predominantly in the family and domestic context. The COVID-19 pandemic led Brazil to recommend and, at times, impose social distancing, with the partial closure of economic activities, schools, and restrictions on events and public services. Preliminary evidence shows that intense co- existence increases domestic violence, while social distancing measures may have prevented access to public services and networks, information, and help. We propose an agent-based model (ABM), called VIDA, to illustrate and examine multi-causal factors that influence events that generate violence. A central part of the model is the multi-causal stress indicator, created as a probability trigger of domestic violence occurring within the family environment. Two experimental design tests were performed: (a) absence or presence of the deterrence system of domestic violence against women and measures to increase social distancing. VIDA presents comparative results for metropolitan regions and neighbourhoods considered in the experiments. Results suggest that social distancing measures, particularly those encouraging staying at home, may have increased domestic violence against women by about 10%. VIDA suggests further that more populated areas have comparatively fewer cases per hundred thousand women than less populous capitals or rural areas of urban concentrations. This paper contributes to the literature by formalising, to the best of our knowledge, the first model of domestic violence through agent-based modelling, using empirical detailed socioeconomic, demographic, educational, gender, and race data at the intraurban level (census sectors).

The present model demonstrates that how two basic human features: (1) that in the human brain beliefs are interconnected, and (2) people strive to maintain a coherent belief system, gives rise to opinion polarization and the appearance of fake news.

This model aims to examine how different levels of communication noise and superiority bias affect team performance when solving problems collectively. We used a networked agent-based model of collective problem solving in which agents explore the NK landscape for a better solution and communicate with each other regarding their current solutions. We compared the team performance in solving problems collectively at different levels of self-superiority bias when facing simple and complex problems. Additionally, we addressed the effect of different levels of communication noise on the team’s outcome

What policy measures are effective in redistributing essential resources during crisis situations such as climate change impacts? We model a collective action institution with different rules for designing and organizing it, and make our analysis specific to various societal contexts.

Our model captures a generic societal context of unequal vulnerability and climate change impact in a stylized form. We represent a community of people who harvest and consume an essential resource to maintain their well-being. However, their ability to harvest the resource is not equal; people are characterized by a ‘resource access’ attribute whose values are uniformly distributed from 0 to 1 in the population. A person’s resource access value determines the amount of resource units they are able to harvest, and therefore the welfare levels they are able to attain. People travel to the centralized resource region and derive well-being or welfare, represented as an energy gain, by harvesting and consuming resource units.

The community is subject to a climate change impact event that occurs with a certain periodicity and over a certain duration. The capacity of resource units to regenerate diminishes during the impact events. Unequal capacities to access the essential resource results in unequal vulnerability among people with regards to their ability to maintain a sufficient welfare level, especially during impact events.

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Large outbreaks of Shigella sonnei among children in Haredi Jewish (ultra-Orthodox) communities in Brooklyn, New York have occurred every 3–5 years since at least the mid-1980s. These outbreaks are partially attributable to large numbers of young children in these communities, with transmission highest in child care and school settings, and secondary transmission within households. As these outbreaks have been prolonged and difficult to control, we developed an agent-based model of shigellosis transmission among children in these communities to support New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene staff. Simulated children were assigned an initial susceptible, infectious, or recovered (immune) status and interacted and moved between their home, child care program or school, and a community site. We calibrated the model according to observed case counts as reported to the Health Department. Our goal was to better understand the efficacy of existing interventions and whether limited outreach resources could be focused more effectively.