MIMOSE1 is an abbreviation for MIcro- and multilevel MOdelling SoftwarE. It stands for a modellin... more MIMOSE1 is an abbreviation for MIcro- and multilevel MOdelling SoftwarE. It stands for a modelling and simulation software system which consists of a model description language and an experimental frame for the simulation of the described models.
models aim to demonstrate some basic social process that may lie behind many areas of social life... more models aim to demonstrate some basic social process that may lie behind many areas of social life. A good example is Epstein and Axtell's pioneering book on Growing Artificial Societies (Epstein et al., 1996), which presents a series of successively more complex models of the economics of an artificial society. … With these models, there is no intention to model any particular empirical case and for some models it may be difficult to find any close connection with observable data at all. … How then might such models be validated? The answer is to see such models as part of the process of development of theory, and to apply to them the criteria normally applied to evaluating theory. That is, abstract models need to yield patterns at the macro level that are expected and interpretable, to be based on plausible micro-level agent behavioral rules, and, most importantly, to be capable of generating further, more specific or 'middle-range' theories (Merton, 1968).
Abstract. This paper considers a range of theoretical approaches to the understanding of organisa... more Abstract. This paper considers a range of theoretical approaches to the understanding of organisations and the implications these views have for the design of computer,supported cooperative work,systems. Organisations have often been seen as structures which can be divided into hierarchically ordered parts or as networks of informal relations. Organisational theorists have also considered organisations to resemble organisms,with needs for survival in potentially hostile environments or as information processors, with decision-making as their most important characteristic. More recently, developments in the social sciences have suggested that radical reconceptualisations are necessary for the study of work settings. Consequently, these developments have attracted attention due to their potential to inform system design. This paper reviews some,of these efforts and comments,on some,of the outstanding problems that have to be overcome,if studies of everyday work set- tings are to infor...
The contemporary structure of scientific activity, including the publication of papers in academi... more The contemporary structure of scientific activity, including the publication of papers in academic journals, citation behaviour, the clustering of research into specialties and so on has been intensively studied over the last fifty years. A number of quantitative relationships between aspects of the system have been observed. This paper reports on a simulation designed to see whether it is possible to reproduce the form of these observed relationships using a small number of simple assumptions. The simulation succeeds in generating a specialty structure with ‘areas’ of science displaying growth and decline. It also reproduces Lotka's Law concerning the distribution of citations among authors. The simulation suggests that it is possible to generate many of the quantitative features of the present structure of science and that one way of looking at scientific activity is as a system in which scientific papers generate further papers, with authors (scientists) playing a necessary b...
This article draws on published evaluations of Internet-mediated (I-M) educational, business, and... more This article draws on published evaluations of Internet-mediated (I-M) educational, business, and policy games to establish an inventory of lessons for future I-M games. These three types of I-M games have important concerns in common: objectives, role-play, synchronicity, game facilitation, and participant interaction. Lessons of design and implementation derived from these experiences are identified and explored. Special attention is given to the development of strategic I-M policy games because I-M gaming literature has tended to ignore them in comparison with educational and business games, and they seem to require more guidance and support in three main areas: structure, motivation, and interaction.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2002
The range of tools designed to help build agent-based models is briefly reviewed. It is suggested... more The range of tools designed to help build agent-based models is briefly reviewed. It is suggested that although progress has been made, there is much further design and development work to be done. Modelers have an important part to play, because the creation of tools and models using those tools proceed in a dialectical relationship.
Although in many social sciences there is a radical division between studies based on quantitativ... more Although in many social sciences there is a radical division between studies based on quantitative (e.g. statistical) and qualitative (e.g. ethnographic) methodologies and their associated epistemological commitments, agent-based simulation fits into neither camp, and should be capable of modelling both quantitative and qualitative data. Nevertheless, most agent-based models (ABMs) are founded on quantitative data. This paper explores some of the methodological and practical problems involved in basing an ABM on qualitative participant observation and proposes some advice for modelers.
Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Social Science Methodology, 2000
A model of the decision process mixing rational anticipation and social influences is proposed to... more A model of the decision process mixing rational anticipation and social influences is proposed to study the dynamics of agri-environmental measure adoption by farmers in Breadalbane ESA. The decisions of the farmers are based on uncertain anticipations related to different criteria (revenue, independence, nature). These anticipations can be the result of a rational evaluation or a feeling or impression gathered from interactions with other farmers and institutional actors. The model simulates emissions and receptions of messages ...
MIMOSE1 is an abbreviation for MIcro- and multilevel MOdelling SoftwarE. It stands for a modellin... more MIMOSE1 is an abbreviation for MIcro- and multilevel MOdelling SoftwarE. It stands for a modelling and simulation software system which consists of a model description language and an experimental frame for the simulation of the described models.
models aim to demonstrate some basic social process that may lie behind many areas of social life... more models aim to demonstrate some basic social process that may lie behind many areas of social life. A good example is Epstein and Axtell's pioneering book on Growing Artificial Societies (Epstein et al., 1996), which presents a series of successively more complex models of the economics of an artificial society. … With these models, there is no intention to model any particular empirical case and for some models it may be difficult to find any close connection with observable data at all. … How then might such models be validated? The answer is to see such models as part of the process of development of theory, and to apply to them the criteria normally applied to evaluating theory. That is, abstract models need to yield patterns at the macro level that are expected and interpretable, to be based on plausible micro-level agent behavioral rules, and, most importantly, to be capable of generating further, more specific or 'middle-range' theories (Merton, 1968).
Abstract. This paper considers a range of theoretical approaches to the understanding of organisa... more Abstract. This paper considers a range of theoretical approaches to the understanding of organisations and the implications these views have for the design of computer,supported cooperative work,systems. Organisations have often been seen as structures which can be divided into hierarchically ordered parts or as networks of informal relations. Organisational theorists have also considered organisations to resemble organisms,with needs for survival in potentially hostile environments or as information processors, with decision-making as their most important characteristic. More recently, developments in the social sciences have suggested that radical reconceptualisations are necessary for the study of work settings. Consequently, these developments have attracted attention due to their potential to inform system design. This paper reviews some,of these efforts and comments,on some,of the outstanding problems that have to be overcome,if studies of everyday work set- tings are to infor...
The contemporary structure of scientific activity, including the publication of papers in academi... more The contemporary structure of scientific activity, including the publication of papers in academic journals, citation behaviour, the clustering of research into specialties and so on has been intensively studied over the last fifty years. A number of quantitative relationships between aspects of the system have been observed. This paper reports on a simulation designed to see whether it is possible to reproduce the form of these observed relationships using a small number of simple assumptions. The simulation succeeds in generating a specialty structure with ‘areas’ of science displaying growth and decline. It also reproduces Lotka's Law concerning the distribution of citations among authors. The simulation suggests that it is possible to generate many of the quantitative features of the present structure of science and that one way of looking at scientific activity is as a system in which scientific papers generate further papers, with authors (scientists) playing a necessary b...
This article draws on published evaluations of Internet-mediated (I-M) educational, business, and... more This article draws on published evaluations of Internet-mediated (I-M) educational, business, and policy games to establish an inventory of lessons for future I-M games. These three types of I-M games have important concerns in common: objectives, role-play, synchronicity, game facilitation, and participant interaction. Lessons of design and implementation derived from these experiences are identified and explored. Special attention is given to the development of strategic I-M policy games because I-M gaming literature has tended to ignore them in comparison with educational and business games, and they seem to require more guidance and support in three main areas: structure, motivation, and interaction.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2002
The range of tools designed to help build agent-based models is briefly reviewed. It is suggested... more The range of tools designed to help build agent-based models is briefly reviewed. It is suggested that although progress has been made, there is much further design and development work to be done. Modelers have an important part to play, because the creation of tools and models using those tools proceed in a dialectical relationship.
Although in many social sciences there is a radical division between studies based on quantitativ... more Although in many social sciences there is a radical division between studies based on quantitative (e.g. statistical) and qualitative (e.g. ethnographic) methodologies and their associated epistemological commitments, agent-based simulation fits into neither camp, and should be capable of modelling both quantitative and qualitative data. Nevertheless, most agent-based models (ABMs) are founded on quantitative data. This paper explores some of the methodological and practical problems involved in basing an ABM on qualitative participant observation and proposes some advice for modelers.
Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Social Science Methodology, 2000
A model of the decision process mixing rational anticipation and social influences is proposed to... more A model of the decision process mixing rational anticipation and social influences is proposed to study the dynamics of agri-environmental measure adoption by farmers in Breadalbane ESA. The decisions of the farmers are based on uncertain anticipations related to different criteria (revenue, independence, nature). These anticipations can be the result of a rational evaluation or a feeling or impression gathered from interactions with other farmers and institutional actors. The model simulates emissions and receptions of messages ...
A model of the decision process mixing rational anticipation and social influences is proposed to... more A model of the decision process mixing rational anticipation and social influences is proposed to study the dynamics of agri-environmental measure adoption by farmers in Breadalbane ESA. The decisions of the farmers are based on uncertain anticipations related to different criteria (revenue, independence, nature). These anticipations can be the result of a rational evaluation or a feeling or impression gathered from interactions with other farmers and institutional actors. The model simulates emissions and receptions of messages about these anticipations. Different states of the decision are defined, taking into account the anticipations and the motivations of the farmers. The model is linked to different sources of data: interviews with farmers and institutional actors and data on the population of farms. The different parameters are fitted with the data of participation to ESA meetings and ESA adoption.
This paper uses interview data from retired households to inform a discussion about economic mode... more This paper uses interview data from retired households to inform a discussion about economic models of consumption. It is divided into two parts. In the first part, the economic models are described. The paper then discusses several different types of reasons for finding them unhelpful in explaining consumption. The second part of the paper considers the role of 'middle range' theories in developing plausible models of household behaviour. Phenomena which the interviews suggest are important in explaining consumption, such as time allocation, the labour supply decision, the ubiquitous durability of goods and the structure of the household, are not typically supported by middle range theory in current models. Without the constraints of such theory, it is very hard to distinguish models providing genuine explanation from those that merely fit the data. The latter part of the paper also discusses aspects of a new middle range theory of consumption suggested by the interviews.
This paper reports findings from twenty-six interviews conducted with retired households about th... more This paper reports findings from twenty-six interviews conducted with retired households about the way they make budgeting decisions. The data are presented with three objectives. First, to describe the way that households carry out the process of budgeting. Secondly, to consider the implications for economic and sociological theories of consumption. Thirdly, to construct a framework for understanding budgetary decision making which organises the data usefully and places current theories in a clearer relationship to each other. It is found that personal budgeting has several characteristics which are poorly represented in existing theories of consumption: the strong relation between time and money in decision making, the importance of durable goods, the social rather than rational nature of household decision making and the need for budgeting strategies to deal with uncertainty. A five-level framework is presented which shows how different
resources and methods are used by decision makers to manage their money.
This chapter addresses the relationship between sociology and Non-Equilibrium Social Science (NES... more This chapter addresses the relationship between sociology and Non-Equilibrium Social Science (NESS). Sociology is a multiparadigmatic discipline with significant disagreement regarding its goals and status as a scientific discipline. Different theories and methods coexist temporally and geographically. However, it has always aimed at identifying the main factors that explain the temporal stability of norms, institutions and individuals' practices; and the dynamics of institutional change and the conflicts brought about by power relations, economic and cultural inequality and class struggle. Sociologists considered equilibrium could not sufficiently explain the constitutive, maintaining and dissolving dynamics of society as a whole. As a move from the formal apparatus for the study of equilibrium, NESS does not imply a major shift from traditional sociological theory. Complex features have long been articulated in sociological theorization, and sociology embraces the complexity principles of NESS through its growing attention to complex adaptive systems and non-equilibrium sciences, with human societies seen as highly complex, path-dependent, far-from equilibrium, and self-organising systems. In particular, Agent-Based Modelling provides a more coherent inclusion of NESS and complexity principles into sociology. Agent-based sociology uses data and statistics to gauge the 'generative sufficiency' of a given microspec-ification by testing the agreement between 'real-world' and computer generated macrostructures. When the model cannot generate the outcome to be explained, the microspecification is not a viable candidate explanation. The separation between the explanatory and pragmatic aspects of social science has led sociologists to be highly critical about the implementation of social science in policy. However, ABM allows systematic exploration of the consequences of modelling assumptions and makes it possible to model much more complex phenomena than previously. ABM has proved particularly useful in representing socio-technical and socio-ecological systems, with the potential to be of use in policy. ABM offers formalized knowledge
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resources and methods are used by decision makers to manage their money.