Studies of colonization processes in past human societies often use a standard population model in which population is represented as a single quantity. Real populations in these processes, however, are structured with internal classes or stages, and classes are sometimes created based on social differentiation. In this present work, information about the colonization of old Providence Island was used to create an agent-based model of the colonization process in a heterogeneous environment for a population with social differentiation. Agents were socially divided into two classes and modeled with dissimilar spatial clustering preferences. The model and simulations assessed the importance of gregarious behavior for colonization processes conducted in heterogeneous environments by socially-differentiated populations. Results suggest that in these conditions, the colonization process starts with an agent cluster in the largest and most suitable area. The spatial distribution of agents maintained a tendency toward randomness as simulation time increased, even when gregariousness values increased. The most conspicuous effects in agent clustering were produced by the initial conditions and behavioral adaptations that increased the agent capacity to access more resources and the likelihood of gregariousness. The approach presented here could be used to analyze past human colonization events or support long-term conceptual design of future human colonization processes with small social formations into unfamiliar and uninhabited environments.

The model is then used for assessing three hypothetical and contrasted infrastructure-oriented adaptation strategies for the winter tourism industry, that have been previously discussed with local stakeholders, as possible alternatives to the “business-as-usual” situation.

The purpose of this model is to better understand the dynamics of a multihost pathogen in two host system comprising of high densities of domestic hosts and sympatric wildlife hosts susceptible to the pathogen.

This paper tries to shed some light on the mutual influence of citizen behaviour and the spread of a virus in an epidemic. While the spread of a virus from infectious to susceptible persons and the outbreak of an infection leading to more or less severe illness and, finally, to recovery and immunity or death has been modelled with different kinds of models in the past, the influence of certain behaviours to keep the epidemic low and to follow recommendations of others to apply these behaviours has rarely been modelled. The model introduced here uses a theory of the effect of norm invocations among persons to find out the effect of spreading norms interacts with the progress of an epidemic. Results show that norm invocations matter. The model replicates the histories of the COVID-19 epidemic in various region, including “second waves” (but only until the end of 2021 as afterwards the official statistics ceased to be reliable as many infected persons did not report their positive test results after countermeasures were relieved), and shows that the calculation of the reproduction numbers from current reported infections usually overestimates the “real” but in practice unobservable reproduction number.

FIsheries Simulation with Human COmplex DEcision-making (FISHCODE) is an agent-based model to depict and analyze current and future spatio-temporal dynamics of three German fishing fleets in the southern North Sea. Every agent (fishing vessel) makes daily decisions about if, what, and how long to fish. Weather, fuel and fish prices, as well as the actions of their colleagues influence agents’ decisions. To combine behavioral theories and enable agents to make dynamic decision, we implemented the Consumat approach, a framework in which agents’ decisions vary in complexity and social engagement depending on their satisfaction and uncertainty. Every agent has three satisfactions and two uncertainties representing different behavioral aspects, i.e. habitual behavior, profit maximization, competition, conformism, and planning insecurity. Availability of extensive information on fishing trips allowed us to parameterize many model parameters directly from data, while others were calibrated using pattern oriented modelling. Model validation showed that spatial and temporal aggregated ABM outputs were in realistic ranges when compared to observed data. Our ABM hence represents a tool to assess the impact of the ever growing challenges to North Sea fisheries and provides insight into fisher behavior beyond profit maximization.

Abstract: The notion of physical space has long been central in geographical theories. However, the widespread adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has freed human dynamics from purely physical to also relational and cyber spaces. While researchers increasingly recognize such shifts, rarely have studies examined how the information propagates in these hybrid spaces (i.e., physical, relational, and cyber). By exploring the vaccine opinion dynamics through agent-based modeling, this study is the first that combines all hybrid spaces and explores their distinct impacts on human dynamics from an individual’s perspective. Our model captures the temporal dynamics of vaccination progress with small errors (MAE=2.45). Our results suggest that all hybrid spaces are indispensable in vaccination decision making. However, in our model, most of the agents tend to give more emphasis to the information that is spread in the physical instead of other hybrid spaces. Our study not only sheds light on human dynamics research but also offers a new lens to identifying vaccinated individuals which has long been challenging in disease-spread models. Furthermore, our study also provides responses for practitioners to develop vaccination outreach policies and plan for future outbreaks.

A very simple model elaborated to explore what may happens when buyers (travelers) have more information than sellers (tourist destinations)

Simulation-Framework to study the governance of complex, network-like sociotechnical systems by means of ABM. Agents’ behaviour is based on a sociological model of action. A set of basic governance mechanisms helps to conduct first experiments.

Educational attainment and student retention in higher education are two of the main focuses of higher education research. Institutions in the U.S. are constantly looking for ways to identify areas of improvement across different aspects of the student experience on university campuses. This paper combines Department of Education data, U.S. Census data, and higher education theory on student retention, to build an agent-based model of student behavior.

We compare three model estimates for the time and treatment requirements to eliminate HCV among HIV-positive MSM in Victoria, Australia: a compartmental model; an ABM parametrized by surveillance data; and an ABM with a more heterogeneous population.