The main function of this simulation model is to simulate the onset of individual panic in the context of a public health event, and in particular to simulate how an individual’s panic develops and dies out in the context of a dual information contact network of online social media information and offline in-person perception information. In this model, eight different scenarios are set up by adjusting key parameters according to the difference in the amount and nature of information circulating in the dual information network, in order to observe how the agent’s panic behavior will change under different information exposure situations.

This model is intended to study how the way information is collectively managed (i.e. shared, collected, processed, and stored) in a system performs during a crisis or disaster. Performance is assessed in terms of the system’s ability to provide the information needed to the actors who need it when they need it. There are two main types of actors in the simulation, namely communities and professional responders. Their ability to exchange information is crucial to improve the system’s performance as each of them has direct access to only part of the information they need.

In a nutshell, the following occurs during a simulation. Due to a disaster, a series of randomly occurring disruptive events takes place. The actors in the simulation need to keep track of such events. Specifically, each event generates information needs for the different actors, which increases the information gaps (i.e. the “piles” of unaddressed information needs). In order to reduce the information gaps, the actors need to “discover” the pieces of information they need. The desired behavior or performance of the system is to keep the information gaps as low as possible, which is to address as many information needs as possible as they occur.

The Megafaunal Hunting Pressure Model (MHPM) is an interactive, agent-based model designed to conduct experiments to test megaherbivore extinction hypotheses. The MHPM is a model of large-bodied ungulate population dynamics with human predation in a simplified, but dynamic grassland environment. The overall purpose of the model is to understand how environmental dynamics and human predation preferences interact with ungulate life history characteristics to affect ungulate population dynamics over time. The model considers patterns in environmental change, human hunting behavior, prey profitability, herd demography, herd movement, and animal life history as relevant to this main purpose. The model is constructed in the NetLogo modeling platform (Version 6.3.0; Wilensky, 1999).

Many archaeological assemblages from the Iberian Peninsula dated to the Last Glacial Maximum contain large quantities of European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) remains with an anthropic origin. Ethnographic and historic studies report that rabbits may be mass-collected through warren-based harvesting involving the collaborative participation of several persons.

We propose and implement an Agent-Based Model grounded in the Optimal Foraging Theory and the Diet Breadth Model to examine how different warren-based hunting strategies influence the resulting human diets.

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The ABM model is designed to model the adaptability of farmers in DTIM. This model includes two groups of farmers and local government admins agents. Farmers with different levels, with low WP of DTIM, are looking for economic benefits and reduced irrigation and production costs. Meanwhile, the government is looking for strategic goals to maintain water resources’ sustainability. The local government admins employ incentives (subsidies in this study) to encourage farmers to DTIM. In addition, it is used as a tool for supervision and training farmers’ performance. Farmers are currently harvesting water resources with irrigation systems and different levels of technology, and they intend to provide short-term benefits. Farmers adjust the existing approach based on their knowledge of the importance of DTIM and propensity to increase WP and cost-benefit evaluation. DTIM has an initial implementation fee. Every farmer can increase WP by using government subsidies. If none of the farmers create optimal use of water resources, access to water resources will be threatened in the long term. This is considered a hypothetical cost for farmers who do not participate in DTIM. With DTIM, considering that local government admins’ facilities cover an essential part of implementation costs, farmers may think of profiting from local government admins’ facilities by selling that equipment, especially if the farmers in the following conditions may consider selling their developed irrigation equipment. In this case, the technology of their irrigation system will return to the state before development.
- When the threshold of farmers’ propensity to DTIM is low (for example, in the conditions of scarcity of access to sufficient training about the new irrigation system or its role in reducing the cost and sustainability of water resources)
- When the share of government subsidy is high, and as a result, the profit from the sale of equipment is attractive, especially in conditions of inflation.
- Finally, farmers’ honesty threshold should be reduced based on the positive experience of profit-seeking and deception among neighbors.
Increasing the share of government subsidies can encourage farmers to earn profits. Therefore, the government can help increase farmers’ profits by considering the assessment teams at different levels with DTIM training . local government admins evaluations monitor the behavior of farmers. If farmers sell their improved irrigation system for profit, they may be deprived of some local government admins’ services and the possibility of receiving subsidies again. Assessments The local government admins can increase farmers’ honesty. Next, the ABM model evaluates local government admins policies to achieve a suitable framework for water resources management in the Miandoab region.

Within the archeological record for Bronze Age Chinese culture, there continues to be a gap in our understanding of the sudden rise of the Erlitou State from the previous late Longshan chiefdoms. In order to examine this period, I developed and used an agent-based model (ABM) to explore possible socio-politically relevant hypotheses for the gap between the demise of the late Longshan cultures and rise of the first state level society in East Asia. I tested land use strategy making and collective action in response to drought and flooding scenarios, the two plausible environmental hazards at that time. The model results show cases of emergent behavior where an increase in social complexity could have been experienced if a catastrophic event occurred while the population was sufficiently prepared for a different catastrophe, suggesting a plausible lead for future research into determining the life of the time period.

The ABM published here was originally developed in 2016 and its results published in the Proceedings of the 2017 Winter Simulation Conference.

Social distancing is a strategy to mitigate the spread of contagious disease, but it bears negative impacts on people’s social well-being, resulting in non-compliance. This paper uses an integrated behavioral simulation model, called HUMAT, to identify a sweet spot
that balances strictness of and obedience to social distancing rules.

A novel agent-based model was developed that aims to explore social interaction while it is constrained by visitor limitations (due to Dutch COVID measures). Specifically, the model aims to capture the interaction between the need for social contact and the support for the visitors measure. The model was developed using the HUMAT integrated framework, which offered a psychological and sociological foundation for the behavior of the agents.

Background: Establishing a human settlement on Mars is an incredibly complex engineering problem. The inhospitable nature of the Martian environment requires any habitat to be largely self-sustaining. Beyond mining a few basic minerals and water, the colonizers will be dependent on Earth resupply and replenishment of necessities via technological means, i.e., splitting Martian water into oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for fuel. Beyond the technical and engineering challenges, future colonists will also face psychological and human behavior challenges.
Objective: Our goal is to better understand the behavioral and psychological interactions of future Martian colonists through an Agent-Based Modeling (ABM simulation) approach. We seek to identify areas of consideration for planning a colony as well as propose a minimum initial population size required to create a stable colony.
Methods: Accounting for engineering and technological limitations, we draw on research regarding high performing teams in isolated and high stress environments (ex: submarines, Arctic exploration, ISS, war) to include the 4 NASA personality types within the ABM. Interactions between agents with different psychological profiles are modeled at the individual level, while global events such as accidents or delays in Earth resupply affect the colony as a whole.
Results: From our multiple simulations and scenarios (up to 28 Earth years), we found that an initial population of 22 was the minimum required to maintain a viable colony size over the long run. We also found that the Agreeable personality type was the one more likely to survive.
Conclusion We developed a simulation with easy to use GUI to explore various scenarios of human interactions (social, labor, economic, psychological) on a future colony on Mars. We included technological and engineering challenges, but our focus is on the behavioral and psychological effects on the sustainability of the colony on the long run. We find, contrary to other literature, that the minimum number of people with all personality types that can lead to a sustainable settlement is in the tens and not hundreds.

This is a replication of the SequiaBasalto model, originally built in Cormas by Dieguez Cameroni et al. (2012, 2014, Bommel et al. 2014 and Morales et al. 2015). The model aimed to test various adaptations of livestock producers to the drought phenomenon provoked by climate change. For that purpose, it simulates the behavior of one livestock farm in the Basaltic Region of Uruguay. The model incorporates the price of livestock, fodder and paddocks, as well as the growth of grass as a function of climate and seasons (environmental submodel), the life cycle of animals feeding on the pasture (livestock submodel), and the different strategies used by farmers to manage their livestock (management submodel). The purpose of the model is to analyze to what degree the common management practices used by farmers (i.e., proactive and reactive) to cope with seasonal and interannual climate variations allow to maintain a sustainable livestock production without depleting the natural resources (i.e., pasture). Here, we replicate the environmental and livestock submodel using NetLogo.

One year is 368 days. Seasons change every 92 days. Each day begins with the growth of grass as a function of climate and season. This is followed by updating the live weight of cows according to the grass height of their patch, and grass consumption, which is determined based on the updated live weight. After consumption, cows grow and reproduce, and a new grass height is calculated. Cows then move to the patch with less cows and with the highest grass height. This updated grass height value will be the initial grass height for the next day.

The fight against poverty is an urgent global challenge. Microinsurance is promoted as a valuable instrument for buffering income losses due to health or climate-related risks of low-income households in developing countries. However, apart from direct positive effects they can have unintended side effects when insured households lower their contribution to traditional arrangements where risk is shared through private monetary support.

RiskNetABM is an agent-based model that captures dynamics between income losses, insurance payments and informal risk-sharing. The model explicitly includes decisions about informal transfers. It can be used to assess the impact of insurance products and informal risk-sharing arrangements on the resilience of smallholders. Specifically, it allows to analyze whether and how economic needs (i.e. level of living costs) and characteristics of extreme events (i.e. frequency, intensity and type of shock) influence the ability of insurance and informal risk-sharing to buffer income shocks. Two types of behavior with regard to private monetary transfers are explicitly distinguished: (1) all households provide transfers whenever they can afford it and (2) insured households do not show solidarity with their uninsured peers.

The model is stylized and is not used to analyze a particular case study, but represents conditions from several regions with different risk contexts where informal risk-sharing networks between smallholder farmers are prevalent.

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