Social network analysis has an especially long tradition in the social science. In recent years, a dramatically increased visibility of SNA, however, is owed to statistical physicists. Among many, Barabasi-Albert model (BA model) has attracted particular attention because of its mathematical properties (i.e., obeying power-law distribution) and its appearance in a diverse range of social phenomena. BA model assumes that nodes with more links (i.e., “popular nodes”) are more likely to be connected when new nodes entered a system. However, significant deviations from BA model have been reported in many social networks. Although numerous variants of BA model are developed, they still share the key assumption that nodes with more links were more likely to be connected. I think this line of research is problematic since it assumes all nodes possess the same preference and overlooks the potential impacts of agent heterogeneity on network formation. When joining a real social network, people are not only driven by instrumental calculation of connecting with the popular, but also motivated by intrinsic affection of joining the like. The impact of this mixed preferential attachment is particularly consequential on formation of social networks. I propose an integrative agent-based model of heterogeneous attachment encompassing both instrumental calculation and intrinsic similarity. Particularly, it emphasizes the way in which agent heterogeneity affects social network formation. This integrative approach can strongly advance our understanding about the formation of various networks.

MY research aims to give artists better 3D references and scene reconstructions which can be directly fed into the creative pipeline. This is motivated by increasing public demand for detailed, complex 3D worlds and the resulting demand this places on world design artists.

This project lookings at developing acquisition and modelling technologies that provide more than just a visual reference: in the context of this project, visual acquisition and reconstruction methods shall be developed that provide richer, three-dimensional references, and that ultimately yield scene reconstructions that can directly be fed into the content creation pipeline. The project will focus on natural environments (as opposed to urban scenes) and may combine multi-spectral imaging, wide-baseline stereo reconstruction and semantic scene analysis to obtain approximate procedural representations of natural scenes.

Environmental Economics, Resource Economics, Behaviour Economics, Social Security/ Health Economics, Sustainability, Development Economics

Corinna is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology. She joined the Centre for Research in Social Simulation at the in August 2008 as a Research Fellow. Her academic background is in Philosophy (LSE, BSc MSc) and Computer Science (KCL,PhD), where her PhD Instinct for Detection developed a logic for abductive reasoning.

Currently Corinna is the PI on an AHRC Research Grant on collective reasoning in agent-based modelling, titled Collective Reasoning as a Moral Point of View. Her research interests are decision mechanisms, in particular collective decision-making, context dependency of decisions and methodological and epistemological aspects of agent-based modelling and social simulation. She has applied collective decision making to the analysis to the weakening of the Mafia in Southern Italy within the GLODERS project and published a book Modelling Norms, co-authored with Nigel Gilbert, providing a systematic analysis of the contribution of agent-based modelling to the study of social norms and deviant behaviour. Recently Corinna has been developing a teaching stream within CRESS with a periodically running short course Agent-based Modelling for the Social Scientist and the MSc Social Science and Complexity.