Syllabus

23.03.2007: Introduction and logistics

• Patrick Kuhn, Nils Weidmann und Dirk Leuffen. 2006. Tausche Ballack gegen Yakin. ETH Life.
  

27.03.2007: Agent-based modeling I

Required readings:

• Nigel Gilbert. 2007. Agent-based models. Chapters 1 and 2.
  

Recommended readings:

• Robert Axelrod. 2003. Advancing the Art of Simulation in the Social Sciences. Japanese Journal for Management Information System 12 (2):16-22.
• Robert Axelrod, and Leigh Tesfatsion. 2005. A Guide for Newcomers to Agent-Based Modeling in the Social Sciences. In Handbook of Computational Economics: Agent-Based Computational Economics , edited by K. L. Judd and L. Tesfatsion: North-Holland.

03.04.2007: Agent-based modeling II

Mandatory reading material:

• Nigel Gilbert. 2007. Agent-based models. Chapters 3, (4), and 5.
• Steve Bankes. 1993. Exploratory Modeling for Policy Analysis. Operations Research 41 (3):435-449.

Supplementary material:

• John Holland. 1992. Complex Adaptive Systems. Daedalus 121:17-30.
• Steven Bankes. 2003. Improving the utility and rigor of agent-based modeling through ensembles of models. In Agent.
• William Rand, Daniel G. Brown, Scott E. Page, Rick Riolo, Luis E. Fernandez, and Moira Zellner. 2003. Statistical Validation of Spatial Patterns in Agent-Based Models. Proceedings of Agent Based Simulation 2003.

10.04.2007: Tooling

Required readings:

• Nils B. Weidmann and Luc Girardin. GROWLab: A Toolbox for Social Simulation. 2006.
• Robert Tobias and Carole Hofmann. Evaluation of free Java-libraries for social-scientific agent based simulation. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation vol. 7, no. 1. 2004.

Recommended readings:

• Nick Collier. RePast: An Extensible Framework for Agent Simulation. 2002.
• Nicholson Collier and Thomas R. Howe. RePast 2.0: Major Changes and New Features. 2003
• Sean Luke, Claudio Cioffi-Revilla, Liviu Panait, and Keith Sullivan. MASON: A New Multi-Agent Simulation Toolkit. Proceedings of the 2004 SwarmFest Workshop. 2004.
• North, M.J., N.T. Collier, and J.R. Vos. Experiences Creating Three Implementations of the Repast Agent Modeling Toolkit, ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation, Vol. 16, Issue 1, pp. 1-25, ACM, New York, New York, USA (January 2006).
• Michele Sonnessa. JAS: Java Agent-based Simulation library. An open framework for algorithm-intensive simulations. 2004.

17.04.2007: Implementation

24.04.2007: Applications to economics (Dr. Casrten Murawski)

Reading material:

• John Nash, Non-Cooperative Games, The Annals of Mathematics, 2nd Ser., Vol. 54, No. 2. (Sep., 1951), pp. 286-295.
• R. D. McKelvey and A. McLennan. Computation of equilibria in finite games. In Handbook of Computational Economics. 1996.
  
• Matthew O. Jackson, The Economics of Social Networks, 2005.
• Michael Kearns, Michael L. Littman, and Satinder Singh, Graphical Models for Game Theory, 2001.
• Kenneth Arrow and Gerard Debreu, Existence of an equilibrium for a competitive economy, Econometrica Vol. 22, No. 3, July 1954.
• Xiaotie Deng, Christos Papadimitriou, and Shmuel Safra, On the Complexity of Equilibria, STOC'02, May 19-21, 2002, Montreal
• Nikhil R. Devanur, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Amin Saberi, and Vijay V. Vazirani, Market Equilibrium via a Primal-Dual Algorithm for a Convex Program. Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, 2002.
  

08.05.2007: Applications to sociology

Required readings:

• Lars-Erik Cederman. 2005. Computational Models of Social Forms: Advancing Generative Process Theory. American Journal of Sociology, volume 110 (4), pages 864–893.
• Michael W. Macy, and Robert Willer. 2002. From Factors to Actors: Computational Sociology and Agent-Based Modeling . Annual Review of Sociology.

Supplementary material:

• Andrzej Nowak, Jacek Szamrej, and Bibb Latané. 1990. From Private Attitude to Public Opinion: A Dynamic Theory of Social Impact. Psychological Review 97 (3):362-376.
• Thomas Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior, W W Norton & Co Ltd, 1978, Chapter 4.
• Elizabeth Bruch and Robert D. Mare, Neighborhood choice and neighborhood change, UCLA, California Center for Population Research, On-Line Working Paper Series (University of California, Los Angeles), Year 2005, Paper CCPR-013-05.
• James G. March. 1991. Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning. Organization Science 2 (1):71-87.

15.05.2007: Applications to politics

Mandatory reading material:

• Lars-Erik Cederman and Luc Girardin. Exploring geopolitics with agent-based modeling. Prepared for presentation at University of Tokyo, September 24-25, 2005.
• Lars-Erik Cederman. 2003. Modeling the Size of Wars: From Billiard Balls to Sandpiles. American Political Science Review 97:135-150.

Supplementary material:

• S. A. Bremer, and M. Mihalka. 1977. Machiavelli in Machina: Or Politics Among Hexagons. Problems of World Modeling:303-337.
• Lars-Erik Cederman. 1997. Emergent Actors: How States and Nations Develop and Dissolve.
• Lars-Erik Cederman. 2002. Endogenizing Geopolitical Boundaries with Agent-Based Modeling.
• Lars-Erik Cederman. 2004. Articulating the Geo-Cultural Logic of Nationalist Insurgency.
• Joshua M. Epstein. 2002. Modeling civil violence: An agent-based computational approach.

22.05.2007: Applications to traffic and urban geography (Mr. Jeremy Hackney)

Reading material:

• Daganzo, et al (2006), The Nature of Gridlock Interactive Simulation. http://www.its.berkeley.edu/volvocenter/gridlock/
• Rieser, et al (2007), Truly agent-oriented coupling of an activity-based demand generation with a multi-agent traffic simulation, paper submitted to the World Conference on Transportation Research (WCTR).
• Macal (2005), Model Verification and Validation, Center for Complex Adaptive Agent Systems Simulation, Argonne National Laboratory

29.05.2007: Student presentations I

05.06.2007: Student presentations II

12.06.2007: Student presentations III

19.07.2007: Student presentations IV