version of MASON (Multi-Agent Simulator of Networks and Neighborhoods), available from the MASON website.
Author: William Kennedy
for serving as Acting Director of CSC while Claudio Cioffi served in the Provost’s office as Interim Vice President for Research and Economic Development. Andrew “kept the fires burning” — a big Thank-You to Andrew from all CSC members!
- *The programs and services offered by George Mason University are open to all who seek them. George Mason does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic national origin (including shared ancestry and/or ethnic characteristics), sex, disability, military status (including veteran status), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, pregnancy status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. After an initial review of its policies and practices, the university affirms its commitment to meet all federal mandates as articulated in federal law, as well as recent executive orders and federal agency directives.
published by Claudio Cioffi, Dan Rogers, and Bill Honeychurch, on the MASON Hierarchies model, created for advancing understanding of the rise and fall of polities in Inner Asia, including the Mongol Empire. Read: MASON HIERARCHIES: A LONG-RANGE AGENT MODEL OF
POWER, CONFLICT, AND ENVIRONMENT IN INNER ASIA.
- *The programs and services offered by George Mason University are open to all who seek them. George Mason does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic national origin (including shared ancestry and/or ethnic characteristics), sex, disability, military status (including veteran status), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, pregnancy status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. After an initial review of its policies and practices, the university affirms its commitment to meet all federal mandates as articulated in federal law, as well as recent executive orders and federal agency directives.
co-authored two papers published recently in professional journals:
Tian, Q., Brown, D.G., Bao, S, Qi, S. (2015). Assessing and mapping human well-being for sustainable development amid flood hazards: Poyang Lake Region of China. Applied Geography, 63, 66-76.
Tian, Q., Brown, D.G., Zheng, L., Qi, S., Liu, Y., Jiang, L. (2015). The role of cross-scale social and environmental contexts in household-level land-use decisions, Poyang Lake Region. Annals of Association of American Geographers. DOI: 10.1080/00045608.2015.1060921.
- *The programs and services offered by George Mason University are open to all who seek them. George Mason does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic national origin (including shared ancestry and/or ethnic characteristics), sex, disability, military status (including veteran status), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, pregnancy status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. After an initial review of its policies and practices, the university affirms its commitment to meet all federal mandates as articulated in federal law, as well as recent executive orders and federal agency directives.
Claudio Cioffi and Andrew Crooks, Center for Social Complexity, were featured lecturers at the Lipari International Summer School in Computational Social Science held July 25-31 on Lipari Island, Italy. The theme of this year’s session was Algorithms, Data, and Models for Social and Urban System. For more information, visit the school’s web site
- *The programs and services offered by George Mason University are open to all who seek them. George Mason does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic national origin (including shared ancestry and/or ethnic characteristics), sex, disability, military status (including veteran status), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, pregnancy status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. After an initial review of its policies and practices, the university affirms its commitment to meet all federal mandates as articulated in federal law, as well as recent executive orders and federal agency directives.
postdoc and adjunct CSS faculty member, now at Yale University, has a new book out. Inner Asia and the Spatial Politics of Empire, published by Springer, is available for purchase at Amazon.
- *The programs and services offered by George Mason University are open to all who seek them. George Mason does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic national origin (including shared ancestry and/or ethnic characteristics), sex, disability, military status (including veteran status), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, pregnancy status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. After an initial review of its policies and practices, the university affirms its commitment to meet all federal mandates as articulated in federal law, as well as recent executive orders and federal agency directives.
are serving as Acting Director and Senior Adviser, respectively, while Claudio Cioffi is acting as GMU’s Interim Vice President for research. Dr. Cioffi will return to his position as Director of the Center on August 25.
- *The programs and services offered by George Mason University are open to all who seek them. George Mason does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic national origin (including shared ancestry and/or ethnic characteristics), sex, disability, military status (including veteran status), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, pregnancy status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. After an initial review of its policies and practices, the university affirms its commitment to meet all federal mandates as articulated in federal law, as well as recent executive orders and federal agency directives.
Ates Hailegiorgis, formerly with the Center for Social Complexity’s Mason-Smithsonian Joint Project on Climate Change and Societal Consequences, and affiliate faculty at the Center, is now with the US Geeological Survey, Leetown Science Center, where he has developed a new MASON model of the lower Mississippi Alluvial Region. For more information, go to http://www.lsc.usgs.gov/
- *The programs and services offered by George Mason University are open to all who seek them. George Mason does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic national origin (including shared ancestry and/or ethnic characteristics), sex, disability, military status (including veteran status), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, pregnancy status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. After an initial review of its policies and practices, the university affirms its commitment to meet all federal mandates as articulated in federal law, as well as recent executive orders and federal agency directives.
Claudio Cioffi, director of the Center for Social Complexity and interim Vice President for Research, presented the new MASON NorthLands model of the northern Boreal and Arctic regions at the recent Climate and Human Security Symposium at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The goal of the workshop was to develop collaborative relationships across government, civil sector, academia, international partners, and non-government organizations that will identify fundamental geospatial data critical to enhancing our understanding of climate change
and its implications for society within a human geography framework. The symposium was sponsored by The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), in collaboration with the Homeland Infrastructure Foundation Level Data (HIFLD) Members and the World Wide Human Geography Data (WWHGD) Working Group.
- *The programs and services offered by George Mason University are open to all who seek them. George Mason does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic national origin (including shared ancestry and/or ethnic characteristics), sex, disability, military status (including veteran status), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, pregnancy status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. After an initial review of its policies and practices, the university affirms its commitment to meet all federal mandates as articulated in federal law, as well as recent executive orders and federal agency directives.
You’re invited!
Friday, May 8, 3:00pm
Research Hall, 3rd floor, Center for Social Complexity
Andre Lhuillier, PhD Student, Department of Computational Social Science, George Mason University
Why Little Samson Didn’t Defeat The Hedgehog: A Story Of Social Influence And The Relevance Of Distribution For Successful Information Goods
ABSTRACT: In 1992 during one of the fiercest battles of the so called ‘console wars’, a modest game was released in the mist of the industry frenzy. Although ‘Little Samson’ is recognized by those who know it as a great game, it remains unknown for most of the consumers today. On the other side of the battlefield, Sega’s thriving Hedgehog was convincing everyone that they have seized their main competitor ‘Mario Kart’. Despite this momentary victory in consumer’s memory and affection, the real winner was not in the center of the industry’s attention. Having less media presence, the sequel of Super Mario Land for the Game Boy was the most purchased game with almost 200% units of what ‘Sonic 2’ sold. This kind of unpredictable and divergent behavior is a unique characteristic of information goods markets. In this presentation I survey the last 30 years of the video game sector and show its particular composition and evolution. Following De Vany’s approach to Hollywood movie industry I dwell into an analysis of this industry with special emphasis in consumer behavior. Re-visiting De Vany’s proposal I make a simple ABM approach to model and show how placement or distribution properties may induce long tail distributions. Following the relevance of information diffusion and the development of hype in this industry another model is presented. In this case the relevance of a consumer social system and its dynamics. After an analysis of the industry history, consumer’s social influence, sales and distribution/access is reviewed; I present several findings and propose a model to understand them. A final discussion will be opened with the presentation
- *The programs and services offered by George Mason University are open to all who seek them. George Mason does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic national origin (including shared ancestry and/or ethnic characteristics), sex, disability, military status (including veteran status), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, pregnancy status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. After an initial review of its policies and practices, the university affirms its commitment to meet all federal mandates as articulated in federal law, as well as recent executive orders and federal agency directives.