Category: News and Events

The Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences speaker for Friday, February 15, 2019, will be Robert Axtell, Professor, Computational Social Science Program, Department of Computational and Data Sciences, College of Science/Department of Economics, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, George Mason University. Dr. Axtell’s talk entitled “Lifetime/Survival/Reliability/Duration Analysis for Computational Models” will begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/257383120973297/

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please visit: https://cos.gmu.edu/cds/calendar/

Abstract: In a variety of computational models, structures arise, evolve, then disappear, perhaps replaced by other, comparable structures. For example, in some economic models firms form from the interactions of agents, operate for some period of time, and then exit. In housing models, households hold mortgages for finite periods of time before replacing them either due to refinancing or moving to a new house. In political (marketing) models the interests of parties (businesses) are aligned with certain segments of voters (consumers) for a period of time, until competition leads to realignment (brand switching). In environmental policy models specific polluting technologies have finite lifetimes and are eventually replaced by cleaner technologies. In disease models people are infected for varying lengths of time based on their health status, policies, etc. Traffic jams and conflicts have finite duration.

In this talk I will review the mathematical and statistical formalisms of lifetime analysis, also known as survival analysis in biostatistics and reliability analysis in engineering, focusing on the concepts most useful for computational models. Specifically while the former field has concerned itself with censored data (e.g., short clinical trials during which not all patient health outcomes can be observed), and the latter has focused on schemes to manage unreliable equipment, in computational modeling we often need to better understand both age and lifetime distributions of objects in our models, typically have large amounts of quasi-exhaustive ‘data,’ normally know some covariates, and usually work in discrete time.

• *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.

The Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences speaker for Friday, February 08, 2019, will be John Schuler, Ph.D. student in the Department of Economics, George Mason University. John’s talk entitled “Nonparametric Estimation of General Equilibrium Price Vectors” will begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/257383120973297/

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please visit: https://cos.gmu.edu/cds/calendar/

Abstract: Agent-based economic modeling often requires the determination of an initial equilibrium price vector. Calculating this directly requires algorithms of exponential computational complexity. It is known that a partial equilibrium price can be estimated using a median of trades. This paper explores the possibility of a multivariate generalization of this technique using depth functions as well as alternative methods.

• *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.

at the Computational Social Science Research Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences on Friday, February 1, 2019. Dr. Waters is with the Schar School of Public Policy at George Mason University. His talk, entitled “Firm Formation and the Regional Allocation of Labor” (abstract below), will begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/257383120973297/

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please visit: https://cos.gmu.edu/cds/calendar/

Abstract: The distribution of city-sizes within countries tends to follow a Pareto distribution that satisfies Zipf’s law. Geographically, larger cities tend to be located more distant from one another than smaller cities. Working towards an explanation of these empirical observations, a geographic extension of Axtell’s agent-based model of endogenous firm formation is presented. The model introduces three components into the underlying model: migration costs, an urban productivity premium, and an urban congestion cost.

• *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.

The Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences speaker for Friday, January 25, 2019, will be Annetta Burger. Annetta Burger’s talk entitled “Operationalizing Resiliency in Complex Adaptive Systems: an Agent-Based Model of a NWMD Detonation” (abstract below) will begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA
For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/257383120973297/
For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please visit: https://cos.gmu.edu/cds/calendar/

Abstract: Increasingly, Agent-Based Models (ABMs) are being used to study human behavior in complex adaptive systems. In the process of simulating these systems modelers are faced with a myriad of design decisions regarding the representation of actors and processes necessary for real-world validity. Modelers must make assumptions, reduce a multitude of heterogenous variables and interacting processes into a limited set for simulation and analysis, and fit them into computational frameworks; balancing tradeoffs between simplicity, model accuracy, and computational tractability. Ultimately, the simulation product must provide accurate measures for verification and validation and sufficient transparency for model analysis and understandability to demonstrate the accuracy of the system representation and its predictive power. An ABM of the detonation of a Nuclear Weapon of Mass Destructions provides a case example of how to operationalize human behavior in an ABM for simulation and experimentation.

• *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.

at the Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences speaker on Friday, December 07, 2018. Dr. Crooks, Associate Professor, Department of Computational and Data Sciences, will speak on “Computational Modeling of Slums: Progress and Challenges.” The presentation will begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall and will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/257383120973297/

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please visit: https://cos.gmu.edu/cds/calendar/

We hope to see you on Friday, December 7th at 3 p.m.

Abstract: Over the last 50 years the world has increasingly become more urbanized. Much of this growth has occurred in less developed countries, which often lack the resources to accommodate such growth. This has led to the growth of slums, estimated to be home for other 1 billion people. The UN-Habitat projects slum population to double by 2030, which would make them home for 2 in 5 people living in cities. In this talk I will introduce slums, discuss their growth, and provide an overview on what progress has been made to studying and modeling them. This will lead to a discussion of a series of key challenges that need to be addressed if we are to tackle slums from a computational perspective.

• *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.

will be speaker at the Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences Friday, November 30, 2018. Sanjay’s talk entitled “Interlocking Directorates Analysis: Evidence from India BSE-100″ will begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/257383120973297/

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please visit: https://cos.gmu.edu/cds/calendar/

We hope to see you on Friday, November 30, 2018 at 3PM.

Abstract:

Interlocked directorates among companies are common across the world and have been studied quite extensively in the Western World. This study focuses on interlocking directorates, also referred to as inter-organizational elite cooptation (Allen, 1974), among the top 100 publicly traded companies on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE-100) in India. The time period analyzed is between 2006 and 2010, the years spanning the recent great recession. While De (2012) looked at the performance effects of interlocking directorates within Indian business groups irrespective of their membership in BSE-100, it did not address in the analysis the key players, cliques, etc., the evolution of the interlocking over time, or any comparisons with the United States. This broad exploratory study is the first to look at the BSE-100 interlocking directorates’ network to see how it has or has not been dominated by a select group of individuals, companies or sectors during 2006-2010, along with the companies’ performances in the longer-term, given their position in the network. Some comparisons are also made with the US market using information available in published papers (Everard, 2002). This study also serves a secondary purpose of being an introduction to the interconnections between some of the biggest players in the Indian Economy/Stock Market and thus would also be of interest to those studying business in India.

• *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.

will speak at the Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences speaker on Friday, November 2. Mr. Williams, Founder and CEO, Euclidian Trust. will speak on “Improved Entity Resolution as a Foundation for Model Precision” (abstract below). The session will begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall and will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/257383120973297/

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please visit: https://cos.gmu.edu/cds/calendar/

Abstract: Analyzing behavior, identifying and classifying micro-differentiations, and predicting outcomes relies on the establishment of a core foundation of reliable and complete data linking. Whether data about individuals, families, companies, or markets, acquiring data from orthogonal sources results in significant matching challenges. These matching challenges are difficult because attempts to eliminate (or minimize) false positives yields an increase in false negatives. The converse is true also.

This discussion will focus on the business challenges in matching data and the primary and compounded impact on subsequent outcome analysis. Through practical experience, the speaker led the development and first commercialization of novel approach to “referential matching”. This approach leads to a more comprehensive unit data model (patient, customer, company, etc.), which enables greater computational resolution and model accuracy by hyper-accurate linking, disambiguation, and detection of obfuscation. The discussion also covers the impact of enumeration strategies, data obfuscation/hashing, and natural changes in unit data models over time.

• *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.

will be speaker at Friday’s CSS Colloquium. LMI is a not-for-profit government consultancy based in Tysons, VA. Brant is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Computational Social Science at George Mason University. Brant’s talk entitled “The Pedagogy of Zombies: A Case Study of Agent-Based Modeling Competitions for Introducing Complexity, Simulation, and its Real-World Applications” (abstract below) is scheduled to begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/257383120973297/

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please visit: https://cos.gmu.edu/cds/calendar/

We hope to see you on Friday, October 26th.

Abstract: Complexity is pervasive in our daily lives and while academic programs exist to explore, interpret, experiment with, and apply these concepts to better understand the mechanics of our social world, the field is yet to be widely recognized in the mainstream consciousness. Are there engaging instructional methods and tools that can leverage a lower barrier to entry and indoctrinate new scholars into the science of complexity? In this Halloween-themed talk, I present a use case of a simulation modeling competition (and its evolution over several years) that provided preprogrammed agent-based models of a zombie apocalypse. Participants were challenged to explore and formalize human agent behaviors that leveraged their environment and other human agent-agent interactions to hide, evade, and otherwise prevent a grisly human extinction. I will describe the successes and challenges of this experience and a selection of the most creative solutions. I then go on to describe how this competition concept was extended to contemporary challenges that highlighted for participants potential real-world use cases that included combating the zika virus, and fisheries enforcement by the US Coast Guard. I hope for this talk to initiate dialog for how we might continue similar efforts to more easily introduce and propagate the complexity perspective.

• *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.

The Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences speaker for Friday, October 19 will be Ken Kahn, Senior Researcher, Computing Services, University of Oxford. Dr. Kahn’s talk entitled “Agent-based Modelling for Everyone” (abstract below) is scheduled to begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/257383120973297/

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please visit: https://cos.gmu.edu/cds/calendar/

We hope to see you on Friday, October 19th.

Abstract: Agent-based models (ABMs) can be made accessible to a wide audience. A wonderful example is the Parable of the Polygons (https://ncase.me/polygons/) based upon Schelling’s segregation model. The challenge isn’t simply to provide an interactive simulation to the general public but to convey how the model works and what assumptions underlie it. The speaker has been involved in three efforts to do more than make the models but understandable but also to enable people without computer programming experience to get a hands-on understanding of the process of modelling. One project attempted to model the 1918 Pandemic in a modular fashion so learners could understand and modify the model. Another was the Epidemic Game Maker which was created for a Royal Society science exhibition. Finally a generic browser-based system for creating ABMs by composing and customising pre-built “micro-behaviours” will be described. All of these systems will be demonstrated.

Bio: Ken Kahn is a researcher at the University of Oxford. He led the Modelling4All Project (modelling4all.org) for ten years. He built the Behaviour Composer which provides a high-level interface to NetLogo.

• *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.

The Computational Social Science Research Colloquium /Colloquium in Computational and Data Sciences speaker for Friday, October 12, will be Maciej Latek (Computational Social Science Ph.D. 2011), Chief Technology Officer, trovero. Dr. Latek’s talk entitled “Industrializing multi-agent simulations: The case of social media marketing, advertising and influence campaigns” (abstract below) will begin at 3:00 in the Center for Social Complexity Suite located on the 3rd floor of Research Hall. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session along with light refreshments.

This session will be live-streamed on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7YCR-pBTZ_9865orDNVHNA

For announcements regarding this and future streams, please join the CSS/CDS student and alumni Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/257383120973297/

For a list of upcoming and previous seminars, please visit: https://cos.gmu.edu/cds/calendar/

Abstract: System engineering approaches required to transition multi-agent simulations out of science into decision support share features with AI, machine learning, and application development, but also present unique challenges. In this talk, I will use trovero as an example to illustrate how some of these challenges can be addressed.

As a platform to help advertisers and marketers plan and implement campaigns on social media, trovero is comprised of social network simulations for optimization and automation and network population synthesis used to preserve people’s privacy while maintaining a robust picture of social media communities. Social network simulations forecast campaign outcomes and pick the right campaigns for given KPIs. Simulation is the only viable way to reliably forecast campaign outcomes. Big data methods fail to forecast campaign outcomes, because they are fundamentally unfit for social network data. Network population synthesis enables working with aggregate data without relying on data-sharing agreements with social media platforms that are ever more reluctant to share user data with third parties after GDPR and the Cambridge Analytica debacle.

I will outline how these two approaches complement one another, what computational and data infrastructure is required to support them, and how workflows and interactions with social media platforms are organized.

• *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.