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Qual2Rule Papers at the Social Simulation Conference, 25th Aug, Durham, UK

15:30pm
Qualitative Data and Agent Based Modelling
by Melania Borit, Bruce Edmonds, Martin Neumann

3:50pm
Modelling Socio-Environmental Changes across Egypt throughout the First Millennium CE
by Olga Palacios, Anastasia Nikulina, Dan Lawrence, Helen Foxhall Forbes

4:05pm
Park Visits, Physical Activity, and the Environment: Agent-Based Modelling
by Sterre van der Kaaij, Rick Prins, Jeljer, Hoekstra, Guus Luijben, Hanneke Kruize, Lenneke Vaandrager

4:20pm
Life long vulnerability of lone parents
by Laura Bernardi, Frank Dignum, Benjamin Mole, Cezara Pastrav

4:40pm
by Socialising Complexity: Context, Agency, and the Future of Agent-Based Modelling
Corinna Elsenbroich, Harko Verhagen

CfP – EXTENDED DEADLINE – Special track – Qual2Rule: Using qualitative data in agent-based models @ Social Simulation Conference 2023

If you are working with qualitative data and agent-based modelling, please consider submitting your research (poster, extended abstract, short paper, long paper) to the special track “Using qualitative data to inform behavioural rules in agent-based models”, which is described below the signature and is to be organized during the Social Simulation Conference 2023, 4-8 September, Glasgow, UK.

Important dates:

* Submission Deadline: 28 April 2023  12 May

* Notification of Acceptance: 16 June 2023

* Final Version Submission: 09 July 2023

* Conference: 4-8th September 2023, Glasgow

Description:

Many academics consider qualitative evidence (e.g. texts gained from transcribing oral data or observations of people) and quantitative evidence to be incommensurable.  However, agent-based simulations are a possible vehicle for bridging this gap. Narrative textual evidence often gives clues as to the in-context behavior of individuals and is thus a natural source for behaviors to inform the specification of corresponding agent behavior within simulations. The texts will not give a complete picture, but will provide some of “menu” of behaviors people use. During this session we hope to further the understanding of how to improve this. We are particularly interested in accounts of the procedures or structures people used to bridge between qualitative and formal realms based in reported modelling experiences. Thus, those interested to present their work in this session have to make sure that their submission explicitly addresses the use of qualitative data in their modelling endeavour. The session is open to all approaches that seek to move from qualitative evidence towards a simulation in a systematic way. These include, but are not limited to:

* Approaches based in Grounded Theory.

* Tools for facilitating such a process.

* Participatory processes that result in a simulation.

* Frameworks for aiding the analysis of text into rules.

* Elicitation techniques that would aid the capture of information in an appropriate structure.

* Models and ideas from psychology to aid in the above process.

* Insights and tools from Natural Language Processing that may help this process.

* Agent architectures that will facilitate the programming of agents from such analyses.

* Philosophical or Sociological critiques, pointing out assumptions and dangers.

* Examples of where this approach has been tried.

Special issue of “Social Research Methodology” on “Using agent-based simulation for integrating qualitative and quantitative evidence” is now officially out

Edited by Patrycja Antosz, Sukaina Bharwani, Melania Borit & Bruce Edmonds

At https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tsrm20/25/4

The papers in the special issue are:

An introduction to the themed section on ‘Using agent-based simulation for integrating qualitative and quantitative evidence’ by Patrycja Antosz, Sukaina Bharwani, Melania Borit & Bruce Edmonds

RAT-RS: a reporting standard for improving the documentation of data use in agent-based modelling by Sebastian Achter, Melania Borit, Edmund Chattoe-Brown & Peer-Olaf Siebers

GAM on! Six ways to explore social complexity by combining games and agent-based models by Timo Szczepanska, Patrycja Antosz, Jan Ole Berndt, Melania Borit, Edmund Chattoe-Brown, Sara Mehryar, Ruth Meyer, Stephan Onggo & Harko Verhagen

Sensemaking of causality in agent-based models by Patrycja Antosz, Timo Szczepanska, Loes Bouman, J. Gareth Polhill & Wander Jager

Combining approaches: Looking behind the scenes of integrating multiple types of evidence from controlled behavioural experiments through agent-based modelling by Nanda Wijermans, Caroline Schill, Therese Lindahl & Maja Schlüter

Upcoming Qual2Rule seminars

Upcoming using qualitative evidence for agent based modelling online seminars (all at 1pm CET):

February 1st – Jakub Bijak et al, University of Southampton, UK, “Capturing the complexity of human migration: Towards an interdisciplinary model-building process”.

March 1st – Martin Neumann, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, “Growing artificial cultures.”

April 5th – Amineh Ghorbani, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, “Modelling institutions to add social backbone to artificial societies”

May 3rd – session in SocSimFesT2022 – Social Simulation Festival 2022

June 7th – Sukaina Bharwani, Stockholm Environment Institute Oxford, UK, title to be announced

July & August – no seminar because of holiday time

If you want to be sent an invite to this email Melania Borit <melania.borit@uit.no>

Sara Mehyrar’s Slides from her talk on “Making Use of Mental models to Capture Human Adaptation Behavior”

Here are the slides from Sara’s talk on the 7th December 2021 as part of the regular Qual2Rule seminars. These were based on her work for her PhD.

qual2ruls-Sara MehryarDownload

More about Sara and her work at https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/profile/sara-mehryar/ More details about her PhD at: https://www.utwente.nl/en/events/2019/2/44006/phd-defence-sara-mehryar)

Seminars are at 1pm CET on the first Tuesday of each month – starting again in Feb 2022.

Welcome to the Qual2Rule Seminars!

Our SIG is happy to announce the Qual2Rule Seminars – A Series of Seminars on Experiences of Using Qualitative Data and Methods in Social Simulation! The seminars will take place the first Tuesday of every month, from 13:00 CET. Each session will be divided in three parts. In the first part, the invited speakers will talk about their research in general. In a second part, they will go into the methodological details of using qualitative data and methods in their modelling practices. The third part will focus on stories related to the modelling process; this would be more about the personal experiences of modeling, challenges when interacting with colleagues, managing the participation of informants, publishing the research etc.

This is the schedule for 2021:

October 5th @13.00 via Zoom – LeRon Shults, Agder University, Norway

November 2nd @ 13.00 via Zoom – Patrycja Antosz, NORCE, Norway

December 7th @ 13.00 via Zoom – Sara Mehryar, London School of Economics, UK

If you want to join any of these seminars, please fill in this registration form:

https://forms.gle/cUmAwNiAGM8GZcrF8.

Special Track at the Social Simulation Conference (SSC), 20-24.09.2021, Cracow, Poland

The following papers are accepted for presentation during the Social Simulation Conference 2021, Cracow (in the order they will be presented on Thursday 23.09, 09:00-11:00 CEST):

Patrycja Antosz, Justin Lane, Ivan Puga-Gonzalez, Roger Normann and Leron Shults – “Documenting Data Use in a Model of Pandemic “Emotional Contagion” Using the Rigour and Transparency Reporting Standard (RAT-RS)” (full paper)

Emilie Lindkvist, Tim Daw, Elizabeth Drury O’Neill, Rosemarie Mwaipopo, Andrew Wamukota and Maja Schlüter – “Understanding complexities in small-scale fisheries: Combining stories and simulations” (extended abstract)

Vittorio Vittorio Nespeca, Tina Comes and Frances Brazier – “A methodology to develop agent-based models for policy design in socio-technical systems based on qualitative inquiry“ (full paper)

Henri Kauhanen – “Momentum selection, distance decay and the fate of linguistic innovations” (full paper) – not presented

Other events at SSC2021 organised by the Qual2Rule SIG:

Roundtable “Integrating Evidence Using Agent-Based Modelling”, Tuesday 21.09, 17:30-19:00 CEST

Roundtable “Increasing Rigour of ABM”, Thursday 23.09, 19:15-21:15 CEST

If you want to join any of these events, please register for the SSC2021 here.

6th Workshop on Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence using Social Simulation, 15th March

The 6th workshop is being held online as part of the Social Simulation Festival 2021. For information about this, including registration (which is necessary but free) see https://www.socsimfest21.eu

The agenda is as follows (all times in CET)

13:30-13:35     Intro

13:35-14:05     Grounded theory vs agent-based modelling, who will win? Debate by Cathy Urquhart & Bruce Edmonds, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

14:05-14:30     Plenary discussion based on Cathy & Bruce’s debate

14:30-15:00     Break-out rooms on pre-defined topics

15:00-15:15     Break

15:15-15:45     Plenary summing up of break-out room discussions

15:45-16:05     Answers to questions collected from the community

16:05-16:30     Fishbowl discussion

16:30-16:45     Next steps to consolidate the field