AAG 2014: Geosimulation Models Sessions

If you going to this years AAG, you might be interested in our Geosimulation Models sessions which will take place on Wednesday the 9th of April from 10am (more details below).

Session Description: Since the publication of Geosimulation in 2004, the use of Agent-based Modeling (ABM) and Cellular Automata (CA) under the umbrella of Geosimulation models within geographical systems have started to mature as methodologies to explore a wide range of geographical and more broadly social sciences problems facing society. The aim of these sessions is to bring together researchers utilizing geosimulation techniques (and associated methodologies) to discuss topics relating to: theory, technical issues and applications domains of ABM and CA within geographical systems.

Organizers: Andrew Crooks - George Mason University, Suzana Dragicevic - Simon Fraser University, and Paul Torrens - University of Maryland

Geosimulation Models 1:  Methodological Advances

10:00 AM to 11:40,  Room 39, TCC, Fourth Floor , Chair: Suzana Dragicevic

Paul Torrens 

• Geosimulation of Earthquakes at the Human-physical Interface

Raja R Sengupta and Tyler R Bonnell

• What is Special about Spatial Agents?

Anthony Jjumba and Suzana Dragicevic

• Voxel-based Automata for Spatial Simulation 

Meijuan Jia and Wenwu Tang

• Spatiotemporal Sensitivity Analysis of an Agent-based Model of Artificial Anasazi

Mathieu Leclaire and Romain Reuillon

• Simpuzzle/Janet Tools or How to Build a Step by Step Modular ABM? 

Geosimulation Models 2: Applications - Micro to Macro

12.40PM to 2.20PM, Room 39, TCC, Fourth Floor, Chair: Paul Torrens

Sara Metcalf

• Agent-Based System Dynamics: Hybrid Modeling of Urban Health Problems

Andrew Crooks and Parth Chopra

• An Agent-based Model for the Spread and Containment of Tuberculosis

Nicholas Magliocca, Margaret Walls and Virginia McConnell,

• Investigating the Effects of Repeated Storms and 'Near Misses' on Adaptation Responses to Coastal Hazards

William Kennedy

• An Abstract Approach to Modeling Disasters in Geosimulation Models

Majeed Pooyandeh and Danielle Marceau  

• Incorporating Bayesian Learning in Agent-based Simulation of Stakeholders' Negotiation

Geosimulation Models 3: Applications - Macro

2:40 PM to 4:20 PM in Room 39, TCC, Fourth Floor, Chair: Paul Torrens

Clementine Cottineau and Paul Chapron

• Evaluation and Calibration for the Comparison of ABMs of Cities' Trajectories

Xiongbing Jin and Dawn  Parker

• Developing a Vector-based Land Market Model

Claudio Cioffi-Revilla

• MASON NordicLands: A Geospatial Agent-Based Model of Climate Change and Societal Impacts in the Northern Boreal and Arctic Regions

Siyu Fan and Yichun Xie

• Simulating Dynamic Transitions of Cities, Farms and Grasslands

Denise Pumain, Clara Schmitt, Sébastien Rey-Coyrehourcq and Romain Reuillon

• Building and Exploring An Agent-based Model with OpenMOLE

We would also like to thank the following AAG specialty groups for sponsoring our sessions: Spatial Analysis and Modeling Specialty Group,  Cyberinfrastructure Specialty Group and the Geographic Information Science and Systems Specialty Group  

Comparing the spatial characteristics cyber and physical communities

Readers of the blog know that I have an interest in social media, and how through it we can gain an understanding of society at large. The question is how does the cyber community reflect the corresponding physical community? To this end, papers from 6th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Location-Based Social Networks which was held in conjunction with the 21st ACM SIGSPATIAL conference have just come out on the  ACM Digital Library. We presented a paper at the conference entitled "Comparing the Spatial Characteristics of Corresponding Cyber and Physical Communities: A Case Study" The abstract of the paper is as follows:

"The proliferation of social media over the past few years is presenting us with unique opportunities to sample opinions and interests at spatial and temporal resolutions previously unheard of. In order to make best use of this information though, we need a better understanding of the degree to which the cyber community that is observed through them can serve as a proxy for the corresponding physical community. In this paper we are making a contribution towards this issue by presenting a case study in which we compare spatial characteristics of a community both in the physical and cyber spaces. The key findings of our analysis relate to the selection of an appropriate level of spatial aggregation for analyzing social media content, and on the effect in the level of participation of the distance from the point of interest."

We hope you enjoy it.

Full reference: 

• Lu, X., Croitoru, A., Radzikowski, J, Crooks, A. T. and Stefanidis, A. (2013), Comparing the Spatial Characteristics of Corresponding Cyber and Physical Communities: A Case Study, 6th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Location-Based Social Networks, Orlando, FL, pp 11-14. (pdf)

Agent_Zero

Readers of the blog might be interested in reading Josh Epstein's new book "Agent_Zero: Toward Neurocognitive Foundations for Generative Social Science" To quote from the publisher:

"In this pioneering synthesis, Joshua Epstein introduces a new theoretical entity: Agent_Zero. This software individual, or "agent," is endowed with distinct emotional/affective, cognitive/deliberative, and social modules. Grounded in contemporary neuroscience, these internal components interact to generate observed, often far-from-rational, individual behavior. When multiple agents of this new type move and interact spatially, they collectively generate an astonishing range of dynamics spanning the fields of social conflict, psychology, public health, law, network science, and economics.

Epstein weaves a computational tapestry with threads from Plato, Hume, Darwin, Pavlov, Smith, Tolstoy, Marx, James, and Dostoevsky, among others. This transformative synthesis of social philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, and agent-based modeling will fascinate scholars and students of every stripe. Epstein's computer programs are provided in the book or on its Princeton University Press website, along with movies of his "computational parables."

Agent_Zero is a signal departure in what it includes (e.g., a new synthesis of neurally grounded internal modules), what it eschews (e.g., standard behavioral imitation), the phenomena it generates (from genocide to financial panic), and the modeling arsenal it offers the scientific community."

To get an idea of what to expect the movie below is from the JHGCCO Seminar Series on Systems Science and Obesity where Epstein introduces Agent_Zero.

Geoinformatics and Social Media: A New Big Data Challenge

We recently contributed a chapter to "Big Data: Techniques and Technologies in Geoinformatics" entitled "Geoinformatics and Social Media: A New Big Data Challenge" where we explore how social media and ambient geographic information is transforming geoinformatics. We discuss the key characteristics of big geosocial data beofre moving onto geosocial complexity.  Specifically how goeosocial data is predominantly linked information; links are established among users to establish a social network and among words to define a storyline that is communicated through pieces of information. Aggregating all these connections (links) provides us with a view of the users as a structured, networked community that can be represented as a graph. We then turn to modeling and analyzing geosocial multimedia before concluding with an outlook pertaining to the grand challenges and opportunities for big geosocial data.

Full reference:

Croitoru, A., Crooks, A.T., Radzikowski, J., Stefanidis, A., Vatsavai, R. R. and Wayant, N. (2014), Geoinformatics and Social Media: A New Big Data Challenge, in Karimi, H. (ed.), Big Data Techniques and Technologies in Geoinformatics. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, pp. 207-232. (pdf)

Agentscript: ABM Framework

In the past I have blogged (and even written papers) about agent-based modeling toolkits / frameworks such as MASON, Repast and NetLogo for the creation of models. One issue is the deployment of models over the internet. Thanks to Richard Milton from the TALISMAN blog for pointing out agentscript. Agentscript is billed as "a minimalist Agent Based Modeling (ABM) framework based on NetLogo agent semantics. Its goal is to promote the Agent Oriented Programming model in a highly deployable CoffeeScript/JavaScript implementation." The image on the left shows a simple agentscript model on Google Maps from Richard. The agentscript website also has several examples which shows it potential for the creation for geospatial agent-based models which can be deployed within a website. For example, below  agents (blue) seek and move to the lowest elevation.