Alfredo Covaleda,
Bogota, Colombia
Stephen Guerin,
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
James A. Trostle,
Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, USA
A former student of colleague Steve Ross sends this interesting report on how simulation models can/are being used in the real world:
I’m the communications officer for the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University. The IRI specializes in making forecasts of climate for every part of the world by using data from satellites, meteorological stations and proxy records (tree rings, corals, etc) to run models. The models tell us, with varying degrees of certainty, how much off the “norm” rainfall, temperature and humidity will be for a given place in the world. We’re not so much interested in long-term climate change (global warming, sea level rise, etc) as we are in season-to-season changes (e.g. monsoonal patterns, drought, flooding, etc.). And the IRI isn’t a purely academic institution — its main objective is to use the forecasts and climate monitoring to develop and undertake projects that mitigate the effects of climate change in developing countries. We never do this alone: all of our efforts are in collaboration with scientists, policymakers and NGOs in these countries.
Here’s a brief description of some projects we’re currently working on:
*Climate and malaria:* The IRI collects an enormous amount of temperature, rainfall and humidity data for southern Africa. As it it turns out, the presence or absence of malaria in a given region depends strongly on these three climate factors, so scientists here developed a mapping tool that shows the risk of a malaria epidemic for every month of the year in every part of sub-Saharan Africa. We train health workers from countries in this area on how to use the information to adequately prepare for epidemics. (see /http://tinyurl.com/yxzp7t/ )
*Climate and fire-management* Fires in Indonesia damage unique and delicate ecosystems, increase carbon dioxide emissions, and produce noxious smoke and haze that leads to thousands of hospitalizations every year. Since the intensity and duration of these fires depend on the amount of rainfall the region receives every season, the IRI is using its rainfall forecasts to develop an early-warning system that policymakers and NGOs can use for planning purposes. For example, if our models tell us there is a strong chance of drought conditions in the next 3-month period there, our Indonesian partners can take specific actions, such as conserving irrigation water so that the fields where these fires occur aren’t drained completely and therefore aren’t as susceptible to burning. (see /http://tinyurl.com/yjehn6/)
*Index-based weather insurance for farmers*The IRI and the Commodity Risk Management Group at the World Bank are involved in a project to develop insurance contracts that protect Malawi farmers against periodic, crop-destroying droughts. Traditionally, farmers would take out loans to buy seeds at the start of every season. If a drought occurred, the farmers’ crops would die, and they wouldn’t be able to pay back the banks. But under this new program the farmers can purchase an insurance (a very small percentage of the price of the seeds) against crop loss when they buy seeds. If a drought occurs, the farmers get a full or partial payout and can use the money to repay their loans. IRI’s role in this is to use its weather monitoring data for the region to help the local insurance companies develop reliable contracts. The fascinating aspect of this program is that it is completely subsidized by the farmers. (no link available yet)
My role in all this is to make these and other projects known to the public at large. Many of you receiving this email are journalists of one species or another. If you are developing stories or graphics that have to do with climate or earth science, think of me. I’ll put you in touch with experts or send you bucketfuls of GIS and other data.
Francesco FiondellaCommunications Officer International Research Institute for Climate and Society Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory 61 Route 9W Palisades, NY 10964francesco [at] iri.columbia.edu 1.845.680.4476
The past week or two has brought some press stories about games being designed/developed as tools for learning, as in “productive learning,” not learning how to inflict terror or be a better car-jacker. We recently ran across the site below, “Social Impact Games.” It's well worth a visit, as are the others.
We think these have great potential for journalism as tools to help readers/viewers learn how government, eduction, schools, the legal system and nature work.
Good links to simulation games:
*) Social Impact Games. This one is a very rich jump site: http://www.socialimpactgames.com or http://tinyurl.com/ygpa75 *) http://www.playmassbalance.com/ *) http://www.budgetsim.org/nbs/ *) http://www.peacemakergame.com/
From the website: “Combines humor, opinion, and fact to bring an entertaining and informative video game adventure to people everywhere.
“The use of this medium will hopefully reach many people who have not had the time or interest to read up on some of the appalling things that have taken place in our government and society over the past four years. For those of you who are paying attention, hopefully this game has helped to clarify some of the important things at stake in the upcoming elections. I realize that this game does not cover every issue, problem, and appalling action of the Bush administration. There are too many stories to report. Some issues ended up taking a back seat to others. Just know that this is just a silly game and please inform yourself for real and read books…and most importantly…please vote.”
By Starvingeyes/J. Oda.
Friend Steve Guerin tips us to “Cabspotting,” a fascinating site created by San Francisco's Exploratorium. It's about georgraphy, traffic flow, and complexity. Give a look to “Cabspotting”
Cabspotting traces San Francisco's taxi cabs as they travel throughout the Bay Area. The patterns traced by each cab create a living and always-changing map of city life. This map hints at economic, social, and cultural trends that are otherwise invisible. The Exploratorium has invited artists and researchers to use this information to reveal these “Invisible Dynamics.”
The core of this project is the Cab Tracker. The Tracker averages the last four hours of cab routes into a ghostly image, and then draws the routes of ten in-progress cab rides over it.
The Time Lapse area of the project reveals time-varying patterns such as rush hour, traffic jams, holidays and unusual events. New projects are produced by the Exploratorium's visiting artists and also created by the larger Cabspotting community.
Some interesting presentations this morning on visualization and modeling as they can be applied in GIS. See:
Check out http://vissim.uwf.edu/ This is a growing library of public domain shape models. “This website offers access to a new hierarchical data structure that allows the efficient storage of natural and man-made feature data for use in a multitude of both manual and computerized Mapping, Charting & Geodesy systems.”
Also, interesting visualizations at http://www.redlands.edu/x12556.xml
Interesting new tool from the folks at Google. If Sketchup follows the evolutionary line of Google Maps, we can expect to see some interesting mash-ups in coming weeks. We are looking forward to some flowchart models that can be annotated with URL and comments. But until then….
Yet another fine example of creative thinking wherein a good idea in one discipline is morphed into an unintended application in another. (Something all-too-rare in the practice of journalism.) The journal Nature reports:
The website wheresgeorge.com invites its users to enter the serial numbers of their US dollar bills and track them across America and beyond. Why? “For fun and because it had not been done yet”, they say. But the dataset accumulated since December 1998 has provided the ideal raw material to test the mathematical laws underlying human travel, and that has important implications for the epidemiology of infectious diseases. Analysis of the trajectories of over half a million dollar bills shows that human dispersal is described by a 'two-parameter continuous-time random walk' model: our travel habits conform to a type of random proliferation known as 'superdiffusion'. And with that much established, it should soon be possible to develop a new class of models to account for the spread of human disease.
D. Brockmann, L. Hufnagel and T. Geisel
Serious Games Initiative http://www.seriousgames.org/ The Serious Games Initiative is focused on uses for games in exploring management and leadership challenges facing the public sector. Part of its overall charter is to help forge productive links between the electronic game industry and projects involving the use of games in education, training, health, and public policy. Says information specialists Marylaine Block: “As one who believes nobody should be allowed to run for office until they have played Sim City for at least six months, I think such games have enormous potential for helping people explore complex social problems and possible solutions.”
With newspapers — and news magazine — cutting staff on an almost weekly basis, some of us in journalism are going to have to reinvent ourselves. One of our tenents of Analytic Journalism is simulation modeling, a methodology and analytic tool we believe will be to the social sciences in the 21st century (and journalism IS a social science) what quantum physics was to the hard sciences in the 20th. So here's an interesting opportunity for someone.
“> The Department of Mathematics as the University of California, Los > Angeles is soliciting applications for a postdoctoral fellowship > position in Mathematical and Computational Social Science. The > qualified applicant will work in the UC Mathematical and Simulation > Modeling of Crime Group (UCMaSC), a collaboration between the UCLA > Department of Mathematics, UCLA Department of Anthropology, UC > Irvine Department of Criminology, Law and Society and the Los > Angeles Police Department to study the dynamics of crime hot spot > formation. The research will center on (1) development of formal > models applicable to the study of interacting particle systems, or > multi-agent systems, (2) simulation of these systems and (3) > directed empirical testing of models using contemporary crime data > from Los Angeles and other Southern Californian cities. > > The initial appointment is for one year, with possible renewal for > up to three years. For information regarding the UCMaSC Group visit > > http://paleo.sscnet.ucla.edu/ucmasc.htm > > DUTIES: Work closely with an interdisciplinary team of > mathematicians, social scientists and law enforcement officials to > develop new mathematical and computational methodologies for > understanding crime hot spot formation, diffusion and dissipation. > Responsibilities include teaching one course in the Department of > Mathematics per year, publication and presentation of research > results. > > REQUIRED: A recent Ph.D. in Mathematics, Physics or a related > field. The qualified applicant is expected to have research > experience in one or more areas that would be relevant to the study > of interacting particle/multi-agent systems including, but not > limited to, mathematical and statistical physics, complex systems, > and partial differential equations modeling. The applicant is also > required to have advanced competency in one or more programming > languages/environments (e.g., C++, Java, Matlab). > > Qualified candidates should e-mail a cover let, CV and the phone > numbers, e-mail addresses, and postal addresses of three > individuals who can provide recommendation to: > > Dr. P. Jeffrey Brantingham > Department of Anthropology > 341 Haines Hall > University of California, Los Angeles > Los Angeles, CA 90095″
Simulation modeling is one of the four cornerstone areas of interest to the IAJ. It's a relatively new, and largely unknown, field that can be of great advantage to journalists if we can take the time to learn how it works and then how we can apply it to our field. The best resource to date for journalists is the J-Lab, (http://www.j-lab.org/) at the University of Maryland.
But today along comes this announcement of a rich issue of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. It's filled with deep thinking and application.
============================================= The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk) published issue 4 of Volume 8 on 31 October 2005. JASSS is an electronic, refereed journal devoted to the exploration and understanding of social processes by means of computer simulation. It is freely available, with no subscription. ================= This issue is our largest ever, with 12 peer-reviewed articles, eight of them forming a special section on Epistemological Perspectives, edited by Ulrich Frank and Klaus Troitzsch. If you would like to volunteer as a referee and have published at least one refereed article in the academic literature, you may do so by completing the form at http://www.epress.ac.uk/JASSS/webforms/new_referee.php
How Can Social Networks Ever Become Complex? Modelling the Emergence of Complex Networks from Local Social Exchanges by Josep M. Pujol, Andreas Flache, Jordi Delgado and Ramon Sanguesa <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/12.html>
Violence and Revenge in Egalitarian Societies by Stephen Younger <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/11.html>
Influence of Local Information on Social Simulations in Small-World Network Models by Chung-Yuan Huang, Chuen-Tsai Sun and Hsun-Cheng Lin <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/8.html>
It Pays to Be Popular: a Study of Civilian Assistance and Guerrilla Warfare by Scott Wheeler <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/9.html>
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Towards Good Social Science by Scott Moss and Bruce Edmonds <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/13.html>
A Framework for Epistemological Perspectives on Simulation by Joerg Becker, Bjoern Niehaves and Karsten Klose <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/1.html>
What is the Truth of Simulation? by Alex Schmid < http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/5.html>
The Logic of the Method of Agent-Based Simulation in the Social Sciences: Empirical and Intentional Adequacy of Computer Programs by Nuno David, Jaime Simao Sichman and Helder Coelho <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/2.html>
Validation of Simulation: Patterns in the Social and Natural Sciences by Guenter Kueppers and Johannes Lenhard <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/3.html>
Stylised Facts and the Contribution of Simulation to the Economic Analysis of Budgeting by Bernd-O. Heine, Matthias Meyer and Oliver Strangfeld <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/4.html>
Does Empirical Embeddedness Matter? Methodological Issues on Agent-Based Models for Analytical Social Science by Riccardo Boero and Flaminio Squazzoni <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/6.html>
Caffe Nero: the Evaluation of Social Simulation by Petra Ahrweiler and Nigel Gilbert <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/14.html>
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Edmund Chattoe reviews: Routines of Decision Making by Betsch, Tilmann and Haberstroh, Susanne (eds.) <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/4/reviews/chattoe.html>
The new issue can be accessed through the JASSS home page: <http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk>.
The next issue will be published at the end of January 2006.
Submissions are welcome: see http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/admin/submit.html
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Friend Steve Guerin sends this from Santa Fe….
The Disaster Dynamics Project at UCAR looks timely:http://swiki.ucar.edu/dd/2
Check out the Hurricane Landfall gamehttp://swiki.ucar.edu/dd/71The Hurricane Landfall Disaster Dynamics Game is a four-player virtual strategy game about the interaction between natural disasters and urban planning. The game is computerized; it plays like a traditional physical boardgame, but there are simulation components that require significant computation. The game's architecture is client-server, with each player having her own computer.
Individual machines allow moves to be made in parallel and enable players to access private representations of the game state in addition to the public representation. The server is typically run on the instructor's computer, andwill also provide facilitation tools.