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.
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.