1,721,330 research outputs found
Introduction:An interpretive account of an agent-based social simulation
No full textThe present book describes a novel methodology for an interpretive agent-based social simulation. This introductory chapter comprises an outline of the motivation and the structure of the book. First, some background information is provided on how the research methodology developed. The methodology is then outlined and classified in the context of the state of the art in agent-based modelling. This is followed by an explanation of the book’s chief objective: to provide step-by-step instructions on how to apply the methodology. An overview of the individual chapters is presented, and we conclude with a theoretical integration of the research.</p
Hermeneutics of social simulations*:On the interpretation of digitally generated narratives
No full textThis chapter connects two widely divergent methodological worlds. We propose to use the procedure of hermeneutic sequence analysis to interpret agent-based models. Its goal is the technology-based construction of scenarios in which specific social constellations are acted out. The concrete simulation model we use as an example refers to escalations of violence within criminal networks. The simulation results are formulated as narrative scenarios, which are here subjected to an exemplary sequence analysis. Thus, we demonstrate that hermeneutic sequence analysis can be used for structure generalization and validation of agent-based models. Based on this, we propose a digital hermeneutics that combines social simulation with the dimension of social meaning.</p
Outlook on potential further directions
No full textThis final chapter will provide a brief outlook on further potential applications of the methodology outlined in this book. While content wise the focus of the book was on criminal culture, the main focus of the book was on the methodology of interpretive ABM. Criminal culture is just one example to demonstrate this approach. Admittedly, this approach has not been tested within other research fields so far. Thus, it is not proven whether they are suitable for the methodology of interpretive ABM and whether it would be useful for gaining new insights into these. In this very brief outline, we first recapitulate why interpretive ABM is an appropriate approach for investigating criminal culture, or why it provides a reasonable domain of application for interpretive ABM. Next, we provide a brief outlook on the structure of potential research fields in which it makes sense to try out this methodology as well. We argue that narrative identities are such a research field and briefly speculate about potential benefits for research on narrative identities by using the approach of interpretive ABM. Admittedly, this is only an outlook for future research and other applications are certainly possible as well. We briefly indicate further potential research domains. Last but not least, we hope to stimulate further ideas in a broader community of researchers.</p
Epistemological foundations
No full textThis chapter outlines the epistemological foundations of the interpretive account to agent-based modelling described throughout this book. Based on a review of the scientific legacy of the domains of interpretive, hermeneutic research and agent-based social simulation, the chapter explores the benefits of bringing these two paradigms together. For this purpose, the chapter examines the specific orientation towards future of these two approaches and the specific character of scientific explanations provided by them. This epistemological meta-analysis reveals the potential of a mutual exchange between the paradigms of interpretive social science and agent-based social simulation for scientific investigations of sociocultural phenomena. The chapter concludes with considerations about the benefits for hermeneutics of including simulation as well as the benefits for social simulation of including an interpretive understanding in a simulation. The following chapters will continue by demonstrating how this can be done concretely.</p
Analysis of the breakdown of a criminal network*:Criminal collapse
No full textThis chapter presents a conceptual model of the violent collapse of a criminal group. The conceptual model reveals a crucial element of a specific criminal culture, namely, that in the absence of a normative authority such as the state monopoly of violence, interpretation is necessary when individuals face aggression. Aggression can be interpreted as a sanction, i.e. as norm enforcement or norm violation by breaking trust. In crisis situations, this ambiguity triggers a cascading effect of mistrust spreading throughout the group. This, in turn, fosters the spreading of violence among the group members. The conceptual modelling of micro-level condition-action sequences reveals structural properties of criminal groups: in flat networks, conflict resolution remains precarious. The trade-off between efficiency of rationally and hierarchically structured organizations and security against police interventions of flat networks of co-offenders is amplified by insecurity against internal violence. This analysis provides an example to demonstrate how condition-action sequences of conceptual modelling provide a methodological approach to interpreting interpretations. This is the benefit of an interpretive account to social simulation for deciphering cultural patterns.</p
A simulation model of intra-organizational conflict regulation in the crime world*
No full textThis chapter can be seen as sequel to the previous chapter, where the qualitative analysis of texts from police investigations about a criminal network was transformed into a conceptual model of the dynamics that led to the violent breakdown of this network. This conceptual model was transformed and formalized into a simulation model which is described in this chapter. Subsequently, results gained from simulation experiments with the model are presented. It is shown how traceability of model rules enables the development of narrative scenarios which foster an understanding of agents in the sense of interpretive sociology.</p
Transdisciplinary reflections:Science in context
No full textThis chapter describes the participatory modelling process in collaboration with stakeholders from the police. The model simulates conflict regulation within a criminal group. The development and analysis of the simulation model are intimately tied to qualitative research. The rules of the model are based on a qualitative analysis of textual data, and the simulation results are traced back to open coding of the empirical data. The simulation generates narrative scenarios. The data and methods are briefly outlined, and a short summary of the model structure is provided. The central means of the simulation is to generate counterfactual scenarios. An example of a narrative is provided, and typical scenarios are described. They explore the space of actions in complex and non-transparent situations that are possible from the perspective of the worldview of the criminals. This can be denoted as the cultural horizon. The results provide a virtual experience for the stakeholders. While criminal acts might be transparent to the police, the space of possible courses of action from within the perspective of the criminal culture remains invisible. This can be described as a plausible future. The goal is to stimulate abductive reasoning to generate hypotheses about possible motivations and courses of action.</p
The Role of Wealth Inequality on Collective Action for Management of Common Pool Resource
No full textGreen Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Energy and IndustryApplied Science
Ultrafast X-ray tomography raw-data of bubbly two-phase pipe flow around a semi-circular obstacle
No full textFor the investigation of bubbly two-phase flow, which should serve as a future benchmark experiment for CFD code validation, an experimental study has been conducted at the Transient Two-Phase Flow (TOPFLOW) facility at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden – Rossendorf (HZDR) using ultrafast electron beam X-ray tomography (UFXRAY). In this study, flow obstacles were installed into a pipe to create a generic three-dimensional flow field as an advanced test case for CFD codes. UFXRAY provide valueable data of the gas phase dynamics with high temporal and spatial resolution.
The provided data set contains tomography raw-data for the experimental series L30 that uses a semi-circular flow obstacle with a blockage ratio of 0.5.This work is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) with the grant number 1501481 on the basis of a decision by the German Bundestag
On the construction of plausible futures in interpretive agent-based modelling
No full textThis chapter reflects on how the different methodologies applied throughout the research procedure described in this book work together to generate the larger, novel, knowledge claim of interpretive agent-based modelling (ABM). First, we describe the different stages of the research procedure in order to reveal how it establishes knowledge. Next, we delve deeper into the processes of meaning-making in both ethnography and objective hermeneutics and how the counterfactual reasoning of ABM allows for theorizing the social. This, together with reflections on the input validation and output validation of interpretive ABM, paves the way for the characterization of the larger knowledge claim of interpretive ABM in terms of the generation of plausible futures.</p
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