851-0585-04L – Modeling and Simulating Social Systems with MATLAB 26.02.2018 851-0585-04L – Modeling and Simulating Social Systems with MATLAB Lecture 1 – Introduction Karsten Donnay and Stefano Balietti Chair of Sociology, in particular of Modeling and Simulation © ETH Zürich |

Lecture 1 – Contents Intro: rules and goals of the course 26.02.2018 Lecture 1 – Contents Intro: rules and goals of the course Introduction to Modeling and Simulation MATLAB environment What is MATLAB? MATLAB basics: Variables, operators and data structures Loops and conditional statements Scripts and functions Exercises

Modelling and Simulating Social Systems with MATLAB 26.02.2018 Modelling and Simulating Social Systems with MATLAB Weekly lecture with computer exercises, each session will be split into about 30-40 minutes lecture and 50-60 minutes exercises. We will put the lecture slides and other material on this web page: www.soms.ethz.ch/matlab

kdonnay@ethz.ch or sbalietti@ethz.ch 26.02.2018 How to contact us in the lecture; please do not hesitate to approach us with any questions you might have via email to kdonnay@ethz.ch or sbalietti@ethz.ch Important: to bypass the SPAM filter, start the subject line of your emails with: [MATLAB HS 11] e.g. [MATLAB HS 11] Ref. group dynamics

SUBSCRIBE msssm Your Name 26.02.2018 Mailing List Send an email to: sympa@sympa.ethz.ch with text: SUBSCRIBE msssm Your Name E.g. SUBSCRIBE msssm Stefano Balietti Text to unsubscribe: SIGNOFF msssm 

Purpose of the Mailing List 26.02.2018 Purpose of the Mailing List Foster cooperation among students Discuss technical issues Discuss organizational issues Share code Share references to literature Share references to datasets Form and communicate groups

Rules of the Mailing List 26.02.2018 Rules of the Mailing List Be nice. Be collaborative. Do not post attachments. Add links to external resources. Enclose portions of code in tags <script> some code </script>. Do not spam.

Examination Format (please also refer to the course description) 26.02.2018 Examination Format (please also refer to the course description) Students earn their credit points by: implementing an established mathematical model from the social science literature in MATLAB; producing a ~30 page seminar thesis (code must be included) Presenting the results it in a 15 minute seminar talk. “Submission” of the work through GitHub www.github.com [more details later on in the course] The thesis should include a discussion of the mathematical model, the sociological concept behind it, the meaning of formulas, properties of the model, and parameter dependencies, but also possible practical implications. The computer code should be sufficiently well documented.

Seminar thesis Reproducing results in MATLAB 26.02.2018 Seminar thesis Reproducing results in MATLAB Writing a report and giving a talk Studying a scientific paper

Projects from previous semesters 26.02.2018 Projects from previous semesters Sugarscape Civil violence Group dynamics Trust Facebook social networks Space syntax Pedestrian dynamics Cycling strategies Tumour growth Segregation Cancer Traffic dynamics Swarms Sailing strategies Migration Flocks Cockroaches Size of wars Civil war Queuing models Synchronized clapping Game theory tournament Game theory Language formation

26.02.2018 Schedule of the course The two first lectures will be spent on introducing the basic functionality of MATLAB: matrix operations, data structures, conditional statements, statistics, plotting, etc. In later lectures, we will introduce various modeling approaches from the social sciences: dynamical systems, cellular automata, game theory, networks, multi-agent systems, …

Schedule of the course Introduction to MATLAB 26.02.2018 Schedule of the course Introduction to MATLAB 26.09. 03.10. 10.10. 17.10. 24.10. 31.10. 07.11. 14.11. 21.11. 28.11. 05.12. 12.12. 19.12. Introduction to social-science modeling and simulations Working on projects (seminar thesis) Handing in seminar thesis and giving a presentation

Goals of the course: students will 26.02.2018 Goals of the course: students will Acquire firm understanding of the basics of MATLAB. Attain practical knowledge of MATLAB necessary to run computer simulations. Learning how to implement (simple) models of various social processes and systems, replicating and extending established models of the literature. Develop independence in adequately individuating and selecting further literature (internet, books, paper…) to expand your knowledge of MATLAB Become confident in presenting scientific results in academic context. NOT a computer course!!! Aims at

Requisites of the Course 26.02.2018 Requisites of the Course Highly interdisciplinary course: Physics, Sociology, Game Theory, Biology, Computer Science, Software Engineering… Real requisites: Hard work Curiosity and creativity Scientific Method

Introduction to Modeling and Simulations 26.02.2018 Introduction to Modeling and Simulations Philipp Heer & Lukas Bühler (2011) MATLAB Project “Airplane Evacuation”

Introduction to Modeling and Simulations 26.02.2018 Introduction to Modeling and Simulations We model to better understand our world Simulations are a particular type of modeling Simulations are relatively new Predicting, discovering, formalizing Entertainment (not the main purpose of the course!)

Emergence and Simulations 26.02.2018 Emergence and Simulations Focus on micro-mechanisms Complexity theory Emergence: “Interactions among objects at one level give rise to different types of objects at another level.”

Emergence and Simulations 26.02.2018 Emergence and Simulations Example of a Cellular Automata Game, Lecture 4

Modeling Cycle Model Simulated data Social processes Collected Data 26.02.2018 Modeling Cycle Simulation Model Simulated data Abstraction Similarity Social processes Collected Data Data gathering Source: Gilbert and Troitzsch (2005)

26.02.2018 References Gilbert, N. and Troitzsch K.G. “Simulation for the Social Scientist” 2nd Ed. Open Uni. Press (2005) Epstein J.M. and Axtell R. “Growing Artificial Societies. Social science from the bottom up” MIT Press (1996) Epstein J.M. “Generative Social Science” Princeton Uni. Press (2006)

http://www.santafe.edu/media/workingpapers/11- 06-024.pdf 26.02.2018 References Helbing and Balietti “How to Do Agent-Based Simulations in the Future: From Modeling Social Mechanisms to Emergent Phenomena and Interactive Systems Design” (2011) http://www.santafe.edu/media/workingpapers/11- 06-024.pdf