1. 851-0585-04L – Modeling and Simulating Social Systems with MATLAB
L – 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 |

2. Lecture 1 – Contents Intro: rules and goals of the course
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

3. Modelling and Simulating Social Systems with MATLAB
Modelling and Simulating Social Systems with MATLAB
Weekly lecture with computer exercises, each session will be split into about minutes lecture and minutes exercises. We will put the lecture slides and other material on this web page:

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

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6. Purpose of the Mailing List
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

7. Rules of the Mailing List
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.

8. Examination Format (please also refer to the course description)
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
[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.

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

10. Projects from previous semesters
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

11.
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, …

12. Schedule of the course Introduction to MATLAB
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

13. Goals of the course: students will
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

14. Requisites of the Course
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

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

16. Introduction to Modeling and Simulations
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!)

17. Emergence and Simulations
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.”

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

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

20.
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)

21. http://www.santafe.edu/media/workingpapers/11- 06-024.pdf
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)
pdf