Dynamic Probabilistic Models and Social Structure
Author: Guillermo L. Gomez M
Publisher:
Published: 2014-01-15
Total Pages: 468
ISBN-13: 9789401125253
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Guillermo L. Gomez M
Publisher:
Published: 2014-01-15
Total Pages: 468
ISBN-13: 9789401125253
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Guillermo L. Gómez M.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2012-12-06
Total Pages: 458
ISBN-13: 9401125244
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Mathematical models have been very successful in the study of the physical world. Galilei and Newton introduced point particles moving without friction under the action of simple forces as the basis for the description of concrete motions like the ones of the planets. This approach was sustained by appro priate mathematical methods, namely infinitesimal calculus, which was being developed at that time. In this way classical analytical mechanics was able to establish some general results, gaining insight through explicit solution of some simple cases and developing various methods of approximation for handling more complicated ones. Special relativity theory can be seen as an extension of this kind of modelling. In the study of electromagnetic phenomena and in general relativity another mathematical model is used, in which the concept of classical field plays the fundamental role. The equations of motion here are partial differential equations, and the methods of study used involve further developments of classical analysis. These models are deterministic in nature. However it was realized already in the second half of last century, through the work of Maxwell, Boltzmann, Gibbs and others, that in the discussion of systems involving a great number of particles, the deterministic description is not by itself of great help, in particu lar a suitable "weighting" of all possible initial conditions should be considered.
Author: Nancy Brandon Tuma
Publisher: Elsevier
Published: 1984-08-28
Total Pages: 602
ISBN-13: 0323156908
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Social Dynamics: Models and Methods focuses on sociological methodology and on the practice of sociological research. This book is organized into three parts encompassing 16 chapters that deal with the basic principles of social dynamics. The first part of this book considers the development of models and methods for causal analysis of the actual time paths of change in attributes of individual and social systems. This part also discusses the applications in which the use of dynamic models and methods seems to have enhanced the capacity to formulate and test sociological arguments. These models and methods are useful for answering questions about the detailed structure of social change processes. The second part explores the formulation of the continuous-time models of change in both quantitative and qualitative outcomes and the development of suitable methods for estimating these models from the kinds of data commonly available to sociologists. The third part describes a stochastic framework for analyzing both qualitative and quantitative outcome of social changes. This part also discusses the sociologists' perspective on the empirical study of social change processes. This text will be of great value to sociologists and sociological researchers.
Author: A.V. Gheorghe
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2012-12-06
Total Pages: 370
ISBN-13: 9400904932
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →'Et moi - ... - si j'avait su comment en revenir. One service mathematics has rendered the je n'y serais point aile: human race. It has put common sense back where it belongs. on the topmost shelf next Jules Verne (0 the dusty canister labelled 'discarded non sense'. The series is divergent; therefore we may be able to do something with it. Eric T. Bell O. Heaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics .. .'; 'One service logic has rendered com puter science .. .'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics .. .'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d'etre of this series.
Author: Dimitri Volchenkov
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2016-06-28
Total Pages: 249
ISBN-13: 3319394215
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book introduces and studies a number of stochastic models of subsistence, communication, social evolution and political transition that will allow the reader to grasp the role of uncertainty as a fundamental property of our irreversible world. At the same time, it aims to bring about a more interdisciplinary and quantitative approach across very diverse fields of research in the humanities and social sciences. Through the examples treated in this work – including anthropology, demography, migration, geopolitics, management, and bioecology, among other things – evidence is gathered to show that volatile environments may change the rules of the evolutionary selection and dynamics of any social system, creating a situation of adaptive uncertainty, in particular, whenever the rate of change of the environment exceeds the rate of adaptation. Last but not least, it is hoped that this book will contribute to the understanding that inherent randomness can also be a great opportunity – for social systems and individuals alike – to help face the challenge of “survival under uncertainty”.
Author: Sergio Albeverio
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2006-02-18
Total Pages: 357
ISBN-13: 354028611X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Significant, and usually unwelcome, surprises, such as floods, financial crisis, epileptic seizures, or material rupture, are the topics of Extreme Events in Nature and Society. The book, authored by foremost experts in these fields, reveals unifying and distinguishing features of extreme events, including problems of understanding and modelling their origin, spatial and temporal extension, and potential impact. The chapters converge towards the difficult problem of anticipation: forecasting the event and proposing measures to moderate or prevent it. Extreme Events in Nature and Society will interest not only specialists, but also the general reader eager to learn how the multifaceted field of extreme events can be viewed as a coherent whole.
Author: D. Helbing
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2013-03-14
Total Pages: 348
ISBN-13: 9401585164
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Quantitative Sociodynamics presents a general strategy for interdisciplinary model building and its application to a quantitative description of behavioural changes based on social interaction processes. Originally, the crucial methods for the modeling of complex systems (stochastic methods and nonlinear dynamics) were developed in physics but they have very often proved their explanatory power in chemistry, biology, economics and the social sciences. Quantitative Sociodynamics provides a unified and comprehensive overview of the different stochastic methods, their interrelations and properties. In addition, it introduces the most important concepts from nonlinear dynamics (synergetics, chaos theory). The applicability of these fascinating concepts to social phenomena is carefully discussed. By incorporating decision-theoretical approaches a very fundamental dynamic model is obtained which seems to open new perspectives in the social sciences. It includes many established models as special cases, e.g. the logistic equation, the gravity model, some diffusion models, the evolutionary game theory and the social field theory, but it also implies numerous new results. Examples concerning opinion formation, migration, social field theory; the self-organization of behavioural conventions as well as the behaviour of customers and voters are presented and illustrated by computer simulations. Quantitative Sociodynamics is relevant both for social scientists and natural scientists who are interested in the application of stochastic and synergetics concepts to interdisciplinary topics.
Author: Fuad T. Aleskerov
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2013-06-29
Total Pages: 254
ISBN-13: 1475745427
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Aggregation of individual opinions into a social decision is a problem widely observed in everyday life. For centuries people tried to invent the `best' aggregation rule. In 1951 young American scientist and future Nobel Prize winner Kenneth Arrow formulated the problem in an axiomatic way, i.e., he specified a set of axioms which every reasonable aggregation rule has to satisfy, and obtained that these axioms are inconsistent. This result, often called Arrow's Paradox or General Impossibility Theorem, had become a cornerstone of social choice theory. The main condition used by Arrow was his famous Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives. This very condition pre-defines the `local' treatment of the alternatives (or pairs of alternatives, or sets of alternatives, etc.) in aggregation procedures. Remaining within the framework of the axiomatic approach and based on the consideration of local rules, Arrovian Aggregation Models investigates three formulations of the aggregation problem according to the form in which the individual opinions about the alternatives are defined, as well as to the form of desired social decision. In other words, we study three aggregation models. What is common between them is that in all models some analogue of the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives condition is used, which is why we call these models Arrovian aggregation models. Chapter 1 presents a general description of the problem of axiomatic synthesis of local rules, and introduces problem formulations for various versions of formalization of individual opinions and collective decision. Chapter 2 formalizes precisely the notion of `rationality' of individual opinions and social decision. Chapter 3 deals with the aggregation model for the case of individual opinions and social decisions formalized as binary relations. Chapter 4 deals with Functional Aggregation Rules which transform into a social choice function individual opinions defined as choice functions. Chapter 5 considers another model – Social Choice Correspondences when the individual opinions are formalized as binary relations, and the collective decision is looked for as a choice function. Several new classes of rules are introduced and analyzed.
Author: Denis Bosq
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2013-03-09
Total Pages: 355
ISBN-13: 9401587698
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This text is an Elementary Introduction to Stochastic Processes in discrete and continuous time with an initiation of the statistical inference. The material is standard and classical for a first course in Stochastic Processes at the senior/graduate level (lessons 1-12). To provide students with a view of statistics of stochastic processes, three lessons (13-15) were added. These lessons can be either optional or serve as an introduction to statistical inference with dependent observations. Several points of this text need to be elaborated, (1) The pedagogy is somewhat obvious. Since this text is designed for a one semester course, each lesson can be covered in one week or so. Having in mind a mixed audience of students from different departments (Math ematics, Statistics, Economics, Engineering, etc.) we have presented the material in each lesson in the most simple way, with emphasis on moti vation of concepts, aspects of applications and computational procedures. Basically, we try to explain to beginners questions such as "What is the topic in this lesson?" "Why this topic?", "How to study this topic math ematically?". The exercises at the end of each lesson will deepen the stu dents' understanding of the material, and test their ability to carry out basic computations. Exercises with an asterisk are optional (difficult) and might not be suitable for homework, but should provide food for thought.
Author: Michel Grabisch
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2013-04-17
Total Pages: 354
ISBN-13: 9401584494
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →With the vision that machines can be rendered smarter, we have witnessed for more than a decade tremendous engineering efforts to implement intelligent sys tems. These attempts involve emulating human reasoning, and researchers have tried to model such reasoning from various points of view. But we know precious little about human reasoning processes, learning mechanisms and the like, and in particular about reasoning with limited, imprecise knowledge. In a sense, intelligent systems are machines which use the most general form of human knowledge together with human reasoning capability to reach decisions. Thus the general problem of reasoning with knowledge is the core of design methodology. The attempt to use human knowledge in its most natural sense, that is, through linguistic descriptions, is novel and controversial. The novelty lies in the recognition of a new type of un certainty, namely fuzziness in natural language, and the controversality lies in the mathematical modeling process. As R. Bellman [7] once said, decision making under uncertainty is one of the attributes of human intelligence. When uncertainty is understood as the impossi bility to predict occurrences of events, the context is familiar to statisticians. As such, efforts to use probability theory as an essential tool for building intelligent systems have been pursued (Pearl [203], Neapolitan [182)). The methodology seems alright if the uncertain knowledge in a given problem can be modeled as probability measures.