Non-Linear System Social Dynamics & Simulations

Social relationships such as friendship and partner choice are ruled by the proximity principle, which states that the more similar two individuals are, the more likely they will become friends. However, proximity, similarity, and friendship are concepts with blurred edges and imprecise grades of membership. This study shows how to simulate these friendship dynamics in an agent-based model that applies fuzzy sets theory to implement agent attributes, rules, and social relationships, explaining the process in detail. Although in principle it may be thought that the use of fuzzy sets theory makes agent-based modelling more elaborated, in practice it saves the modeller from taking some arbitrary decisions on how to use crisp values for representing properties that are inherently fuzzy. The consequences of applying fuzzy sets and operations to define a fuzzy friendship relationship are compared with a simpler implementation, with crisp values. By integrating agent computational models and fuzzy set theory, this paper provides useful insights into scholars and practitioners to tackle the uncertainty inherent to social relationships in a systematic way.

Recently, there have been Indonesian students who chose to study abroad with various initial intentions in increasing numbers. However, from the viewpoint of future national development it is feared that students finally may choose to stay abroad rather than to go back to Indonesia and to contribute to developing their homeland. Not only for students but also for professionals, especially specialists and engineers, feel more desirable to work in developed countries rather than their homeland. Although this phenomenon is not conspicuous, it is very significant to Indonesia. This study aims to grasp the general situation of 'Brain Drain' in Indonesia, to explain the 'Brain Drain' process by constructing a System Dynamics model, and to estimate the effects of government's policies by simulations under a variety of policy scenarios. Two main methodologies are used in this study. First is the use of descriptive statistics. The second methodology is application of System Dynamics (SD) to social model building. The questionnaire results suggest that 'education' factor is the most influential for respondent's decision on where to live; then followed by 'economy', 'social', 'environment', and 'politics' factors. The results also indicate that most of respondents' occupations are students. Second, according to the data gathered for calculating the correlations between factors, 'economic' indicator is considered as the core factor because it has high correlations with other factors except for 'social' indicator. Three mixed policy scenarios are selected for simulation and showing the most optimal policy scenario by comparison with the base scenario: (1) education and economy; (2) social and education; and (3) politics and economy. The result of simulations shows that each mixed policies has its own impact in different aspects because it has different characteristics and concentrations, hence it depends on the government which scenario to follow. .

A theoretical study on the F-16 will be presented in this project. The study will involve several stages, a development of the linear and non-linear mathematical model will be evaluated using certain assumptions, and accordingly an autopilot will be designed considering different cases and assuming whole state measurements; using the SimuLink software to measure the performance of the autopilot, then a linear controller will be added to achieve the desired performance. From the results achieved a conclusion, and future recommendation will be presented.

I heard about Doris Sommer two years ago while I was assisting the Mexican artist Pedro Reyes in his retrospective exhibition celebrated at the Carpenter Center and organized by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. Sommer is the professor of Latin American literature at the University and directs the Cultural Agents initiative. She also edited a very inspirational book called Cultural Agency in the Americas that I always recommend and follow almost religiously. I am part of the organizing team of the symposium “Primus Pilus” that will take place on the 12th of June, the symposium is an exploration of the new responsibility of the designers by analyzing some cases of study and having discussions with active designers in the field. While we were discussing about inspirational cases I did not doubt to talk about Antanas Mockus, the most spectacular cultural agent of our days. While I was working in the way that we want to present his case I was lucky enough to find a beautifully written article by Doris Sommer about the subject. On the following lines you will be able to find some of her phrases, quotes that she used and citations that I thought, would complete the reading.

The assignment – selection problem used to find one-to-one match of given " Users " to " Laptops " , the main objective is to minimize the cost as per user requirement. This paper presents satisfactory solution for real assignment – Laptop selection problem using MATLAB coding. KEYWORD Assignment problem, linear integer programming, Revised Ones Assignment Method (ROA), MATLAB programming 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification: 90-02,

Human society is a complex nonequilibrium system that changes and develops constantly. Complexity, multivariability, and contradictoriness of social evolution lead researchers to a logical conclusion that any simplification, reduction, or neglect of the multiplicity of factors leads inevitably to the multiplication of error and to significant
misunderstanding of the processes under study. The view that any simple general laws are not observed at all with respect to social evolution has become totally predominant within the academic community, especially among those who specialize in the Humanities
and who confront directly in their research all the manifold unpredictability of social processes. A way to approach human society as an extremely complex system is to recognize differences of abstraction and time scale between different levels. If the main task
of scientific analysis is to detect the main forces acting on systems so as to discover fundamental laws at a sufficiently coarse scale, then abstracting from details and deviations from general rules may help to identify measurable deviations from these laws in finer
detail and shorter time scales. Modern achievements in the field of mathematical modeling suggest that social evolution can be described with rigorous and sufficiently simple macrolaws.

In the “calamitous” 14th century, as Barbara Tuchman called it in her classic „A Distant Mirror“ (1978) , the medieval world entered a period of severe crisis in demography, economy, politics and religion. This crisis took hold in all regions, ranging from China in the East to England in the West. Even before the catastrophic pandemic of the Black Death (1346-1352), deteriorating climatic conditions had ended the period of demographic and economic expansion that began in the 10th century.
The local and regional impacts and consequences of these general potentially crisis-laden conditions may have differed; outcomes ranged from actual societal collapse to the emergence of powerful new polities – while Byzantium´s power dwindled away, Hungary entered a period of strong rulership and external power in the reign of Louis I of Anjou (1342-1382), for instance. But these conditions provide a framework for global perspective on this period and allow us to use the 14th century-crisis as a field of “natural experiments of history”, as Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson have called them ; accordingly, we analyse how similar crisis phenomena influenced the development of societies with different (or similar) traditions, religions, institutions, geographies or ecologies.
In order to be able to capture the local variations and complexities, we adopt concepts and tools provided by the field of complexity science. Mono-causal or linear explanations are inadequate for the analysis and the description of crisis, transformation or collapse of pre-modern polities. Within this framework, complex systems are understood as large networks of individual components, whose interactions at the microscopic level produce “complex” changing patterns of behaviour of the whole system on the macroscopic level. In the last decades, historians and social scientists who became interested in complexity theory tried to use its concepts and terminology for the conceptualisation and description of phenomena in their own fields, but often only in a “metaphoric” way. Less frequently, though, historians have tried to make use of the mathematical foundations of complexity theory or of quantitative tools provided by this field. Recent scholarship has implemented some of these tools especially for the construction of macro-models of socio-economic development. While these studies help us construct analytical tools for the macro-level of our own research, they run the same risk as earlier scholarship of neglecting complex variations at the local and regional levels.
Therefore, we combine complexity theory with the analytical framework of „systems theory“ developed by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann in order to capture the interveawements between politics, economy and religion within a polity and with the political, economic and ecological environment. In addition, we employ the methods and tools of network analysis, which allow us to capture, analyse and model linkages and cause-effect correlations in society, economy, politics and religion on the macro- and micro-level down to groups and individuals.
Overall, as a complement to earlier studies our analytical
approach shall allow us to capture the “diversité véritable” of our period without losing track of essential commonalities (the “strange parallels”, as Victor Liebermann has called them in his remarkable study on Southeast Asia in Global Context, 2009 ) of this “first world crisis” across all cultures and societies. The scientic value of this approach will be demonstrated for some specific cases.

This paper presents a new method for learning and tuning a fuzzy logic controller automatically by means of a particle swarm optimization (PSO). The proposed self-learning fuzzy logic control that uses the PSO with adaptive abilities can learn the fuzzy conclusion tables, their corresponding membership functions and fitness value where the optimization only considers certain points of the membership functions. To exhibit the effectiveness of proposed algorithm, it is used to optimize the Gaussian membership functions of the fuzzy model of a nonlinear problem. Moreover, in order to design an effective adaptive fuzzy logic controller, an on line adaptive PSO based mechanism is presented to determine the parameters of the fuzzy mechanisms. Simulation results on two nonlinear problems are derived to demonstrate the powerful PSO learning algorithm and the proposed method is able to find good controllers better than neural controller and conventional controller for the target problem, cart pole type inverted pendulum system.

Currently, many apparel companies are shifting toward the vertical integration, and accordingly, their production processes range from raw materials to ready-to-wear clothes. Fast fashion is a concept whereby retailers orientate their business strategies to reduce the lead time for fashion products to store. This is can be achieved by working on a system of in-season buying so that product ranges are consistently updated throughout the season. Since success depends on speed, in the apparel industry, fast fashion retailers must quickly respond to market demand. In addition, defining the target market is essential for running a successful fashion business. Without sufficiently analysing an appropriate setting for the target market, a company is likely to waste time, money, and resources; for instance, marketing to the wrong customers and communicating with those not interested in the products. Therefore, supply chain management has important roles in coordinating processes along the supply chain to reduce the lead time of finished goods and meet consumer demand. Small and Medium Enterprises face the challenge of learning to manage their financial performance and attain high profit without incurring redundant costs. Therefore, this research develops a model on supply chain of an SME apparel company in Indonesia and proposes a decision-support system that applies System Dynamics and helps the management identify the best business strategy.

This work presents a non-linear carrier current control technique to improve the power factor and reduce the distortion of input current in soft switched Interleaved Boost Converter (IBC). This Interleaved Power Factor Correction (IPFC) circuit is studied and investigated in MATLAB. The performance of the circuit configuration is recorded under open loop and closed loop operation. SPARTAN/FPGA is employed to execute the control technique. The vital parameters such as energy factor, voltage regulation, input power factor, input distortion factor, power losses and efficiency are computed. The hardware has been built with non-linear carrier current control strategy and the results are verified.

Humanity is on the threshold of recognizing the fundamental error in its view of life and death. Both death as well as active life is necessary to the vital formation of a larger, more essential whole. In this paper, I apply the sociology of knowledge and change as it pertains to death and focus on ways in which we can step outside its traditional frameworks and limitations. I also discuss topics related to death such as birth, aging, sickness, and war, and examine cultural differences in attitudes toward death. I offer varying perspectives including the Buddhist view and from these draw implications and conclusions. I apply the lenses of contemporary social scientists such as Edgar Morin, Kenneth Gergen, Edward Stewart, Milton Bennett, Mary Catherine Bateson, E. Doyle McCarthy, Philip Slater, and Piotr Sztompka. To these I add other relevant passages from the writings and speeches of key thinkers on the topic of death, in particular, Buddhist philosopher, peacebuilder, and educator, Daisaku Ikeda. To construct a more humanistic and sustainable view of life, it is first of all crucial to establish a culture which perceives death in its larger living context as but one cycle in the expansive eternity of life.

In this paper the thesis is submitted that the study of China (indeed of each and every country) is wrongheaded in its methodology and should be fundamentally redesigned. Readers are kindly requested to notice that the author distinguishes between two kinds of 'China experts': 1) Those (tacitly) claiming to be knowledgeable about everything related to China, a - thank God - dying but by no means extinct breed of scholars mainly active in Europe; and 2) Those not CLAIMING to be China experts (that is, those eventually admitting not to be scientific all-rounders with respect to the country) but - and herein lies the crux of the matter -  not shying away from entering, without announcement or permission, a domain outside their own field of expertise, SHOULD THEY HAVE ONE! Many American and other 'China experts' can be blamed for this. 'China expert' is a misnomer, grossly (and dangerously) misleading politicians, captains of industry and the general public, as the author argues at length in the paper, which sums up a great deal of his research over the last few years. Scientists (e.g. demographers, economists, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, jurists, linguists, literary theorists/critics and 'Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaftler') may have research interest in a particular, their discipline related aspect of China; they can never be justifiably called 'China experts'. Throughout the article, particularly in the text under the subheading Scientific Collaboration, the necessity (and possibility!) of academic teamwork is emphasised, that is to say, the need for interdisciplinary (as distinct from multidisciplinary) research of China. The political, legal, military, economic, financial, social, educational, ecological, religious and other kindred affairs of China are inextricably intertwined, forming together a complex system of complex systems. Consequently, the country should be studied (as it has never been done!) by specialists closely working together and being aware of the historical as well as the geographical dimension of their 'material objects' (explananda). Briefly, the paper pleads for gaining EMPIRICALLY AND THEORETICALLY BASED knowledge of CHINA AS SUCH.

This thesis presents a comparative study of the use of a connectionist simulation approach (artificial neural networks, ANN) and statistical approach (linear regression analysis, LRA) in the analysis of work and health data collected in the context risk assessment for work and organisational factors.
The precepts of this investigation were that (a) non-linear approaches can offer models of psychosocial phenomena which are superior to equivalent linear approaches, (b) the occupational health psychology field has outgrown the linearity assumption inherent in traditional methods and (c) risk management requires a methodology that is naturally fit for the nature of psychosocial data. It requires one that is appropriate to model complex emergent phenomena where non-linear relationships between predictors and outcomes are set within a systems perspective and where risk is seen as an emergent phenomenon. Theory, method and analysis should be appropriate to the nature of the phenomena.
Although theoretical notions that incorporate non-linearity in the relationship between job characteristics and health outcomes have long existed, an implicit supposition of linear forms characterises current work-health research. A view of risk and work-health as residing within a complex adaptive system is essential for the development of robust risk management tools. Use of non-linear approaches in applied psychology and organisational science has only started to flourish and has already shown that non-linear dynamic (NLD) models can explain 2-3 times more variance than the linear equivalents. The practical focus of the present study was to establish whether the use of ANN in the analysis of risk assessment data would be superior to the traditional LRA approach.
A sample of 1003 data cases was used for model development and validation. This sample was derived from studies carried out by the Institute of Work, Health and Organisations (University of Nottingham) for the Health and Safety Executive over the last decade. Outcomes included well-being, job satisfaction, turnover intention and absence. ANN and LRA were examined both qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitative comparisons revealed differing model specifications for the relationship between job characteristics and health outcomes. The use of a non-linear technique may challenge established knowledge derived on linear approaches. The quantitative comparisons indicated superior ANN model fit. The percentage of error between observed and predicted values of the outcome variables was smaller (between 1.97% and 9.67%) and the variance explained was higher in the ANN models (for example, R2LRA=0.17 vs. R2ANN=0.27 for well-being, and R2LRA=0.27 vs. R2ANN=0.37 for job satisfaction). This may be due to the fact that ANN allowed for more predictors in the models, but also due to their ability to model non-linear and more complex relationships. ANN provide better models for a number of additional methodological reasons. Such a non-linear approach is better fitted for purpose as it conforms to best practice in work-health research and risk management.
The limitations of the study relate mostly to the available data and the qualitative findings (self-report data, cross-sectional base studies). The present findings suggest a number of interesting future research directions. Indirectly, the present thesis challenges the use of the general linear model in relation to work-health research and exemplifies its implications for theory and practice, unconstrained by the linearity assumption inherent in traditional methods.

L'apparente contraddizione fra la maturità del capitalismo e l'arretratezza della preparazione soggettiva del proletariato attraverso il suo partito politico, oggi inesistente, si risolve nell'essenza del comunismo, che non è un'utopia o un'ideologia tra le altre e non è per nulla cadavere, ma è un movimento reale verso il futuro.

In this article the thesis is submitted that there is something fundamentally wrong with Western Sinology, or 'Chinakunde', or 'Zhongguoxue' (as distinct from 'Hanxue', which is a kind of old-fashioned philology aggrandised with quasi- if not pseudo-philosophy). 'China experts' either pretend to be knowledgeable about everything related to China, in which case they cannot be taken seriously, or - eventually - admit not to be scientific all-rounders with respect to the country, in which case they cannot be called China experts. The author, who graduated in Sinology from Leyden University and in economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, not only believes that the study of China has to be taken to a higher level (a belief, he expects, no tenured professor of Chinese Studies/History will share); he also explains how this long overdue task could be accomplished. The study of China should be neither mile-wide-but-inch-deep nor mile-deep-but-inch-wide; it should (and could!) be mile-wide-and-mile-deep. The heyday of Sinology is yet to come.

As cognitive science has emerged as a paradigm for the empirical study of religion, it has largely overlooked the use of computer modelling and Multi-Agent Artificial Intelligence (MAAI).  These techniques are commonly used to analyse socio-cognitive phenomena outside of cognitive science of religion (CSR). This presentation will support the use of these methods and shows how models developed by scholars such as William S. Bainbridge (2006) and M. Afzal Upal (2005) can be updated and made more applicable for the cognitive science of religion by incorporating more cognitive rather than sociological mechanisms.  This paper also argues that the use of computers allows for theories to be tested in ways that are not traditionally accessible to researchers due to concerns in access to groups, research ethics, or funds.
I will present a brief examination showing that these methods are applicable with the theoretical commitments of the “standard model” and will present new research in the use of artificial intelligence models and their use for studying religion as a human social phenomenon produced primarily by natural cognitive mechanisms.  The first example will show how prospect theory and in-group biases can result in social patterns similar to those noted by Turchin (2006). The second will show how an artificial neural network can be used to test the claim that the variables of the modes theory are related by dynamic (i.e. non-linear) relationships (Whitehouse 2004).

This paper attempts to show a methodological application, able to evaluate the impact of public policies, using models of qualitative and quantitative analysis by a system dynamics approach. This in order to appreciate counterintuitive analysis of (and for) policies, understanding multi-loop nonlinear feedback of public actions put into effect, designed to reach some defined strategic goals .

The case study analyzed is referred to results of ex post evaluation process in a specific context of public policies, in order to identify correct counteractive actions to reverse critical pattern behavior.  The context concerns the urban strategic planning for city attractiveness growth in Palermo municipality for tourism development. Therefore the specific analysis on the field is aimed to demonstrate that evaluators may turn out quantitative models to understand the cost effectiveness of public policies, detecting specific correctives to reach a desired behavior, carrying out ex ante evaluation processes by a system dynamics approach. That means not to build simple predictive models (or forecasting models) but to show a way to understanding patterns of system development.

The peregrine falcon Falco peregrinus is renowned for attacking its prey from high altitude in a fast controlled dive called a stoop. Many other raptors employ a similar mode of attack, but the functional benefits of stooping remain obscure. Here we investigate whether, when, and why stooping promotes catch success, using a three-dimensional, agent-based modeling approach to simulate attacks of falcons on aerial prey. We simulate avian flapping and gliding flight using an analytical quasi-steady model of the aerodynamic forces and moments, parametrized by empirical measurements of flight morphology. The model-birds' flight control inputs are commanded by their guidance system, comprising a phenomenological model of its vision, guidance, and control. To intercept its prey, model-falcons use the same guidance law as missiles (pure proportional navigation); this assumption is corroborated by empirical data on peregrine falcons hunting lures. We parametrically vary the falcon's starting position relative to its prey, together with the feedback gain of its guidance loop, under differing assumptions regarding its errors and delay in vision and control, and for three different patterns of prey motion. We find that, when the prey maneuvers erratically, high-altitude stoops increase catch success compared to low-altitude attacks, but only if the falcon's guidance law is appropriately tuned, and only given a high degree of precision in vision and control. Remarkably, the optimal tuning of the guidance law in our simulations coincides closely with what has been observed empirically in peregrines. High-altitude stoops are shown to be beneficial because their high airspeed enables production of higher aerodynamic forces for maneuvering, and facilitates higher roll agility as the wings are tucked, each of which is essential to catching maneuvering prey at realistic response delays.

This paper proposes a hybrid system which consists of a photovoltaic panel, wind turbine, proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), electrolyzer, super capacitor, power convertor and a three-phase variation load. The load supplied is based on the photovoltaic panel and wind turbine, while the fuel cells are back-up for compensating possible power load shortage. The surplus of power produced will be stored in a hydrogen tank by an electrolyzer system when the PV panel and wind turbine produce more power than required. The capacitor banks are used in parallel with other sources in order to reduce DC bus variation. Matlab software is chosen for the hybrid system simulation.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=6190560

In this paper, dynamic simulation of a fuel cell system studied using MATLAB/SIMULINK. The paper presents the dynamic model of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC). The fuel cell output voltage is proportional to the change of the current drawn from the fuel cell model. Phase control full bridge dc/dc converter considered to match the unregulated voltage produced by the fuel cell model to the needed application voltage. PID controller has been selected to regulate the fuel cell output voltage. PWM-based inverter serves as the interface between the dc/dc converter and the ac load. Three-phase inverter used to drive three phase load. Third Harmonic Injection Pulse Width Modulation used to drive the three-phase inverter so that minimum harmonic distortion and maximum usage of the fuel cell voltage on the three-phase inverter output. Simulation results provided to validate the design.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=4582883

"Abstract: David R. Cole’s “Reading in the Future: Literacy and
the Time of the Internet” locates the literacies of the internet
– itself read as “the end game of western technology” or the
Machina Mundi, the Great Chain of the World that has a centre
that is everywhere and a circumference that is nowhere – in a
contradictory space. But Cole also self-consciously locates his
own writing at a moment in time when the initial technological
hype of the internet is subsiding in the face of the boredom of
informational overload and the internet is emerging as both an
“unlimited realm of resource” and the site of a brand of “western
nihilism containing a sense of relativism, collapse of meaning
and cultural schizo-cynicism”. Remarkably, in the course of his
argument, Coles does not appropriate the internet, does not
simplify it according to his own vision of its potential or
mission – but allows it to remain a place of cultural
schizophrenia, to be navigated only by means of the corresponding learning, acceptance, and practice of “schizo literacy”."

Effective enterprise diagnosis was, traditionally considered an essential part of change management. Opportunities opened by the process of globalization may change to threats if the enterprise is not ready to adjust. Several tools are capable of diagnosing the status of the enterprise and help identify, monitor and resolve performance issues early, providing essential support to successful change. A critical review of the status quo of the enterprise can therefore, establish and produce meaningful improvement. Change management related literature suggests that fuzzy logic is an edge detection method with promising results. Under these premises, by evaluating the dynamic of the business environment, by mining relevant change indicators and the enterprises reactions, a theoretical-driven, research-based model is developed. For high quality change measurement, the framework takes into account change dimension and impact on the component elements of the enterprise. Furthermore, the fuzzy-logic-based assessment facilitates informed decision-making and change management implementation.

Decisions on settlement location in the face of climate change and coastal inundation may have resulted in success, survival or even catastrophic failure for early settlers in many parts of the world. In this study, we investigate various questions related to how individuals respond to a palaeoenvironmental simulation, on an interactive tabletop device where participants have the opportunity to build a settlement on a coastal landscape, balancing safety, and access to resources, including sea and terrestrial foodstuffs, while taking into consideration the threat of rising sea levels. The results of the study were analyzed to consider whether decisions on settlement were predicated to be near to locations where previous structures were located, stigmergically, and whether later settler choice would fare better, and score higher, as time progressed. The proximity of settlements was investigated and the reasons for clustering were considered. The interactive simulation was exhibited to thousands of visitors at the 2012 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition at the “Europe's Lost World” exhibit. 347 participants contributed to the simulation, providing a sufficiently large sample of data for analysis. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity, 2014

Ch'ng, E., Gaffney, V. and Hakvoort, G. (2014), Stigmergy in comparative settlement choice and palaeoenvironment simulation. Complexity. doi: 10.1002/cplx.21616

Most interesting phenomena in natural and social systems include transitions and oscillations among their various phases.  A new phase begins when the system reaches a threshold that marks a qualitative change in system characteristics.  These threshold effects are found all around us.  In economics, this could be movement from a bull market to a bear market; in sociology, it could be the spread of political dissent, culminating in rebellion; in biology, the immune response to infection or disease as the body moves from sickness to health.  Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) has proven to be a powerful framework for exploring these and other related phenomena.  Our hypothesis is that by modeling differing complex systems we can use the known causes and mechanisms in one domain to gain insight into the controlling properties of similar effects in another domain.  To that end, we have created a general CAS model; one that is flexible enough so that it can be individually tailored and mapped to phenomena in various domains, yet retains sufficient commonality across applications to facilitate a deeper, cross-disciplinary understanding of these phenomena.  In this work, we focus on the threshold effect.  We show that the general model successfully replicates key features of a CAS.  And we demonstrate its general applicability by adapting the model to three domains: cancer cells and the immune response; political dissent in a polity; and a marine ecosystem.

Communities in transition from non-state to state-like organizational systems can be seen to share properties with Complex Adaptive Systems, including the emergence of a multiplicity of social statuses, exaggeration of social statuses, dialectical relations between systems of organization at multiple scales, and conditions of disequilibrium rather than systemic stability. A case study based on the tomb remains in the emergent state of Etruscan Caere is examined using tomb scale as proxy for individual and family statuses within the community.

About the crucial relevance of Agent-based Social Simulation for the future of the Social Sciences; the correct relationships between AI and Soc Sc. Why Computer Simulation will be crucial for "augmenting" collective intelligence and our understanding of complex and self-organizing  social dynamics and emergent phenomena. How - combined with distributed and externalized intelligence, smart environments,  fast feedbacks and information from people and sensors, etc. it will provide us the possibility of an effective planning of complex phenomena.

In a nutshell, the argument of this essay is that singularity theories tend to commit logical errors, with a few exceptions of course. My argument applies to theories from a range of sources, including theorists of techno-singularity, theologians, and even physicists (I say "even," because I tend to rely on post-Newtonian physics some of the best models of careful reasoning about phenomena that appear to confound common sense). I shall argue that all of these errors are of one general type: drawing linear inferences from the results of any of a range of nonlinear theories and data sets. I then move from logical to pragmatic critique, by which I mean reading the formal errors as symptoms of multi-leveled conditions of social/epistemological/spiritual crises and confusions.

Relations between play and ritual are notoriously problematic. While play tends to produce doubt, uncertainty and paradox, ritual instead clarifies, authenticates and refines the moral order. Focusing ethnographically on a celebration for the Divine Holy Spirit (Divino Esp ırito Santo) in the Brazilian state of Maranh~ ao, in this article I nonetheless move away from this common juxtaposition of ritual and play as mutually exclusive conceptual frameworks. I argue that we can instead imagine play and ritual as dynamic, processual experiences, which frequently merge when they are enacted together in highly symbolic public events. Seen in this light, ritual and play do not necessarily differ as rigid, predefined, conceptual frames, but rather as experiences that unfold in different forms: the experiential dynamic of play-scenarios is felt as horizontal deregulation, while the experiential dynamic of rituals converges towards and linear hierarchization. I consequently suggest more broadly that such dynamic terms as 'pulsation', 'intensity' and 'rhythm' better explicate the enduring social effects of public events in which the unequivocal and the ambiguous incessantly reconstitute each other.

International Journal on Computational Science & Applications (IJCSA) is a Bi-monthly peer-reviewed and refereed open access journal that publishes articles which contribute new results in all areas of the Computational Science & Applications. Computational science is interdisciplinary fields in which mathematical models are combined with scientific computing methods to study of a wide range of problems in science and engineering. Modeling and simulation tools find increasing applications not only in fundamental research, but also in real-world design and industry applications.

With the aim of contextualising this special issue of Contemporary Social Science, a brief overview of
the relationship between the Web 2.0 and social dynamics is presented. It is argued that the Web
tends to destabilise the social structure, radically re-organising human culture, identities, and
socialising. It also calls for reflexive reconsideration for many of the dual oppositions that have
traditionally been worked with, such as public/private, virtual/real, consumption/production,
and so on. This overview critically explores and evaluates the impact that the Web 2.0 is having
on a wide range of social processes by turning its analytic focus on both theoretical and
methodological advances. The latter refers to the demonstration of the exponential growth of
political blogging in Greece, leading to a major change in information exchange, as well as to a
computer simulation of both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 networks. It is vividly shown that what mostly
defines Web 2.0 and differentiates it from Web 1.0 is the explosion of user-generated content
(a fundamental bottom-up process). This amazingly reinforces social dynamics and provides a
stable flow of unpredictable creativity, innovation and adaptation.