Computers fundamentally changed the methods used by social scientists during the past decades. It is no exaggeration to state that the wide use and growing user-friendliness of computers and statistical analysis systems helped empirical social research as a subdiscipline to become mainstream. This made a new subdiscipline necessary which is mainly working on adapting and applying computer science methods for social research: social science informatics. This book originated from lecture courses given by the authors from the mid-1980s and developed for computer science students with a minor in social science. Unlike many other introductions to univariate and multivariate data analysis, this book is addressed to advanced scholars and students who apply "classical" statistical methods and who want to get an overview of the mathematical foundations of the methods they apply and who want to avoid the pitfalls of cookbook-like introduction when they interpret their results. The electronic document is a slightly revised version of the printed version of 1994 which has been out of stock for many years.
The natural and the artificial environment of mankind is of enormous complexity, and our means of understanding this complex environment are restricted unless we make use of simplified (but not oversimplified) dynamical models with the help of which we can explicate and communicate what we have understood in order to discuss among ourselves how to re-shape reality according to what our simulation models make us believe to be possible. Being both a science and an art, modelling and simulation isrnstill one of the core tools of extended thought experiments, and its use is still spreading into new application areas, particularly as the increasing availability of massive computational resources allows for simulating more and more complex target systems.
In the early summer of 2012, the 26th European Conference on Modelling andrnSimulation (ECMS) once again brings together the best experts and scientists in the field to present their ideas and research, and to discuss new challenges and directions for the field.
The 2012 edition of ECMS includes three new tracks, namely Simulation-BasedrnBusiness Research, Policy Modelling and Social Dynamics and Collective Behaviour, and extended the classical Finance and Economics track with Social Science. It attracted more than 110 papers, 125 participants from 21 countries and backgrounds ranging from electrical engineering to sociology.
This book was inspired by the event, and it was prepared to compile the most recent concepts, advances, challenges and ideas associated with modelling and computer simulation. It contains all papers carefully selected from the large number of submissions by the programme committee for presentation during the conference and is organised according to the still growing number tracks which shaped the event. The book is complemented by two invited pieces from other experts that discussed an emerging approach to modelling and a specialised application. rnrnWe hope these proceedings will serve as a reference to researchers and practitioners in the ever growing field as well as an inspiration to newcomers to the area of modelling and computer simulation. The editors are honoured and proud to present you with this carefully compiled selection of topics and publications in the field.