University of Surrey, UK
Institute of Advanced Studies
Call for papers: Modeling Urban Social Dynamics
7 - 8 April 2005
Policymakers and academic researchers have a longstanding interest in
understanding how cities evolve and change. However, conventional methods
of modeling urban development have not been able to capture the
complexities and historical particularities of urban social dynamics.
Recently, new forms of computational modeling, including agent-based
modeling, have begun to be used, but as yet there is no agreement about
how such models should be constructed and evaluated, and the kinds of
task for which they are best suited. This inter-disciplinary workshop
aims to provide a forum for current work in this area, bringing together
the leading social scientists, computer scientists, physicists and policy
specialists to discuss these exciting developments.
Contributions to the workshop are invited on the topics of:
Approaches to modeling using
complex adaptive systems
Agent-based modeling of urban
development and change
Modeling residential mobility and
residential segregation
Modeling political divisions and
coalition formation in cities
Modeling cultural divisions and the
construction of urban categories and distinctions
The use of social simulations in
understanding cities and influencing policy
The roles of stakeholders in urban
simulations
Tools for computational modeling of
cities (e.g. combining MAS and GIS)
Visualizing urban development
Empirical evaluations of simulation
models
Contributors should submit a abstract of the work that they wish to
present, of about 2-3000 words, by 1 December 2004. Authors of accepted
abstracts will be invited to submit a full paper (4 -7000 words) by 1
February 2005. A selection of the papers will be published in a special
section of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social
Simulation.
The workshop will be held at the University of Surrey, in Guildford, UK.
Guildford is a market town in the Green Belt surrounding London and is
located about 35 minutes by train from central London and within easy
reach of Londons Heathrow and Gatwick airports.
As a consequence of support from the European Commissions EXYSTENCE
Network of Excellence and the University of Surrey, we are able to offer
contributors of accepted papers free registration, meals and a grant
towards their travel costs. Partial support may also be available
for other attendees.
Registration, accommodation in en-suite rooms and all meals (midday meal,
dinner on 7th; breakfast and mid-day meal on 8th April) is £150
(equivalent to about US$ 275 or 230).
The workshop is organized by: Elizabeth Bruch, UCLA, USA and Nigel
Gilbert, University of Surrey, UK.
Abstracts should be sent to Nigel Gilbert (address@hidden) by
1 December 2004, as anonymous PDF files attached to an email including
full contact details.
Requests for participation and financial support should be sent to the
same address by the same date.