Publications

Harko Verhagen, Corinna Elsenbroich, Nanda Wijermans. 2024. Agent Decision-Making Heterogeneity—Agent (Meta)Frameworks for Agent-Based Modelling. Springer Link. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57785-7_48

Agent-based models have continuously increased regarding the implementation of the complexity of agent decision making. This poses questions for the ontological foundation of ABM as well as having implications for research design and data collections. This paper situates the meta-modelling framework CAFCA within other contextual and multidimensional agent-architectures, in particular focusing on its contributions to ontology a...

Francesca Giardini, Melania Borit, Harko Verhagen, Nanda Wijermans. 2024. Modeling Realistic Human Behavior in Disasters. A Rapid Literature Review of Agent-Based Models Reviews. Springer Link. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57785-7_13

Agent-based models of human behaviors in emergencies are extremely important in prevention, preparedness, response, and mitigation of crises. However, there is huge variation in the modeling of human cognitions and actions, with varying degrees of realism and even more diverse definitions of how realism should be implemented in the models. The aim of this Rapid Literature Review is to identify existing patterns in modelling re...

Christian Kammler, Frank Dignum, Nanda Wijermans. 2024. Towards a Social Simulation Interaction Tool for Policy Makers—A New Research Agenda to Enable Usage of More Complex Social Simulations. Springer Link. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57785-7_14

Social simulations can be a powerful tool for policy makers and other decision makers to support them in their decision making process. To be a powerful tool, it is not only important that the agents in the simulation exhibit realistic–human like—behavior, but also that the simulation is empowering the policy maker to use it in a—for them—meaningful way. To tackle this problem, we require interaction tools and visualization ca...

Lindkvist, E., Pellowe, K., Alexander, S., Drury O'Neill, E., Finkbeiner, E., Girón‐Nava, A., González‐Mon, B., Johnson, A., Pittman, J., Schill, C., Wijermans, N., Bodin, Ö., Gelcich, S., Glaser, M. 2022. Untangling social–ecological interactions: A methods portfolio approach to tackling contemporary sustainability challenges in fisheries. Fish and Fisheries. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/faf.12678

Meeting the objectives of sustainable fisheries management requires attention to the complex interactions between humans, institutions and ecosystems that give rise to fishery outcomes. Traditional approaches to studying fisheries often do not fully capture, nor focus on these complex interactions between people and ecosystems. Despite advances in the scope and scale of interactions encompassed by more holistic methods, for ex...

Wijermans, N., Schill, C., Lindahl, T., Schlüter, M. 2022. Combining approaches: Looking behind the scenes of integrating multiple types of evidence from controlled behavioural experiments through agent-based modelling. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2022.2050120

Understanding complex (social) phenomena benefits from combining different tools, perspectives, expertise, and experiences. Research designs that combine approaches are gaining in popularity. Carrying out research in interdisciplinary teams, however, is a challenging, high-investment activity. Unawareness of and reflecting on conflicting ways of seeing or studying the world may endanger project success. Agent-based modelling h...

Wijermans, N., Verhagen, H. & Lytter, A. 2021. An Online Implementation of a Virtual Agent-Based Experiment Tool—An Exploration. In Advances in Social Simulation (eds. P. Ahrweiler & M. Neumann), Springer Proceedings in Complexity, Springer International Publishing, pp.291–297.

This chapter is part of a book based on the conference proceedings of ESSA 2013, the 9th Conference of the European Social Simulation Association. ESSA conferences constitute annual events, which serve as an international platform for the exchange of ideas and discussion of cutting-edge research in the field of social simulations, both from the theoretical as well as applied perspective. This book consists of 33 articles, whic...

Scholz, G., Eberhard, T., Ostrowski, R. & Wijermans, N. 2021. Social Identity in Agent-Based Models: Exploring the State of the Art. In Springer Proceedings in Complexity, pp. 59–64.

Schlüter, M., Lindkvist, E., Wijermans, N. & Polhill, G. 2021. Agent-based modelling. In: Biggs et al. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods for Social-Ecological Systems, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 383–397.

This chapter is part of The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods for Social-Ecological Systems which provides a synthetic guide to the range of methods that can be employed in social-ecological systems (SES) research. The book is primarily targeted at graduate students, lecturers and researchers working on SES, and has been written in a style that is accessible to readers entering the field from a variety of different disci...

Constantino, S., Schlüter, M., Weber, E., Wijermans, N.. 2021. Cognition and behavior in context: a framework and theories to explain natural resource use decisions in social-ecological systems. Sustainability Science. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00989-w

The complex, context-dependent, and dynamic nature of human behavior is increasingly recognized as both an important cause of sustainability problems and potential leverage for their solution. Human beings are diverse, as are the social, ecological, and institutional settings in which they are embedded. Despite this recognition and extensive knowledge about human decision-making in the behavioral sciences, empirical analysis,...

Wijermans, N., Verhagen, H., Lytter, A.. 2021. An Online Implementation of a Virtual Agent-Based Experiment Tool—An Exploration. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61503-1_29

Social simulation targets social science problems and challenges, of theoretical, empirical and applied nature, using simulation. This implies contributing to the development of theory/explanations of social phenomena or using existing theories and models to understand or predict outcomes of social processes. The different uses of social simulation and the different roles it can play in the research process make it the Swiss a...