On 8/9/07, Marcus G. Daniels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Right, "generative social science", a.k.a. "made up stuff"...
Speaking of which, for those in the vicinity of Los Alamos: Thursday, August 9th,2007 > > 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm > > CNLS Conference Room (TA-3, Bldg 1690) > > Gang Recruitment and Growth: A Cellular Automata and Directed Graph Approach > to > the Statistics of Gang Sizes > > William I. Newman > UCLA > > Cellular automata models can be developed to describe the evolution of > emergent > dynamical systems that maintain a discrete character, including those with an > implicit hierarchical character. Moreover, these models can be related to > directed graphs. These methods have found widespread application in condensed > matter physics (e.g., diffusion limited aggregation and crystal growth, > sandpiles andself-organized criticality) as well as in earth and environmental > physics (e.g., models of earthquakes and river networks). In particular, > models > developed for forest fires are manifestly complex systems that show > well-preserved scaling laws relating to the frequency of forest fires relative > to their size. In sociological studies of conflict and deadly quarrels, > similar > statistical scaling laws have been observed, e.g., Richardson, with identical > power-law indices. In earlier work, Gabrielov, Newman, and Turcotte (199?) > succeeded in deriving from first principles those scaling laws. Here, we show > that a simple redefinition of terms makes it possible for the statistics of > gangs to be obtained from these other cellular automata models. In particular, > by equivalencing the recruitment of gang members in the sociological problem > with the planting of trees in the environmental problem, the observed > statistics of gang populations and their prevalence can be derived. > > LANL Host: Mac Hyman, T-7 > > >
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