JASSS: Vol. 5(4) published

[Nigel Gilbert]

The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 
(http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/) published the fourth issue of Volume 5 
on October 31st.

JASSS is an electronic, refereed journal devoted to the exploration and 
understanding of social processes by means of computer simulation.  It 
is located at <http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/>. It is freely 
available, with no subscription.

=================

In this issue, Deffaunt et al provide new results on the dynamics of 
opinion change in a society of agents having continuous (i.e. ranging 
over a continuous scale) opinions,  exploring the circumstances in 
which  extreme opinions can  spread through a population.  Analogies 
can be drawn between their results and the influence of early Nazis in 
Germany or of radicals in Islam.  Stocker et al  are also concerned 
with opinion dynamics, showing how complex systems models can be used 
to investigate the effects of various parameters (including the number 
of layers and the number of links per node) in hierarchical and 
scale-free network structures. Lepperhoff simulates asynchronous, 
computer-mediated negotiations in groups in order to identify the 
influence of negotiation parameters such as the duration of the 
negotiation, the nature of the task and the voting scheme used.  Hales 
extends a series of papers on the effects of norms, many of which have 
been previously published in JASSS.  His focus in this paper is on the 
role of the normative reputations of groups (a form of social 
stereotyping) and how such reputations might support the maintenance of 
social norms that are beneficial to the society as a whole, although in 
conflict with individual self-interest.  Gatherer models the evolution 
and differentiation of cultural traits in societies and compares his 
model with data from anthropological data derived from Murdock's 
Ethnographic Atlas.

In the Forum section, Laurie Brown and Ann Harding review the work 
using micro-simulation that they and colleagues have been doing in 
Australia to contribute to the development of social security, welfare 
and health policies.

Six recent books are reviewed in the Book Reviews section.

=================
Refereed articles
=================

Guillaume Deffuant, Frédéric Amblard, Gérard Weisbuch and Thierry Faure
How Can Extremism Prevail? A study based on the relative agreement 
interaction model

Niels Lepperhoff
SAM - Simulation of Computer-mediated Negotiations

Rob Stocker, David Cornforth and T. R. J. Bossomaier
Network Structures and Agreement in Social Network Simulations

David Hales
Group Reputation Supports Beneficent Norms

Derek Gatherer
Identifying Cases of social Contagion Using Memetic Isolation: 
comparison of the dynamics of a multisociety simulation with an 
ethnographic data set

=================
Forum: Discussion papers and work in progress
=================

Laurie Brown and Ann Harding
Social Modelling and Public Policy: Application of Microsimulation 
Modelling in Australia

=================
Book Reviews
=================

Advances in Artificial Life: Proceedings of the 5th European Conference 
(ECAL '99)
Edited by Dario Floreano, Jean-Daniel Nicoud and Francesco Mondada
Reviewed by  Colin Johnson

Tools for Land Use Analysis on Different Scales with Case Studies for 
Costa Rica
Edited by Bas A. M. Bouman, Hans G. P. Jansen, Robert A. Schipper, Huib 
Hengsdijk and André Nieuwenhuyse
Reviewed by Steven M. Manson

The Edge of Organization: Chaos and Complexity Theories of Formal 
Social Systems
Russ Marion
Reviewed by  Russ Marion

The Predictors: How a Band of Maverick Physicists Set Out to Beat Wall 
Street
Thomas A. Bass
Reviewed by  H. Van Dyke Parunak

Dynamics of Organizations: Computational Modeling and Organization 
Theories
Edited by Alessandro Lomi and Erik R. Larsen
Reviewed by  Pietro Terna

The Dynamics and Evolution of Social Systems: New Foundations of a 
Mathematical Sociology
Jürgen Klüver
Reviewed by  A. Maurits van der Veen
=================

The new issue can be accessed through the JASSS home page: 
<http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS.html>

The next issue wil be published at the end of January 2003.
Submissions are welcome: see 
<http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/admin/submit.html>

=================

You may also be interested in EXYSTENCE, a European Union supported 
'Network of Excellence' for
Complex Systems, which maintains a news page at: 
http://www.complexityscience.org/

_______________________________________________________________________
Professor Nigel Gilbert,  Editor, Journal of Artificial Societies and
   Social Simulation, <http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/>.
Centre for Research on Simulation in the Social Sciences (CRESS),
   Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.
  Tel:+44 1483 689173  Fax:+44 1483 689551  address@hidden
Simulation resources at <http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/research/simsoc/>



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