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Social Simulation for a Crisis

Results and Lessons from Simulating the COVID-19 Crisis

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Editors:
  1. Frank Dignum

    1. Computing Sciences, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

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  • Explores on which issues to cover when doing social simulation for a crisis
  • How do abstract social psychological models allow for building many scenarios
  • Provides insights in the behavioural component of the COVID-19 crisis

Part of the book series: Computational Social Sciences (CSS)

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Table of contents (16 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiv
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  2. ASSOCC Theory and Platform

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. Introduction

      • Frank Dignum, Loïs Vanhée, Maarten Jensen, Christian Kammler, René Mellema, Fabian Lorig et al.
      Pages 3-13

    3. Foundations of Social Simulations for Crisis Situations

      • Frank Dignum
      Pages 15-37

    4. Social Simulations for Crises: From Theories to Implementation

      • Maarten Jensen, Loïs Vanhée, Christian Kammler
      Pages 39-84

    5. Social Simulations for Crises: From Models to Usable Implementations

      • Cezara Păstrăv, Maarten Jensen, René Mellema, Loïs Vanhée
      Pages 85-117

  3. Scenario’s

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 119-119
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    2. The Effectiveness of Closing Schools and Working at Home During the COVID-19 Crisis

      • Mijke van den Hurk
      Pages 121-138

    3. Testing and Adaptive Testing During the COVID-19 Crisis

      • Christian Kammler, René Mellema
      Pages 139-166

    4. Deployment and Effects of an App for Tracking and Tracing Contacts During the COVID-19 Crisis

      • Maarten Jensen, Fabian Lorig, Loïs Vanhée, Frank Dignum
      Pages 167-188

    5. Studying the Influence of Culture on the Effective Management of the COVID-19 Crisis

      • Amineh Ghorbani, Bart de Bruin, Kurt Kreulen
      Pages 189-230

    6. Economics During the COVID-19 Crisis: Consumer Economics and Basic Supply Chains

      • Alexander Melchior
      Pages 231-268

    7. Effects of Exit Strategies for the COVID-19 Crisis

      • René Mellema, Amineh Ghorbani
      Pages 269-315

  4. Results and Lessons Learned

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 317-317
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    2. The Real Impact of Social Simulations During the COVID-19 Crisis

      • Frank Dignum
      Pages 319-329

    3. Comparative Validation of Simulation Models for the COVID-19 Crisis

      • Fabian Lorig, Maarten Jensen, Christian Kammler, Paul Davidsson, Harko Verhagen
      Pages 331-352

    4. Engineering Social Simulations for Crises

      • Loïs Vanhée
      Pages 353-378

    5. Agile Social Simulations for Resilience

      • Maarten Jensen, Frank Dignum, Loïs Vanhée, Cezara Păstrăv, Harko Verhagen
      Pages 379-408

    6. Challenges and Issues for Social Simulations for Crises

      • Frank Dignum, Maarten Jensen, Christian Kammler, Alexander Melchior, Mijke van den Hurk
      Pages 409-426

    7. Conclusions

      • Frank Dignum, Loïs Vanhée, Maarten Jensen, Christian Kammler, René Mellema, Fabian Lorig et al.
      Pages 427-438
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Keywords

About this book

Simulating for a crisis is far more than creating a simulation of a crisis situation. In order for a simulation to be useful during a crisis, it should be created within the space of a few days to allow decision makers to use it as quickly as possible. Furthermore, during a crisis the aim is not to optimize just one factor, but to balance various, interdependent aspects of life. In the COVID-19 crisis, decisions had to be made concerning e.g. whether to close schools and restaurants, and the (economic) consequences of a 3 or 4-week lock-down had to be considered. As such, rather than one simulation focusing on a very limited aspect, a framework allowing the simulation of several different scenarios focusing on different aspects of the crisis was required. Moreover, the results of the simulations needed to be easily understandable and explainable: if a simulation indicates that closing schools has no effect, this can only be used if the decision makers can explain why this is the case.
 
This book describes how a simulation framework was created for the COVID-19 crisis, and demonstrates how it was used to simulate a wide range of scenarios that were relevant for decision makers at the time. It also discusses the usefulness of the approach, and explains the decisions that had to be made along the way as well as the trade-offs. Lastly, the book examines the lessons learned and the directions for the further development of social simulation frameworks to make them better suited to crisis situations, and to foster a more resilient society.




Editors and Affiliations

  • Computing Sciences, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Frank Dignum

About the editor

Frank Dignum is a Dutch computer scientist. Since February 2019 he is a Professor of Socially-Aware AI at Umeå University and a part-time associate professor at the Department of Information and Computing Sciences of the Utrecht University. He also is a honorary principle research fellow in the Department of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. Dignum is best known from his work on software agents, multi-agent systems and fundamental aspects of social agents including norms, social rules and communication. This work is performed in the context of social simulations, games and dialogue management systems.


Dignum received his PhD in 1989 from the VU University Amsterdam. He started his academic career as assistant professor and chair of the department of Computer Science at the University of Swaziland in 1990. In 1992 he moved back to Portugal and became assistant professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon. After coming back in the Netherlands in 1993 as assistant professor at Eindhoven University of Technology, in 2000 he was appointed Associate professor at the Department of Information and Computing Sciences of the Utrecht University. 


Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Social Simulation for a Crisis

  • Book Subtitle: Results and Lessons from Simulating the COVID-19 Crisis

  • Editors: Frank Dignum

  • Series Title: Computational Social Sciences

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76397-8

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Computer Science, Computer Science (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-76396-1Published: 09 June 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-76399-2Published: 10 June 2022

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-76397-8Published: 08 June 2021

  • Series ISSN: 2509-9574

  • Series E-ISSN: 2509-9582

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIV, 453

  • Number of Illustrations: 15 b/w illustrations, 155 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Computer Applications, Graph Theory, Complex Systems, Biotechnology, Epidemiology

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