Modeling extremism using a multi-agent system /
Modeling how opinions evolve in societies is difficult because there are a great number of factors that play a part in forming opinions. We model and simulate continuous opinion dynamics in populations of agents that include extremists. We study two types of populations: populations whose opinions a...
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| Format: | Thesis Book |
| Language: | English |
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[Place of publication not identified] :
[publisher not identified] ;
2004.
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| Summary: | Modeling how opinions evolve in societies is difficult because there are a great number of factors that play a part in forming opinions. We model and simulate continuous opinion dynamics in populations of agents that include extremists. We study two types of populations: populations whose opinions are initially Gaussian distributed and populations that interact in groups. The Gaussian distributed populations communicate by way of random pair interactions. We study the evolution of the opinion distribution and compare it with that of an initially uniformly distributed population to study the effects that different initial opinion distributions have upon a population. We also simulate initially uniformly distributed populations that interact in groups. The simulated groups can be composed of randomly chosen members during each interaction, permanent group members that last throughout the simulation, or a mixture of both types. From this, we evaluate the role that stable relationships play in resisting extremism in societies. |
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| Item Description: | Vita. "Major Subject: Computer Science". |
| Physical Description: | vi, 24 leaves : illustrations ; 28 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (leaf 23). |