Considering that two of the three avoider species could not reach the target area in the inittial scenario, five alternative corridor scenarios were created. In all cases, we generated a greater amount of cover area under ‘Urban forest’, including elements such as scattered trees, woody plants, wooded areas, and rows of trees. This covered type was selected since all three species use it as a regular habitat. That is the second sceneario where those ecological parks and other areas inside the capital city were boostered into “urban forest patches” or buffer points, with the idea of improving the survive of the three bird species and their movement. However one of the most restrictive specie was still having movement and survival issues.

The purpose of this model is to analyze different configurations and scenarios of ecological corridors to simulate the movement of three avoider bird species at a local scale: Chondrohierax uncinatus (Accipitridae), a large carnivorous bird; Ampelion rubrocristatus (Cotingidae), a species that seeks areas with substantial land cover for refuge and rest; and Coeligena bonapartei (Trochilidae), a large hummingbird that prefers areas with a rich and diverse food supply. The model focusses on juvenile bird individuals seeking refuge and food, taking into account the mobility parameters of each species and the existing land cover types within the study area.
Specifically, the model aims to:
• Simulate the movement of 45 avoiders birds which are considered umbrella species sensitive to urban changes (which were chosen based on their specific biological and ecological requirements and parameters relevant to urban conservation efforts), 15 avoiders birds per specie to cross a two-dimensional world predominant urban.
• To be able to select which corridor scenario would be the most beneficial, in order to help the mobility of other species affected by urban fragmentation.
• Contribute to urban ecology research and support decision-making processes by relevant stakeholders.

Positive feedback can lead to “trapping” in local optima. Adding a simple negative feedback effect, based on ant behaviour, prevents this trapping

This model played a small part in the UK government’s review of the working of local authority implementation of the Domestic Abuse legislation. The model explicitly represents victim-survivor families as they: (a) try to contact the local DA support system, (b) are triaged by the system and (if there is space) allocated to safe temporary accomodation (c) recieve support services from this position and (d) eventually move on to more permenant accomodation. The purpose of the model was to understand some possible ways in which the implementation of DA Duty, might be frustrated in practice, the identification of gaps in the evidence base and to inform the developing Theory of Change. The key measures used for assessing outcomes in the model were the number of families helped and the services that were delivered to them. The exploration was grounded for in two archetypal cases: that of a relatively immature system for the delivery of DA services and a more mature one (based on actual local authority cases, but not based on any single one). See the official report under associated publications for a summary of results.

This agent-based model simulates the lifecycle, movement, and satisfaction of teachers within an urban educational system composed of multiple universities and schools. Each teacher agent transitions through several possible roles: newcomer, university student, unemployed graduate, and employed teacher. Teachers’ pathways are shaped by spatial configuration, institutional capacities, individual characteristics, and dynamic interactions with schools and universities. Universities are assigned spatial locations with a controllable level of centralization and are characterized by academic ratings, capacity, and alumni records. Schools are distributed throughout the city, each with a limited number of vacancies, hiring requirements, and offered salaries. Teachers apply to universities based on the alignment of their personal academic profiles with institutional ratings, pursue studies, and upon graduation become candidates for employment at schools.
The employment process is driven by a decentralized matching of teacher expectations and school offers, taking into account factors such as salary, proximity, and peer similarity. Teachers’ satisfaction evolves over time, reflecting both institutional characteristics and the composition of their colleagues; low satisfaction may prompt teachers to transfer between schools within their mobility radius. Mortality and teacher attrition further shape workforce dynamics, leading to continuous recruitment of newcomers to maintain a stable population. The model tracks university reputation through the academic performance and number of alumni, and visualizes key metrics including teacher status distribution, school staffing, university alumni counts, and overall satisfaction. This structure enables the exploration of policy interventions, hiring and training strategies, and the impact of spatial and institutional design on the allocation, retention, and happiness of urban educational staff.

How do bots influence beliefs on social media? Why do beliefs propagated by social bots spread far and wide, yet does their direct influence appear to be limited?

This model extends Axelrod’s model for the dissemination of culture (1997), with a social bot agent–an agent who only sends information and cannot be influenced themselves. The basic network is a ring network with N agents connected to k nearest neighbors. The agents have a cultural profile with F features and Q traits per feature. When two agents interact, the sending agent sends the trait of a randomly chosen feature to the receiving agent, who adopts this trait with a probability equal to their similarity. To this network, we add a bot agents who is given a unique trait on the first feature and is connected to a proportion of the agents in the model equal to ‘bot-connectedness’. At each timestep, the bot is chosen to spread one of its traits to its neighbors with a probility equal to ‘bot-activity’.

The main finding in this model is that, generally, bot activity and bot connectedness are both negatively related to the success of the bot in spreading its unique message, in equilibrium. The mechanism is that very active and well connected bots quickly influence their direct contacts, who then grow too dissimilar from the bot’s indirect contacts to quickly, preventing indirect influence. A less active and less connected bot leaves more space for indirect influence to occur, and is therefore more successful in the long run.

This model introduces individual bias to the model of exploration and exploitation, simulates knowledge diffusion within organizations, aiming to investigate the effect of individual bias and other related factors on organizational objectivity.

Brazil has initiated two territorial public policies for a rural sustainable development, the National Program for Sustainable Development of the Rural Territories (PRONAT) and Citizenship Territory Program (PTC). These public policies aims, as a condition for its effectiveness, the equilibrium of the power relations between actors which participate in the Collegiate for Territorial Development (CODETER) of each Rural Territory. Our research studies the hypotheses that, in the Rural Territories submitted to the PRONAT and PTC public policies, the power and reciprocity relations between actors engaged in the CODETER effectively have evolved in favor of the civil society representatives to the detriment of the public powers, notably the mayors.

The SocLab approach has been applied in two case studies and four models representing the Southern Rural Territory of Sergipe (TRSS) and the São Francisco Rural Territory (TRBSF) were designed for two referential periods, 2008-2012 and 2013-2017. These models were developed to evaluate the empowerment of the civil society in these rural territories due to thes two public policies, PRONAT and PTC.

MarPEM is an agent-based model that can be used to study the effects of policy instruments on the transition away from HFO.

ACT is an ABM based on an existing conceptualisation of the concept of critical transitions applied to the energy transition. With the model we departed from the mean-field approach simulated relevant actor behaviour in the energy transition.