This uniquely inspirational and practical book explores human simulation, which is the application of computational modeling and simulation to research subjects in the humanities disciplines. It delves into the fascinating process of collaboration among experts who usually don’t have much to do with one another – computer engineers and humanities scholars – from the perspective of the humanities scholars. It also explains the process of developing models and simulations in these interdisciplinary teams.
Each chapter takes the reader on a journey, presenting a specific theory about the human condition, a model of that theory, discussion of its implementation, analysis of its results, and an account of the collaborative experience. Contributing authors with different fields of expertise share how each model was validated, discuss relevant datasets, explain development strategies, and frankly discuss the ups and downs of the process of collaborative development. Readers are given access to the models and will also gain new perspectives from the authors’ findings, experiences, and recommendations.
Today we are in the early phases of an information revolution, combining access to vast computing resources, large amounts of human data through social media, and an unprecedented richness of methods and tools to capture, analyze, explore, and test hypotheses and theories of all kinds. Thus, this book’s insights will be valuable not only to students and scholars of humanities subjects, but also to the general reader and researchers from other disciplines who are intrigued by the expansion of the information revolution all the way into the humanities departments of modern universities.
Saikou Y. Diallo, PhD, is an expert in the interoperability and composability of simulations. He is currently conducting research into the concept of Human Simulation which combines simulation engineering and the humanities. He leads the Modeling and Simulation Sciences group at the Virginia Modeling Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC). Dr. Diallo is a member of the SCS Board of Directors and associate editor of the ACM SIGSIM M&S Body of Knowledge Repository. He has over 100 publications in journals, conferences and book chapters. He has served as the Program Chair and General Chair of the Spring Simulation Conference and is currently the Vice President in charge of Conferences at SCS.
Wesley J. Wildman, PhD, is a philosopher of religion specializing in the scientific study of religion. He has published extensively at the intersection of the sciences and the humanities and coordinates a PhD program in that field at Boston University. He is Executive Director of the Centerfor Mind and Culture, which engineers effective solutions for pressing social problems using high-tech methods such as computer simulation in conjunction with an aggressive interdisciplinary approach combining social sciences, humanities, policy experts, and stakeholders.
F. LeRon Shults has published 17 books and over 100 articles and book chapters on themes related to philosophy, social science, education and the scientific study of religion. He is founding director of the NORCE Center for Modeling Social Systems and professor at the Institute for Global Development and Social Planning at the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway. Shults is the principal investigator for several research projects that are developing computational models for better understanding and addressing topics such as immigration, integration, secularization and climate change.
Andreas Tolk is a Senior Divisional Staff Member at The MITRE Corporation in Hampton, VA, and adjunct Full Professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. He holds a PhD and M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of the Federal Armed Forces of Germany. His research interests include computational and epistemological foundations and constraints of modeling and simulation as well as mathematical foundations for the composition of model-based solutions in computational sciences. He published more than 250 peer reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers, and edited ten textbooks and compendia on Modeling and Simulation and Systems Engineering topics. He is a Fellow of the Society for Modeling and Simulation and Senior Member of IEEE and the Association for Computing Machinery.
