Kaj Kolja Kleineberg: Catalogue data in Autumn Semester 2017 |
Name | Dr. Kaj Kolja Kleineberg |
Department | Humanities, Social and Political Sciences |
Relationship | Lecturer |
Number | Title | ECTS | Hours | Lecturers | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
851-0585-41L | Computational Social Science | 3 credits | 2S | D. Helbing, K. K. Kleineberg, C. Koch | |
Abstract | The seminar aims at three-fold integration: (1) bringing modeling and computer simulation of techno-socio-economic processes and phenomena together with related empirical, experimental, and data-driven work, (2) combining perspectives of different scientific disciplines (e.g. sociology, computer science, physics, complexity science, engineering), (3) bridging between fundamental and applied work. | ||||
Learning objective | Participants of the seminar should understand how tightly connected systems lead to networked risks, and why this can imply systems we do not understand and cannot control well, thereby causing systemic risks and extreme events. They should also be able to explain how systemic instabilities can be understood by changing the perspective from a component-oriented to an interaction- and network-oriented view, and what fundamental implications this has for the proper design and management of complex dynamical systems. Computational Social Science and Global Systems Science serve to better understand the emerging digital society with its close co-evolution of information and communication technology (ICT) and society. They make current theories of crises and disasters applicable to the solution of global-scale problems, taking a data-based approach that builds on a serious collaboration between the natural, engineering, and social sciences, i.e. an interdisciplinary integration of knowledge. | ||||
860-0022-00L | Complexity and Global Systems Science Prerequisites: solid mathematical skills. Particularly suitable for students of D-ITET, D-MAVT and ISTP | 3 credits | 2V | D. Helbing, K. K. Kleineberg | |
Abstract | This course discusses complex techno-socio-economic systems, their counter-intuitive behaviors, and how their theoretical understanding empowers us to solve some long-standing problems that are currently bothering the world. | ||||
Learning objective | Participants should learn to get an overview of the state of the art in the field, to present it in a well understandable way to an interdisciplinary scientific audience, to develop models for open problems, to analyze them, and to defend their results in response to critical questions. In essence, participants should improve their scientific skills and learn to think scientifically about complex dynamical systems. | ||||
Content | This course starts with a discussion of the typical and often counter-intuitive features of complex dynamical systems such as self-organization, emergence, (sudden) phase transitions at "tipping points", multi-stability, systemic instability, deterministic chaos, and turbulence. It then discusses phenomena in networked systems such as feedback, side and cascade effects, and the problem of radical uncertainty. The course progresses by demonstrating the relevance of these properties for understanding societal and, at times, global-scale problems such as traffic jams, crowd disasters, breakdowns of cooperation, crime, conflict, social unrests, political revolutions, bubbles and crashes in financial markets, epidemic spreading, and/or "tragedies of the commons" such as environmental exploitation, overfishing, or climate change. Based on this understanding, the course points to possible ways of mitigating techno-socio-economic-environmental problems, and what data science may contribute to their solution. | ||||
Prerequisites / Notice | Mathematical skills can be helpful |