Olivia Woolley: Catalogue data in Autumn Semester 2016 |
Name | Ms Olivia Woolley |
Department | Humanities, Social and Political Sciences |
Relationship | Lecturer |
Number | Title | ECTS | Hours | Lecturers | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
851-0585-04L | Lecture with Computer Exercises: Modelling and Simulating Social Systems with MATLAB Number of participants limited to 70. Particularly suitable for students of D-MAVT, D-INFK, D-ITET, D-MTEC, D-PHYS. | 3 credits | 2S | D. Helbing, L. Sanders, O. Woolley | |
Abstract | This course introduces the mathematical software package MATLAB. Students should learn to implement models of various social processes and systems, and document their skills by a seminar thesis, as well as giving a short oral presentation. | ||||
Learning objective | The students should learn how to use MATLAB as a tool to solve various scientific problems. MATLAB is an integrated environment with a high level programming language which makes it possible to quickly find numerical solutions to a wide range of scientific problems. Furthermore, it includes a rich set of tools for graphically presenting the results. After the students have learned the basic structure of the programming language, they should be able to implement social simulation models in MATLAB and document their skills by a seminar thesis and finally give a short oral presentation. | ||||
Content | This course introduces first the basic functionalities and features of the mathematical software package MATLAB, such as the simple operations with matrices and vectors, differential equations, statistical tools, the graphical representation of data in various forms, and video animations of spatio-temporal data. With this knowledge, students are expected to implement themselves in MATLAB, models of various social processes and systems, including agent-based models, e.g. models of interactive decision making, group dynamics, human crowds, or game-theoretical models. Part of this course will consist of supervised programming exercises in a computer pool. Credit points are finally earned for the implementation of a mathematical model from the sociological literature in MATLAB and the documentation in a seminar thesis. | ||||
Lecture notes | The lecture slides will be presented on the course web page after each lecture. | ||||
Literature | [1] MATLAB Primer, Seventh Edition, Timothy A. Davis and Kermit Sigmon, (Chapman & Hall, 2004). [2] MATLAB kompakt, Wolfgang Schweizer, (Oldenbourg, 2006) Further literature, in particular regarding computer models in the social sciences, will be provided in the course. | ||||
Prerequisites / Notice | The number of participants is limited to the size of the available computer teaching room. The MATLAB code related to the seminar thesis should be well enough documented for further use by others and must be handed over to the Chair of Sociology, in particular of Modeling and Simulation, for further free and unrestricted use. | ||||
860-0011-00L | Modelling and Simulating Social Systems with MATLAB (with Coding Project) Only for MSc Science, Technology, and Policy. | 6 credits | 2S + 2A | D. Helbing, O. Woolley, L. Sanders | |
Abstract | This course introduces the mathematical software package MATLAB. Students should learn to implement models of various social processes and systems, and document their skills by a seminar thesis, a short oral presentation as well as a coding project. | ||||
Learning objective | The students should learn how to use MATLAB as a tool to solve various scientific problems. MATLAB is an integrated environment with a high level programming language which makes it possible to quickly find numerical solutions to a wide range of scientific problems. Furthermore, it includes a rich set of tools for graphically presenting the results. After the students have learned the basic structure of the programming language, they should be able to implement social simulation models in MATLAB and document their skills by a seminar thesis, a coding project and finally give a short oral presentation. |