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The puzzle of origins and future of government and social complexity in human and social dynamics, arguably a characteristic feature of the emergence and long-term evolution of hierarchy and power in the history of civilizations, is an enduring topic that has challenged political scientists, anthropological archaeologists, and other social scientists and historians. This paper proposes a new computational theory for the emergence of social complexity that accounts for the earliest formation of systems of government (pristine polities) in prehistory and early antiquity, as well as present and future political development. This general social theory is based on a “fast process” of crisis and opportunistic decision-making through collective action, which feeds a “slow” process of political development or decay. The “fast” core iterative process is “canonical” in the sense that it undergoes variations on a recurring theme of signal detection, information-processing, problem-solving, successful adaptation and occasional failure. When a group is successful in managing or overcoming serious situational changes (stresses or opportunities, endogenous or exogenous, social or physical) a probabilistic phase transition may occur, under a specified set of conditions, yielding a long-term (slow) probabilistic accrual process of emergent sociopolitical complexity and development. A reverse process may account for decay. The canonical theory is being formally implemented through the “PoliGen” agent-based model (ABM), based on the new Multi-Agent Simulator of Networks and Neighborhoods (MASON). Empirically, the theory is testable with the datasets on polities developed by the Long-Range Analysis of War (LORANOW) Project. This paper focuses on the concepts, mechanisms, and basic formal structure that constitute the canonical theory and inform the subsequent simulation model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends a recently proposed model of dynamical interactions between the macro structures of a society to hierarchically ordered societies. The so extended model helps interpreting some social and political phenomena such as coalitions, their hierarchical level and the degree of anarchy on a certain hierarchical level. The surprising property of the underlined model that stability is certain in the constant parameter case strikingly extends to this model. One of the main results of the paper is that the system has a unique equilibrium exactly when there is no anarchy on the highest hierarchical level. These results apply to a study of changes in the equilibria as determined by the changes in the system parameters [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative sociology has grown by burrowing methods from the experimental sciences even though. for the most part, our data are observational. Where the procedures of experimental science can he applied, data analysis can exploit simplifying assumptions because good experimental design removes correlations among independent variables that exist nature, outside the experiment, as well as effects or unmeasured variables. Where the science is of necessity, observational, these simplifications can not be guaranteed and, as a result, the analyses reached through by use of some of the standard "workhorse" techniques of the statistical repertoire may not be valid and conclusions reached by the application of these techniques are in doubt, This paper explores an alternative framework for data analysis in quantitative sociology, bypassing the statistics associated with experimental methods. Specifically, it explores generalizations of the method and quantitative theory used by physical surveyors, generalizing them to the needs of observational data. Application of this framework to text, including editorials and free answers to questionnaires as well as application to (social) survey data, supports their its for these purposes and the cartographic methods suggest that micro theories embedded in these methods reduce the load of a priori assumptions "normally" required for both text analysis and survey analysis. The applications suggest a research path applicable to "ordinary" sociological variables, including education, income, occupation, and gender. that shifts the burden of argument away from variance explained criteria and toward an integration of theory and method, guided by principles of parsimony and consistency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper four semirings for solving social networks problems are constructed. The closures of the matrix of a given signed graph over balance and cluster semirings can be used to decide whether the graph is balanced or clusterable. The closure of relational matrix over geodetic semirings contains for every pair of vertices u and v the length and the number of u - v geodesics; and for geosetic semiring the length and the set of vertices on u - v geodesics. The algorithms for computing the geodetic and the geosetic closure matrix are also given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The major achievement of most current qualitative data analysis software systems in social sciences has been the efficient code-and-retrieve abilities. Although such abilities greatly strengthen and assist the handling of qualitative data, they do not address the crucial tasks of theory construction as traditionally understood in qualitative research. Application of knowledge-based systems has been recognised as an important approach to theory construction in qualitative data analysis. This approach heavily depends on a suitable way of knowledge representation. This paper describes a knowledge representation method for representing grounded theory construction, in which a hybrid approach of fuzzy set theory and semantic networks is applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of regular equivalence has advanced over the last 15 years on a number of different fronts. Notation and terminology have developed often making it difficult to obtain a coherent view of the area as a whole. This paper attempts to provide a framework in which to develop and explore the general mathematical theory of regular equivalence and to place a number of the more important results into that framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper deals with the identification and maximum likelihood estimation of systems of linear stochastic differential equations using panel data. So we only have a sample of discrete observations over time of the relevant variables for each individual. A popular approach in the social sciences advocates the estimation of the exact discrete model after a reparameterization with LISREL or similar programs for structural equations models. The exact discrete model corresponds to the continuous time model in the sense that observations at equidistant points in time that are generated by the latter system also satisfy the former. In the LISREL approach the reparameterized discrete time model is estimated first without taking into account the nonlinear mapping from the continuous to the discrete time parameters. In a second step, using the inverse mapping, the fundamental system parameters of the continuous time system in which we are interested, are inferred. However, some severe problems arise with this indirect approach. First, an identification problem may arise in multiple equation systems, since the matrix exponential function defining some of the new parameters is in general not one-to-one, and hence the inverse mapping mentioned above does not exist. Second, usually some sort of approximation of the time paths of the exogenous variables is necessary before the structural parameters of the system can be estimated with discrete data. Two simple approximation methods are discussed. In both approximation methods the resulting new discrete time parameters are connected in a complicated way. So estimating the reparameterized discrete model by OLS without restrictions does not yield maximum likelihood estimates of the desired continuous time parameters as claimed by some authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Dawes (1975) model on commons dilemma (CD) situation and proposes an alternative model which formulates CD. Firstly, it makes clear that Dawes model does not have the characteristics of CD. Secondly, it specifies resource unit condition which models of commons dilemma must satisfy. Thirdly, it presents CD model, which is obtained by setting the condition in Dawes model. And lastly, it examines some nature of the proposed model and find that in CD situation, fine is distributed proportionally to each players property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for a heuristic rather than a fundamental role for mathematics in the social sciences. The a priori argument for insisting on a natural-scientific and mathematical approach to the study of social phenomena is found to rest on an untenable assumption about the powers of standard logic. Further, the requirements of description in the natural sciences are found to conflict irreconcilably with the nature of social interaction and social organization. As an alternative to the natural-science model, it is proposed that the regularities described by mathematical models depend upon and reflect underlying institutional arrangements. Consequently, mathematical models represent the outcomes of basic social processes rather than those processes directly. Nevertheless, it is argued, mathematical models are extremely useful and, indeed, indispensable in attempting to unravel the complexities of social phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]