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Agent-based Computational Social Science in China ： Its Present State and Future Prospects

Agent-based Computational Social Science in China ： Its Present State and Future Prospects Wei ZHANG, Ziqaing WU & Yongjie ZHANG College of Management & Economics Tianjin University, China 2012-11-3. Outline. Introduction Data sets Overview of the literature

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Agent-based Computational Social Science in China ： Its Present State and Future Prospects

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  1. Agent-based Computational Social Science in China： Its Present State and Future Prospects Wei ZHANG, Ziqaing WU & Yongjie ZHANG College of Management & Economics Tianjin University, China 2012-11-3

  2. Outline Introduction Data sets Overview of the literature Major players in the field Funding vs. publication Fields distribution of ACSS The important references Conclusions

  3. Paper downloads from Springer during weekdays and weekends (Journal of Informetrics, 2012) Who is more hardworking? What it is behind?

  4. Outline Introduction Data sets Overview of the literature Major players in the field Funding vs. publication Fields distribution of ACSS The important references Conclusions

  5. Introduction Terminology Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) is the computational study of economies modeled as evolving systems of autonomous interacting agents (Tesftsion & Judd, 2006) Along this line, we just use the similar term ACSS to denote the computational study concerned with society and human behaviors, which are modeled as evolving systems of autonomous interacting agents

  6. Introduction Culture impacts People tend to think of, especially social, issues in a more complex way, including tons of intertwined factors More “flexible”, more believe in “negotiable” Policy-makers like to see the procedure, to be involved, instead of being given an abstract math model Comparatively, not much overwhelming “mainstream” works adopting the traditional methodology in doing research in these fields

  7. Introduction So, as an emerging field, ACSS grows quickly in China in the last decade Milestones 1998 first paper by Chinese scholar(s), in Chinese 1999 first ACSS project funded by NSFC 2001 first paper in English 2010 NSFC’s well-known ShuangqingForum (5oth ) selected ACSS as theme 2011 MoE & NSFC put ACSS as one of the “Priority Areas of the Fields” in their 12thFive Year Plans, respectively

  8. Outline Introduction Data sets Overview of the literature Major players (journals, institutes and Funding vs. publication Fields distribution of ACSS The key references as the foundation of research Conclusions

  9. Data Sets Databases selected and time horizon SCI------- 1997 - 2012.7 SSCI----- 1997 - 2012.7 CSCD （in Chinese）----1997 - 2012.4 CSSCI（in Chinese）----1998 – 2011.12

  10. Search Strategy SCI & SSCI Key words: “Agent-based” AND “Multi-agent Simulation” Authors’ Affiliation with: “P. R. China” CSCD & CSSCI: Key Words 基于agent 基于多agent 基于主体 基于多主体 计算实验 Type of literature: Article AND Review

  11. Areas Searched in SCI COMPUTER SCIENCE ENGINEERING AUTOMATION CONTROL SYSTEMS OPERATIONS RESEARCH MANAGEMENT SCIENCE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY BUSINESS ECONOMICS PHYSICS ENERGY FUELS ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES ECOLOGY EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH INFORMATION SCIENCE LIBRARY SCIENCE

  12. Areas Searched in CSCD 自动化技术、计算机技术(automation, computer technology) 工业经济(industrial economics) 自然科学总论(natural science/general) 货币/金融、银行/保险(monetary, banking, finance, insurance) 经济学（除会计）(economics) 图书馆学，情报学(library, information intelligence) 农业基础科学(agriculture science) 贸易经济(domestic and international trade) 综合性人文科学(humanities/interdisciplinary) 综合性经济科学(economic science/interdisciplinary) 农业经济(agricultural economics) 文化事业/信息与知识传播（除图书馆学和档案学）(culture/information and knowledge) 教育(education)

  13. Primary Search Result

  14. Further Screening Among the primary search result, we made a further selection by excluding the papers: Published by scholars from HK or Macao Not really using Agent-based approach Not related to Social Science at all Approach Proof-reading by two doctoral students, plus one faculty member Followed by group discussion to finalize

  15. Final Search Result

  16. Outline Introduction Data sets Overview of the literature Major players in the field Funding vs. publication Fields distribution of ACSS The important references Conclusions

  17. Overview of the literature Totally 259 papers published in last 15 years, with a significant trend of growth 576 accumulated authors from 172 institutes made contributions to this publication The first authors of the papers are from 86 institutes Out of these 259 papers, 137 are published on 72 Chinese Journals 122 papers were published on 76 international journals

  18. Growth of the Publication Total Counts: both on INTL & CHN journals

  19. Growth of the Publication Chinese Counts: INTL or CHN journals

  20. Growth of the Publication Scholars Worldwide, Source: SSCI database 1997-2008 (Chen Shuheng, 2011) Chinese Scholars, Source: SCI & SSCI database 1997-2012

  21. Overview of the Citation • To estimate the citation of a paper from the 137 ones in Chinese, we can employed either the following two standards (A or B): • A: The number from CNKI (a Chinese counterpart of “Google Scholar” in this regard), plus Google Scholar • B: The number from union set of CSCD and CSSCI, which are counterparts of SCI and SSCI respectively • To estimate the citation of a paper from the 122 ones in English, we employed the following two standards (A or B): • A: The sum of the numbers from Google Scholar and CNKI • B: The number from SCI and SSCI

  22. Overview of the Citation • For the 137 papers in Chinese • By Standard A（CNKI +Google Scholar，2012/8/15） • Total citation: 1255; Avg. citation per paper: 9.16 • By Standard B（ CSCD AND CSSCI，2012/8/15） • N/A, due to the error in CSCD • For the 122 papers in English • By Standard A（Google Scholar+CNKI，2012/8/15） • Total citation: 1124; Avg. citation per paper: 9.21 • By Standard B（SCI OR SSCI，2012/8/14） • Total citation: 508; Avg. citation per paper: 4.16 22

  23. The citation: yearly breakdown Source: SCI or SSCI, as on 2012-8-14; CNKI & Google, as on 2012-8-15

  24. The citation: yearly breakdown Source: SCI or SSCI, as on 2012-8-14

  25. The citation: An comparison A: Intl jounarl papers by CHN scholars, Source: SSCI/SCI 2012-8-14 B: Intl journal papers by INTL scholars, Source: SSCI, (Chen, 2011)

  26. Outline Introduction Data sets Overview of the literature Major players in the field Funding vs. publication Fields distribution of ACSS The important references Conclusions

  27. Affiliated Institutes Distribution Data: papers published on Chinese and international journals, counted by accumulated authors

  28. Affiliated Institutes Distribution Papers published

  29. Active Institutes

  30. Distribution of Journals (1997-2012) 76 International journals 72 Chinese journals 148 in total Number of papers published

  31. Distribution of Journals (1997-2012) To study which journals are playing the most important role in the contribution of literature, the so-called Bradford’s Law applies According to the law，if the journals are sorted by the number of articles published on each journal and then divided into three catalogues Each catalogue will contain roughly one third of the total number of the articles Then the journal numbers in the three catalogues should follow the ratioof 1:n:n2

  32. Distribution of Journals (1997-2012)

  33. “Top Journals”

  34. Author Productivity To analyze individual author’s contribution to the literature, Lotka’s Law (Lotka, 1926) is used It generally describes the scientific productivity of authors, relating the number of authors with the number of their publications The law says that yx, the number of authors who published x papers, is proportion to the reciprocal of x2, or in general, xn. That is: yx= C/ xn Where C is a field-featured constant, denoting the average number of publication per author in a given field

  35. Distribution of author productivity

  36. Distribution of author productivity • Based on the data above, it is estimated that: • yx= 0.7308/ x2.43 • However, when applying K-S test to measure the fitness of our data to this generalized Lotka’s Law, it failed a bit, since the max deviation of the data, Dmax of 0.0854, exceeded the statistic hurdle of 0.0679 • (See the following calculation)

  37. Distribution of author productivity

  38. Distribution of author productivity • Even though, we can still compare this result with Chen’s (2011) international scholars’ works • Our result: yx= 0.7308/ x2.43 • Chen’s: yx= 0.8573/ x3.2 • Meaning that CHN scholars’ productivity is a bit lower, and the number of authors who published more papers shrinks somewhat slower too.

  39. Relatively Active Authors * Note: Sortedby international publications

  40. Outline Introduction Data sets Overview of the literature Major players (journals, institutes and authors) Funding vs. publication Fields distribution of ACSS The key references as the foundation of research Conclusions

  41. Research Funding • Funding, one way or another, is one of the important resource for doing research • Comparing with that in developed economies, the research funding mechanism in China is quite different • Almost of all research funding is from outside resources, based on intense competition among scholars • So, it is possible that there exists some relation between the outside funding and publication

  42. Research Funding • Scientific papers are the outcome of basic research • Therefore, the funding for this kind of research is chosen to study • In China, NSFC is a major funding agency to support fundamental studies in, among others, social science, and keep nice data records

  43. Data set • Time horizon: 1997-2011 • Scope • Key words for searching: agent/主体/计算实验/仿真实证/基于智能体/微观模拟 • Project code: with “G” heading， meaning that it is from the department mostly related to “Social Science” • Selected catalogues: General Project, Junior Scientist Project, Regional Special Project, Key Project, Major Project, Big Research Plan

  44. Plotting of the Projects Papers (259) Projects Funded project

  45. Funding and publication • We can not do any rigorous study with such a small data set, but from the observation it is clear that: • The trend of growth during this period is evidenced. The average annual increase rate is about 33%, twice as much as the 16% department-wide growth rate • There does exist a strong correlation (ρ=0.945145) between the funding and publication • Out of the 259 papers, 209(80.7%) are labeled with 225 NSFC funded projects

  46. Funding and publication Initiative period Getting attentions Being recognized Correlation Coefficient = 0.945145

  47. Funding and publication Papers Funds

  48. Outline Introduction Data sets Overview of the literature Major players in the field Funding vs. publication Fields distribution of ACSS The important references Conclusions

  49. Field classification Since we used four data bases, the catalogues from each are not labeled in same way, though there are similarity among them By and large, the classification from SSCI is selected as a benchmark The papers from SCI, CSCD or CSSCI are sorted to the corresponding SSCI catalogues, if any, by direct translation, or Classified with two people’s proof-reading followed by group discussion

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