Manfred Füllsack

• Univ.Prof. Dr.
• University of Graz

Contagions refer to the spread or transmission of diseases, behaviors, beliefs, or emotions. While some contagions easily propagate throughout entire populations, others seem to be more constrained and propagate only within specific parts of the population. This arises not just because of different transmission rates but because of qualitative diff...

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of understanding, forecasting, and avoiding infectious processes, as well as the necessity for understanding the diffusion and acceptance of preventative measures. Simple contagions, like virus transmission, can spread with a single encounter, while complex contagions, such as preventive social m...

Critical transitions describe a phenomenon where a system abruptly shifts from one stable state to an alternative, often detrimental, stable state. Understanding and possibly preventing the occurrence of a critical transition is thus highly relevant to many ecological, sociological, and physical systems. In this context, it has been shown that the...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277347.].

Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Beitrag befasst sich mit der Verteilung von (Berufs) Kompetenzen in der Steiermark. Für die Analyse der sozialen Ungleichheit in einer Region bietet dieser Ansatz eine Möglichkeit potenzielle Risiken und Chancen der Region aufzuzeigen, da anhand der Berufskompetenz-Landschaft Rückschlüsse über mögliche Ungleichheiten...

Methods to forecast critical transitions, i.e. abrupt changes in systems’ equilibrium states have relevance in scientific fields such as ecology, seismology, finance and medicine among others. So far, the bulk of investigations on forecasting methods builds on equation-based modeling methods, which consider system states as aggregates and thus do n...

Critical transitions can be conceptualized as abrupt shifts in the state of a system typically induced by changes in the system’s critical parameter. They have been observed in a variety of systems across many scientific disciplines including physics, ecology, and social science. Because critical transitions are important to such a diverse set of s...

We trained a long-short-term-memory (LSTM)-neural network on time series generated with an agent-based model that was designed to differentiate the drivers of its dynamics into external and internal forces, with the internal ones stemming from neighbourhood interaction considered as ‘social’ influence. The trained LSTM proved capable of predicting...

Studies on the possibility of predicting critical transitions with statistical methods known as early warning signals (EWS) are often conducted on data generated with equation-based models (EBMs). These models base on difference or differential equations, which aggregate a system’s components in a mathematical term and therefore do not allow for a...

Dynamical systems can be subject to critical transitions where a system’s state abruptly shifts from one stable equilibrium to another. To a certain extent such transitions can be predicted with a set of methods known as early warning signals. These methods are often developed and tested on systems simulated with equation-based approaches that focu...

We investigate the possibility to apply a method of calculus analytics developed for predicting critical transitions in complex systems to social systems modelled with agent-based methods (ABMs). We introduce this method on the example of an equation-based modelled system and subsequently test it—to our knowledge for the first time—on ABMs. Our exp...

InPlakolb, SimonthisJäger, GeorgstudyHofer, ChristianweFüllsack, Manfred investigate the different effects of urban and rural mobility behaviour on congestion and emissions. For this we use a mesoscopic hybrid agent-based network traffic model to simulate traffic in a city on a 1:1 scale. The main advantage of the used model is that it does not nee...

Kapeller, Marie L.Jr, GeorgFllsack, ManfredHow people react towards threatening information such as climate change is a non-trivial matter. While people with a high environmental self-identity tend to react approach-motivated by engaging in pro-environmental behaviour, people of low environmental self-identity may exhibit proximal defence behaviour...

We devise an algorithm that can automatically identify entry and exit nodes of an arbitrary traffic network. It is applicable even if the network is of irregular shape, which is the case for many cities. Additionally, the method can calculate the nodes' attractiveness to commuters. This technique is then used to improve a traffic model, so that it...

We devise an algorithm that can automatically identify entry and exit nodes of an arbitrary traffic network. It is applicable even if the network is of irregular shape, which is the case for many cities. Additionally, the method can calculate the nodes' attractiveness to commuters. This technique is then used to improve a traffic model, so that it...

Context: Many AI and machine-learning techniques are primarily focused on past-to-future extrapolations of statistical regularities in large amounts of data. We introduce a method that builds on an in-action sampling of probes from possible futures with preference for those that prove promising for maximizing the perceivable space of possibilities....

We present results of attempts to expand and enhance the predictive power of Early Warning Signals (EWS) for Critical Transitions (Scheffer et al. 2009) through the deployment of a Long-Short-Term-Memory (LSTM) Neural Network on agent-based simulations of a Repeated Public Good Game, which due to positive feedbacks on experience and social entrainm...

Our current labour market is affected by massive changes like digitalization, automation and globalization, which gives rise to completely new forms of generating income. One such innovative idea is crowdworking, where many people (a so-called crowd) work on individual tasks for a firm in a way similar to a self-employed freelancer. This form of oc...

The footprint of tourism through travel is contributing significantly to the accumulation of human-made CO2. Due to different options in transportation, resulting emissions depend strongly on the choices of individuals on how to travel. In Austria, land travel is the main mode of transportation, though air travel has shown a significant increase du...

Abstract In the standard situation of networked populations, link neighbours represent one of the main influences leading to social diffusion of behaviour. When distinct attributes coexist, not only the network structure, but also the distribution of these traits shape the typical neighbourhood of each individual. While assortativity refers to the...

The increasing use of electric vehicles, combined with the trend of higher charging currents, puts a significant strain on the electrical grid. Many solutions to this problem are being discussed, some relying on some form of smart grid, others proposing stricter regulations concerning charging electric vehicles. In this study, a different approach,...

Several authors have pointed out the importance of systems thinking, and have considered both environmental and social aspects (holistic perspective) of sustainability assessment in the past. Sustainability assessment tools which integrate different aspects (e.g., environmental/social aspects) in order to identify negative impacts have already been...

Motorized transport is one of the main contributors to anthropogenic CO 2 emissions, which cause global warming. Other emissions, like nitrogen oxides or carbon monoxide, are detrimental to human health. A prominent way to understand and thus be able to minimize emissions is by using traffic simulations to evaluate different scenarios. In that way,...

Higher education for sustainable development plays a crucial role in the transformation of society towards a more sustainable pathway of development. The new trends in society and technology experienced in the course of the fourth industrial revolution come with challenges, but also provide opportunities. In this paper, we reflect on the conceptual...

Many systems in various scientific fields like medicine, ecology, economics or climate science exhibit so-called critical transitions, through which a system abruptly changes from one state to a different state. Typical examples are epileptic seizures, changes in the climate system or catastrophic shifts in ecosystems. In order to predict imminent...

Scanning a system's dynamics for critical transitions, i.e. sudden shifts from one system state to another, with the methodology of Early Warning Signals has been shown to yield promising results in many scientific fields. So far however, such investigations focus on aggregated system dynamics modeled with equation-based methods. In this paper the...

Background: Understanding traffic is an important challenge in different scientific fields. While there are many approaches to constructing traffic models, most of them rely on origin–destination data and have difficulties when phenomena should be investigated that have an effect on the origin–destination matrix. Methods: A macroscopic traffic mo...

The number of publications in the field of sustainability research has increased rapidly in recent decades and the research topics have multiplied dramatically. It has become difficult to keep track of this highly dynamic field of research. In order to explore the possibilities of computer-aided automated text and meaning capture for the field of s...

CO2 emissions caused by private motorized traffic for the city of Graz, a typical European inland city with about 320 000 citizens, are investigated. The main methodology is a newly developed agent-based model that incorporates empirical data about the mobility behavior of the citizens in order to calculate the traveled routes, the resulting traffi...

We present a novel network approach, supported by an agent-based simulation using empirical survey results, in order to generate origin-destination data and information about the road usage of a large, urban traffic system. Additionally, we investigate congestion and its effects on road usage due to traffic jam avoidance strategies. The investigate...

Critical transitions of complex systems can often be predicted by so-called early-warning signals (EWS). In some cases, however, such signals cannot be detected although a critical transition is imminent. Observing a relation of EWS-detectability and the network topology in which the system is implemented, we simulate and investigate scale-free net...

Seit einigen Jahren zählt die Umwelttechnikbranche zu den Hoffnungsträgern der österreichischen Wirtschaft. U. a. äußert sich dies in wachsendem Arbeitsmarktinteresse an nachhaltigen Berufen, an sogenannten Green Jobs. Bei Betrachtung entsprechender Darstellungen bleibt freilich oftmals unklar, was diese Green Jobs auszeichnet und wodurch sie sich...

We present a generic method for considering incomplete but gradually expandable sociological data in agent-based modeling based on the classic model of cultural dissemination by Axelrod. Our method extension was inspired by research on the diffusion of citizen photovoltaic initiatives, i.e. by initiatives in which citizens collectively invest in ph...

Mit dem Ziel, einen methodischen Apparat für automatisiertes Monitoring von Arbeitsmarktentwicklungen zu generieren, wurde anhand einer repräsentativen Auswahl von Stellenanzeigen aus 50 Jahren Kleine Zeitung der Versuch unternommen, beschäftigungsspezifische Entwicklungen, wie sie aktuell vom so genannten „Task-Based Approach“ (TBA) im Kontext der...

Our goals were to identify the development of relevant core topics in the Journal of Cleaner Production (JCLP) that appeared during the past twenty years and, furthermore, determine which terms were characteristic for these topics. Through this research, we improved the level of understanding about topics relevant to sustainability and their tempor...

The long-term vision of this work would be the development of a fully automated decision-making system so that only data and desired out-puts need to be provided by the user. However in the real-life business contexts the power of multi-objective optimization for making automated decisions is still largely unexploited. One of the main reasons block...

Problem The inclusion of the observer into scientific observation entails a vicious circle of having to observe the observer as dependent on observation. Second-order science has to clarify how its underlying circularity can be scientifically conceived. Method Essayistic and conceptual analysis, sporadically illustrated with agent-based experiments...

I present reflections on the particularities of second-order science in response to the commentaries on my paper, as well as comments on the limitations of verbal analytical attempts to grasp the implicit circularity of observer-inclusion.

Problem Is constructivism contradicted by the reductionist determinism inherent in digital computation? > Method Review of examples from dynamical systems sciences, agent-based modeling and artificial intelligence. > Results Recent scientific insights seem to give reason to consider constructivism in line with what computation is adding to our know...

The paper considers the relation of Shannon-type information to those semantic and hermeneutic aspects of communication, which are often referred to as meaning. It builds on considerations of Talcott Parsons, Niklas Luhmann and Robert K. Logan and relates them to an agent-based model that reproduces key aspects of the Talking Head experiment by Luc...

Upshot . The differentiation between society being emergent or sui generis seems to correspond to the question of whether the development of interaction, in particular communication, should better be considered bottom-up, top-down or as a sort of circular concurrency of bottom-up and top-down causes. This is reminiscent of the philosophical debate...

Problem: Can communication emerge from the interaction of "self-referentially closed systems," conceived as operating solely on the base of the "internal" output of their onboard means? Or in terms of philosophical conceptions: can communication emerge without ("outward" directed) "intention" or "will to be understood"? > Method: Multi-agent simula...

The paper presents a proposal to allocate income opportunities and time resources among similar qualified workers with the help of an internet and smart-phone application called "Job Sharing Doodle". It builds on the assumption that tools of this kind might reduce transaction costs and therewith help to overcome typical Common Goods dilemmas which...

The paper presents a proposal for allocating jobs and incomes through using an internet auction that is based on the idea of tradable job quotas. Auction participants are enabled to self-organize for a BI. A smart phone application for conducting the auction is presented, and some results of experiments with multi-agent simulations are discussed.

Wer sich für Arbeit als Phänomen interessiert, stolpert schnell über zwei folgenreiche Aspekte: zum einen macht Arbeit Arbeit, und das in stets steigendem Ausmaß. Mit der Vielzahl von Zu- und Nach-Arbeiten, die zu ihrer Durchführung nötig sind — gedacht sei nur etwa an die Organisation, die Administration und Kontrolle der Arbeit, an die Bildung de...

The paper discusses aspects of a project that strives to base an understanding of what economics call "productivity" on a complex-ity theoretic foundation. The core thesis of this project is that productivity can best be grasped by referring to two features com-monly associated with knowledge -"non-reducibility in consumption" and "time pref-erence...

Der Aufsatz unternimmt es, den Vorschlag für eine mathematische Formalisierung der Antizipation in sozialen Systemen vorzustellen, wie ihn Loet Leydesdorff im Anschluss an die Antizipationskonzeption von Daniel Dubois und an die Theorie Sozialer Systeme von Niklas Luhmann entwickelt. Diskutiert wird eine vermutete Differenz zwischen den zugrunde li...

Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Aufsatz betrachtet theoretische Aspekte des Problems von Arbeitsmrkten, hochspezialisierten Arbeitsangeboten hinreichend wahrscheinlich Nachfrage zu vermitteln. Zugrunde liegt dem die Absicht, in Aufmerksamkeit fr epistemologische Bedingungen der Arbei und mit Hilfe eines spezifischen Modells einer „Wissenskonomie“ e...

Eine Vorstellung davon zu haben, welche Art von Arbeit produktiv ist und welche nicht, dient dazu, der Arbeit Sinn zu geben. Diese Vorstellung ermöglicht also gewissermaßen die Arbeit, in dem sie sie als sinnvoll ausweist. 2. Indem Arbeit erfolgreich ermöglicht wird, etabliert sich diese Produktivitätsvorstellung und gibt damit einen Rahmen vor, in...

The paper endeavors to gain a better understanding of the role of the observer in attempts to answer questions like "what is complexity?", "can it be measured?" and "does it increase?". Following Heinz von Foerster and others in considering complexity observer-dependent, conceptions of Spencer-Brown, of Luhmann and of Varela and Maturana are taken...

Der Aufsatz widmet sich der Frage, ob die Luhmannsche Theorie sozialer Systeme tatsächlich in der Lage ist, eine "Soziologisierung" der Wissenschaftstheorie in die Wege zu leiten, wenn sie den von zahlreichen Pragmatisten gegen den Wahrheitsrelativismus ins Spiel gebrachten "performativen Selbstwiderspruch" als infolge von sozialer Differenzierung...