ABSTRACT The rapid evolution and current ubiquity of social media as a form of communication calls for a revision of many models of collective behaviour. In this paper, we modify a classic agent-based model of civil violence by Epstein (2002) consisting of citizen and law-enforcement agents by integrating a Watts-Strogatz small-world network (SWN). The SWN simulates non-local connections between citizens, enabling influence by both local and distant neighbours and providing an analogue to social media. The objective was to examine the influence of non-local connections on civil violence dynamics for varied law-enforcement concentration and network density. For lower law-enforcement concentrations, the SWN influence leads to more frequent large-scale violent outbursts, while for higher law-enforcement concentrations, outcomes depended most strongly on the number of local neighbours. The long-range coupling across the lattice due to the SWN provides a new mechanism for non-trivial dynamics and leads to a synchronisation effect.

中文翻译：

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在基于代理的民事暴力模型中的小世界网络和同步

摘要社交媒体作为一种交流形式的迅速发展和当前的普及，要求修订许多集体行为模型。在本文中，我们通过整合Watts-Strogatz小世界网络（SWN），修改了由爱泼斯坦（Epstein，2002）的经典的基于代理人的民事暴力模型，该模型由公民和执法人员组成。SWN模拟公民之间的非本地联系，从而能够受到本地和远方邻居的影响，并为社交媒体提供类似物。目的是研究在不同的执法集中度和网络密度下，非本地联系对民事暴力动态的影响。对于较低的执法集中度，SWN影响会导致更频繁的大规模暴力爆发，而对于较高的执法集中度，结局很大程度上取决于当地邻居的数量。由于SWN，跨晶格的远程耦合为非平凡的动力学提供了新的机制，并导致了同步效果。