Related papers: Optimal policy design for decision problems under …
We present an introduction to a novel model of an individual and group opinion dynamics, taking into account different ways in which different sources of information are filtered due to cognitive biases. The agent based model, using…
It has been observed people tend to have opinions that are far more internally consistent than it would be reasonable to expect. Here, we study how that observation might emerge from changing how agents trust the opinions of their peers in…
Messages conveyed by media act as a major drive in shaping attitudes and inducing opinion shift. On the other hand, individuals are strongly affected by peer pressure while forming their own judgment. We solve a general model of opinion…
The Friedkin-Johnsen (FJ) model has been extensively explored and validated, spanning applications in social science, systems and control, game theory, and algorithmic research. In this paper, we introduce an advanced generalization of the…
In this note we consider the problem of synthesizing optimal control policies for a system from noisy datasets. We present a novel algorithm that takes as input the available dataset and, based on these inputs, computes an optimal policy…
We investigate a dynamical model of opinion formation in which an individual's opinion is influenced by interactions with a group of other agents. We introduce a bias towards one of the opinions in a manner not considered earlier to the…
The election control problem through social influence asks to find a set of nodes in a social network of voters to be the starters of a political campaign aiming at supporting a given target candidate. Voters reached by the campaign change…
Many classical models of collective behavior assume that emergent dynamics result from external and observable interactions among individuals. However, how collective dynamics in human populations depend on the internal psychological…
We present a model of a forecaster who must predict the future value of a variable that depends on an exogenous state and on the intervention of a policy-maker. We investigate the incentives of the forecaster to acquire costly private…
Collective opinions affect civic participation, governance, and societal norms. Due to the influence of opinion dynamics, many models of their formation and evolution have been developed. A commonly used approach for the study of opinion…
Science is a fundamental human activity and we trust its results because it has several error-correcting mechanisms. Its is subject to experimental tests that are replicated by independent parts. Given the huge amount of information…
In this paper an optimal control problem for a large system of interacting agents is considered using a kinetic perspective. As a prototype model we analyze a microscopic model of opinion formation under constraints. For this problem a…
The analysis of practical probabilistic models on the computer demands a convenient representation for the available knowledge and an efficient algorithm to perform inference. An appealing representation is the influence diagram, a network…
Identifying factors that affect human decision making and quantifying their influence remain essential and challenging tasks for the design and implementation of social and technological communication systems. We report results of a…
Election control considers the problem of an adversary who attempts to tamper with a voting process, in order to either ensure that their favored candidate wins (constructive control) or another candidate loses (destructive control). As…
Understanding how to effectively control an epidemic spreading on a network is a problem of paramount importance for the scientific community. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for policies that mitigate the spread,…
Recent technological changes have increased connectivity between individuals around the world leading to higher frequency interactions between members of communities that would be otherwise distant and disconnected. This paper examines a…
This paper studies the problem of optimally allocating treatments in the presence of spillover effects, using information from a (quasi-)experiment. I introduce a method that maximizes the sample analog of average social welfare when…
Under certain circumstances such as lack of information or bounded rationality, human players can take decisions on which strategy to choose in a game on the basis of simple opinions. These opinions can be modified after each round by…
In this paper, I study optimizing the opinion formation of a social network of a population of individuals on a graph whose opinion evolves according to the Hegselmann-Krause model for opinion dynamics. I propose an optimization problem…