arXiv subjects

Andrew K. Ringsmuth

Publications and source records attributed to Andrew K. Ringsmuth.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Guided rewiring of social networks reduces polarization and accelerates collective action

Global social and ecological challenges represent collective action problems requiring rapid and sufficient cooperation with pro-mitigation norms. Sociopolitical polarization hinders such cooperation. Prior agent-based models showed polarization emerges naturally in structured social networks and polarized cluster dissolution rate limits consensus formation rate. Here we study how guided link rewiring affects depolarization dynamics across synthetic and empirical (Facebook, Twitter) network topologies. We compare heuristic rewiring algorithms representing random meetings, mutual acquaintance introductions, and community bridging, alongside topology-based link recommender algorithms (Who to Follow and node2vec). Our heuristic algorithms all outperform Who to Follow in generating cooperative consensus. Homophilic rewiring generates cooperative consensus when agents can easily change opinions. However, heterophilic rewiring achieves this over broader conditions and can accelerate cooperative consensus formation by ~20%, including where up to 33% of the population experiences backfiring interactions. Heterophilic rewiring also vastly outperforms topology-based recommender algorithms. Random rewiring performed consistently well, achieving higher steady-state cooperation than seven out of eight more complex algorithms. Large disparities in steady-state cooperation for topology-based recommender systems highlight their volatility across network structures. Overall, our work reveals a subtle interplay between topology, rewiring algorithm and social depolarization, suggesting strong potential for carefully redesigning social networking technologies for social good.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2021

Dynamics of collective action to conserve a large common-pool resource

A pressing challenge for coming decades is sustainable and just management of large-scale common-pool resources including the atmosphere, biodiversity and public services. This poses a difficult collective action problem because such resources may not show signs that usage restraint is needed until tragedy is almost inevitable. To solve this problem, a sufficient level of cooperation with a pro-conservation behavioural norm must be achieved, within the prevailing sociopolitical environment, in time for the action taken to be effective. Here we investigate the transient dynamics of behavioural change in an agent-based model on structured networks that are also exposed to a global external influence. We find that polarisation emerges naturally, even without bounded confidence, but that for rationally motivated agents, it is temporary. The speed of convergence to a final consensus is controlled by the rate at which the polarised clusters are dissolved. This depends strongly on the combination of external influences and the network topology. Both high connectivity and a favourable environment are needed to rapidly obtain final consensus.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2019

Cross-scale cooperation enables sustainable use of a common-pool resource

In social-ecological systems (SESs), social and biophysical dynamics interact within and between structural levels separated by spatial and temporal scales. Cross-scale interactions (CSIs) are interdependences between processes at different scales, generating behaviour unpredictable at single scales. Understanding CSIs is important for improving SES governance but they remain understudied. Theoretical models are needed, which capture essential features while being simple enough to yield insights into mechanisms. In a stylised model, we study CSIs in a two-level system of weakly interacting communities harvesting a common-pool resource. Community members adaptively conform to, or defect from, a norm of socially optimal harvesting, enforced through social sanctioning both within and between communities. Each subsystem's dynamics depend sensitively on the other despite interactions being much weaker between subsystems than within them. When interaction is purely biophysical, stably high cooperation in one community can cause cooperation in the other to collapse. However, even weak social interaction can prevent collapse of cooperation and instead cause collapse of defection. We identify conditions under which subsystem-level cooperation produces desirable system-level outcomes. Our findings expand evidence that collaboration is important for sustainably managing shared resources, showing its importance even when resource sharing and social relationships are weak.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2014

Multiscale Analysis and Optimisation of Photosynthetic Solar Energy Systems

This work asks how light harvesting in photosynthetic systems can be optimised for economically scalable, sustainable energy production. Hierarchy theory is introduced as a system-analysis and optimisation tool better able to handle multiscale, multiprocess complexities in photosynthetic energetics compared with standard linear-process analysis. Within this framework, new insights are given into relationships between composition, structure and energetics at the scale of the thylakoid membrane, and also into how components at different scales cooperate under functional objectives of the whole photosynthetic system. Combining these reductionistic and holistic analyses creates a platform for modelling multiscale-optimal, idealised photosynthetic systems in silico.

physics.bio-ph↗