@article{MontefuscoHelfmannOkunolaetal., author = {Montefusco, Alberto and Helfmann, Luzie and Okunola, Toluwani and Winkelmann, Stefanie and Sch{\"u}tte, Christof}, title = {Partial mean-field model for neurotransmission dynamics}, series = {Mathematical Biosciences}, volume = {369}, journal = {Mathematical Biosciences}, doi = {10.1016/j.mbs.2024.109143}, abstract = {This article addresses reaction networks in which spatial and stochastic effects are of crucial importance. For such systems, particle-based models allow us to describe all microscopic details with high accuracy. However, they suffer from computational inefficiency if particle numbers and density get too large. Alternative coarse-grained-resolution models reduce computational effort tremendously, e.g., by replacing the particle distribution by a continuous concentration field governed by reaction-diffusion PDEs. We demonstrate how models on the different resolution levels can be combined into hybrid models that seamlessly combine the best of both worlds, describing molecular species with large copy numbers by macroscopic equations with spatial resolution while keeping the stochastic-spatial particle-based resolution level for the species with low copy numbers. To this end, we introduce a simple particle-based model for the binding dynamics of ions and vesicles at the heart of the neurotransmission process. Within this framework, we derive a novel hybrid model and present results from numerical experiments which demonstrate that the hybrid model allows for an accurate approximation of the full particle-based model in realistic scenarios.}, language = {en} } @article{BeronVeraOlascoagaHelfmannetal., author = {Beron-Vera, Francisco Javier and Olascoaga, Maria Josefina and Helfmann, Luzie and Miron, Philippe}, title = {Sampling-Dependent Transition Paths of Iceland-Scotland Overflow Water}, series = {Journal of Physical Oceanography}, volume = {53}, journal = {Journal of Physical Oceanography}, number = {4}, doi = {10.1175/JPO-D-22-0172.1}, pages = {1151 -- 1160}, abstract = {In this note, we apply Transition Path Theory (TPT) from Markov chains to shed light on the problem of Iceland-Scotland Overflow Water (ISOW) equatorward export. A recent analysis of observed trajectories of submerged floats demanded revision of the traditional abyssal circulation theory, which postulates that ISOW should steadily flow along a deep boundary current (DBC) around the subpolar North Atlantic prior to exiting it. The TPT analyses carried out here allow to focus the attention on the portions of flow from the origin of ISOW to the region where ISOW exits the subpolar North Atlantic and suggest that insufficient sampling may be biasing the aforementioned demand. The analyses, appropriately adapted to represent a continuous input of ISOW, are carried out on three time-homogeneous Markov chains modeling the ISOW flow. One is constructed using a high number of simulated trajectories homogeneously covering the flow domain. The other two use much fewer trajectories which heterogeneously cover the domain. The trajectories in the latter two chains are observed trajectories or simulated trajectories subsampled at the observed frequency. While the densely sampled chain supports a well-defined DBC, the more heterogeneously sampled chains do not, irrespective of whether observed or simulated trajectories are used. Studying the sampling sensitivity of the Markov chains, we can give recommendations for enlarging the existing float dataset to improve the significance of conclusions about time-asymptotic aspects of the ISOW circulation.}, language = {en} } @article{HelfmannConradLorenzSpreenetal., author = {Helfmann, Luzie and Conrad, Natasa Djurdjevac and Lorenz-Spreen, Philipp and Sch{\"u}tte, Christof}, title = {Modelling opinion dynamics under the impact of influencer and media strategies}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {13}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-023-46187-9}, pages = {19375}, abstract = {Digital communication has made the public discourse considerably more complex, and new actors and strategies have emerged as a result of this seismic shift. Aside from the often-studied interactions among individuals during opinion formation, which have been facilitated on a large scale by social media platforms, the changing role of traditional media and the emerging role of "influencers" are not well understood, and the implications of their engagement strategies arising from the incentive structure of the attention economy even less so. Here we propose a novel opinion dynamics model that accounts for these different roles, namely that media and influencers change their own positions on slower time scales than individuals, while influencers dynamically gain and lose followers. Numerical simulations show the importance of their relative influence in creating qualitatively different opinion formation dynamics: with influencers, fragmented but short-lived clusters emerge, which are then counteracted by more stable media positions. Mean-field approximations by partial differential equations reproduce this dynamic. Based on the mean-field model, we study how strategies of influencers to gain more followers can influence the overall opinion distribution. We show that moving towards extreme positions can be a beneficial strategy for influencers to gain followers. Finally, we demonstrate that optimal control strategies allow other influencers or media to counteract such attempts and prevent further fragmentation of the opinion landscape. Our modelling framework contributes to better understanding the different roles and strategies in the increasingly complex information ecosystem and their impact on public opinion formation.}, language = {en} } @misc{HelfmannDjurdjevacConradLorenzSpreenetal., author = {Helfmann, Luzie and Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa and Lorenz-Spreen, Philipp and Sch{\"u}tte, Christof}, title = {Supplementary code for the paper Modelling opinion dynamics under the impact of influencer and media strategies}, doi = {10.12752/9267}, abstract = {This repository contains the Julia code accompanying the paper "Modelling opinion dynamics under the impact of influencer and media strategies", Scientific Reports, Vol.13, p. 19375, 2023.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Helfmann, author = {Helfmann, Luzie}, title = {Non-stationary Transition Path Theory with applications to tipping and agent-based models}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-35374}, abstract = {The interesting dynamical regimes in agent-based models (ABMs) of social dynamics are the transient dynamics leading to metastable or absorbing states, and the transition paths between metastable states possibly caused by external influences. In this thesis, we are particularly interested in the pathways of rare and critical transitions such as the tipping of the public opinion in a population or the forming of social movements. For a detailed quantitative analysis of these transition paths, we consider the agent-based models as Markov chains and employ Transition Path Theory. Since ABMs are usually not considered in stationarity and possibly even forced, we generalize Transition Path Theory to time-dependent dynamics, for example on finite-time intervals or with periodically varying transition probabilities. We also specifically consider the case of dynamics with absorbing states and show how the transitions prior to absorption can be studied. These generalizations can also be useful in other application domains such as for studying tipping in climate models or transitions in molecular models with external stimuli. Another obstacle when analysing the dynamics of agent-based models is the large number of agents resulting in a high-dimensional state space for the model. However, the emergent dynamics of the ABM usually has significantly fewer degrees of freedom and many symmetries enabling a model reduction. On the example of two stationary ABMs we demonstrate how a long model simulation can be employed to find a lower-dimensional parametrization of the state space using a manifold learning algorithm called Diffusion Maps. In the considered models, agents adapt their binary behaviour to the local neighbourhood. When the interaction network consists of several densely connected communities, the dynamics result in a largely coherent behaviour in each community. The low-dimensional structure of the state space is therefore a hypercube. The corners represent metastable states with coherent agent behaviour in each group and the edges correspond to transition paths where agents in a community change their behaviour through a chain reaction. Finally, we can apply Transition Path Theory to the effective dynamics in the reduced space to reveal, for example, the dominant transition paths or the agents that are most indicative of an impending tipping event.}, language = {en} } @article{MironBeronVeraHelfmannetal., author = {Miron, Philippe and Beron-Vera, Francisco and Helfmann, Luzie and Koltai, P{\´e}ter}, title = {Transition paths of marine debris and the stability of the garbage patches}, series = {Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science}, volume = {31}, journal = {Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science}, number = {3}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0030535}, abstract = {We used transition path theory (TPT) to infer "reactive" pathways of floating marine debris trajectories. The TPT analysis was applied on a pollution-aware time-homogeneous Markov chain model constructed from trajectories produced by satellite-tracked undrogued buoys from the NOAA Global Drifter Program. The latter involved coping with the openness of the system in physical space, which further required an adaptation of the standard TPT setting. Directly connecting pollution sources along coastlines with garbage patches of varied strengths, the unveiled reactive pollution routes represent alternative targets for ocean cleanup efforts. Among our specific findings we highlight: constraining a highly probable pollution source for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch; characterizing the weakness of the Indian Ocean gyre as a trap for plastic waste; and unveiling a tendency of the subtropical gyres to export garbage toward the coastlines rather than to other gyres in the event of anomalously intense winds.}, language = {en} } @article{HelfmannDjurdjevacConradDjurdjevacetal., author = {Helfmann, Luzie and Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa and Djurdjevac, Ana and Winkelmann, Stefanie and Sch{\"u}tte, Christof}, title = {From interacting agents to density-based modeling with stochastic PDEs}, series = {Communications in Applied Mathematics and Computational Science}, volume = {16}, journal = {Communications in Applied Mathematics and Computational Science}, number = {1}, doi = {10.2140/camcos.2021.16.1}, pages = {1 -- 32}, abstract = {Many real-world processes can naturally be modeled as systems of interacting agents. However, the long-term simulation of such agent-based models is often intractable when the system becomes too large. In this paper, starting from a stochastic spatio-temporal agent-based model (ABM), we present a reduced model in terms of stochastic PDEs that describes the evolution of agent number densities for large populations. We discuss the algorithmic details of both approaches; regarding the SPDE model, we apply Finite Element discretization in space which not only ensures efficient simulation but also serves as a regularization of the SPDE. Illustrative examples for the spreading of an innovation among agents are given and used for comparing ABM and SPDE models.}, language = {en} } @article{HelfmannHeitzigKoltaietal., author = {Helfmann, Luzie and Heitzig, Jobst and Koltai, P{\´e}ter and Kurths, J{\"u}rgen and Sch{\"u}tte, Christof}, title = {Statistical analysis of tipping pathways in agent-based models}, series = {Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top.}, volume = {230}, journal = {Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top.}, doi = {10.1140/epjs/s11734-021-00191-0}, pages = {3249 -- 3271}, abstract = {Agent-based models are a natural choice for modeling complex social systems. In such models simple stochastic interaction rules for a large population of individuals on the microscopic scale can lead to emergent dynamics on the macroscopic scale, for instance a sudden shift of majority opinion or behavior. Here we are introducing a methodology for studying noise-induced tipping between relevant subsets of the agent state space representing characteristic configurations. Due to a large number of interacting individuals, agent-based models are high-dimensional, though usually a lower-dimensional structure of the emerging collective behaviour exists. We therefore apply Diffusion Maps, a non-linear dimension reduction technique, to reveal the intrinsic low-dimensional structure. We characterize the tipping behaviour by means of Transition Path Theory, which helps gaining a statistical understanding of the tipping paths such as their distribution, flux and rate. By systematically studying two agent-based models that exhibit a multitude of tipping pathways and cascading effects, we illustrate the practicability of our approach.}, language = {en} } @misc{SikorskiSechiHelfmann, author = {Sikorski, Alexander and Sechi, Renata and Helfmann, Luzie}, title = {cmdtools}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4749331}, abstract = {Python implementation of severals tools (PCCA, AJC, SQRA, P/Q estimation) for the analysis of dynamical systems from the transfer operator perspective.}, language = {en} } @article{BeckerDjurdjevacConradEseretal., author = {Becker, Fabian and Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa and Eser, Raphael A. and Helfmann, Luzie and Sch{\"u}tt, Brigitta and Sch{\"u}tte, Christof and Zonker, Johannes}, title = {The Furnace and the Goat—A spatio-temporal model of the fuelwood requirement for iron metallurgy on Elba Island, 4th century BCE to 2nd century CE}, series = {PLOS ONE}, volume = {15}, journal = {PLOS ONE}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0241133}, pages = {1 -- 37}, language = {en} } @article{HelfmannRiberaBorrellSchuetteetal., author = {Helfmann, Luzie and Ribera Borrell, Enric and Sch{\"u}tte, Christof and Koltai, Peter}, title = {Extending Transition Path Theory: Periodically Driven and Finite-Time Dynamics}, series = {Journal of Nonlinear Science}, volume = {30}, journal = {Journal of Nonlinear Science}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s00332-020-09652-7}, pages = {3321 -- 3366}, language = {en} } @misc{HelfmannDjurdjevacConradDjurdjevacetal., author = {Helfmann, Luzie and Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa and Djurdjevac, Ana and Winkelmann, Stefanie and Sch{\"u}tte, Christof}, title = {From interacting agents to density-based modeling with stochastic PDEs}, issn = {1438-0064}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-73456}, abstract = {Many real-world processes can naturally be modeled as systems of interacting agents. However, the long-term simulation of such agent-based models is often intractable when the system becomes too large. In this paper, starting from a stochastic spatio-temporal agent-based model (ABM), we present a reduced model in terms of stochastic PDEs that describes the evolution of agent number densities for large populations. We discuss the algorithmic details of both approaches; regarding the SPDE model, we apply Finite Element discretization in space which not only ensures efficient simulation but also serves as a regularization of the SPDE. Illustrative examples for the spreading of an innovation among agents are given and used for comparing ABM and SPDE models.}, language = {en} } @article{DjurdjevacConradHelfmannZonkeretal., author = {Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa and Helfmann, Luzie and Zonker, Johannes and Winkelmann, Stefanie and Sch{\"u}tte, Christof}, title = {Human mobility and innovation spreading in ancient times: a stochastic agent-based simulation approach}, series = {EPJ Data Science}, volume = {7}, journal = {EPJ Data Science}, number = {1}, edition = {EPJ Data Science}, publisher = {EPJ Data Science}, doi = {10.1140/epjds/s13688-018-0153-9}, pages = {24}, abstract = {Human mobility always had a great influence on the spreading of cultural, social and technological ideas. Developing realistic models that allow for a better understanding, prediction and control of such coupled processes has gained a lot of attention in recent years. However, the modeling of spreading processes that happened in ancient times faces the additional challenge that available knowledge and data is often limited and sparse. In this paper, we present a new agent-based model for the spreading of innovations in the ancient world that is governed by human movements. Our model considers the diffusion of innovations on a spatial network that is changing in time, as the agents are changing their positions. Additionally, we propose a novel stochastic simulation approach to produce spatio-temporal realizations of the spreading process that are instructive for studying its dynamical properties and exploring how different influences affect its speed and spatial evolution.}, language = {en} } @misc{Helfmann2019, type = {Master Thesis}, author = {Helfmann, Luzie}, title = {Stochastic Modeling of Interacting Agent Systems}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-71887}, pages = {68}, year = {2019}, language = {en} } @article{DjurdjevacConradFuerstenauGrabundzijaetal., author = {Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa and Fuerstenau, Daniel and Grabundzija, Ana and Helfmann, Luzie and Park, Martin and Schier, Wolfram and Sch{\"u}tt, Brigitta and Sch{\"u}tte, Christof and Weber, Marcus and Wulkow, Niklas and Zonker, Johannes}, title = {Mathematical modeling of the spreading of innovations in the ancient world}, series = {eTopoi. Journal for Ancient Studies}, volume = {7}, journal = {eTopoi. Journal for Ancient Studies}, issn = {ISSN 2192-2608}, doi = {10.17171/4-7-1}, language = {en} }