Title: The discovery of history using inverse simulation

Authors: Setsuya Kurahashi

Addresses: Graduate School of Business Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan

Abstract: We analysed a particular family line, which had so many successful candidates, who passed the very tough examinations of Chinese government officials over 500 years. We investigate what would have happened in a Chinese historical family line. First, we studied the genealogical records Zokufu in China. Second, based on the study, we implemented an agent-based model with the family line network as an adjacency matrix, the personal profile data as an attribution matrix. Third, using |inverse simulation| technique, we optimised the agent-based model in order to fit the simulation profiles to the real profile data. From the intensive experiments, we have found that both grandfather and mother have a profound impact within a family to transmit cultural capital to children and maintain the system of the norm, system of the family. We conclude that new agent-based models are able to contribute to discover knowledge in the fields of historical sciences.

Keywords: multi-agent simulation; agent-based modelling; inverse simulation; genetic algorithms; GAs; history simulation; multi-agent systems; MAS; agent-based systems; family trees; cultural capital; historical research.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2009.026598

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2009 Vol.35 No.2/3/4, pp.210 - 218

Published online: 20 Jun 2009 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article