Alea iacta est! Understanding historical dynamics using Monte Carlo simulations” wtih Xavier-Rubio Campillo, researcher at Barcelona Supercomputing Center - @xrubiocampillo

1. 1
Alea Iacta Est!
Understanding historical dynamics using Monte Carlo simulations
Xavier Rubio Campillo
xavier.rubio@bsc.es
@xrubiocampillo
@DataBeersBCN

3. 3
Understanding human culture
Gray, R. D.; Atkinson, Q.D. (2003) "Language-tree divergence times support the
Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin." Nature 426.6965: 435-439

4. What data can we use?

5. A Data Science challenge

6. Pandora's box

7. We can do it!
Evolutionary biologists use data
with similar problems
It's another type of historical
research
We can use some of their tools

8. Siege warfare in XVIIIth century

9. Can we test this hypothesis?
"Vauban reversed the dominance of the trace italienne and
overturned the pattern of long sieges of early centuries"
Ostwald, J. (2007). Vauban under siege. Engineering efficiency and Martial Vigor in the War of the
Spanish Succession, Brill Academic.

10. “Data! Data! Data! I can't make bricks without clay!”

11. 1. Formalise hypotheses
During the period 1702-1714...
H1 – The duration of sieges increased
H2 – The duration of sieges decreased
H3 – The uncertainty of sieges increased
H4 – The uncertainty of sieges decreased

12. 2. Define a model
For each year between 1702-
1714
Sample the number of sieges
For each siege sample its
duration
Add to the mean/variance of
duration some fixed value

13. 3. Define the prior knowledge

14. 4. The dice are cast!
Execute the model with randomly sampled values from your
prior:
run 152112:
mean duration modifier = +1.5
variance duration modifier = -0.3

15. 5. Approximate Bayesian Computation
Execute this algorithm for millions of runs
Store the parameters for the 1k runs with most similar output
to historical data

16. Results

17. Find your posterior

18. Some remarks
Long-term perspectives are needed to understand cultural
change
Data science is a revolution for understanding our past

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20
Moltes gràcies!
Xavier Rubio Campillo
xavier.rubio@bsc.es
@xrubiocampillo