Conference Theme: Economics in the Era of Natural Computationalism and Big Data: A Conference in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the “Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata” (by John von Neumann)

Venue: Hilton Garden Inn Durham Southpoint, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Date: Nov 11-13, 2016
URL: http://www.aiecon.org/conference/dfc2016/

Keynote Speakers

Robert Axtell, George Mason University
Bruce Caldwell, Duke University
Claudio Cioffi-Revilla, George Mason University
John Davis, Marquette University
John Duffy, University of California, Irvine
Norman Greenburg, West Michigan University
Huan Liu, Arizona State University
Barkley Rosser, James Madison University
John Staddon, Duke University
Leigh Tesfatsion, Iowa State University

Since publication of his magnum opus, The Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, von Neumann's influence over the entire scientific world in terms of computing and computation has been monumental for more than half a century. This includes economics. In addition to von Neumann’s ideas dominating the development of computing machines during the last half a century, his attempt to develop a general theory of automata has also motivated and facilitated active interdisciplinary conversations among sciences, social sciences, computer sciences, and recently, humanities. The latter phenomenon is known as natural computationalism.

In year 2002, through Philip Mirowski’s Machine Dreams, von Neumann’s influence on the theory of automata became better known to economists. Twelve years after Machine Dreams, two MIT Sloan School economists, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee published The Second Machine Age (the second industrial revolution). The digital society has been understood as an outcome as well as a process of the second industrial revolution. It is frequently characterized by its production of big data. However, big data is no longer just about data. The fact that now users can supply their own contents, which is the essential idea of Web 2.0, has fundamentally changed what we know as “data”, the pooling and use of data, and what we understand as “knowledge”. The trend that big data is accepted as a standard type of data in economics and social sciences has made social sciences naturally more computational and, in a sense, more behavioral.

The theme of Duke Forest Conference 2016 is Economics in the Era of Natural Computationalism and Big Data. Within the ambient of the forest of data, the conference aims to discover the answer for the following questions. First, how economics, specifically behavioral and computational economics, can help data analytics in mining information and knowledge from big data; second, how big-data phenomena can present economists challenging research questions, new research opportunities, and methodological innovations. For the latter, we further ask how computer simulation, laboratory experiments, field study, questionnaires may evolve or co-evolve with the presence of big data.

With the above core issues, studies in each of the aforementioned fields, but not limited to, empirical economics, behavioral economics, experimental economics, on-line gaming experiments, neuroeconomics, computational economics, agent-based simulation, econometrics, history of economics, data science, and other related disciplines, such as artificial intelligence, psychology, cognitive sciences, digital physics, computational social sciences, and digital humanities are also welcome.

Important Dates:

July 1, 2016, Abstract and 3-page extended abstract submission deadline
August 15, 2016, Notification of decisions on submitted abstracts due
September 4, 2016, Discounted early registration deadline
October 7, 2016, Presenter Registration Deadline
November 11-13, 2016, DFC 2016 Conference

Paper Submission:

The paper submission system is available at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=dfc20160

International Program Committee:

Chair

Paul P Wang, Duke University, USA

Co-Chairs

Jason Barr, Rutgers University, USA
Jane Binner, Birmingham University, UK
Shu-Heng Chen, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
Michael Gavin, University of South Carolina, USA
Shabnam Mousavi, John Hopkins University, USA

Scientific Advisory Committee

John Mordeson, Creighton University, USA
Leonid Perlovsky, Harvard University, USA

International Program Committee

David Andersson, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China
Peter Anselmo, New Mexico Tech, USA
Jorgen Vitting Andersen, University of Paris I (Sorbonne), France
Yuji Aruka, Chuo University, Japan
Jan Baetens, Ghent University, Belgium
Te Bao, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Albert Bakhtizin, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
Anthony Brabazon, University College Dublin, Ireland
Edgardo Bucciarelli, University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy
Shih-Fen Cheng, Singapore Management University, Singaore
Siew Ann Cheong, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
N.K. Chidambaran, Fordham University, USA
German Creamer, Stephen Institute of Technology, USA
Zengru Di, Beijing Normal University, China
Francesco Di Iorio, Southeast University, China
Paola D'Orazio, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
Witold Dzwinel, AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland
Michael Gallagher, St. Bonaventure University, USA
Eugene Callahan, Cardiff University, UK
Christophre Georges, Hamilton College, USA
Jiaqi Ge, James Hutton Institute, UK
Aditya Ghose, University of Wollongong, Australia
Gianfranco Giulioni, University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy
Robert Golan, DBmind Technologies Inc., USA
Shyam S. Gouri Suresh, Davidson College, USA
László Gulyás, Lorand Eotvos University, Hungary
Mirsad Hadzikadic, Uuiversity of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA
Nobuyuki Hanaki, University of Nice, France
Kun-Huang Huarng, Feng Chia University, Taiwan
Yu-Ning Hwang, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
Kiyoshi Izumi, University of Tokyo, Japan
Biliana Alexandrova Kabadjova, Bank of Mexico, Mexico
Michael Kampouridis, University of Kent, UK
William Kretzschmar, Univ of Georgia, Athens, USA
Edward Kung, University of California at Los Angeles, USA
William Lawless, Paine College, USA
Allen Lee, Arizona State University, USA
Duk Hee Lee, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea
Honggang Li, Beijing Normal University, China
Xihao Li, McMaster University, Canada
Guay Lim, University of Melbourne, Australia
Hwan Lin, Uuiversity of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA
Jianwu Lin, Tsinghua University, China
Ruipeng Liu, Deakin University, Australia
Krzysztof Malarz, AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland
Dietmar Maringer, University of Basel, Switzerland
Leslie Marsh, University of British Columbia, Canada
Asunción Mochón, National Distance Education University, Spain
Akira Namatame, National Defense Academy, Japan
Asjad Naqvi, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
Shigeaki Ogibayashi, Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan
Vijayalakshmi Pai, PSG College of Technology, India
Heping Pan, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Andreas Pape, Binghamton University, USA
Andreas Pyka, Universität Hohenheim, Germany
Adrien Querbes- Revier, Carnegie-Mellon University, USA
Marco Raberto, University of Genoa, Italy
Yago Sáez, Charles III University of Madrid, Spain
Aki-Hira Sato, Kyoto University, Japan
Hokky Situngkir, Bandung Fe Institute, Indonesia
Sami Suwailem, Islamic Development Bank, Saudi Arabia
Takao Terano, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Elpida Tzafestas, University of Athens, Greece
Ben Vermeulen, Universität Hohenheim, Germany
Guochen Wang, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China
Li-Jian Wei, Sun Yat-Sen Business School, Sun Yat-Sen University, China
Emma Wilson, University of Alabama, USA
Chieh-Te Wu, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Lingfei Wu, University of Chicago, USA
Ling Xue, Peking University, China
Chao Yang, Hunan University, China
Xiaoguang Yang, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Yimin Yang, Proviti, Inc., USA
Tina Yu, University of San Francisco, USA
Mei Zhu, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, China


Sponsors:

AI-Econ Research Center
Cosmos + Taxis
Duke University
International Journal of Business and Economics
International Journal of Microsimulation
Journal of Economic Methodology
National Chengchi University
New Mathematics and Natural Computation
The Society of Mathematical Uncertainty