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Contributions to Books:

B. Düring, P. Markowich, J Pietschmann, M. Wolfram:
"Boltzmann and Fokker-Planck equations modelling opinion formation in the presence of strong leaders";
in: "ASC Report 10/2009", issued by: Institute for Analysis and Scientific Computing; Vienna University of Technology, Wien, 2009, ISBN: 978-3-902627-02-5.



English abstract:
We propose a mathematical model for opinion formation in a
society which is built of two groups, one group of `ordinary' people
and one group of `strong opinion leaders'. Our approach is based on
an opinion formation model introduced in Toscani (2006) and borrows
ideas from the kinetic theory of mixtures of rarefied
gases. Starting from microscopic interactions among individuals, we
arrive at a macroscopic description of the opinion formation process
which is characterized by a system of Fokker-Planck type
equations. We discuss the steady states of this system, extend it to
incorporate emergence and decline of opinion leaders, and present numerical results.

Keywords:
Boltzmann equation, Fokker-Planck equation, opinion formation, sociophysics.


Electronic version of the publication:
http://www.asc.tuwien.ac.at/preprint/2009/asc10x2009.pdf



Related Projects:
Project Head Ansgar Jüngel:
Numerik und Modellierung nichtlinearer partieller Differentialgleichungen zur Beschreibung von Kredit- und Preisrisiken


Created from the Publication Database of the Vienna University of Technology.