Social Computing and Multiagent Systems

Dear Colleagues,

“Social Computing and Multiagent Systems” aims to discuss computational models of innovative social computing. Social apps aim to promote social connectedness, user friendliness through natural interfaces, contextualisation, personalisation, and the ideal of invisible computing. This issue intends to address a gap in Multi-Agent Systems, Social Computing and AI landscapes around practical application of the technology to analyse and address social issues in daily life problems, such as education, health, safety, mobility, and social connectedness. These solutions exploit a combination of social applications, ambient intelligence, social networks, and collective thinking to promote the participation of citizens, social connectedness, and social intelligence.

Collaborative Services offer promising tools to understand, model, and influence complex behaviour, group behaviour, and the impact of micro-macro actions upon the system. The combination of Social Computing and Agent Models is instrumental to create models of social behaviour that are impossible to attain by either applying individual agents or high-level mathematical models. The collaboration takes place under conditions of incomplete information, uncertainty, and bounded rationality, much of which has been previously studied in economics and artificial intelligence. However, many real-world domains are characterised by even greater complexity, including the possibility of unreliable and non-complying collaborators, complex market and incentive frameworks, and complex transaction costs and organisation structures.

We seek contributions of members in the industry and applied research in academia. The contributions shall apply Social Computing, AI and agent technology, including distributed AI, situatedness, local interaction, user profiling, social simulation, and others. The application domains include (not an exhaustive list): smart education, urban intelligence, emergency scenarios, continuous healthcare, coordination of large events, intelligent transportation, and others.

Topics of interest include (non-exhaustive list):

• How to apply agents for the next generation Social Computing, social applications and ubiquitous computing scenarios, including Social networks, Ambient Intelligence, Urban Intelligence, Regulation of Social Behaviour, Collaborative Tasks, and others?
• How to build a model of the features of individuals and groups in Social Computing environments applying agent-based technology?
• How to construct agent-based models equipped to better perform in Social Computing environment?
• How to construct agent-based models of social behaviour, aiming to understand, model, and influence complex behaviour, group behaviour, and the impact of micro-macro actions upon the system?
• How can we make team members follow agreed procedures (Incentives? Or more fundamental, by designing a new market?)
• How to build an effective monitoring-recognition-intervention framework in Social Computing?
• How can we support/guide collaborative teams. How can we offer flexibility in how teams execute plans? How can we make team members follow agreed procedures? Incentives? Or more fundamental, by designing a new market?
• How to enable agents to form and follow joint agreements, guidelines and contracts in complex organisational and market driven domains (agreement adherence)?
• How can adherence and variation be achieved under uncertain and incomplete information (comprehensive formation/maintenance framework)?
• How to enable an effective communication infrastructure for collaborative care (possibly including humans and agents)?
• How can transaction costs influence the social outcome of the system which is further influenced by the organisational context under which the collaboration takes place?

We seek contributions of members in the industry and applied research in academia. The contributions shall apply agent technology, including distributed AI, situatedness, local interaction, user profiling, social simulation, and others. The application domains include (not an exhaustive list): Smart education, urban intelligence, emergency scenarios, continuous healthcare, coordination of large events, intelligent transportation, and others.

Dr. Fernando Koch
Dr. Andrew Koster
Dr. Christian Guttmann
Guest Editors

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