Towards Learning ‘Self’ and Emotional Knowledge in Social and Cultural Human-Agent Interactions

Original article can be found at: http://www.igi-global.com/articles/details.asp?ID=35052 Copyright IGI. Posted by permission of the publisher.This article presents research towards the development of a virtual learning environment (VLE) inhabited by intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) and modeling a scenario of inter-cultural interactions. The ultimate aim of this VLE is to allow users to reflect upon and learn about intercultural communication and collaboration. Rather than predefining the interactions among the virtual agents and scripting the possible interactions afforded by this environment, we pursue a bottomup approach whereby inter-cultural communication emerges from interactions with and among autonomous agents and the user(s). The intelligent virtual agents that are inhabiting this environment are expected to be able to broaden their knowledge about the world and other agents, which may be of different cultural backgrounds, through interactions. This work is part of a collaborative effort within a European research project called eCIRCUS. Specifically, this article focuses on our continuing research concerned with emotional knowledge learning in autobiographic social agents.Peer reviewe

Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications

Learning relationships from theory to design

This paper attempts to bridge the psychological and anthropological views of situated learning by focusing on the concept of a learning relationship, and by exploiting this concept in our framework for the design of learning technology. We employ Wenger's (1998) concept of communities of practice to give emphasis to social identification as a central aspect of learning, which should crucially influence our thinking about the design of learning environments. We describe learning relationships in terms of form (one‐to‐one, one‐to‐many etc.), nature (explorative, formative and comparative), distance (first‐, second‐order), and context, and we describe a first attempt at an empirical approach to their identification and measurement

From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

From Affect Theoretical Foundations to Computational Models of Intelligent Affective Agents

[EN] The links between emotions and rationality have been extensively studied and discussed. Several computational approaches have also been proposed to model these links. However, is it possible to build generic computational approaches and languages so that they can be "adapted " when a specific affective phenomenon is being modeled? Would these approaches be sufficiently and properly grounded? In this work, we want to provide the means for the development of these generic approaches and languages by making a horizontal analysis inspired by philosophical and psychological theories of the main affective phenomena that are traditionally studied. Unfortunately, not all the affective theories can be adapted to be used in computational models; therefore, it is necessary to perform an analysis of the most suitable theories. In this analysis, we identify and classify the main processes and concepts which can be used in a generic affective computational model, and we propose a theoretical framework that includes all these processes and concepts that a model of an affective agent with practical reasoning could use. Our generic theoretical framework supports incremental research whereby future proposals can improve previous ones. This framework also supports the evaluation of the coverage of current computational approaches according to the processes that are modeled and according to the integration of practical reasoning and affect-related issues. This framework is being used in the development of the GenIA(3) architecture.This work is partially supported by the Spanish Government projects PID2020-113416RB-I00, GVA-CEICE project PROMETEO/2018/002, and TAILOR, a project funded by EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under GA No 952215.Alfonso, B.; Taverner-Aparicio, JJ.; Vivancos, E.; Botti, V. (2021). From Affect Theoretical Foundations to Computational Models of Intelligent Affective Agents. Applied Sciences. 11(22):1-29. https://doi.org/10.3390/app112210874S129112

Overview on agent-based social modelling and the use of formal languages

Transdisciplinary Models and Applications investigates a variety of programming languages used in validating and verifying models in order to assist in their eventual implementation. This book will explore different methods of evaluating and formalizing simulation models, enabling computer and industrial engineers, mathematicians, and students working with computer simulations to thoroughly understand the progression from simulation to product, improving the overall effectiveness of modeling systems.Postprint (author's final draft

Eco‐Holonic 4.0 Circular Business Model to Conceptualize Sustainable Value Chain Towards Digital Transition

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a circular business model based on an Eco-Holonic Architecture, through the integration of circular economy and holonic principles. A conceptual model is developed to manage the complexity of integrating circular economy principles, digital transformation, and tools and frameworks for sustainability into business models. The proposed architecture is multilevel and multiscale in order to achieve the instantiation of the sustainable value chain in any territory. The architecture promotes the incorporation of circular economy and holonic principles into new circular business models. This integrated perspective of business model can support the design and upgrade of the manufacturing companies in their respective industrial sectors. The conceptual model proposed is based on activity theory that considers the interactions between technical and social systems and allows the mitigation of the metabolic rift that exists between natural and social metabolism. This study contributes to the existing literature on circular economy, circular business models and activity theory by considering holonic paradigm concerns, which have not been explored yet. This research also offers a unique holonic architecture of circular business model by considering different levels, relationships, dynamism and contextualization (territory) aspects