266,063 research outputs found
Actors and factors - bridging social science findings and urban land use change modeling
Recent uneven land use dynamics in urban areas resulting from demographic change, economic pressure and the citiesā mutual competition in a globalising world challenge both scientists and practitioners, among them social scientists, modellers and spatial planners. Processes of growth and decline specifically affect the urban environment, the requirements of the residents on social and natural resources. Social and environmental research is interested in a better understanding and ways of explaining the interactions between society and landscape in urban areas. And it is also needed for making life in cities attractive, secure and affordable within or despite of uneven dynamics.\ud
The position paper upon āActors and factors ā bridging social science findings and urban land use change modelingā presents approaches and ideas on how social science findings on the interaction of the social system (actors) and the land use (factors) are taken up and formalised using modelling and gaming techniques. It should be understood as a first sketch compiling major challenges and proposing exemplary solutions in the field of interest
Multi-agent systems for power engineering applications - part 2 : Technologies, standards and tools for building multi-agent systems
This is the second part of a 2-part paper that has arisen from the work of the IEEE Power Engineering Society's Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) Working Group. Part 1 of the paper examined the potential value of MAS technology to the power industry, described fundamental concepts and approaches within the field of multi-agent systems that are appropriate to power engineering applications, and presented a comprehensive review of the power engineering applications for which MAS are being investigated. It also defined the technical issues which must be addressed in order to accelerate and facilitate the uptake of the technology within the power and energy sector. Part 2 of the paper explores the decisions inherent in engineering multi-agent systems for applications in the power and energy sector and offers guidance and recommendations on how MAS can be designed and implemented. Given the significant and growing interest in this field, it is imperative that the power engineering community considers the standards, tools, supporting technologies and design methodologies available to those wishing to implement a MAS solution for a power engineering problem. The paper describes the various options available and makes recommendations on best practice. It also describes the problem of interoperability between different multi-agent systems and proposes how this may be tackled
Agent-based Computational Economics: a Methodological Appraisal
This paper is an overview of "Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE)", an emerging approach to the study of decentralized market economies, in methodological perspective. It summarizes similarities and differences with respect to conventional economic models, outlines the unique methodological characteristics of this approach, and discusses its implications for economic methodology as a whole. While ACE rejoins the reflection on the unintended social consequences of purposeful individual action which is constitutive of economics as a discipline, the paper shows that it complements state-of the-art research in experimental and behavioral economics. In particular, the methods and techniques of ACE have reinforced the laboratory finding that fundamental economic results rely less on rational choice theory than is usually assumed, and have provided insight into the importance of market structures and rules in addition to individual choice. In addition, ACE has enlarged the range of inter-individual interactions that are of interest for economists. In this perspective, ACE provides the economistās toolbox with valuable supplements to existing economic techniques rather than proposing a radical alternative. Despite some open methodological questions, it has potential for better integration into economics in the future.Agent-based Computational Economics, Economic Methodology, Experimental Economics.
On Partially Controlled Multi-Agent Systems
Motivated by the control theoretic distinction between controllable and
uncontrollable events, we distinguish between two types of agents within a
multi-agent system: controllable agents, which are directly controlled by the
system's designer, and uncontrollable agents, which are not under the
designer's direct control. We refer to such systems as partially controlled
multi-agent systems, and we investigate how one might influence the behavior of
the uncontrolled agents through appropriate design of the controlled agents. In
particular, we wish to understand which problems are naturally described in
these terms, what methods can be applied to influence the uncontrollable
agents, the effectiveness of such methods, and whether similar methods work
across different domains. Using a game-theoretic framework, this paper studies
the design of partially controlled multi-agent systems in two contexts: in one
context, the uncontrollable agents are expected utility maximizers, while in
the other they are reinforcement learners. We suggest different techniques for
controlling agents' behavior in each domain, assess their success, and examine
their relationship.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying file
An End-to-End Conversational Style Matching Agent
We present an end-to-end voice-based conversational agent that is able to
engage in naturalistic multi-turn dialogue and align with the interlocutor's
conversational style. The system uses a series of deep neural network
components for speech recognition, dialogue generation, prosodic analysis and
speech synthesis to generate language and prosodic expression with qualities
that match those of the user. We conducted a user study (N=30) in which
participants talked with the agent for 15 to 20 minutes, resulting in over 8
hours of natural interaction data. Users with high consideration conversational
styles reported the agent to be more trustworthy when it matched their
conversational style. Whereas, users with high involvement conversational
styles were indifferent. Finally, we provide design guidelines for multi-turn
dialogue interactions using conversational style adaptation
Living Innovation Laboratory Model Design and Implementation
Living Innovation Laboratory (LIL) is an open and recyclable way for
multidisciplinary researchers to remote control resources and co-develop user
centered projects. In the past few years, there were several papers about LIL
published and trying to discuss and define the model and architecture of LIL.
People all acknowledge about the three characteristics of LIL: user centered,
co-creation, and context aware, which make it distinguished from test platform
and other innovation approaches. Its existing model consists of five phases:
initialization, preparation, formation, development, and evaluation.
Goal Net is a goal-oriented methodology to formularize a progress. In this
thesis, Goal Net is adopted to subtract a detailed and systemic methodology for
LIL. LIL Goal Net Model breaks the five phases of LIL into more detailed steps.
Big data, crowd sourcing, crowd funding and crowd testing take place in
suitable steps to realize UUI, MCC and PCA throughout the innovation process in
LIL 2.0. It would become a guideline for any company or organization to develop
a project in the form of an LIL 2.0 project.
To prove the feasibility of LIL Goal Net Model, it was applied to two real
cases. One project is a Kinect game and the other one is an Internet product.
They were both transformed to LIL 2.0 successfully, based on LIL goal net based
methodology. The two projects were evaluated by phenomenography, which was a
qualitative research method to study human experiences and their relations in
hope of finding the better way to improve human experiences. Through
phenomenographic study, the positive evaluation results showed that the new
generation of LIL had more advantages in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.Comment: This is a book draf
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