Multiagent System-Based Simulation Method of Service Diffusion in Consumer Networks – Application to Repeatedly Purchased Plural Services –

Part VI: Services, Supply Chains and OperationsInternational audienceThis paper presents a simulation based analysis method for service diffusion in consumer networks. Services with good qualities do not always diffuse because service quality is often unstable because of the nature of service delivery systems involving human. Consumers cannot also confirm the quality of service before purchase because service has no shape. Therefore, it is necessary to study diffusion process of service by computer simulations to clarify the process of acceptance among consumers in consideration with heterogeneity of consumer utility due to the unstable service quality. This paper proposes a multiagent-based model for diffusion of plural competing services repeated purchased in consumer networks including heterogeneity of consumer utility. It is verified that the heterogeneity of consumer utility and network structure affect service diffusion process in the results of computer simulations. Finally, the diffusion process of services is concluded in terms both of the number of service and repetition of service purchase

Sustainable Smart Cities and Smart Villages Research

ca. 200 words; this text will present the book in all promotional forms (e.g. flyers). Please describe the book in straightforward and consumer-friendly terms. [There is ever more research on smart cities and new interdisciplinary approaches proposed on the study of smart cities. At the same time, problems pertinent to communities inhabiting rural areas are being addressed, as part of discussions in contigious fields of research, be it environmental studies, sociology, or agriculture. Even if rural areas and countryside communities have previously been a subject of concern for robust policy frameworks, such as the European Union’s Cohesion Policy and Common Agricultural Policy Arguably, the concept of ‘the village’ has been largely absent in the debate. As a result, when advances in sophisticated information and communication technology (ICT) led to the emergence of a rich body of research on smart cities, the application and usability of ICT in the context of a village has remained underdiscussed in the literature. Against this backdrop, this volume delivers on four objectives. It delineates the conceptual boundaries of the concept of ‘smart village’. It highlights in which ways ‘smart village’ is distinct from ‘smart city’. It examines in which ways smart cities research can enrich smart villages research. It sheds light on the smart village research agenda as it unfolds in European and global contexts.