Human behaviour modelling in complex socio-technical systems : an agent based approach

For many years we have been striving to understand human behaviour and our interactions with our socio-technological environment. By advancing our knowledge in this area, we have helped the design of new or improved work processes and technologies. Historically, much of the work in analysing social interactions has been conducted within the social sciences. However, computer simulation has brought an extra tool in trying to understand and model human behaviours. Using an agent based approach this presentation describes my work in constructing computational models of human behaviour for informing design through simulation. With examples from projects in two main application areas of crisis and emergency management, and energy management I describe how my work addresses some main issues in agent based social simulation. The first concerns the process by which we develop these models. The second lies in the nature of socio-technical systems. Human societies are a perfect example of a complex system exhibiting characteristics of self-organisation, adaptability and showing emergent phenomena such as cooperation and robustness. I describe how complex systems theory may be applied to improve our understanding of socio-technical systems, and how our micro level interactions lead to emergent mutual awareness for problem-solving. From agent based simulation systems I show how context awareness may be modelled. Looking forward to the future, I discuss how the increasing prevalence of artificial agents in our society will cause us to re-examine the new types of interactions and cooperative behaviours that will emerge.Depuis de nombreuses années, nous nous sommes efforcés de comprendre le comportement humain et nos interactions avec l'environnement sociotechnique. Grâce à l'avancée de nos connaissances dans ce domaine, nous avons contribué à la conception de technologies et de processus de travail nouveaux ou améliorés. Historiquement, une part importante du travail d'analyse des interactions sociales fut entreprise au sein des sciences sociales. Cependant, la simulation informatique a apporté un nouvel outil pour tenter de comprendre et de modéliser les comportements humains. En utilisant une approche à base d'agents, cette présentation décrit mon travail sur la construction de modèles informatiques du comportement humain pour guider la conception par la simulation. A l'aide d'exemples issus de projets des deux domaines d'application que sont la gestion des crises et de l'urgence et la gestion de l'énergie, je décris comment mon travail aborde certains problèmes centraux à la simulation sociale à base d'agents. Le premier concerne le processus par lequel nous développons ces modèles. Le second problème provient de la nature des systèmes sociotechniques. Les sociétés humaines constituent un exemple parfait de système complexe possédant des caractéristiques d'auto-organisation et d'adaptabilité, et affichant des phénomènes émergents tels que la coopération et la robustesse. Je décris comment la théorie des systèmes complexes peut être appliquée pour améliorer notre compréhension des systèmes sociotechniques, et comment nos interactions au niveau microscopique mènent à l'émergence d'une conscience mutuelle pour la résolution de problèmes. A partir de systèmes de simulation à base d'agents, je montre comment la conscience du contexte peut être modélisée. En terme de perspectives, j'expliquerai comment la hausse de la prévalence des agents artificiels dans notre société nous forcera à considérer de nouveaux types d'interactions et de comportements coopératifs

COIN@AAMAS2015

COIN@AAMAS2015 is the nineteenth edition of the series and the fourteen papers included in these proceedings demonstrate the vitality of the community and will provide the grounds for a solid workshop program and what we expect will be a most enjoyable and enriching debate.Peer reviewe

NoMoDEI : A framework for Norm Monitoring on Dynamic Electronic Institutions

With the growth of the Internet, computational systems have become more and more complex, often including complicate interconnected networks of autonomous components. The need to bring some organisational structure into autonomous systems becomes urgent, as this allows regulating the behaviour of the different autonomous components to ensure their objectives are aligned with the holistic objectives of the system. Normative Systems are one of the mechanisms that can be applied to define and enforce acceptable behaviour within distributed electronic systems which should comply with some (human) regulations. One of the requirements to effectively implement Normative Systems is to be able to assess, at runtime, the state of the normative environment. Existing lines of research have already tried to tackle this issue on some simple scenarios. However, more complex scenarios may appear, for instance, scenarios where the normative context is not static, but it expands and contracts as new norms are added to the institution and removed from it respectively. As in human legal systems, it is easy to foresee that some of these electronic normative environments will not be static. They should be able to evolve through time as regulations change, effectively adapting to new situations and behaviours. Under these conditions, a monitoring system must be able to continue computing the state of the normative environment at runtime, as often we can not afford to perform the changes on the normative context off-line. Furthermore, it must be guaranteed the monitoring system can keep producing states of the normative environment that are consistent with the changes performed on the normative context. For instance, if a norm has been removed from the normative context, it does not make sense anymore to compute normative states where the norm has been violated. In this thesis we present NoMoDEI, a normative monitoring framework for dynamic Electronic Institutions. We formalize and develop an extended normative framework and architecture to cope with scenarios where the normative context is dynamic, therefore norms can be added, removed and updated. The operations are to be performed at run-time, without having to stop computing the normative state. The normative states computed are consistent with the expansion and contraction operations. NoMoDEI is introduced in three steps. First, we formally define the operations to be supported in order to allow for expanding and contracting the normative context. Then, we instantiate the formal operations, providing implementation details. Finally, we demonstrate our framework by applying it to two use cases: E-health systems and waste-water management on a river basin.Amb l'expansió d'Internet els sistemes computacionals han esdevingut més complexos, sovint incorporant complicades xarxes interconnectades de components autònoms. Es per això que la necessitat d'incorporar estructures organitzacionals en el sistemes autònoms s 'accentua, donat que aquestes estructures permeten regular el comportament dels diferents components autònoms, tot assegurant que els seus objectius es troben alineats amb els objectius generals del sistema. Els Sistemes Normatius (i.e. Normative Systems) són un dels mecanismes que podem aplicar per definir i imposar patrons acceptables de comportament dintre de sistemes electrònics distribuïts. Això esdevé especialment important quan el sistema es troba regimentat per regulacions (normalment humanes). Un dels requeriments per implementar Sistemes Normatius és ser capaços de determinar, en temps d'execució, l'estat de l'entorn normatiu. Existeixen línies de recerca que ja han tractat aquest problema en alguns escenaris simples. El món real però ens ofereix escenaris més complexes, com per exemple, escenaris on el context normatiu no és estàtic, si no que s'expandeix i contrau a mesura que noves normes són afegides o eliminades de la institució. Tal com passa als sistemes legals humans, és fàcil preveure que alguns contextos normatius electrònics no seran estàtics. Aquests contextos haurien de ser capaços d'evolucionar a través del temps a mesura que les regulacions canvien, adaptant-se a noves situacions i comportaments. Sota aquestes condicions, un sistema de monitorització ha de ser capaç de continuar calculant l'estat de l'entorn normatiu en temps d'execució, ja que sovint no ens podem permetre realitzar els canvis a l'entorn normatiu aturant el procés de monitorització. És més s'ha de garantir que el sistema de monitorització sigui capaç de continuar produint es tats de l’entorn normatiu de forma consistent amb els canvis realitzats. Per exemple, el fet d'eliminar una norma fa que no tingui gaire sentit continuar calculant es tats normatius on aquesta norma ha es tat violada. A aquesta Tesi presentem NoMoDEI, una infraestructura de monitorització normativa per institucions electròniques dinàmiques. Formalitzem i desenvolupem una infraestructura de monitorització normativa estesa capaç d'operar en escenaris on el context normatiu es dinàmic. Es a dir, diverses normes poden ser introduïdes, eliminades o actualitzades del context normatiu en qualsevol moment. Aquestes operacions s'han de poder realitzar en temps d'execució, es a dir, sense deixar de calcular l'estat normatiu. Es més, els estats normatius calculats han de ser consistents amb les respectives operacions d'extensió o contracció del context. Durant la Tesi presentem NoMoDEI en tres passos. Primer proporcionem una definició formal de les operacions que la infraestructura ha de suportar per permetre expandir i contraure el context normatiu. A continuació instanciem aquestes operacions proporcionant detalls d'implementació. Finalment demostrem que la nostra infraestructura pot ser aplicada a casos d'ús del món real introduint dos casos: sistemes de salut electrònics (i.e. E-health) i sistemes de tractament d’aigües residuals a la conca d’un riuPostprint (published version

Does Empirical Embeddedness Matter? Methodological Issues on Agent-Based Models for Analytical Social Science

The paper deals with the use of empirical data in social science agent-based models. Agent-based models are too often viewed just as highly abstract thought experiments conducted in artificial worlds, in which the purpose is to generate and not to test theoretical hypotheses in an empirical way. On the contrary, they should be viewed as models that need to be embedded into empirical data both to allow the calibration and the validation of their findings. As a consequence, the search for strategies to find and extract data from reality, and integrate agent-based models with other traditional empirical social science methods, such as qualitative, quantitative, experimental and participatory methods, becomes a fundamental step of the modelling process. The paper argues that the characteristics of the empirical target matter. According to characteristics of the target, ABMs can be differentiated into case-based models, typifications and theoretical abstractions. These differences pose different challenges for empirical data gathering, and imply the use of different validation strategies.Agent-Based Models, Empirical Calibration and Validation, Taxanomy of Models

Communicating open systems

Just as conventional institutions are organisational structures for coordinating the activities of multiple interacting individuals, electronic institutions provide a computational analogue for coordinating the activities of multiple interacting software agents. In this paper, we argue that open multi-agent systems can be effectively designed and implemented as electronic institutions, for which we provide a comprehensive computational model. More specifically, the paper provides an operational semantics for electronic institutions, specifying the essential data structures, the state representation and the key operations necessary to implement them. We specify the agent workflow structure that is the core component of such electronic institutions and particular instantiations of knowledge representation languages that support the institutional model. In so doing, we provide the first formal account of the electronic institution concept in a rigorous and unambiguous way

Information Systems and Models for Territorial and Cultural Heritage

The contribution considers in an introductory way synthetic frameworks relating to aspects of the organisation of the information heritage, the nature and format of data with respect to different thematic areas of the Cultural Heritage, the spatial processing of data in order to build digital information models, finally data management and processing environments, today's evolution of information systems. The topics will concern: data formats and coherence of interchange flows (some definitions for the design and implementation of interdisciplinary and multiscalar information systems and models); a brief review of methods and tools for the management and representation of data and information in the field of Cultural Heritage; methods and tools for the representation of models and interpretative conceptual schemes related to complex geodatabases; use of graphic information for technical and non-technical communication

Agents and Robots for Reliable Engineered Autonomy

This book contains the contributions of the Special Issue entitled "Agents and Robots for Reliable Engineered Autonomy". The Special Issue was based on the successful first edition of the "Workshop on Agents and Robots for reliable Engineered Autonomy" (AREA 2020), co-located with the 24th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2020). The aim was to bring together researchers from autonomous agents, as well as software engineering and robotics communities, as combining knowledge from these three research areas may lead to innovative approaches that solve complex problems related to the verification and validation of autonomous robotic systems