Strategic Structural Reorganization in Multi-agent Systems Inspired by Social Organization Theory

Autonomic systems, capable of adaptive behavior, are envisioned as a solution for maintaining large, complex, real-time computing systems that are situated in dynamic and open environments. These systems are subject to uncertainties in their perceptual, computational, and communication loads. As a result, the individual system components find the need to cooperate with each other to acquire more information and accomplish complex tasks. Critical to the effective performance of these systems, is the effectiveness of communication and coordination methods. In many practical applications of distributed and multi-agent systems, the problem of communication and coordination becomes even more complicated because of the geographic disparity of tasks and/or agents that are performing the tasks. Experience with even small systems has shown that lack of an effective communication and coordination strategy leads the system to no-answer, or sub-optimal answer situations. To address this problem, many large-scale systems employ an additional layer of structuring, known as organizational structure, which governs assignment of roles to individual agents, existence of relations between the agents , and any authority structures in between. Applying different organizational structures to the same problem will lead to different performance characteristics. As the system and environment conditions change, it becomes important to reorganize to a more effective organization. Due to the costs associated with reorganization, finding a balance in how often or when a reorganization is performed becomes necessary. In multi-agent systems community, not a lot of attention has been paid to reorganizing a system to a different organizational structure. Most systems reorganize within the same structure, for example reorganizing in a hierarchy by changing the width or depth of the hierarchy. To approach this problem, we looked into adaptation of concepts and theories from social organization theory. In particular, we got insights from Schwaninger's model of Intelligent Human Organizations. We introduced a strategic reorganization model which enables the system to reorganize to a different type of organizational structure at run time. The proposed model employs different levels of organizational control for making organizational change decisions. We study the performance trade-offs and the efficacy of the proposed approach by running experiments using two instances of cooperative distributed problem solving applications. The results indicate that the proposed reorganization model results in performance improvements when task complexity increases

The Willingness of Military Members to Seek Help: The Role of Social Involvement and Social Responsibility

Anchored in the social organization theory of action and change, we use data from a large sample of active-duty Air Force members to examine the direct and indirect influence of social involvement and social responsibility on willingness to seek help in times of need via trust in formal systems and informal supports. Group comparisons are conducted between junior male, junior female, senior male, and senior female service members. The key mediational path in the model for all groups is the connection between social involvement and willingness to seek help via trust in formal systems. These results can inform both unit- and community-level interventions intended to increase the likelihood that active-duty AF members will seek help in times of need

The Willingness of Military Members to Seek Help: The Role of Social Involvement and Social Responsibility

Anchored in the social organization theory of action and change, we use data from a large sample of active-duty Air Force members to examine the direct and indirect influence of social involvement and social responsibility on willingness to seek help in times of need via trust in formal systems and informal supports. Group comparisons are conducted between junior male, junior female, senior male, and senior female service members. The key mediational path in the model for all groups is the connection between social involvement and willingness to seek help via trust in formal systems. These results can inform both unit- and community-level interventions intended to increase the likelihood that active-duty AF members will seek help in times of need

The Willingness of Military Members to Seek Help: The Role of Social Involvement and Social Responsibility

Anchored in the social organization theory of action and change, we use data from a large sample of active-duty Air Force members to examine the direct and indirect influence of social involvement and social responsibility on willingness to seek help in times of need via trust in formal systems and informal supports. Group comparisons are conducted between junior male, junior female, senior male, and senior female service members. The key mediational path in the model for all groups is the connection between social involvement and willingness to seek help via trust in formal systems. These results can inform both unit- and community-level interventions intended to increase the likelihood that active-duty AF members will seek help in times of need

Making sense of the magic : legibility, space, and play in tabletop roleplaying games

As tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) have become increasingly popular among the queer community, and guided by the tenets of pleasure activism (Brown, 2019) that argues that equity entails access to pleasure, my study sought to investigate the connection between play and pleasure and the sense individuals make of themselves and their environments. My research questions included: 1) how do players negotiate legibility (make sense) of their queer identities within the context of their experiences participating in tabletop roleplaying games; and 2) what do the experiences of queer TTRPG players reveal about the relationships between legibility, space, and play? Drawing from social organization theory (Butler, 2004) and ecological definitions (Ramadier & Moser, 1998), I positioned legibility as the extent to which individuals are able to make sense of themselves in relation to their social environments and I use spatial metaphors, such as Third Space and safe houses, to help define the relationship between identity, literacy, and legibility, and to consider the role of play in facilitating these interconnected and constructive processes. My findings demonstrated that legibility was interwoven into the potent and powerful moments of pleasure experienced by participants, which I referred to as the magic. Additionally, I established the intimate connection between the concept of space and player perceptions of the magic, demonstrating that pleasure is in the experience of “crossing-over.” Then, drawing on player accounts of these experiences, I identified five forces that constitute the magic, components that not only regulate the pleasure possible within the play space, but also maintain the threshold and bounds of the space. I also discussed what players did within the space, or in constructing the space, that can be understood as cultivating these vital ingredients of play and pleasure. In the discussion, I outlined a path and framework for how players experienced personal transformation through play experiences and demonstrated the importance of intentional reflection and integration of play experiences toward the lasting effects of the magic.Educational Psycholog