SamenMarkt®, a Proposal for Restoring Trust in the Horticultural Fresh Food Market by Using Multi-Agent System Technology

In the horticultural fresh food supply chain network in the Netherlands, a crisis is emerging. The market is out of balance and many growers are facing bankruptcy, in the period of 2011–2013, 50% of the growers were not able to pay interest and redemption. Trust between participants in the supply chain network has decreased. This chapter presents the currently not established and identifies design requirements for new systems to address this challenge and provide directions for possible improvement. As a result, this chapter introduces the concept of SamenMarkt®, a participatory system in which multi-agent system technology enables distributed price negotiation, distribution and communication between producers, retailers and consumers. A SWOT analysis of the concept of SamenMarkt® is provided together with a research and development plan in which simulation and emulation create the basis for stakeholder- and participant involvement in the design process of a distributed digital market place. Further research aims to study how SamenMarkt® can provide a solution space for the emerging global food crises. At present, we are using agent-based modelling to simulate the present market and scenarios. The next step will be to build the actual agent-based platform for real-time negotiations and business intelligence

Sense of participation

This paper explores the sense of participation of a spatially distributed individual—in the intersections of physical and mediated networks. This sense is fundamental to an individuals’ experience as a participant in systems designed to this purpose including today’s social media and new media generations of infrastructures. Mediated networks facilitate migration of mind and feelings communicating information, knowledge and values through mediated interaction. Ongoing open-­ended processes of simultaneous physical and mediated actions of an individual in everyday life pose new existential (identity) questions that suggest fundamental changes in the individual process of belonging (being-­at-­home) to self, others, and things in time, place and context. To explore the new sense of participation this paper introduces three concepts: trajectories, trade-­offs, and individual distributed world to frame the sense of participation. The concept of trajectories depicts how existential physical migration and virtual migration trajectories conflate with each other. The concept of trade-­ offs expresses the relation between performance and significance of presence (participation) experience in the variety of merging on-­ and offline day-­to-­day interactions. The concept of an individual's distributed world delineates how being here and being there merge into one experience for an individual in day-­to-­day participation practices. Together these 3 concepts provide a conceptual framework with which to explore the sense of participation.Multi Actor SystemsTechnology, Policy and Managemen

Together We Can Make It Work! Toward a Design Framework for Inclusive and Participatory City-Making of Playable Cities

Making it work together can be challenging when various stakeholders are involved. Given the context of neighborhoods and cities specifically, stakeholders values and interests are not always aligned. In these settings, to construct long-term and sustaining participatory city-making projects, to make it work together, is demanding. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a design framework for inclusive and participatory city-making. This framework is inspired by the playable city perspective in that it endorses an open, exploratory, and interactive mindset of city actors. An extensive literature review on approaches taken for playful and participatory interventions in local communities provides the foundations for the framework. The review brings forward four pillars on which the framework is grounded and four activities for exploration of the design space for participatory city-making. A case study from The Hague (NL) is used to demonstrate how the framework can be applied to design and analyze processes in which city stakeholders together make it work. The case study analysis complements the framework with various research methods to support researchers, urban planners, and designers to engage with all city stakeholders to create playful and participatory interventions, which are inclusive and meaningful for the local community. The research contributions of this paper are the proposed framework and informed suggestions on how this framework in practice assists city stakeholders to together make it work.System Engineerin