Abstract: We report work in progress on the role of models in the formation and maintenance of collectives in Hybrid Diversity-Aware Collective Adaptive Systems (HDA-CASs). HDA-CASs utilize hybrid computations involving machines and humans operating in collectives in a way that manages and leverages the diversity of collectives and machine-based computation. Here we explore the role of models in helping to constitute particular collectives and how models help shape the response of the collective. It appears that models are a potentially critical resource in collecting, sharing and acting on data gathered from the operation of CASs. This points to the potential role for models in the design of HDA-CASs. In particular we are interested in how models provide a sense of identity for a collective and can provide resources that shape the potential for collective action.

Citation: Stuart Anderson, Mark Hartswood and Marina Jirotka (2014). Reflection, collectives and adaptation: the role of models in the design of Collective Adaptive Systems. In the 2014 IEEE Eighth International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems Workshops (SASOW 2014).

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Abstract: This chapter is concerned with how social order is established within collectives and the ethical problems that arise when we attempt to create and direct collectives towards particular ends. It draws on our work to establish governance principles for Smart Society—an EU project aiming to engineer Collective Adaptive Systems comprised of people and machines with diverse capabilities and goals that are able to tackle societal grand challenges. We examine how social values are implicated in and transformed by Collective Adaptive Systems, and suggest approaches to multilevel governance design that are responsive to emergent capabilities and sensitive to conflicting perspectives. Finally we illustrate our approach with a worked example of a sensor-based system in a care setting.

Citation: Hartswood, M., Grimpe, B., and Jirotka, M., “Towards the ethical governance of Smart Society”, In Miorandi, D., Maltese, V., Rovatsos, M., Nijholt., A. and Stewart, J. (eds) Social collective intelligence: Combining the powers of humans and machines Springer, 2014.

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Executive Summary. This report first situates and outlines the potential of social computation to provide the basis for Social Collective Intelligence (SCI) in future systems. This involves the close interaction of social groups and machines together with systems of incentives and social structures to perform tasks that would otherwise be difficult to achieve either using entirely human or entirely machine solutions. The deliverable considers the challenges both from a technical and from a social science standpoint, identifying the potential for aligning them in order to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on the development of SCI systems. The paper then describes some of the challenges in developing an engineering approach to the development of such systems. Finally the paper outlines some of the “big questions” that arise from the framework for SCI research developed in the white paper.

Citation: Robertson, D., Anderson, S., Carreras, I., Miorandi, D., “D2.1 White Paper on Research Challenges in Social Collective Intelligence WP2 – Research Challenges and Strategic Analysis”, Social-IST (2013).

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Executive Summary. This document includes the outcomes of the activities carried out by the Social-IST Consortium on the identification and analysis of the application areas for which R&D&I initiatives on Social Collective Intelligence (SCI) can have a major impact. This serves as the basis for defining a set of recommendations and a possible roadmap to be taken into consideration when drafting future FET initiatives in the field of Social Collective Intelligence.

In a preliminary phase the Consortium identified, through desktop search, six relevant application areas for SCI, namely the Future of Work, the Future of Learning, Mobility and Transport in Cities of the Future, Healthcare and Well Being, Smart Energy and the Future of Science and Innovation. These areas have been analysed and discussed in details, in particular by means of (i) the two workshops held with the Social-IST Scientific Panel experts (ii) a Web survey open to the research community at large (iii) the final project event held in Oct. 2013. For each area, a number of scenarios were elaborated, leading to the identification of impacts on science, technology and society and of emerging research challenges.

The results of this analysis have been used for defining a roadmap for future EU initiatives in the field of SCI. This included (i) a proposal in terms of research methodology for running SCI projects and initiatives, (ii) a taxonomy of the most relevant research communities (iii) a mapping to the Horizon2020 Work programme and related calls.

This document is expected to provide some key insights on how to potentially exploit a Social Collective Intelligence approach in future calls and EU initiatives.

Citation: Carreras, I., Anderson, S., Robertson, D., Miorandi, D., “D3.1 Roadmap for FET Initiatives in Social Collective Intelligence, WP3 – High Impact Application Areas and Roadmapping”, Social-IST (2013).

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Abstract. The physical and virtual dimensions of life are becoming more and more deeply interwoven. Society is merging with technology, giving rise to a global socio-technical ecosystem. In a society comprising people and machines as actors we often see people-to-people interactions mediated by machine and machine-to-machine interaction mediated by people. The speed and scale of this change and the differences in culture, language and interests make the problem of establishing effective means of communication and coordination increasingly challenging. Our vision, embodied in the SmartSociety project1, is that a new generation of systems, hybrid (i.e., including humans and artificial peers, as well as social groups), distributed, open and large-scale, is needed to tackle these issues. In such systems, multitudes of heterogeneous peers will produce and handle massive amounts of data; peers will join/leave the system following unpredictable patterns with no central coordination and will interoperate at different spatial and temporal scales. Aware of the ethical issues, and by identifying the right incentive schemes and privacy levels, these systems will assist individuals and collectives in their everyday activities, coping with the diversity of the world and working in the presence of incomplete and incorrect information.

http://eprints.biblio.unitn.it/4214/

Citation: F. Giunchiglia, V. Maltese, S. Anderson, D. Miorandi (2013). Towards Hybrid and Diversity-Aware Collective Adaptive Systems. First FOCAS Workshop on Fundamentals of Collective Systems @ECAL 2013.

Download: http://bit.ly/1STlQ0l

From the FoCAS Inter-project meeting, Barcelona, June 2013.

Stuart Anderson is Deputy Head of School of Informatics at The University of Edinburgh and a member of the SmartSociety project. His research is in the area of safety, trust and the dependability of socio-technical systems. Current projects are looking at supporting training activities in radiology, the role of trust in health settings and joint work with the World Health Organisation on disease control systems.

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HCC, Human-Computer Confluence, is an ambitious research program (funded under FP7-ICT) studying how the emerging symbiotic relation between humans and computing devices can enable radically new forms of sensing, perception, interaction, and understanding. The horizontal character of HCC makes it a fascinating and fertile interdisciplinary field, but it can also compromise its growth, with researchers scattered across disciplines and groups worldwide. A coordination activity promoting discipline connect, identity building and integration while defining future research, education and policy directions is needed at the regional, national, European and international level.

The HCC research agenda book “Human Computer Confluence – The Next Generation Humans and Computers Research Agenda” reflects the state of the research agenda as of October 2013. It is published under the acronym “Th. Sc. Community” (“The Scientific Community”), standing for a representative blend of the top leading scientists worldwide in this field. It presents a collection of 26 research challenge position statements solicited via the Solicitation Portal, and is publicly available to the whole scientific community for commenting, assessment and consensus finding.

SmartSociety members that have contributed to this publication include Fausto Giunchiglia, Stuart Anderson, Mark Hartswood, Schahram Dustdar, Ognjen Šćekić and Hong-Linh Truong.

Version

19.0, last change 16. 01. 2014

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Lead editor / coordinator

Univ. Prof. Dr. Alois Ferscha
Institute for Pervasive Computing
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Altenberger Straße 69
A-4040 Linz
Email: ferscha@pervasive.jku.at

Assistant editor

Michael Matscheko

Copyright

© Institute for Pervasive Computing, Johannes Kepler University Linz, 2014

Copyright of each article stays with the stated authors. Reproduction, for personal use or for further non-commercial or commercial dissemination, of any part of this document is subject to authorisation from the respective copyright holder.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported under the FP7 ICT FET (Future Enabling Technologies) programme of the European Commission under grant agreement No 258063 (HC2).

ISBN 978-3-200-03344-3

This book is about understanding, designing, controlling, and governing adaptive collective systems. It is intended for readers from master’s students to Ph.D. students, from engineers to decision makers, and anyone else who is interested in understanding how technologies are changing the way we think and live.

The authors are academics working in various areas of a new rising field: adaptive collective systems.

Stuart Anderson (The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom | SmartSociety)
Nicolas Bredeche (Université Pierre et Marie Curie, France)
A.E. Eiben (VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands | FoCAS CA)
George Kampis (DFKI, Germany | Allow Ensembles and SmartSociety)
Maarten van Steen (VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Book Sprint collaborative writing session facilitator: Adam Hyde
Editor: Sandra Sarala
Designer: Henrik van Leeuwen

View the FoCAS Book Sprint process with full details and photos here.

Download: http://bit.ly/1TZSwdE