Socionics: Scalability of Complex Social Systems: 3413 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3413) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3540307079 ISBN 13: 9783540307075

Publisher: Springer, 2005

Synopsis

1 Thisbookis an outcomeof the SocionicsResearch Framework. Therootsof Socionics lie in the 1980s when computer scientists in search of new methods and techniques of distributed and coordinated problem-solving ?rst began to take an engineering interest in sociological concepts and theories. Just as biological phenomenaare conceived of as a source of inspiration for new technologies in the new research ?eld of bionics, c- puter scientists working in Distributed Arti?cial Intelligence (DAI) became interested in exploiting phenomena from the social world in order to construct Multiagent S- tems (MAS) and, generally, to build open agent societies or complex arti?cial social systems. Socionics is driven by the underlying assumption that there is an inherent parallel betweenthe'up-scaling'ofMASandthe'micro-macrolink'insociology. Accordingly, one of the fundamental challenges of Socionics is to build large-scale multiagent s- tems which are capable of managing 'societies of autonomous computational agents . . . in large open information environments' ([9, p. 112]). As more sophisticated inter- tions become common in open MAS, the demand to design reliable mechanisms co- dinating large-scale networks of intelligent agents grows. Suitable design mechanisms may enhance the developement of 'truly open and fully scalable multiagent systems, across domains, with agents capable of learning appropriate communications pro- cols upon entry to a system, and with protocols emerging and evolving through actual agent interactions' ([10, pp. 3]) which is considered as the ultimate goal in ful?lling the roadmap of agent technology.

About this title

Product Description

This book includes contributions from an interdisciplinary field of research we call Socionics. Based on a close cooperation between sociologists and researchers from distributed artificial intelligence and multiagent systems, Socionics deals with the exploration of the emergence and dynamics of artificial social systems, agent societies, as well as hybrid man-machine societies. The aim is both to develop intelligent computer technologies by picking up theoretical concepts and methods from sociology and to improve sociological models of societies and organizations by using advanced computer technology. The 15 articles in this state-of-the-art survey combine selected contributions from sociology and informatics on the modeling, construction, and study of complex social systems with special regard to the problem of scaling multiagent systems. The discussion focuses on four specific research areas: multi-layer modeling, organization and self-organization, emergence of social structures, and paths from an agent-centered to a communication-centered perspective in modeling multiagent systems.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3540307079
• ISBN 13: 9783540307075
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 325
• Editor: Fischer Klaus, Florian Michael, Malsch Thomas