Juan M. Corchado – författare

This book is the result of a multi-year research project led and sponsored by the University of Chieti-Pescara, National Chengchi University, University of Salamanca, and Osaka University. It is the fifth volume to emerge from that international project, held under the aegis of the United Nations Academic Impact in 2020. All the essays in this volume were (virtually) discussed at the University of L’Aquila―as the venue of the 2nd International Conference on Decision Economics, a three-day global gathering of approximately one hundred scholars and practitioners—and were subjected to thorough peer review by leading experts in the field. The essays reflect the extent, diversity, and richness of several research areas, both normative and descriptive, and are an invaluable resource for graduate-level and PhD students, academics, researchers, policymakers and other professionals, especially in the social and cognitive sciences.

Given its interdisciplinary scope, the book subsequently delivers new approaches on how to contribute to the future of economics, providing alternative explanations for various socio-economic issues such as computable humanities; cognitive, behavioural, and experimental perspectives in economics; data analysis and machine learning as well as research areas at the intersection of computer science, artificial intelligence, mathematics, and statistics; agent-based modelling and the related. The editors are grateful to the scientific committee for its continuous support throughout the research project as well as to the many participants for their insightful comments and always probing questions. In any case, the collaboration involved in the project extends far beyond the group of authors published in this volume and is reflected in the quality of the essays published over the years.

The 11th International Symposium on Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence 2014 (DCAI 2014) is a forum to present applications of innovative techniques for studying and solving complex problems. The exchange of ideas between scientists and technicians from both the academic and industrial sector is essential to facilitate the development of systems that can meet the ever-increasing demands of today’s society. The present edition brings together past experience, current work and promising future trends associated with distributed computing, artificial intelligence and their application in order to provide efficient solutions to real problems.

This year’s technical program presents both high quality and diversity, with contributions in well-established and evolving areas of research (Algeria, Brazil, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Kingdom), representing a truly “wide area network” of research activity. DCAI''14 Special Sessions have been a very useful tool in order to complement the regular program with new or emerging topics of particular interest to the participating community. Special Sessions that emphasize on multi-disciplinary and transversal aspects, such as AI-driven methods for Multimodal Networks and Processes Modeling and Multi-Agents Macroeconomics have been especially encouraged and welcome.

This symposium is organized by the Bioinformatics, Intelligent System and Educational Technology Research Group (http://bisite.usal.es/) of the University of Salamanca. The present edition was held in Salamanca, Spain, from 4th to 6th June 2014.

The special session on Decision Economics (DECON) is a scientific forum held annually and intended to share ideas, projects, research results, models and experiences associated with the complexity of behavioural decision processes and socio‐economic phenomena. DECON 2017 was held at the Polytechnic of Porto, ISEP, Portugal, as part of the 14th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence.

 For the second consecutive year, the Editors of this book have drawn inspiration from Herbert A. Simon’s immense body of work and argue that Simon precipitated something akin to a revolution in microeconomics focused on the concept of decision‐making. Further, it is worth noting that the recognition of relevant decision‐making takes place in a range of critical subject areas and research fields, including economics, finance, information systems, small and international business management, operations, and production. Therefore, decision‐making issues are of fundamental importance in all branches of economics addressed both deductively and inductively. 

Not surprisingly, the study of decision‐making has seen growing empirical research efforts in the economic literature over the last sixty years and, more recently, a variety of insightful cutting‐edge experimental, behavioural and computational approaches. Additionally, the awareness regarding generalizations and reductions to express economic concepts has led, on the one hand, to an increasing risk of spreading the language of mathematics as a rhetorical tool and, on the other hand, to an oversimplification and overlooking of some crucial details, especially when it comes to human decisions and, hence, economic behaviour. That awareness, however, has helped toproduce an extraordinary volume of empirical research aimed at discovering how economic agents cope with complex decisions. 

In this sense, the international scientific community acknowledges Herbert A. Simon’s research endeavours to understand the processes involved in economic decision‐making and their implications for the advancement of economic professions. Within the field of decision‐making, indeed, Simon’s rejection of the standard decision‐making models used in neoclassical economics inspired social scientists worldwide to develop research programmes in order to study decision‐making empirically. The main achievements concern decision‐making for individuals, firms, markets, governments, institutions, and, last but not least, science and research.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11 workshops co-located with the 16th International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, PAAMS 2018, held in Toledo, Spain, in June 2018.

The 47 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 72 submissions. The volume presents the papers that have been accepted for the following workshops: Workshop on Agents and Multi-agent Systems for AAL and e-HEALTH; Workshop on Agent based Applications for Air Transport; Workshop on Agent-based Artificial Markets Computational Economics; Workshop on Agent-Based Solutions for Manufacturing and Supply Chain; Workshop on MAS for Complex Networks and Social Computation; Workshop on Intelligent Systems and Context Information Fusion; Workshop on Multi-agent based Applications for Energy Markets, Smart Grids and Sustainable Energy Systems; Workshop on Multiagent System based Learning Environments; Workshop on Smart Cities and Intelligent Agents; Workshop on Swarm Intelligence and Swarm Robotics; Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems and Simulation.

This book explores and discusses various aspects of intelligent systems technologies and their applications. It constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications (ISTA’18), September 19-22, 2018, Bangalore, India. All submissions were evaluated on the basis of their significance, novelty, and technical quality. This book contains 20 papers selected for presentation at the Symposium. The book is chiefly intended for, and offers a valuable resource for, researchers and scientists engaged in various fields involving intelligent systems.