A context-aware and social model of dynamic multiple criteria preferences

Background In order to extract knowledge from many heterogeneous sources and to study the phenomena within a social network, it becomes fundamental to analyse in detail each process that takes place within it. Indeed, every process that involves a certain number of entities, cannot be analysed only in a macroscopic way, because each single entity contributes to establish the path to follow for the whole system. Looking much more in depth, due to the interactions and the relationships within the network, each entity is influenced in its opinion and, consequently, in its actions (Asavathiratham et al. 2001; Grabisch and Rusinowska 2010a, b; Barjis et al. 2011; Pachidi et al. 2014). As reported in López-Pintado (2008), individual decisions are often influenced by the decisions of other individuals. Without considering any interaction, nodes easily rank criteria in terms of importance following an individual cognitive model (Korhonen and Wallenius 1997). However, every individual cannot be considered as an isolated entity deliberating carefully considered decision. Instead the behavior of each entity is the result of Abstract