The growing interest in immersive 3D environments populated with intelligent agents has led to a flurry of approaches and products with particular focuses, including cultural awareness training, language training, and operations “what-if” scenarios. Human terrain data present challenges that require categorization efforts. We present a taxonomy and approach to handle physical structures realist...

Communication is not as smooth a process as current pragmatic theories depict it. In Rapaport’s words “We almost always fail [...]. Yet we almost always nearly succeed: This is the paradox of communication” (Rapaport 2003: 402). This paper claims that there is a need for an approach that is able to explain this “bumpy road” by analyzing both the positive and negative features of the communicati...

The aim of this paper is to explain some of the ways in which multi agent system (MAS) theory can be used to describe, design and enhance social machines (also referred to as Socio-Cognitive Systems). We believe there is a really opportunity for the MAS community to engage with emerging theory and practice of designing such systems. Social machines also referred to as Socio-Cognitive Systems fr...

The Teaching and learning computer-programming process as been the target of scientific research since the early days of computing. Although several strategies have been and are still being tested, its application in computer-based courses has been difficult, since it requires some commitment from educators to search, study and evaluate them. Although not looking for a miraculous cure for all p...

Research in the field of vocabulary learning has shown that child L2 learners need to meet words again and again in new contexts in order to expand and deepen their word knowledge. In an instructional setting, cognitive processing is enhanced not only by the interplay between language use and metalinguistic reflection during classroom interaction but also by the activation and articulation of d...

Within this paper we provide insight into how the activities associated with security verification and validation (V&V) are practiced, supported, and perceived, within software SMEs. We justify the importance of studying security V&V as a socio-technical activity and employ the Socio-Technical Interaction Network (STIN) framework when presenting the results of an industry-based empirical study....

This paper describes mathematical models for network evolution when ties (edges) are directed and the node set is xed. Each of these models implies a speci c type of departure from the standard null binomial model. We provide statistical tests that, in keeping with these models, are sensitive to particular types of departures from the null. Each model (and associated test) discussed follows dir...

We present a socio-technical analysis of security of Hotspot and Hotspot 2.0. The analysis focuses is user-centric, and aim at understanding which user action can compromise security in presence of a attacker. We identify research questions about possible factors that may affect user’s security decisions, and propose experiments to answer them.

Designing and supporting learning interactions that are genuinely engaging, meaningful and conceptually stimulating within online learning contexts remains a significant challenge in contemporary education. One currently popular approach which aims to address some key aspects of this problem, and motivational issues in particular, involves articulating interaction as a game. This Chapter, whils...

Social media platforms have opened new dimensions within the information retrieval domain leading to a novel concept known as Social Information Retrieval. We argue that the concept of Social Information Retrieval can be extended by augmenting the huge amount of content on the traditional Web with the ever-growing rich Social Web content to increase the information richness of today’s search en...