Description

The massive diffusion of networked ICT devices, increasingly entangled with our physical and social world, is leading to the emergence of large-scale distributed computing systems. These can provide us with a variety of innovative service and new functionalities, once we understand how to direct and coordinate their activities. You can consider sensor/actuator networks; robot swarms; platforms for collective sensing and actions; platforms for global collaboration and production. All of these, to be of some use, require the capability of effectively coordinating the activities of a very large number (up to the millions) of heterogeneous components, such as humans, software agents, robots, and generic ICT devices. And this in spite of components that are: situated in dynamic and unpredictable environments; inherently context-aware in their interaction; inherently autonomous; and, thus, practically impossible to be controlled at the individual level.

Topics of Interest

This special issue welcomes theoretical and practical contributions focusing on systemic issues for large-scale socio- technical systems, and providing either innovative viewpoints or novel models, technologies, and methodologies on the subject. Contributions can address (but are not limited to) the following topics of interests:

• Coordination models, languages, and technologies for large-scale socio-technical systems, there included non-conventional (e.g., nature-inspired or socially-inspired) approaches;
• Models and tools for decentralized control of behavior in large-scale distributed and multiagent systems;
• Bottom-up vs. top-down models of coordination in large-scale systems;
• Formal models for the analysis and prediction of the behavior of complex coordinated socio-technical systems;
• Coordination in large-scale human-robot teamwork;
• Large-scale urban computing systems, there included platforms for participatory sensing, awareness and action;
• Models, languages, and tools for crowdsourcing of complex and large-scale tasks;
• Experiences gained in coordinating large-scale socio-technical systems