| 1. |
- Hudson, Lawrence N, et al.
(författare)
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The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project
- 2017
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2045-7758. ; 7:1, s. 145-188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The PREDICTS project-Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)-has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity.
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| 2. |
- Ari Noriega, Jorge, et al.
(författare)
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Does ecotourism impact biodiversity? : An assessment using dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) as bioindicators in a tropical dry forest natural park
- 2020
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Ingår i: Ecological Indicators. - : Elsevier. - 1470-160X .- 1872-7034. ; 117
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ecotourism can be defined as an environmental activity that takes place in well-preserved areas for recreation and with the responsibility of promoting their conservation. Nowadays, ecotourism is seen as a friendly pastime, but it can potentially affect negatively community diversity and structure by a number of processes such as soil compaction, erosion, and habitat alteration, among many others. Nonetheless, there is hardly any information on the impact of ecotourism in the Tropical Dry Forests and protected areas of the Neotropical region. In an attempt to fill this knowledge gap, the effect of ecotourism was evaluated in a study of a Tropical Dry Forest in the Tayrona National Natural Park of Colombia using dung beetles as bioindicators. A large-scale sampling of three sites with different levels of tourism intensity (no tourism - NT, low tourism - LT, and high tourism - HT) was performed using pitfall tramps baited with human/pig dung during two climatic seasons (rainy and dry). A total of 3238 individuals belonging to nine genera and 15 species were collected. Significant differences in abun-dances, richness, and the Shannon Wiener diversity index were observed between areas with tourism and those without. These differences disappeared during the dry season in response to the strong reduction in species abundance and richness associated to that time of year. All areas maintained a homogeneous beetle structure in terms of functional groups present irrelevant of the intensity level of tourism. Beta diversity analysis shows that the dung beetle assemblage has a nested structure, indicating that the pressure exerted by tourism entails the loss of particular species. Our results advocate that it is necessary to implement conservation strategies in order to reduce the negative impact of tourism on the National Park's biodiversity.
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| 3. |
- Boella, Guido, et al.
(författare)
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Introduction to the special issue on NorMAS 2009
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of logic and computation (Print). - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0955-792X .- 1465-363X. ; 23:2, s. 307-308
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 4. |
- Calatayud, Joaquín, et al.
(författare)
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Positive associations among rare species and their persistence in ecological assemblages
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nature Ecology & Evolution. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2397-334X. ; 4:1, s. 40-45
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- According to the competitive exclusion principle, species with low competitive abilities should be excluded by more efficient competitors; yet, they generally remain as rare species. Here, we describe the positive and negative spatial association networks of 326 disparate assemblages, showing a general organization pattern that simultaneously supports the primacy of competition and the persistence of rare species. Abundant species monopolize negative associations in about 90% of the assemblages. On the other hand, rare species are mostly involved in positive associations, forming small network modules. Simulations suggest that positive interactions among rare species and microhabitat preferences are the most probable mechanisms underpinning this pattern and rare species persistence. The consistent results across taxa and geography suggest a general explanation for the maintenance of biodiversity in competitive environments. Analysing spatial association networks among >300 terrestrial and aquatic assemblages, the authors find that the majority of negative associations involve abundant species. In contrast, rare species form mostly positive associations, potentially explaining their persistence in natural communities.
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| 5. |
- Hudson, Lawrence N., et al.
(författare)
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The PREDICTS database : a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : Wiley. - 2045-7758. ; 4:24, s. 4701-4735
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species' threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project - and avert - future declines. We describe and assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups - including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems - ). We make site-level summary data available alongside this article. The full database will be publicly available in 2015.
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| 6. |
- Noriega, Pablo, et al.
(författare)
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A Manifesto for Conscientious Design of Hybrid Online Social Systems
- 2017
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Ingår i: Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems XII. - Cham, Switzerland : Springer. - 9783319665948 - 9783319665955 ; , s. 60-78
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Online Social Systems such as community forums, social media, e-commerce and gaming are having an increasingly significant impact on our lives. They affect the way we accomplish all sorts of collective activities, the way we relate to others, and the way we construct are own self-image. These systems often have both human and artificial agency creating what we call online hybrid social systems. However, when systems are designed and constructed, the psychological and sociological impact of such systems on individuals and communities is not always worked out in advance. We see this as a significant challenge for which coordination, organisations, institutions and norms are core resources and we would like to make a call to arms researchers in these topics to subscribe a conscientious approach to that challenge. In this paper we identify a class of design issues that need attention when designing hybrid online social systems and propose to address those problems using conscientious design which is underpinned by ethical and social values. We present an austere framework to articulate those notions and illustrate these ideas with an example. We outline five lines of research that we see worth pursuing.
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| 7. |
- Noriega, Pablo, et al.
(författare)
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Addressing the Value Alignment Problem Through Online Institutions
- 2023
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Ingår i: Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, Norms, and Ethics for Governance of Multi-Agent Systems XVI 27th International Workshop, COINE 2023, London, UK, May 29, 2023, Revised Selected Papers. - : Springer Nature. - 9783031491320 ; , s. 77-94
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- As artificial intelligence systems permeate society, it becomes clear that aligning the behaviour of these systems with the values of those involved and affected by them is needed. The value alignment problem is widely recognised yet needs addressing in a principled way. This paper investigates how such a principled approach regarding online institutions a class of multiagent systemscan provide key insights on how the value alignment problem can be addressed in general.
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| 8. |
- Noriega, Pablo, et al.
(författare)
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Design Heuristics for Ethical Online Institutions
- 2022
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Ingår i: Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, Norms, and Ethics for Governance of Multi-Agent Systems XV. - Cham : Springer. - 9783031208447 - 9783031208454 ; , s. 213-230
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- A major challenge in AI is designing autonomous systems that capture the values of stakeholders, and do so in such away that one can assess the extent to which that system’s behaviour is aligned to those values. In this paper we discuss our response to this challenge that is both practical and built on clear principles. Specifically, we propose eleven heuristics to organise the process of making values operational in the design of particular class of AI systems called online institutions. These are governed systems of interacting communities of human and autonomous artificial agents.
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| 9. |
- Noriega, Pablo, et al.
(författare)
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Ethical Online AI Systems Through Conscientious Design
- 2021
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Ingår i: IEEE Internet Computing. - 1089-7801 .- 1941-0131. ; 25:6, s. 58-64
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is increasing interplay between humans and artificial intelligent (AI) entities in online environments. With the growing autonomy and sophistication of these AI systems, the hybrid communities which are formed start to behave like the more-familiar, human-only social systems. This sets up the challenge to find systematic ways to ensure reliable governance for these interactions just as we do in human communities. This article proposes a novel approach to build governance for hybrid communities using what we call Conscientious Design (CD). There are two key aspects to CD: 1) the introduction of value categories that guides the identification of relevant stakeholder values, coupled with 2) a tripartite model for online institutions that serves to describe the interactions of hybrid communities of humans and artificial entities in a way that is consistent with the values of all stakeholders.
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| 10. |
- Noriega, Pablo, et al.
(författare)
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Identifying Affordances for Modelling Second-Order Emergent Phenomena with the WIT Framework
- 2017
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Ingår i: Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. - Cham : Springer. - 9783319716787 - 9783319716794 ; , s. 208-227
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- We explore a means to understand second order emergent social phenomena (EP2), that is, phenomena that involve groups of agents who reason and decide, specifically, about actions – theirs or others’ – that may affect the social environment where they interact with other agents. We propose to model such phenomena as socio-cognitive technical systems that involve, on one hand, agents that are imbued with social rationality (thus socio-cognitive) and, on the other hand, a social space where they interact. For that modelling we rely on the WIT framework that defines such socio-cognitive technical systems as a trinity of aspects (the social phenomenon, the simulation model and the implementation of that model). In this paper we centre our attention on the use of affordances as a useful construct to model socio-cognitive technical systems. We use the example of reputation emergence to illustrate our proposal.
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| 11. |
- Noriega, Pablo, et al.
(författare)
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Towards a Framework for Socio-Cognitive Technical Systems
- 2015
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Ingår i: Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems X. - Cham : Springer. - 9783319254197 - 9783319254203 ; , s. 164-181
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper is an invitation to carry out science and engineering for a class of socio-technical systems where individuals — who may be human or artificial entities — engage in purposeful collective interactions within a shared web-mediated social space. We put forward a characterization of these systems and introduce some conceptual distinctions that may help to plot the work ahead. In particular, we propose a tripartite view (WIT Trinity) that highlights the interplay between the institutional models that prescribe the behaviour of participants, the corresponding implementation of these prescriptions and the actual performance of the system. Building on this tripartite view we explore the problem of developing a conceptual framework for modelling this type of systems and how that framework can be supported by technological artefacts that implement the resulting models. The last section of this position paper outlines a list of challenges that we believe are worth facing. This work draws upon the contributions that the MAS community has made to the understanding and realization of the concepts of coordination, norms and institutions from an organisational perspective.
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| 12. |
- Singh, Munindar P., et al.
(författare)
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The Uses of Norms
- 2013
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Ingår i: Normative Multi-Agent Systems. - Dagstuhl : Schloss Dagstuhl--Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik. - 9783939897514 ; , s. 191-229
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 13. |
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| 14. |
- Verhagen, Harko, et al.
(författare)
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Towards a Design Framework for Controlled Hybrid Social Games
- 2013
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Ingår i: Social Coordination: Principles, Artefacts and Theories (SOCIAL.PATH). - 9781908187369 ; , s. 83-87
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- We propose a framework for designing and deploying games where social behaviour is kept under control. This framework may also be used for designing other dynamic coordinated social spaces.
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| 15. |
- Vidal-Lamolla, Pol, et al.
(författare)
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Assessing urban water demand-side management policies before their implementation : An agent-based model approach
- 2024
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Ingår i: Sustainable Cities and Society. - 2210-6707. ; 107
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the context of climate change and increasing water scarcity, adopting water demand-side management (DSM) policies has become necessary. This study advocates for utilizing agent-based modelling (ABM) as a robust simulation tool to assess the impact of nonprice (nudges) and price (changes in increasing block tariff) measures on urban water use. Overcoming challenges posed by insufficient high-quality data, the research integrates four sociocognitive profiles and diverse household income levels to reflect the variability in DSM policy effectiveness based on socioeconomic characteristics. Through 125 simulated scenarios combining various increasing block tariffs with nonpricing measures, the study reveals an average monthly demand reduction ranging from 8.1% to 15.6%. Significantly, nonprice measures prove more effective in curbing water use than pricing measures, attributed to the prioritization of environmental concerns in conservation efforts. Higher-income households exhibit less-pronounced reductions in water consumption. Emphasizing the reliability of ABM for ex ante evaluations of DSM policies, this research underscores the importance of a balanced approach, incorporating both nonprice and price-based measures, to effectively address water scarcity challenges.
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