Alessandro Sapienza

The Relevance of Categories for Trusting Information Sources

In this article, we are interested in the fact that relevance and trustworthiness of information acquired by an agent X from a source F strictly depends and derives from Xs trust in F with respect to the kind of information. In particular, we are interested in analyzing the relevance of Fs category as indicator for its trustworthiness with respect to the specific informative goals of X. In this article, we analyze an interactive cognitive model for searching information in a world in which each agent can be considered as belonging to a specific agents category. We also consider variability within the canonical categorical behavior and consequent influence on the trustworthiness of provided information. The introduced interactive cognitive model also allows evaluation of the trustworthiness of a source both on the basis of its category and on past direct experience with it, thus selecting the more adequate source with respect to the informative goals to achieve. We present a computational approach based on fuzzy sets and some selected simulation scenarios together with the discussion of their more interesting results.

Trusting Information Sources Through their Categories

In this paper we want to focus our attention on the importance of categories for trust in information sources (TIS). We analyze an interactive cognitive model for searching information in a world where each agent can be considered as belonging to a specific category. We also consider some kind of variability within the canonical categorial behavior and their consequent influence on the trustworthiness of provided information. The introduced interactive cognitive model also allows to evaluate the trustworthiness of a source both on the basis of its category and of the past direct experience with it, selecting the more adequate source with respect to the informative goals to achieve. We present some selected simulation scenarios together with the discussion of their more interesting results.

On the Users’ Acceptance of IoT Systems: A Theoretical Approach

In the next future the IoT system will introduce extraordinary changes in our daily life. We will communicate with our domestic appliances to inform them about our preferences and goals and they will develop initiative and autonomy to be put at our service. But are we sure that we can afford all the automation they could offer? Are we able to manage it? Is it compatible with our cognitive attitudes and our actual and real goals? In this paper, we face the question of the IoT from the point of view of the user. We start analyzing which reasons undermine the acceptance of IoT systems and then we propose a possible solution. The first contribution of this work is the level characterization of the autonomy a user can grant to an IoT device. The second contribution is a theoretical model to deal with users and to stimulate users’ acceptance. By the means of simulation, we show how the model works and we prove that it leads the system to an optimal solution.

Which Information Sources are More Trustworthy in a Scenario of Hydrogeological Risks: A Computational Platform

In this work we realized a series of social simulations in order to investigate how a set of cognitive agents behave in presence of critical hydrogeological phenomena, showing some interesting results about their choices.

Interactions Among Information Sources in Weather Scenarios: The Role of the Subjective Impulsivity

The topic of critical hydrogeological phenomena, due to flooding, has a particular relevance given the risk that it implies. In this paper we simulated complex weather scenarios in which are relevant forecasts coming from different sources. Our idea is that agents can build their own evaluations on the future weather events integrating these different information sources also considering how much trustworthy the single source is with respect to each individual agent. These agents learn the trustworthiness of the sources in a training phase. Agents are differentiated on the basis of their own ability to make direct weather forecasts, on their possibility to receive bad or good forecasts from an authority and on the possibility of being influenced by the neighbors’ behaviors. Quite often in the real scenarios some irrational behaviors rise up, whereby individuals tend to impulsively follow the crowd, regardless of its reliability. To model that, we introduced an impulsivity factor that measures how much agents are influenced by the neighbors’ behavior, a sort of “crowd effect”. The results of these simulations show that, thanks to a proper trust evaluation of their sources made through the training phase, the different kinds of agents are able to better identify the future events.

Using Sources Trustworthiness in Weather Scenarios: The Special Role of the Authority

In this work we present a platform shaping citizens’ behavior in case of critical hydrogeological phenomena that can be manipulated in order to realize many possible scenarios. Here the citizens (modeled through cognitive agents) need to identify the risk of a possible critical events, relying of their information sources and of the trustworthiness attributed to them. Thanks to a training phase, the agents will be able to make a rational use of their different information sources: (a) their own evaluation about what could happen in the near future; (b) the information communicated by an authority; (c) the crowd behavior, as an evidence for evaluating the level of danger of the coming hydrogeological event. These weather forecasts are essential for the agents to deal with different meteorological events requiring adequate behaviors. In particular we consider that the authority can be more or less trustworthy and more or less able to deliver its own forecasts to the agents: due to the nature itself of the problem, these two parameters are correlated with each other. The main results of this work are: (1) it is necessary to optimize together both the authority communicativeness and trustworthiness, as optimizing just one aspect will not lead to the best solution; (2) once the authority can reach much of the population it is better to focus on its trustworthiness, since trying to give the information to a larger population could have no effect at all or even a negative effect; (3) the social source is essential to compensate the lack of information that some agents have.

An Evolutionary Platform for Social Simulation in Case of Critical Hydrogeological Phenomena: The Authority’s Role

Starting from our previous work [1], we propose a study on cognitive agents that have to learn how to use their different information sources (their own evaluation, the authority communication, others’ behavior) in different situations and with respect to different hydrogeological phenomena.

Trusting Different Information Sources in a Weather Scenario: A Platform for Computational Simulation

Thinking about a scenario with possible risk of flooding and landslides caused by weather conditions, it results really interesting to investigate the way in which citizens take decisions on the basis of different information sources they can access. In this work we start describing a platform we realized in order to study this social phenomenon. Then we present some simulative experiments showing how a population of cognitive agents trusting in a different way their information sources can make decisions more or less suited to the several weather patterns. The complexity of decisions is based on the fact that the agents differently trust the various sources of information, which in turn may be differently trustworthy. In our simulations we analyse some interesting case studies, with particular reference to social agents that need to wait others in order to make decision.

Information Sources About Hydrogeological Disasters: The Role of Trust

One issue particularly relevant in cases of risk of flooding and landslides caused by specific conditions of the weather, is the ability of citizens to take the right decisions on the basis of different information sources to which they have access.