Biblio

Collective self-adaptive systems (CSAS) are distributed and interconnected systems composed of multiple agents that can perform complex tasks such as environmental data collection, search and rescue operations, and discovery of natural resources. By providing individual agents with learning capabilities, CSAS can cope with challenges related to distributed sensing and decision-making and operate in uncertain environments. This unique characteristic of CSAS enables the collective to exhibit robust behaviour while achieving system-wide and agent-specific goals. Although learning has been explored in many CSAS applications, selecting suitable learning models and techniques remains a significant challenge that is heavily influenced by expert knowledge. We address this gap by performing a multifaceted analysis of existing CSAS with learning capabilities reported in the literature. Based on this analysis, we introduce a 3D framework that illustrates the learning aspects of CSAS considering the dimensions of autonomy, knowledge access, and behaviour, and facilitates the selection of learning techniques and models. Finally, using example applications from this analysis, we derive open challenges and highlight the need for research on collaborative, resilient and privacy-aware mechanisms for CSAS.

Automated recommendations have become a common feature of modern online services and mobile apps. In many practical applications, the means provided for users to interact with recommender systems (e.g., to state explicit preferences or to provide feedback on the recommendations) are, however, very limited. In order to improve such systems and consequently user satisfaction, much research work has been done over the years to build richer and more intelligent user interfaces for recommender systems. In this tutorial, we provide a comprehensive overview of existing approaches to user interaction aspects of recommender systems, with a special focus on explanation interfaces. We also provide examples of real-world systems that implement advanced interaction mechanisms and discuss open challenges in the field.