Editorial Special Issue on Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence Guesteditors Juan M. CORCHADO , University of Salamanca, Spain Li WEIGANG , University of Brasilia, Brazil Javier BAJO , Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain Fei WU , Zhejiang University, China Tiancheng LI , University of Salamanca, Spain Contact Email: t.c.li@usal.es 4:1! Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) program,AlphaGo, has won Go Master Lee Sedol in a best-of-five competition held inKorean March 9-15, 2016. Seen by many as a landmark moment for AI, the outcomedid not come as a surprise, considering the excellent combination of 1920 CPUswith sophisticated AI algorithms, including neural networks and Monte Carlotree search ( Silver et al. 2016; Gibney et al. 2016). Indeed, research ondistributed computing and artificial intelligence (DCAI) has matured during thelast decade and many effective applications are now deployed, performing anincreasingly important role in modern computer science, including the two mosthyped technologies: Internet of Things and Big Data. Indeed, it is fair tosay that the application of artificial intelligence in distributed environmentsis becoming an essential element of high added value and economic potential. As a testimony to theconsiderable momentum in RD activities regarding DCAI, this special issuecontains six outstanding papers from the 12th International Conference on DCAIand 13th International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents andMulti-Agent Systems held in the University of Salamanca, Spain, June 2015. The selectedcontributions cover new theories, techniques, and approaches on DCAI systems,from distributed adaptive searching to group decision-making, from multi-agentsystem for crisis management to multi-robot scheduling for flow shop, and fromambient intelligence for entertainment to multi-camera monitoring systems forrehabilitation therapy. The first paper by Wall (2016) investigates theeffects of alternating the organizational dynamics/setting of distributedadaptive search (DAS) processes, with emphasis on the complexity ofinteractions between partial search problems assigned to search agents. DASprocesses occur in a large variety ofreal-world systems in which networked agents collaboratively search for higherlevels of performance, obtaining collective intelligence, for which one scientificchallenge is to coordinate and allow distributed agents to deal with thecross-agent interactions. The presented work is interesting because in order toreduce the problem complexity in many practical DAS applications, it isnecessary to segment the overall search problem into disjoint partial problems,and then delegate them to different search agents. In such cases, dependenciesacross the agents’ partial search problems become inevitable, which will causesignificant performance degradationif not properly taken into account. The second paper by Carneiro et al. (2016) presents an intelligent negotiation model to supportthe group decision-making process, which facilitates arguments, complexalgorithms and agent modelling. In general, supporting group decision-making inubiquitous contexts is a complex task, as it has to deal with a large number offactors. Aware of the drawbacks of existing models that are barely adaptable tothe business world reality, the presented work makes use of a social networkinglogic which simultaneously preserves the amount and quality of intelligencegenerated in face-to-face meetings, while defining strategies to deal withimportant points such as the type of attributes in the multi-criteria problems,agents reasoning and intelligent dialogues. The third paper by Britoy et al. (2016) presents the use of Situated Artificial Institution(SAI) within a hybrid, interactive, normative multi-agent system to regulatehuman collaboration in crisis management. To provide a context aware crisisregulation, this paper introduces a constitutive level between environmentaland normative states, providing a loose coupling of normative regulation withenvironment evolution, thus making it possible to keep both levels independentand easy-to-change in the face of complex and changing crisis situations. Normsare specified to regulate the actions of human actors based on both statusfunctions and the actors’ actions, leading to a declarative and distinct SAImodelling that manages the crisis with a context-aware crisis regulation. The forth paper by Rincon et al. (2016) involves a human-agent society where virtual agentsand humans coexist and interact transparently into a fully integratedenvironment. This paper presents an ambient intelligence application wherehumans are immersed into a system and are treated as agents with an emotionalstate. What is particularly interesting is the resulting social emotional modelwhich is able to maximize the welfare of humans by always playing the mostappropriate music, in which each individual will be represented by an agentthat has an emotional response according to its musical taste. The varyingemotions of each agent are then collected and used to update the social emotionof the group. The emotional state of agents is indicated as one important issueto consider in the human-agent society. The fifth paper by Nielsen et al. (2016) presents a constraint propagation driven approach formulti-robot task allocation in flow shop scheduling, providing a prompt serviceto a set of routine direct and reverse queries. This involves aresource-constrained multi-product scheduling problem for an AGV- served flowshop, where multiple material handling transport modes provide movement of workpieces between machining centers in the Multimodal Transportation Network(MTN). This network of repetitively acting local transportation modesencompassing an MTN structure provides a framework for multimodal processscheduling treated in terms of optimizing AGV fleet scheduling problems,subject to fuzzy operation time constraints and uncertainty of robots. In thepresented work, both production takt and operations execution time aredescribed by imprecise data. In contrast to the above theoretical and/or novelapproach study, the last paper by Oliver etal. (2016) stands out more from an experimental perspective, whichinvestigates in detail how the overlap of several infrared beams affects thetracked position of the user, depending on the angle of incidence of light,distance to the target, distance between sensors, and the number of capturedevices used. The experiment is carried out based on the Kinect camera which probablyrepresents one of the latest advances in cameras and three-dimensionalcapturing technology. The experimental findings have enlightening significancefor the design of intelligent patient-rehabilitation environments. Thisindicates a good RD direction for utilizing AI technologies to improvepeople’s lives. We would like to thank all theauthors for their contribution to this special issue. We appreciate thededication from the reviewers for their time and detailed reviews. The great support from the editorialoffice is also highly appreciated. It isour hope that these papers capture some of the latest major scientificdevelopments and that they can serve as a springboard for further improvementsand developments . References Carneiro ,J., Martinho, D., Marreiros, G., et al., 2016. Intelligent negotiation modelfor ubiquitous group decision scenarios. Front. Inform. Technol. Electron.Eng., 17(4): 296-308.http://dx.doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1500344 de Brito , M., Thévin, L., Garbay, C., et al., 2016. Supporting flexible regulationof crisis management by means of situated artificial institution. Front.Inform. Technol. Electron. Eng., 17(4):309-324. http://dx.doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1500369 Gibney ,E., 2016. Google AI algorithm masters ancient game of Go. Nature, 529:445-446. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/529445a Nielsen ,I., Wójcik, R., Bocewicz, G., et al., 2016. Multimodal processes optimizationsubject to fuzzy operation time constraints: declarative modeling approach.Front. Inform. Technol. Electron. Eng., 17(4):338-347. http://dx.doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1500359 Oliver ,M., Montero, F., Molina, J.P., et al., 2016. Multicamera systems forrehabilitation therapies: a study of the precision of Microsoft Kinect sensors.Front. Inform. Technol. Electron. Eng., 17(4):348-364. http://dx.doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1500347 Rincon ,J.A., Bajo, J., Fernandez, A., et al., 2016. Using emotions for the developmentof human-agent societies. Front. Inform. Technol. Electron. Eng.,17(4):325-337. http://dx.doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1500343 Silver ,D., Huang, A., Maddison, C.J., et al., 2016. Mastering the game of Go with deepneural networks and tree search. Nature, 529:484-489. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature16961 Wall ,F., 2016. Organizational dynamics in adaptive distributed search processes:effects on performance and the role of complexity. Front. Inform. Technol.Electron. Eng., 17(4):283-295. http://dx.doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1500306 All the papers can be accessed @ Frontiers of Information Technology Electronic Engineering
2014年3月31日~4月1日，“ 2nd International Symposium of Theoretical Chemistry Center, Tsinghua University (TCC-THU)” 国际研讨会在清华大学召开。大会围绕“ Quantum Chemistry forExtended Systems ”这一主题邀请了该领域国内外诸多专家进行了学术报告及研讨。同时，大会期间正值国际著名量子化学专家 Jean-Marie André 教授70寿诞，因此会议主席、 Science China Chemistry 编委、清华大学 帅志刚 教授特为刊物组织了“ Quantum Chemistry for Extended Systems — In honor of Prof. J.M. André for his 70th birthday ”专辑。专辑于2014年第10期（2014， 57（10）， 1315—1426）正式出版。 专辑邀请了参会的国内外专家针对本领域的前沿及进展撰写了13篇优秀稿件，其中国外稿件8篇。希望本次专辑的出版能使更多的专家学者了解该领域的相关进展。 欢迎访问该专辑：
最近和几位朋友在 Hindawi Publishing Corporation 旗下的 Journal of Nanomaterials （ SCI 收录，影响因子： 1.547 ）组织一期专题 : Semiconductor Nanomaterials for Energy Conversion and Storage . http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jnm/si/467241/cfp/ . 欢迎大家踊跃投稿。投稿截至时间 :2014 年 10 月 17 日。 我们接到稿件后将尽快送审，2-3周告知结果。接收后2个月内被SCI收录。 投稿网址 : http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/jnm/ecs/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SemiconductorNanomaterials for Energy Conversion and Storage Call for Papers Energy and environmental problems have raised great concerns in recent decades. On one hand, we have an increasing demand on energy for which the consumption causes many environmental problems. On the other hand, clean energy is significantly increasing, but the consumption of fossil energy is still abundant. To date, beside conventional energy including fossil energy, hydroelectric power, and wind energ y, scientists have developed several technologies to generate energy by converting solar energy into electricity or heat, by converting heat energy to electricity, or by converting mechanical energy to electricity. Indeed, generation of energy is only one out of many issues for energy engineering. Now we have three big challenges in the area of new energygeneration, transport, and storage of energy. A demonstration that energy can be generated, transported, and stored by applying new materials and nanostructures is of great importance in both scientific research and practical applications. This special issue focuses and calls for papers on semiconductor materials and nanostructures for the generation, transport, and storage of energy, including but not limited to · Nanogenerators; · Solar cells; · Solar absorbers; · Thermoelectrics; · Supercapacitors; · Lithium ion batteries; Before submission, authors shouldcarefully read over the journal’s Author Guidelines, which are located athttp://www.hindawi.com/journals/jnm/guidelines.html. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/jnm/ecs/ according to thefollowing timetable: Manuscript Due October 10, 2014 First Round of Reviews January 2, 2015 Publication Date February 27, 2015 Lead Guest Editor Xiang Wu , Harbin Normal University,Harbin, China ; E-mail: wuxiang05@gmail.com Guest Editors Xijin Xu University of Jinan , China ; E-mail: sps_xuxj@ujn.edu.cn Chuanfei Guo Department of Physics, University of Houston, USA E-mail: cguo2@central.uh.edu Ivan Chee Kiang Tan Institute ofMaterials Research and Engineering, Singapore ivan-tan@imre.a-star.edu.sg
最新上线的 SCIENCE CHINA Life Sciences 2014年第1期出版了清华大学专刊，包括16篇研究论文，集中介绍了清华大学生命科学领域最新的一些原创性研究成果，施一公院士为该专辑撰写了编者按： “ A glimpse of life science research at Tsinghua ” 专辑网址： http://life.scichina.com:8082/sciCe/EN/volumn/current.shtml http://link.springer.com/journal/11427/57/1/page/1 敬请关注~
《科学》-- 2012年 336 卷出版了关于计算生物学的系列综述文章，可以说是对计算生物学的肯定和未来发展的一些趋势。该专刊的网页是： http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6078.toc 这四篇文章分别是： A. Mogilner et al. Cell Polarity: Quantitative Modeling as a Tool in Cell Biology (细胞极性：定量模型作为细胞生物学的工具) D.R. Zerbin et al. Integraing Genomes (整合基因组) B.Munsky et al. Using Gene Expression NOise to Understand Gene Regulation (用基因表达噪声理解基因调控) L.G. Morelli et al. Computational Approaches to Developmental Pattering (用计算研究发育模式) 四篇文章包括了定量模型的建立，生物信息学，随机性的重要性和应用，计算与其在发育生物学中的应用，值得从事计算生物学、系统生物学、合成生物学、生物信息学、生物数学等学科人士的参考。 中国在计算生物学（或者系统生物学）领域的研究已经大大落后于国际，希望《科学》杂志的综述能引起国内学者对这一研究方向的关注。 计算生物学的研究之重点不是在计算，而是在定量模型的建立。计算是技术问题，但是如果不知道需要算什么，技术再好有能何如呢？只有对生物问题的合理定量化和模型的建立，才知道要算什么，才能很好地回答生物学问题。而为了建立好的数学模型，只有数学物理知识或者只有生物学知识是不够的。必须要生物学和定量科学学科之间的合作，只有这样才可能准确地提出生物学的问题，并且很好地把生物学问题转化成定量的计算（或者分析）问题。 我个人对计算生物学（或者系统生物学）的看法是：以定量的方法去研究生命科学问题。 学科之间的密切合作是做好计算生物学的基础。但是在国内因为种种制度上限制（经费申请，成果申报，项目经费分配等等），还有观念上的限制（一般比较喜欢在自己熟悉的领域进行工作，而对不太熟悉的领域不敢涉足）等原因，真正的合作并不容易实现。
标签: 专刊
