DIMACS Special Focus on Computation and the Socio-Economic Sciences

数学家和社会科学家之间的伙伴关系由来已久，但计算机科学家和社会科学家之间的伙伴关系相对较新。在过去的5年里，它们已经开始萌芽，几个重要的新研究领域已经因此蓬勃发展。将计算方法应用于解决现代社会科学问题需要开发计算机科学家领域内的新数据结构、算法和其他工具。该项目力求发展新的“以社会科学为基础”的计算机科学方法，并调查其在信息技术问题和对现代社会至关重要的社会科学问题上的应用。它还试图调查与社会经济科学中新出现的问题特别相关的计算机科学工具。对这类问题的研究需要计算机科学家、数学家、运筹学家、经济学家、商业应用专家、政治学家、心理学家、社会学家和专门处理信息的研究人员之间建立新的跨学科合作伙伴关系。该项目旨在促进这种伙伴关系。该项目的研究部分将围绕研究人员的跨学科工作组组织，包括学生和初级研究人员。教程将向研究人员和学生介绍计算机科学和社会科学的相关方法以及相关的应用问题。研讨会将确定研究领域，寻求促进跨学科合作，并将重点放在未来的研究挑战上，它们将有一个教育部分，包括教程演示和学生参与的机会。所有工作组和讲习班都将寻求参与者的跨学科混合。工作组将研究博弈论、计算和行为；网络搜索和元搜索的数学；以及分布式计算、社会网络和疾病传播过程。将举办关于市场作为预测装置的研讨会(信息市场)；拍卖设计中的计算问题；电子投票(理论和实践)；以及随机效用的多面体组合学。其他研讨会将涵盖网络经济学、有限理性、收益管理和动态定价等主题。

Partnerships between mathematicians and social scientists have existed for a long time, but partnerships between computer scientists and social scientists are relatively new. In the past 5 years, they have begun to sprout and several important new fields of research are already thriving as a result. Applying computational methods to the solution of modern social science problems requires the development of new data structures, algorithms, and other tools that are in the domain of the computer scientist. This project seeks to develop the new ``social-science-based'' CS methodologies and to investigate their application to problems of information technology and to problems of the social sciences of fundamental importance to modern society. It also seeks to investigate computer science tools that are especially relevant to emerging problems of the socio-economic sciences. Research into issues of this type requires new interdisciplinary partnerships among computer scientists, mathematicians, operations researchers, economists, experts in business applications, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, and researchers specializing in the handling of information. This project seeks to catalyze such partnerships.The research component of the project will be organized around interdisciplinary working groups of researchers, with students and junior researchers included. Tutorials will introduce researchers and students to relevant methods of computer science and the social sciences and relevant applied problems. Workshops will identify areas for research, seek to catalyze interdisciplinary collaborations, and focus on future research challenges, and they will have an educational component with tutorial presentations and opportunities for students to participate. All working groups and workshops will seek an interdiscipinary mix of participants. Working Groups will investigate Game Theory, Computation, and Behavior; the Mathematics of Web Search and Meta-Search; and Distributed Computing, Social Networks, and Disease Spread Processes. Workshops will be held on Markets as Predictive Devices (Information Markets); Computational Issues in Auction Design; Electronic Voting (Theory and Practice); and Polyhedral Combinatorics of Random Utility. Additional workshops will cover the topics Network Economics; Bounded Rationality; and Yield Management and Dynamic Pricing.