Second International Conference on Computational Cultural Dynamics

Computer technology is leading to sweeping changes in how we can reason about groups in diverse cultures. Examples include computer systems to aid researchers in gathering data about different cultural groups, learning the intensity of opinions that those groups have on various topics, building/extracting models of behavior of those groups, and continuously refining those behaviors through shared, multi-person, learning experiences.

These developments are inherently cross-disciplinary. They blend the behavioral and social sciences—fields such as political science, psychology, journalism, anthropology, and sociology—with technological fields such as computer science, computational linguistics, game theory, and operations research.

Currently, many of these research communities are largely unconnected. There is a need to bring them together to help forge a common understanding of principles, techniques, and application areas. That is the purpose of this conference. The First International Conference on Computational Cultural Dynamics was held in August 2007 and was sponsored by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence who published the proceedings. A special issue of selected papers from the conference will be published by IEEE Intelligent Systems journal in 2008.

Papers are solicited on computational models for cultural dynamics, and also on applications where such models may be expected to be useful in enhancing cultural sensitivity. Examples of the latter are (but are not restricted to):

  • understanding the social patterns that influence the spread of diseases;
  • understanding other cultures in order to facilitate international collaboration;
  • preventing crime and reducing conflict;
  • enhancing understanding the performance of governmental and non-governmental organizations;
  • improving the quality of life among groups in diverse multi-ethnic societies;
  • assessing the effectiveness of aid programs in a cultural context;
  • aiding governmental missions that involve contact with diverse cultural groups;
  • recovery from conflicts and disasters.

This conference is sponsored by the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and the Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics (LCCD).