In recent years, global forced displacement has reached record levels, with 22.5 million refugees worldwide. Forecasting refugee movements is important, as accurate predictions can help save refugee lives by allowing governments and NGOs to conduct a better informed allocation of humanitarian resources. Here, we propose a generalized simulation development approach to predict the destinations of refugee movements in conflict regions. In this approach, we synthesize data from UNHCR, ACLED and Bing Maps to construct agent-based simulations of refugee movements. We apply our approach to develop, run and validate refugee movement simulations set in three major African conflicts, estimating the distribution of incoming refugees across destination camps, given the expected total number of refugees in the conflict. Our simulations consistently predict more than 75% of the refugee destinations correctly after the first 12 days, and consistently outperform alternative naive forecasting techniques. Using our approach, we are also able to reproduce key trends in refugee arrival rates found in the UNHCR data.

Customer retention is a critical concern for mobile network operators because of the increasing competition in the mobile services sector. Such unease has driven companies to exploit data as an avenue to better understand changing customer behavior. Data-mining techniques such as clustering and classification have been widely adopted in the mobile services sector to better understand customer retention. However, the effectiveness of these techniques is debatable due to the constant change and increasing complexity of the mobile market itself. This design study proposes an application of agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS) as a novel approach to understanding customer behavior through the combination of market and social factors that emerge from data. External forces at play and possible company interventions can then be added to data-derived models. A dataset provided by a mobile network operator is utilized to automate decision-tree analysis and subsequent building of agent-based models. Popular churn modeling techniques were adopted in order to automate the development of models, from decision trees, and subsequently explore possible customer churn scenarios. ABMS is used to understand the behavior of customers and detect reasons why customers churned or stayed with their respective mobile network operators. A CART decision-tree method is presented that identifies agents, selects important attributes, and uncovers customer behavior – easily identifying tenure, location, and choice of mobile devices as determinants for the churn-or-stay decision. Word of mouth between customers is also explored as a possible influence factor. Importantly, methods for automating data-driven agent-based simulation model generation will support faster exploration and experimentation – including with those determinants from a wider market or social context.

This research aims to explore how to enhance student engagement in higher education institutions (HEIs) while using a novel conversational system (chatbots). The principal research methodology for this study is design science research (DSR), which is executed in three iterations: personas elicitation, a survey and development of student engagement factor models (SEFMs), and chatbot interaction analysis. This paper focuses on the first iteration, personas elicitation, which proposes a data-driven persona development method (DDPDM) that utilises machine learning, specifically the K-means clustering technique. Data analysis is conducted using two datasets. Three methods are used to find the K-values: the elbow, gap statistic, and silhouette methods. Subsequently, the silhouette coefficient is used to find the optimal value of K. Eight personas are produced from the two data analyses. The pragmatic findings from this study make two contributions to the current literature. Firstly, the proposed DDPDM uses machine learning, specifically K-means clustering, to build data-driven personas. Secondly, the persona template is designed for university students, which supports the construction of data-driven personas. Future work will cover the second and third iterations. It will cover building SEFMs, building tailored interaction models for these personas and then evaluating them using chatbot technology.

Chatbots are computer programs that mimic human conversation using text or voice or both. Users’ acceptance of chatbots is highly influenced by their persona. Users develop a sense of familiarity with chatbots as they use them, so they become more approachable, and this encourages them to interact with the chatbots more readily by fostering favorable opinions of the technology. In this study, we examine the moderating effects of persona traits on students’ acceptance and use of chatbot technology at higher educational institutions in the UK. We use an Extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Extended UTAUT2). Through a self-administrated survey using a questionnaire, data were collected from 431 undergraduate and postgraduate computer science students. This study employed a Likert scale to measure the variables associated with chatbot acceptance. To evaluate the gathered data, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) coupled with multi-group analysis (MGA) using SmartPLS3 were used. The estimated Cronbach’s alpha highlighted the accuracy and legitimacy of the findings. The results showed that the emerging factors that influence students’ adoption and use of chatbot technology were habit, effort expectancy, and performance expectancy. Additionally, it was discovered that the Extended UTAUT2 model did not require grades or educational level to moderate the correlations. These results are important for improving user experience and they have implications for academics, researchers, and organizations, especially in the context of native chatbots.

This paper presents a novel approach to social data analysis, exploring the use of microblogging to manage interaction between humans and robots, and presenting and evaluating an architecture that extends the use of social networks to connect humans and devices. The approach uses natural language processing – in the form of simple grammar-based techniques – to extract features of interest from textual data retrieved from a microblogging platform in real-time and generate appropriate executable code for the robot. The simple rule-based solution exploits some of the ‘natural’ constraints imposed by microblogging platforms to manage the potential complexity of the interactions and create bi-directional communication. In order to evaluate the developed system, an analysis of real-time, user-generated social media data is presented. The analysis demonstrates the feasibility of producing programmes from the social media data which lead to executable actions by a front-end application – an approach of immediate relevance to web-based systems, like question–answering engines, personal digital assistants, and smart home/office devices