Future Generation Computer Systems 32 (2014) 180–186

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Future Generation Computer Systems

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fgcs

Editorial

Cyber-Physical Society—The science and engineering for future society

The physical space provides material basis for the generation ‘‘machines know little relation in human society and the nature, data
and evolution of living beings. Humans have created various structures in machines are for machines to process not for humans
artefacts and spaces to realize the meaning of life. Social space has to read, so it is not realistic to expect machines to discover socio and
been evolving with the development of human beings. Humans natural laws and resolve relevant issues without human instruction’’,
have invented versatile technologies and created cyberspace with and (2) ‘‘machines are hard to know the effect of establishing and
development of information technology. Cyberspace is being making use of relations, and to explain computing result according
linked to versatile individuals in physical space and social space. to society and the nature’’. The major cause is that machines
A complex space of cyberspace, physical space and social space do not have any worldview. ‘‘Connecting various networks and
— Cyber-Physical Society (CPSoc) — is being formed. Exploring machines with nature, society, and human minds can create a new
CPSoc needs a new methodology since the principles and methods environment where individuals have semantic images to enhance
specific to cyberspace, physical space and social space will not be mutual understanding. ’’
suitable for exploring the new space. It is necessary to explore The definition of CPSoc was given in [5]: ‘‘Cyber-Physical Soci-
the basic concept of CPSoc, its distinguished characteristics and ety is a multi-dimensional complex space that generates and evolves
scientific issues. Research on CPSoc will lead to the revolution of diverse subspaces to contain different types of individuals interact-
society, science and engineering. ing with, reflecting or influencing each other directly or through cy-
ber, physical, socio and mental subspaces. Versatile individuals and
1. Introduction socio roles coexist harmoniously yet evolve, provide appropriate on-
demand information, knowledge and services for each other, trans-
form from one form into another, interact with each other through
Human beings will live and develop with Cyber-Physical Society
various links, and self-organize according to socio value chains. It en-
(in short CPSoc), which consists of cyberspace, physical space
sures healthy and meaningful life of individuals, and maintains a rea-
and socio space. An early notion of large-scale human–machine
sonable rate of expansion of individuals in light of overall capacity and
interconnection environment that unites physical space, virtual
the material, knowledge, and service flow cycles’’.
space and mental space was proposed in 2005 [1], which is actually
CPSoc is an existence in form of a complex space. It is also
a scientific definition of CPSoc. The harmony of the nature, society,
a science and engineering of developing and managing the new
environment and cyberspace was pointed out: ‘‘Networks pervade
complex space.
the nature, society, and virtual worlds, giving structure and function
Cyber-Physical-Socio Intelligence studies intelligence in the
to a variety of resources and behaviours. Discovering the rules that
complex space, concerning human intelligence, socio intelligence,
govern the future interconnection environment is a major challenge.
machine intelligence, and complex intelligence [5]. Research
Ideally, this environment will be an autonomous, living, sustainable,
needs to incorporate relevant research progresses on the nature,
and intelligent system within which society and nature evolve
information, and society [6–9].
cooperatively. It will gather and organize resources into semantically
rich forms that both machines and people can easily use. Users
will cooperatively accomplish tasks and solve problems by using the 2. Separation
network to actively promote the flows of material, energy, techniques,
information, knowledge, and services in this environment’’. A brief The world evolves with separating and fusing spaces. The
history of the development of CPSoc was introduced in [2]. following are some great separations [5]:
In 2010, the term Cyber-Physical Society was used to represent (1) The separation of mental space from the physical space. With
the ideal of future interconnection environment for the first the generation and development of human beings, individual
time [3,4]. A complex Semantic Link Network was proposed as mental spaces are gradually separated from physical human
the method for semantic networking in CPSoc: ‘‘Humans are able bodies. Individual mental space consists of thoughts (including
to observe and participate in social processes, to think, and to know commonsense, concepts, rules, methods, principles, and theo-
the effect of establishing a relation. Humans can also actively select ries) and imagination (derivation of links through thoughts).
appropriate relations and persons according to requirement, situation Thoughts propagate through links between individuals and
and social rules. Machines are obviously limited in these abilities. self-organize to reflect the mental space. As the effect of men-
Various graph-based models have been used to connect resources tal space development, an artefact space is gradually separated
in the cyberspace’’. Two fundamental issues were proposed: (1) from the natural physical space. Human life is more and more
0167-739X/$ – see front matter © 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2013.10.008
 Editorial / Future Generation Computer Systems 32 (2014) 180–186 181

in the artefact space and gradually away from the natural phys- Human–machine symbiosis is a way to build a complex system that
ical space. Modern cities have been developing with including can maximize the ability of both human and machine [12].
more and more artefacts such as buildings, roads, and tools. A phenomenon of falling apple represents a semantic image
(2) The separation of society from the natural physical space. Society from the following layers:
is a space that contains socio individuals (humans, artefacts
created and used by humans and events), relations between (1) Reflection layer, i.e., data that can be captured by photo or video.
individuals, worth, authorities, and rules of activities. The (2) Commonsense layer, e.g., apple is fruit.
dynamics of many socio phenomena are driven by individual (3) Concept layer, e.g., physical concepts: force f , the mass of an
human actions. object m, and acceleration a, as well as gravity.
(3) The separation of symbol space from mental space and artefact (4) Rule layer, e.g., rule of multiplication.
space. Since thoughts are intangible, humans have to find
(5) Method layer, e.g., multiplication operation.
some tangible things to communicate with each other for life.
(6) Principle layer, e.g., f = m · a.
They used physical individuals like stones to count number,
and they used drawing to represent what they had in mind. (7) Theory layer, e.g., physics.
They created symbols to indicate and understand thoughts. CPSoc will extend the ability of humans to reflect the physical
The development of symbol language represents the progress space, to conveniently interact with each other, to classify/
of human society. More subspaces of the symbol space were
cluster/locate individuals, to search/surf/zoom in cyberspace, and
created. Some symbol spaces were structured in mathematical
to locate/reason/navigate in mental space. A falling apple in the
languages, while others were structured in natural languages.
physical space will be able to link to different devices in cyberspace,
Mathematicians have created many abstract spaces such as
which incur relevant semantic images in the mental space.
Euclidean space and Hilbert space. Humans have created a
CPSoc has three essential dimensions. The first dimension con-
huge document space, which keeps expanding through times.
sists of two facets: thought and individual. Individual is the ab-
More importantly, humans have the ability to link symbols to
the mental space and to the physical space. straction of natural resources, humans, and artefacts. The second
(4) The separation of cyberspace from symbol space and artefact dimension consists of four facets: time, space, relation and worth [1].
space. Cyberspace extends symbol space and artefact space to The third dimension consists of four facets: classification, in-
reflect more of other spaces. It not only enables humans to read teraction, influence, and transformation. Classification is a basic
documents distributed around the world easily but also facil- mechanism to recognize, organize and manage individuals [13].
itates communication and computation. Humans are making Interaction is a process of physical action and reaction, socio
great efforts to extend and enhance cyberspace [10,11]. Differ- behaviours, thought exchange or information transmission that
ent from other spaces, cyberspace can perform a certain artifi- changes the statuses of involved individuals.
cial intelligence and can establish link between spaces.
Some individuals like paintings are passive, but some like robots 4. Super link
can behave according to programs pre-designed by humans. In-
dividuals have mappings in different spaces. Human bodies be- Different from Web of things, Internet of Things, and Cyber-
long to the physical space, behaviours belong to social space, and Physical Systems [14–16], CPSoc will be equipped with super-links
thoughts belong to mental space. Human behaviours weave vari- to facilitate interaction through spaces [2,5].
ous networks through individuals. For example, the Internet, mo- Semantic Web is to create machine-understandable semantics
bile networks, and sensor networks are connected through human in cyberspace [17]. Semantic link is to reflect social relations in
behaviours.
cyberspace [4]. Superlink network reflects various relations and
Humans have created various artefacts and Cyber-Physical Sys-
dynamicity in CPSoc. It takes the following form: pi —l: c → pj ,
tems such as aeroplanes and robots. Aeroplanes can sense and
where pi and pj are individuals or classes in one space or in differ-
record some flying data such as location, height, temperature, and
ent spaces, l represents the specification of the link between two
fuel, and they have communication ability and can even autopi-
points, and c represents the type of content or material that can be
lot according to pre-designed route and program. Space station
transmitted from pi to pj . In super-link network, a node in any space
and space shuttle are advanced Cyber-Physical Systems. Differ-
can link to any node in any space, link can be of any type suitable for
ent from Cyber-Physical Systems, Cyber-Physical Society concerns
transmitting a certain type of information and influence can be in
the structure and function of the complex space consisting of cy-
berspace, physical space and social space, and the study of its laws or through spaces. Changing node or link will influence the linked
and principles. nodes in real-time.
Science and engineering develop with separating disciplines, Humans weave super-link network consciously and uncon-
which have become finer and finer. It is the critical time to think sciously in lifetime and from generation to generation. It evolves
from the origin and study the laws and principles over disciplines. and dynamically reflects semantics through operations. The
evolution of the network forms patterns. A key operation may
transform patterns. The effect of operation on the network can be
3. Semantic image and dimension
estimated. Interactions form temporal interaction nets through the
Various interactions between individuals form and evolve the networks. Super-links enable interactions to pass through spaces,
structure of spaces. In cyberspace, machines connect one another for example, text or image of apple in cyberspace can link to an ap-
to collect, calculate and transmit data. It contains more and more ple in supermarket or on an apple tree through sensors, and can
data, which indicates physical space, social space and itself to a further link to the physical concepts like gravity. The CPSoc con-
certain extent [3]. Essentially, only human can understand the cerns both category and individuals: One tree will be different from
information of the spaces and build the images (semantic images) the other tree, and one apple will be different from the other apple.
in mind. Cyberspace plays the role of extending human sensation Connecting these spaces can answer what, where, why, when, and
to cyberspace, physical space, and social space. There is a big gap how from different spaces [4,5,18]. Rules on super-links support
between the semantic image of human and data in cyberspace. complex reasoning [5].
182 Editorial / Future Generation Computer Systems 32 (2014) 180–186

5. Influence (5) Pervasive undetermined interaction. Different from control

processes and computer algorithms, Cyber-Physical Society
In CPSoc, different spaces obey different laws, physical laws do works with pervasive interactions between individuals within
not hold in cyberspace and socio space, but individuals in different and cross spaces. Pre-designed interactions follow rules in
spaces can interact with each other or influence one another different spaces.
following some common laws. Influence occurs and propagates (6) Lifetime semantics. Cyber-Physical Society will reflect individu-
when individuals or links are added or removed. The influence als, communities, interactions and events at multiple semantic
of one individual on another through super-link can be measured layers and link semantic elements in different layers. Different
by their ranks and the times of effective interactions between from digital archival, CPSoc preserving is real-time, lifetime,
them. Socio influence can be measured according to the extent and at multi-semantic layers.
of transforming the pattern in the super-link network. The extent (7) Multi-dimensional. Humans often use orthogonal space to
can be measured by the number of individuals who change locate an object in the physical space. In cyberspace, zooming
their communities or obviously change the behaviours of certain is an effective means to navigate through different view levels
number of individuals due to influence. Socio preference influences and reduce the scope of destination. Semantic Link Network
the formation of patterns. carries out triangle reasoning and navigation [4]. Semantic
Any individual has potential energy in socio network. It influ- communities at different levels support zooming on semantic
ences other individuals through super-links. It can be measured by link network to obtain semantic views of different abstraction
its centrality in the socio network considering the times of interac- levels. The Resource Space Model locates resources in multi-
tion through its links. The potential energy of a community can be dimensional classification space and supports zooming on
measured by its population and density considering both structure classification hierarchies [13,18]. The integration of the
and interaction. The potential energy of an event can be measured classification space and the semantic link network supports
by the number of involved individuals and the centrality of indi- navigation with the features of triangle reasoning/navigation,
viduals. orthogonal locating, and zooming through spaces.
Physical motion, socio behaviour, and cyber operation have mo-
Humans weave and maintain super-links between spaces, eval-
tion energy. An operation’s motion energy can be measured by
uate and evolve socio values, and make final decisions to change
the number of individuals who have changed their communities and
the total number of individuals. The motion energy originates from personal statuses and to influence the evolution of the spaces in
thought in mental space. History tells us that a thought may trans- Cyber-Physical Society at certain probability. Humans will play
form the structure of a society. The motion energy of operation is roles in the loop and out of the loop [19,20].
sensitive to operation order. Fig. 1 depicts multiple networks that operate a CPSoc. Mod-
The potential energy and the motion energy co-exist and co- ern city is a typical example of CPSoc, where people communicate
evolve Cyber-Physical Society [5]. through information flow network and knowledge flow network,
use various equipments supported by energy flow network, influ-
ence through relational network, move through traffic network,
6. Distinguished characteristics
and live with material (e.g., food and gas) flow network. The co-
ordination of these networks structures an efficient society.
Cyber-Physical Society has the following major distinguished
characteristics:
7. Scientific issues
(1) Real-time multi-space situation aware. Life Web pages will be
the first stage of development from the World Wide Web to The fusion of cyberspace, physical space, and socio space will
Cyber-Physical Society. Texts and photos in personal Web page fuse sciences and technologies specific to single space to form
will be displayed in real-time and through multi-dimensional a new theory and method for studying and developing Cyber-
senses such as time, location, event, audio and video about the Physical Society. Research will significantly influence current
person. People with different privileges can view information sciences and technologies. The following are some scientific issues.
from different dimensions and different scales. Further, the
individual to be viewed can know the viewer, sense the (1) Methodology. Natural sciences concern the structures and laws
viewer, and further presence virtually to events. Resources in of natural systems. Information technologies are about past,
different spaces can be self-organized in a multi-dimensional e.g., software and hardware are pre-designed, information
classification space. retrieval is to get past data, and the statistical approaches
(2) Super-link. Super-links will be interactive channels, which will calculate past data. Cyber-Physical Society connects not only
be able to transmit material, content and control information physical space, socio space, cyberspace and mental space but
to realize real-time interaction between individuals cross also past, present and future. New methodology should change
spaces. the progress of science and technology, break boundaries of
(3) Multi-space influence and measure. Individuals in different existing disciplines, and be more insightful and predictable
spaces will influence one another positively or negatively. For on the nature, socio, humans and culture and on mutual-
example, unhealthy individual or community in once space influence. The aim is a harmoniously evolved Cyber-Physical
will influence the health of individuals or communities in Society and its sustainable development.
another space. For human individuals, influence of unhealthy (2) Extension of thought. It is a challenge to link thought to thought,
or sub-healthy will come through multiple spaces. Measure and link thought to sketch, to design, and further to the process
in one space (e.g., physical space) is usually not suitable for of production. This concerns modelling and mapping between
another space (e.g., social space). A general measure needs to cyberspace, physical space, mental space, and socio space.
be explored in the study of Cyber-Physical Society. (3) On-demand services through multiple spaces. Different types
(4) Cross-space coordination. Human individuals can know their of resources could be fused on demand to provide services
own statuses when interacting with others. The statuses through logistics of materials in physical space, information in
include health, current micro physical space, socio attributes, cyberspace, knowledge in mental space, human and financial
individuals who were or are trying to super-link their status, resources in social space. Logistic processes will leave semantic
socio energy, and the lifetime semantic images of individuals images in cyberspace and can be adapted according to the
under privilege constraints. Privacy will be respected. change of demand.
 Editorial / Future Generation Computer Systems 32 (2014) 180–186 183

Fig. 1. Various networks of multiple layers in Cyber-Physical Society.

Fig. 2. Real-Time networking and decision making.

(4) Cyber-Physical-Socio laws. Study concerns competition, sym- and manage various activities and processes. It enables socio
biosis and cooperation laws among individuals and among activities and processes, physical individuals, thoughts as well
communities in the evolution process of the Cyber-Physical So- as human physiological, psychological and mental status to be
ciety, as well as laws of networking, evolving and influencing super-linked to create a panoramic interconnection environ-
the super-linked CPSocio networks [21,9]. ment for well-being and development.
(5) Principles of interaction, transformation and flows. Research con- (7) Real-time real-world modelling. Building appropriate model by
cerns the principles that individuals in different spaces inter- collecting and analysing data is the core of modelling. How-
act with each other, transform from one form into another, and ever, it is not feasible in large-scale dynamic CPSoc, because of
coordinate through appropriate information, thought, service, the following reasons:
material and energy flows. Principles, laws and methods of re- • Data reflects past status of the real-world or even may not
flection, interaction, influence, and cross-space reasoning and correctly reflect the real-world.
explanation. • Modelling process takes a long-time. The created model may
(6) Reflexive, self-organized and self-adaptive architecture. Cyber- not reflect the changing real-world.
Physical Society needs a reflexive, self-organized, and self- • Modelling is an abstraction of the real-world, there may have
adaptive Cyber-Physical architecture that can preserve different ways of abstraction, and its quality depends on hu-
semantic images of itself and various individuals in lifetime man.
184 Editorial / Future Generation Computer Systems 32 (2014) 180–186

• Explanation of modelling result relies on the model designer. 8.2. Problems

Modelling heavily relies on designer’s knowledge. Different
from traditional modelling, the real-time paradigm needs Using sensors and actuators to connect the physical world to
no mathematic model. Actually, it is hard to quickly build the computing world has the following two critical problems:
a model on big data, but establishing links between data is
(1) Can sensors get the real of things?
easier.
(2) Can machines make sense of data if big data can be captured?
Fig. 2 depicts the scenario of real-time simulation through real-
time networking on data. Data is continually collected through Humans design sensors to collect data of physical objects. The
sensors deployed in the physical space (e.g., temperature me- capability of sensors depends on two factors: understanding of the
ters and cameras) and in socio space (e.g., ticket machines and object and the physical world, and technology, e.g., transformation
mobile phones). Smart mobile phones will play more important from physical characteristics into electronic characteristics. At
roles in collecting data about humans. The cyberspace holds, links, current stage, humans are still far from understanding the physical
and displays data as network. Reasoning on links may be carried space, and the state-of-the-art technology is not able to get the
out through domain rules. Decision can be made with the refer- real information of things. For example, sensors cannot get real
ence of real-time data network. Users can operate the network symptom and link symptom to illness.
(e.g., add/remove links) to observe the effect of operation before or Humans make sense of things in a multi-dimensional context,
after making decision. The effect of decision may change the net- including individual experience, language, history and culture [5].
work, which in turn influence the following decision. With inter- Even big data about things can be sensed, machines still cannot
action among the natural physical space, society and economy, the make sense of data because machines do not have this complex
data network keeps changing. So, it is a close-loop of sensing, net- context. The gap between big data and the real information needs
working, operating and decision making. to be bridged by incorporating experience, rules given by human
Traditional modelling is based on model design, which may take and reasoning over rules. Humans can establish various models to
a long time and the correctness is hard to be guaranteed. Real- reduce the gap and can minimize the gap in particular applications,
time modelling in Cyber-Physical Society is based on the network for example, the semantic link network is to make sense of net-
of data, especially big data. Exact model is not necessary to run the work [4,2,9,5,13,18]. However, models and theory sometimes can-
system. Users can make decision through the experiment on data. not reflect the real due to the limitation of human understanding
The method for real-time modelling needs to be explored. of the real world.

8. Comparison with Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical 8.3. Relationship between CPSoc, IoT and CPS
Systems
CPSoc is a complex space consisting of cyberspace, physical
8.1. Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems space and social space. Links between spaces are established
through various explicit interactions or implicit influence between
Internet of Things (IoT) is to create an Internet-centric network spaces. Principles and methods in cyberspace, physical space or
of various devices (Radio-Frequency Identification tags, sensors, social space may not be suitable for the new space. We need to
actuators, mobile phones, etc.), which is expected to interact and explore new principles and methodology. It has gone beyond the
cooperate with each other for common goals through unique scope of previous ideas including Simon’s idea, active network, IoT
addressing schemes [14]. Similar to IoT, Web of Things (WoT) is and CPS. Sciences, technologies and human society will develop
to connect various devices and objects to the Web through Web towards a harmoniously evolved Cyber-Physical Society.
standards [15]. Although Licklider described the way to coordinate man and
A Cyber-Physical System (CPS) is a system featuring a tight machine [12], his idea was limited in individual man and computer
coordination between computational and physical components. rather than society, ubiquitous networks, and physical space.
Embedded computers and networks monitor and control the Actually, human society plays very important role in forming and
physical processes. The physical components of such systems evolving the complex space.
introduce safety and reliability requirements. The design of CPS Fig. 3 depicts the structure of CPSoc and the relationships
needs to embrace physical dynamics and computation in a unified among CPSoc, IoT and CPS. Great challenge is not just to computer
way [16]. science and information technology but also to the whole sciences,
IoT is to extend the Internet to connect physical objects through technologies and engineering.
sensors. CPS is to extend embedded system to include physical CPSoc holds humans, machines and physical space. It enables
objects into computing system. The ideas empirically represent humans to work efficiently, know more about the real, and under-
aspirations of developing the future interconnection environment. stand each other. Previous research on semantics, knowledge and
Recent development shows that the two ideas are attracting Grid can be extended to explore the foundation of CPSoc [24,25].
research interests and investments. New techniques and methods
developed through research and application will help to develop
9. Conclusion
the future interconnection environment.
There are several previous ideas similar to IoT and CPS. Ten-
How our future living space is like is a major concern of
nenhouse proposed Active Network and Proactive Computing and
sciences. Cyber-Physical Society (CPSoc) is a science, technology
called for getting physical and getting real when developing next-
and engineering for the future society. Research will lead to the
generation networks [19,20]. Weiser envisioned that computers
revolution of science, technology, engineering and society [5,18].
become so ubiquitous that people are unaware of their existence
(e.g., ubiquitous computing) [22]. Actually, Herbert Simon identi- (1) Science. The formation of scientific thought in individual men-
fied the importance of bridging physical domain and virtual do- tal space and propagation through mental spaces can be re-
main half-century ago [23]. Many applications employed sensors trieved through rich and vivid historical semantic images, so do
and actuators to get data and control machines before the terms of research activities involved in physical space and socio space.
IoT and CPS were coined. Therefore, IoT and CPS are not essentially This will greatly help scientific research since scientists can ac-
new concepts from historical point of view, they can be regarded cess research objects and thoughts as well as their formation
as the development of relevant techniques. processes through super-links. This means that scientists can
 Editorial / Future Generation Computer Systems 32 (2014) 180–186 185

Fig. 3. A Complex Space of Cyberspace, Physical Space and Social Space.

not only communicate with peers but also access thoughts of (5) Society and life. Society will be safer and life quality will be
scientists through time. Scientists can not only use language higher as the status of key individuals, communities, and
to express thoughts but also link thoughts to symbols in pa- events will have semantic images that can help make pre-
pers, to research process, and to possible applications. This will caution. Health of individuals can be detected and evaluated
also lead to a revolution of publication. Currently, some pub- on time, and evaluation results can be super-linked to mea-
lishers allow authors to attach slides to papers. In the future, sures. Evaluation result will be super-linked to socio influence
live scenarios will be embedded in papers, which demonstrate through time. Cyber-Physical Society will also help individuals
research processes including experiments. Scientific thoughts to fulfil all aspects of the meaning of life: love, work, entertain-
will effectively influence society through super-links between ment, etc.
spaces. (6) Green and harmonious social environment. Cyber-Physical
(2) Education. Students can learn natural physical principles and Society will be efficient and low carbon as it will ensure optimal
socio knowledge not only from linguistic description and coordination between knowledge flow, information flow,
mathematical description in textbooks but also from live phys- material flow, energy flow and value flow through spaces. The
ical phenomena or socio events through super-links. How to cycle between consumption and production can be established
sense various physical phenomena and social events are chal- to minimize the waste of material and energy with awareness
lenging issues. Knowledge is formed, enhanced and rebuilt of the super-links between materials, socio requirements,
through interaction between coherent motions in and through
innovation, influence, production, and physical space. The
spaces. Questioning, answering and explaining will be carried
energy cost of computing will be taken into account in multiple
out through spaces.
spaces rather than just in cyberspace. Human will be in the
(3) Engineering. Artificial systems will be linked to manufacturers,
Cyber-Physical-Social process to co-evolve with cyberspace,
ideas, design processes, and manufacturing processes while in-
physical space and social space [8]. Human will also be out of
teracting with humans (designers, engineers and users). The
statuses of systems can also be monitored in lifetime so that the process to develop mind and foresee the future.
necessary maintenance can be carried out on time to ensure (7) Interactive virtual presence. Individuals can interact with each
healthy status. Function, structure, designer, owner, developer, other through spaces. Children at home can feel the presence of
and even economic, ecological and socio effects will be acces- their parents who are in office through multiple types of super-
sible. All spaces will cooperatively reflect the formation pro- links, and parents can know the situations of children, and be
cesses of artificial systems when they are required, designed, alarmed when special cases happen. Senior people can feel the
built, sold, used, and recycled. presence of their children and relatives who live in different
(4) History and culture. Individuals, family trees, thoughts, and so- places. Patients in rural areas can see doctors in major cities
cio events will be reflected and preserved as semantic images and obtain treatment through super-links.
that can be accessed through times. Evidences of historical and (8) Multi-space optimization. Making optimization in multiple
cultural research will be easily available. Both material culture spaces is important in Cyber-Physical Society. For example,
and non-material culture will be preserved not only in physi- energy supplies will super-link to requirements, road maps,
cal space but also in cyberspace and social space virtually. Rec- real-time energy consumption situation, parking spaces, and
ommendation or evaluation will be explained from historical environmental status. Traffic jam will be avoided through
and cultural point of view. Science fiction will not only exhibit knowing real-time situation and certain socio priority. Vehi-
imagination in text and cyberspace but also super-link to his- cles can be guided to appropriate parking according to inten-
tory and culture. tions and minimization of energy consumption.
186 Editorial / Future Generation Computer Systems 32 (2014) 180–186

The revolution of Cyber-Physical Society will also bring security [18] H. Zhuge, The Knowledge Grid: Toward Cyber-Physical Society, second ed.,
issue. As human behaviours will influence the physical space and World Scientific Publishing Co, 2012.
[19] D. Tennenhouse, J.M. Smith, W.D. Sincoskie, D.J. Wetherall, A survey of active
society through cyberspace, security will be cross spaces. Another network research, IEEE Communications 35 (1) (1997) 80–86.
issue is how to keep a sustainable development of cyberspace so [20] D. Tennenhouse, Proactive computing, Communications of the ACM 43 (5)
that it can harmoniously evolve with society, otherwise it may (2000) 43–50.
[21] M.A. Nowak, K. Sigmund, Evolution of indirect reciprocity, Nature 427 (27)
form negative influence on society. The complex space evolves (2005) 1291–1298.
with various interactions for cooperation and isolation. [22] M. Weiser, The computer for the 21st century, Scientific American 265 (3)
(1991) 94–104.
[23] H. Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1969.
Acknowledgement [24] H. Zhuge, Y. Sun, The schema theory for semantic link network, Future
Generation Computer Systems 26 (3) (2010) 408–420.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of [25] H. Zhuge, Semantic grid and knowledge grid, Future Generation Computer
China (61075074). System 23 (3) (2007) 281–282.

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Semantics, Knowledge and Grids (SKG2010), Beijing, 2010. organized semantic link network method. The model is
[3] H. Zhuge, Interactive semantics, Artificial Intelligence 174 (2010) 190–204. based on normalized probabilistic multi-dimensional clas-
[4] H. Zhuge, Socio-natural thought semantic link network—a method of semantic sifications, self-organized semantic interaction principles,
networking in the cyber physical society, Keynote at IEEE AINA 2010, Perth, rules for networking and reasoning. Professor Zhuge also
Australia, April 20–23, 2010, pp. 19–26. created a set of models and methods for effectively sharing
[5] H. Zhuge, Semantic linking through spaces for cyber-physical-socio intelli- and managing knowledge in a self-organized scalable en-
gence: a methodology, Artificial Intelligence 175 (2011) 988–1019. vironment. Innovations significantly transform traditional centralized knowledge
[6] A-L. Barabási, The origin of bursts and heavy tails in Human dynamics, Nature management methods and have influenced multiple areas. Professor Zhuge pre-
435 (2005) 207–211. sented 15 keynotes at international conferences. He was the top scholar in jour-
[7] P. Wang, M.C. González, C.A. Hidalgo, A-L. Barabási, Understanding the nal assessment report. He received Wang Xuan Award of China Computer Federa-
spreading patterns of mobile phone viruses, Science 324 (5930) (2009) tion for his fundamental theory of the Knowledge Grid. He was awarded a Distin-
1071–1076. guished Visiting Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering in 2013. He is an ACM
[8] H. Zhuge, X. Shi, Toward the eco-grid: a harmoniously evolved interconnection Distinguished Scientist and ACM Distinguished Speaker. He is serving as an as-
environment, Communications of the ACM 47 (9) (2004) 78–83. sociate editor of IEEE Intelligent Systems and steering the International Confer-
[9] X. Shi, H. Zhuge, Cyber physical socio ecology, Concurrency and Computation: ence on Semantics, Knowledge and Grids (SKG, www.knowledgegrid.net). Web-
Practice and Experience 23 (9) (2011) 880–904. page: www.knowledgegrid.net/~h.zhuge.
[10] T. Hey, A.E. Trefethen, Cyber infrastructure, Science 5723 (308) (2005)
817–821.
[11] J. McCarthy, From here to Human-level intelligence, Artificial Intelligence 171
(18) (2007) 1174–1182.
[12] J.C.R. Licklider, Man–computer symbiosis, IRE Transactions on Human Factors Hai Zhuge ∗
in Electronics HFE-1 (1960) 4–11. Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, 210023,
[13] H. Zhuge, Y. Xing, Probabilistic resource space model for managing resources
in cyber-physical society, IEEE Transactions on Service Computing 5 (3) (2012)
Nanjing, China
404–421. Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
[14] L. Atzori, A. Iera, G. Morabito, The internet of things: a survey, Computer 100190, Beijing, China
Networks 54 (15) (2010) 2787–2805.
[15] D. Guinard, V. Trifa, Towards the web of things: web mashups for embedded E-mail address: [email protected].
devices. The 18th Internatinal World Wide Web Conference, 2009.
[16] E.A. Lee, Cyber physical systems: design challenges, 11th IEEE international Available online 15 October 2013
symposium on object oriented real-time distributed computing, 2008. ∗ Correspondence to: Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of
[17] J. Hendler, T. Berners-Lee, From semantic web to social machine, Artificial
Intelligence 174 (2) (2010) 156–161. Sciences, 100190, Beijing, China. Tel.: +86 10 62562703; fax: +86 10 62562703.