Heterogeneous community entails a number of social groups that adopt similar/different social norms. In such community, new individuals who join a new social group should be able to decide with which group they could assimilate based on their capabilities/values/manners. Otherwise, they would be penalized by other members in the group for violating some norms which they cannot comply. Using this approach, software agents would have better reasoning in simulating human society. In this paper, the authors propose a norms assimilation theory, in which a new agent attempts to assimilate with a social group’s norms. This theory builds an approach to norm assimilation, analyzes the cases for an agent to decide to assimilate with a social group and develops a mathematical model to measure the assimilation cost and the agent’s ability. The approach is developed based on the agent’s internal belief about its ability and desire, and its external belief about the cost of assimilating with a number of social groups. The significance of this research is two-fold. Firstly, the study paves the way to future design of intelligent systems, i.e., software agents or robots, to closely mimic human social interactions. Secondly, the norm assimilation using agent-based system could be potentially utilized to simulate some social issues such as immigrants, new students, expatriate etc. The experiments that have been conducted demonstrate that an agent in the domain is able to calculate the assimilation cost and decide which social group to join.

中文翻译：

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新个体在异构社区中的行为：使用基于代理的系统进行规范吸收的一种计算方法

异构社区包含许多采用相似/不同社会规范的社会群体。在这样的社区中，加入新的社会团体的新个人应该能够根据他们的能力/价值观/方式决定与哪个团体同化。否则，他们会因为违反一些他们无法遵守的规范而受到小组中其他成员的惩罚。使用这种方法，软件代理在模拟人类社会时将具有更好的推理能力。在本文中，作者提出了一种规范同化理论，其中新的代理人试图与社会团体的规范同化。该理论建立了规范同化的方法，分析了代理决定与社会群体进行同化的案例，并开发了一个数学模型来衡量同化成本和代理的能力。该方法是基于代理人关于其能力和欲望的内部信念，以及其与许多社会团体同化的成本的外部信念而开发的。这项研究的意义是双重的。首先，这项研究为智能系统的未来设计铺平了道路，例如软件代理或机器人，以紧密模仿人类的社会互动。其次，使用基于主体的系统进行规范同化可以潜在地用于模拟一些社会问题，例如移民，新学生，外籍人士等。进行的实验表明，域中的主体能够计算同化成本和决定加入哪个社会团体。以及对与许多社会团体同化的代价的外部信念。这项研究的意义是双重的。首先，该研究为智能系统的未来设计铺平了道路，例如软件代理或机器人，以紧密模仿人类的社会互动。其次，使用基于代理的系统进行规范同化可以潜在地模拟一些社会问题，例如移民，新学生，外籍人士等。进行的实验表明，该领域的代理可以计算同化成本和决定加入哪个社会团体。以及对与许多社会团体同化的代价的外部信念。这项研究的意义是双重的。首先，该研究为智能系统的未来设计铺平了道路，例如软件代理或机器人，以紧密模仿人类的社会互动。其次，使用基于代理的系统进行规范同化可以潜在地模拟一些社会问题，例如移民，新学生，外籍人士等。进行的实验表明，该领域的代理可以计算同化成本和决定加入哪个社会团体。