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In this paper, we address the problem of designing new formats of computer science orientation activities to be offered during high school students internships in Computer Science Bachelor degrees. In order to cover a wide range of computer science topics as well to deal with soft skills and gender gap issues, we propose a teamwork format, called smart rogaining, that offer engaging introductory activities to prospective students in a series of checkpoints dislocated along the different stages of a rogaine. The format is supported by a smart mobile and web application. Our proposal is aimed at stimulating the interest of participants in different areas of computer science and at improving digital and soft skills of participants and, as a side effect, of staff members (instructors and university students). In the paper, we introduce the proposed format and discuss our experience in the editions organized at the University of Genoa before the COVID-19 pandemic (2019 and 2020 waves).

This paper presents a Runtime Verification (RV) approach for Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) using the JaCaMo framework. Our objective is to bring a layer of security to the MAS. This is achieved keeping in mind possible safety-critical uses of the MAS, such as robotic applications. This layer is capable of controlling events during the execution of the system without needing a specific implementation in the behaviour of each agent to recognise the events. In this paper, we mainly focus on MAS when used in the context of hybrid intelligence. This use requires communication between software agents and human beings. In some cases, communication takes place via natural language dialogues. However, this kind of communication brings us to a concern related to controlling the flow of dialogue so that agents can prevent any change in the topic of discussion that could impair their reasoning. The latter may be a problem and undermine the development of the software agents. In this paper, we tackle this problem by proposing and demonstrating the implementation of a framework that aims to control the dialogue flow in a MAS; especially when the MAS communicates with the user through natural language to aid decision-making in a hospital bed allocation scenario.

Automating a factory where robots are involved is neither trivial nor cheap. Engineering the factory automation process in such a way that return of interest is maximized and risk for workers and equipment is minimized is hence, of paramount importance. Simulation can be a game changer in this scenario but requires advanced programming skills that domain experts and industrial designers might not have. In this paper, we present the preliminary design and implementation of a general-purpose framework for creating and exploiting Virtual Environments via Natural language Agents (VEsNA). VEsNA takes advantage of agent-based technologies and natural language processing to enhance the design of virtual environments. The natural language input provided to VEsNA is understood by a chatbot and passed to an intelligent cognitive agent that implements the logic behind displacing objects in the virtual environment. In the complete VEsNA vision, for which this paper provides the building blocks, the intelligent agent will be able to reason on this displacement and on its compliance with legal and normative constraints. It will also be able to implement what-if analysis and case-based reasoning. Objects populating the virtual environment will include active objects and will populate a dynamic simulation whose outcomes will be interpreted by the cognitive agent; further autonomous agents, representing workers in the factory, will be added to make the virtual environment even more realistic; explanations and suggestions will be passed back to the user by the chatbot.

This paper describes the preparation and the execution of an educational experience consisting of a challenge, called Hackmytown, among five different teams composed by university students, aimed at experiencing challenges in the definition of ‘smart’ services for a city. Glurns/Glorenza, the smallest city of South Tirol (Italy), was chosen as the ideal location to verify the application of the concept of Smart City in a small community by adopting a bottom-up approach involving local stakeholders and Municipality.