Editorial: Socio-technical ecologies: Design for human-machine systems

Jean Botev, Ada Diaconescu, Heiko Hamann, Stephen Marsh, Francisco J. Rodríguez Lera

Abstract: consider second-order effects on the host environment ("habitat") and, in consequence, on the embedded 48 systems. This explicitly includes long periods of time where systems of systems form ecologies and 49 co-evolve after deployment. Highly interactive settings, such as an advanced smart city scenario, comprise 50 many heterogeneous systems, e.g., robots and/or artificial agents, crowd-sourced data, social media, 51 location-based applications, swarms of delivery drones, cleaning or gardening robots. The goal is to 52 improve urban life, such as transport systems, healthcare, infrastructure, and services, by collecting and 53 analyzing data from a wide range of sensors and applications. However, many of these systems fail to 54 adapt or serve their intended purpose within the larger socio-technical ecosystem as they are oblivious to 55 the complex dynamics in their immediate context, let alone the effects on cities as larger organisms. It is 56 therefore vital to establish an integral way of designing human-machine systems that form socio-technical 57 ecologies, allowing them to respect and adapt to the ever-evolving context in which they are embedded.We believe this Research Topic constitutes a step towards a more comprehensive, multidisciplinary view 59 of human-machine systems and their design. Our thanks go to all reviewers for their in-depth assessments 60 and to the authors for their contributions.This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article