SOCIALNETS - The emerging information society is widely expected to experience massive embedding of both

fixed and portable devices into our local physical spaces, with more and more devices having the

capacity to initiate, store and communicate information and content in all aspects of life. This

results in significant challenges for communication and information provision, based on required

scalability, heterogeneity, re-configurability and dynamicity. The "Social Networking for Pervasive

Adaptation" project (SOCIALNETS) proposes a radical re-think for this ICT challenge by

significantly departing from the traditional engineering notion of communication network. Instead,

SOCIALNETS seeks to embed in devices the key characteristics that enable humans to adapt and

exhibit agility beyond any other species. A human-centric approach to communication is developed

by establishing social network of relations between fixed and mobile devices, as defined by the

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human user and their particular actions and behaviour with respect to each other and technology in

the environment. Social networks are intimately connected with the human and are the basis for the

SOCIALNETS paradigm. The project seeks to understand, model and exploit these structures using

an interdisciplinary approach involving social anthropology, complex systems, network engineering

and computer science. Relations between devices can be inherently flexible, based on casual

interactions, using social models of trust and security, and without the need for "always-on"

connectivity. Furthermore, such relations build into social networks with desirable and inclusive

properties that can be exploited for communication and knowledge acquisition for large numbers of

devices.