Horizons in Social Science 2013

Nowadays there is an ongoing intense scientific debate around the definition of the foundational concepts as well as about the most appropriate methodological approaches to deal with the understanding of social dynamics. The challenge of understanding human behaviors is complex and intricate. Humans are intentional (and not necessarily rational) and the dynamics of social behavior are influenced by multitude of factors. In particular, with the advent of the Big Data era – i.e. the explosion of available datasets from technological mediated communication – that challenge has increased its complexity. If on the one hand we can have access to an enormous set of observable social and mobility traces, on the other hand there is a lack of theoretical concepts to ground and interpret data as an expression of individual and social behavior. The event is intended to gather the most proficient scientists and companies working at the edge of the computational social science and big data to detail the new frontiers and challenges with an interdisciplinary, tight and non reductionist approach.The symposium is open to all researchers, scientists and practitioners.