Wang authors book on social edge computing

Dong Wang
Dong Wang, Associate Professor

Associate Professor Dong Wang is the lead author of a book that introduces a new paradigm integrating edge computing, humans, and artificial intelligence (AI). Social Edge Computing: Empowering Human-Centric Edge Computing, Learning and Intelligence (Springer) is coauthored by Daniel "Yue" Zhang, research scientist at Amazon Alexa AI. 

With the rise in smart devices and advances in AI, data is increasingly being captured, processed, and analyzed near where it is created. This practice, edge computing, is different from cloud computing, where data is processed in a data center or public cloud. Advantages of computing at the edge include reduced bandwidth cost, improved responsiveness, and better privacy protection. In their book, Wang and Zhang define a new paradigm, social edge computing (SEC), that generalizes the current machine-to-machine interactions in edge computing and machine-to-AI interactions into a "holistic human-machine-AI ecosystem."

The SEC paradigm introduces a set of critical research challenges such as the rational nature of device owners, pronounced heterogeneity of the edge devices, real-time AI at the edge, human and AI interaction, and the privacy concern of the human users. This book addresses these challenges by presenting a series of principled models and system designs that enable the confluence of the computing capabilities of devices and the intelligence of the people, while explicitly addressing the unique concerns of humans.

"SEC enables 'social interactions' between machines and humans at the edge by allowing the devices to obtain the unique domain knowledge and expertise from humans to improve the performance and transparency of the application," said Wang. "It also motivates novel AI for social good applications such as privacy-aware health monitoring, disaster damage assessment, crowd abnormal event detection, and vehicle-based criminal tracking."

According to the authors, the techniques introduced in Social Edge Computing can help fully harness the power of devices, algorithms, and humans in the next generation of computing, intelligence, and learning applications at the edge.

Wang's research interests lie in the areas of human-centered AI, social sensing and intelligence, big data analytics, misinformation detection, and human cyber-physical systems. He holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Knox appointed interim dean

Professor Emily Knox has been appointed to serve as interim dean of the School of Information Sciences, pending approval by the Board of Trustees. Until officially approved, her title will be interim dean designate. The appointment will begin April 1, 2025.

Emily Knox

iSchool instructors ranked as excellent

Fifty-six iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Fall 2024 and Winter 2024-2025. The rankings are released every semester, and results are based on the ratings from the Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) questionnaire forms maintained by Measurement and Evaluation in the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. 

iSchool Building

Ocepek and Sanfilippo co-edit book on misinformation

Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek and Assistant Professor Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo have co-edited a new book, Governing Misinformation in Everyday Knowledge Commons, which was recently published by Cambridge University Press. An open access edition of the book is available, thanks to support from the Governing Knowledge Commons Research Coordination Network (NSF 2017495). The new book explores the socio-technical realities of misinformation in a variety of online and offline everyday environments. 

Governing Misinformation in Everyday Knowledge Commons book

Faculty receive support for AI-related projects from new pilot program

Associate Professor Yun Huang, Assistant Professor Jiaqi Ma, and Assistant Professor Haohan Wang have received computing resources from the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), a two-year pilot program led by the National Science Foundation in partnership with other federal agencies and nongovernmental partners. The goal of the pilot is to support AI-related research with particular emphasis on societal challenges. Last month, awardees presented their research at the NAIRR Pilot Annual Meeting.

iSchool participation in iConference 2025

The following iSchool faculty and students will participate in iConference 2025, which will be held virtually from March 11-14 and physically from March 18-22 in Bloomington, Indiana. The theme of this year's conference is "Living in an AI-gorithmic world."