# Spatiotemporal Modeling of the Smart City Residents' Activity with Multi-Agent Systems
## 3 Research Methodology
### Agents' Interactions  
Meetings between residents take place when they are in the same buildings and when the agents are moving around the city. During these meetings, interactions occur, affecting the change of the agents' characteristics. Such interactions are a symptom of human spatial behavior, resulting from the social distances described by [PERSON] in [7]. Generalized [PERSON]'s first law serves as the starting point for modeling the processes of urban interactions in accordance with [PERSON]'s actor-network theory. It states that \"everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.\" In the modeled process, objects (actors) influencing each other are actants (sensors) understood as the residents of the city, buildings, spatial arrangement, the dominating function of a given city district, and so on. It is important to emphasize that the \"nearness\" of the actants here (in this context, the residents) can mean not only the distance in the geographical space, but also the similarity of characteristics, shared interests and views, or social media connection. There is also an assumption that interactions may occur through social media or online interactions, without the need for agents to meet physically. Thus, what is taken into account is not the physical distance between the agents (Euclidean distance in the space of a city), but the distance of the social network, which depends on the educational or age difference. The following interactions, two of them defined by [PERSON] in [8], latter proposed by the authors, are considered:  
* Focused interaction: Influences an agent located in a personal distance (45 to 120 cm). It is assumed that the residents participating in focused interaction will pursue their own goals. An interaction occurs through observation, listening, speaking, and acting. The roles of the interaction parties are strictly defined. The model assumes that a leader should be one of the interaction parties. * Symbolic interaction: Influences an agent located in a personal and social distance (45 to 360 cm). Symbolic interactionism discussed in [47; 48] has also been crucial for the research. It is a sociological perspective dealing with the study of interactions taking place as a result of symbols and gestures. Symbolic interactionism is based on the analysis of the mutual interactions processes, understood as the exchange of symbolic meanings. An exchange takes place between conscious partners who are continually interpreting the situation. The interaction between individuals consists of sending, receiving, and interpreting symbols. The devised model assumes that this interaction occurs between all agents. * Social media interaction: Influences an agent located in a social net distance (age difference <0.05 or educational difference <0.05). It is a process of exchanging opinions and comments among the users of the social network while reading posts, watching movies or images, listening to sound recordings, and conversations. Additionally, there is an assumption that the mere presence of a citizen in a given district or a building affects her/his characteristics and, in particular, her/his trust in other people. Being in an office, healthcare facility, at a workplace, school, or in an industrial or office district reduces trust (temporarily or permanently). On the other hand, being in a park, museum, on the boulevards, or in a historic or recreational district increases trust (temporarily or permanently). These changes are called the location influence. The characteristic analyzed by the authors is the change in the level of mutual trust between residents (\"human agents\") resulting from the multidimensional influence of the actants. The level of their \"trust\" tends to \"equalize\" with the interaction of agents representing individual residents,although it is not an immediate or rapid process.