The next step, according to Nick Jennings of the University of Southampton, who is one of the project's leaders, is to examine more closely the interaction between people and agents.

ECONOMIST: Artificial intelligence

However, a study of Britain's New Deal policies by Duncan McVicar of Queen's University, Belfast, and Jan Podivinsky of the University of Southampton reaches the opposite conclusion.

ECONOMIST: The crunch may entrench unemployment

Using Topsy as the harvesting tool, TweetLevel applies a considerable amount of research from the work at the Web Science team at the University of Southampton led by Professor Dame Wendy Hall of the Web Sciences Institute.

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