Physical-Cyber-Social computing: Looking back, looking forward

Physical-cyber-social (PCS) computing involves a holistic treatment of data, information, and knowledge from the physical, cyber, and social worlds to integrate, understand, correlate, and provide contextually relevant abstractions to humans and the applications that serve them. PCS computing extends current progress in cyber-physical, socio-technical, and cyber-social systems. Here, the guest editors consider powerful ways to exploit data available through various Internet of Things (IoT), citizen and social sensing, Web, and open data sources that are seeing explosive growth. This special issue highlights a variety of PCS applications, such as smart firefighting, intelligent infrastructure, and user guidance in an airport.