Multi-Agent Programming Contest 2010 - AC'10

Multi-Agent Programming Contest 2010
Call for Participation
http://www.multiagentcontest.org

Organizers:
  Tristan Behrens (Clausthal University of Technology)
  Jürgen Dix (Clausthal University of Technology)
  Jomi Hübner (Federal University of Santa Catarina)
  Michael Köster (Clausthal University of Technology)

Steering Committee:
  Mehdi Dastani (Utrecht University)
  Jürgen Dix (Clausthal University of Technology)
  Peter Novak (Czech Technical University)

1. Aims and Scope

This competition is an attempt to stimulate research in the area of multi-agent system development and programming by

1. identifying key problems,
2. collecting suitable benchmarks, and
3. gathering test cases which require and enforce coordinated action that can serve as milestones for testing multi-agent programming languages, platforms and tools.

2. Short Scenario Description

The contest scenario consists of developing a multi-agent system to solve a cooperative task in a dynamic environment. The environment is a grid-like world in which virtual cows are moving around collectively in one or more herds exhibiting a swarm-like behavior. There are two corrals, each belongs to one of the two agent teams. The teams of agents compete to control the behavior of animals and lead them to their own corral. The winning agent team is the one that scores highest. A detailed scenario description of the scenario will be available in time.

3. Participation Requirements

The participation in this contest consists of these parts:

1. Declaring the intent to participate by registering to the mailing list.
2. Submission of the description of analysis, design and implementation of a multi-agent system for the above application. Thus registering to the contest officially.
3. Participation in the contest tournament by taking part on the final tournament.
4. Submitting the source-code of your application right after the tournament.

4. Important Dates

Stating your intent to participate:              now
Publication of the software:      January 2010

Submission of the description and registration to the contest:  July 2009
Notification:                     after submission
Camera-Ready of the description:  after notification

Testing phase:              July - September 2010
Competition:                      September 2010

Winner announcement:              after competition

4. Details

4.1 Intention to Participate

Please announce your intention to attend the contest by subscribing to the mailing list. Participants and all interested colleagues are invited to subscribe to the mailing list
   

agentcontest2010 [at] in.tu-clausthal.de

All the important details and announcements including scenario and communication protocol specifications as well as software release announcements and bug reports will be announced and discussed via this list.

To subscribe, send an e-mail to

          agentcontest2010-subscribe [at] in.tu-clausthal.de

with the subject "subscribe". The confirmation request and welcome message will be sent to you shortly afterwards. Please follow the instructions in the automatic mailing list replies.

4.2 Packages

The packages that we will publish include:

1. the protocol description that defines the communication scheme between agents and our server, 
2. the scenario description that defines the environment, 
3. the MASSim server,
4. the scenario itself, 
5. template-agents implemented in Java, and 
6. an EIS.

4.3 Submissions of the Short Descriptions

We intend to handle the submissions of the short system-descriptions via EasyChair. We also aim at publishing in the CLIMA (@ECAI) post-proceedings (still in a planning phase). We will provide details in time.

4.4 Scenario

The scenario will be *almost the same* as in 2010. The only thing that we are going to adapt is the scoring schema (more details later). But if we discover further adaptations that would make the scenario more interesting from a research-point-of-view, we could adapt as well.

4.5 Source Codes Obligation

Note that the submission of the source-codes is obligatory in 2010.

Trading Agent Competition - TAC-2010

The Eleventh Annual Trading Agent Competition 

Call for Participation
June 7 - 8, 2010

Boston, MA, USA
Collocated with EC'10 (ACM Conf. on Electronic Commerce)

Trading in electronic markets is increasingly becoming both a commonplace economic activity and a topic of special interest within the AI, Electronic Commerce, and Multiagent Systems (MAS) research communities.

We invite you to participate in the Eleventh Annual Trading Agent Competition (TAC-10), to be held in May and June of 2010, with the finals taking place during the EC'10 conference in Boston, Massachusetts, preceded by qualifying and seeding rounds in May and June.

Building on the success of previous Trading Agent Competition events, this year's event is again designed to spur research on common problems, promote definitions of benchmarks and standard problem descriptions, and showcase current technologies.

The competition will pit software agents -- developed by research groups, students, and others from all over the world -- against each other in challenging market games. This year, there will be three games, and up to two related challenge events:

1. TAC Ad Auctions (AA).

In the TAC/AA game, agents representing Internet advertisers bid for search-engine ad placement over a range of interrelated keyword combinations. A back-end search-user model translates placement over each simulated day to impressions, clicks, and sale conversions, yielding revenue for the advertiser. Advertiser strategies combining online data analysis and bidding tac tics compete to maximize profit over the simulated campaign horizon.

2. TAC Market Design (reverse TAC, or "CAT"). 

CAT software agents represent market makers whose goals are to attract potential buyers and sellers as customers, and then to match buyers with sellers. The market makers compete with one another in doing this, such as the London Stock Exchange competes with the NYSE for the business of stock traders.

3. TAC Supply Chain Management (SCM). 

TAC/SCM simulates a dynamic supply chain environment where agents compete to secure customer orders and components required for production of these orders. The game captures many of the complexities of actual supply chains, where both demand and supply fluctuate and each manufacturer has limited production capacity. Participants also have the option of entering two SCM Challenge events: 

• 
  
  

  a Procurement Challenge and 

• 
  
  

  a Prediction Challenge;

these will take place if enough teams (minimum 6) register for them.

The market games have been specially designed to present agents with difficult decision problems and admit a wide variety of potential bidding and negotiation strategies.

Preliminary documentation and software for participating in the AA Tournament are accessible at:

http://aa.tradingagents.org/ 

Preliminary documentation and software for participating in the CAT Tournament are accessible via sourceforge. Access details and other CAT information is available at:

http://www.marketbasedcontrol.com/blog/index.php?page_id=5

Documentation and open source software for participating in TAC SCM, including servers and sample agents, are available for download at:

http://www.sics.se/tac/

The qualifying and seeding rounds will be held in May and early June, and the first day of the final rounds is scheduled to coincide with the Trading Agent Design and Analysis (TADA) workshop to be held at EC'10.

To register for TAC-10, please fill out the registration form at:
(will be activated in the next weeks)

http://www.sics.se/tac/intent.php

The entry fee will be US$250 per team to enter one game, or $400 for all TAC games. For TAC SCM the entry fee is the same independently of the number of challenge events in which a team competes.

The entry fee is waived for teams who send a representative to the TAC finals at EC'10, if that representative registers for the TADA workshop. A given individual may represent one team for one game.

Note: Please send any questions regarding the fees to tac [at] tradingagents.org. Groups unable to afford the entry fee may also contact tac [at] tradingagents.org for special consideration.

General information about TAC can be found at:

http://www.sics.se/tac/

Exact dates for the qualifying and seeding rounds will soon be posted on this
site.

More information about the Trading Agent Analysis and Design (TADA) workshop is available at:

http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/conferences/tada2010/

Information about the Association for Trading Agent Research running TAC is available at:

http://tradingagents.org

Please circulate this announcement to anyone who may be interested in participating. Inquiries may be directed to tac-support@cs.umn.edu