11th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF AGENTS AND MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS (PAAMS'13)

11th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF AGENTS AND MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS (PAAMS'13)

http://www.paams.net
paams@usal.es
Salamanca (Spain), 22nd-24th May, 2013


Plenary Speaker

Longbing Cao - Agent Mining: The Synergy of Multiagent Systems and Data Mining.

SCOPE
Research on Agents and Multi-Agent Systems has matured during the last decade and many effective applications of this technology are now deployed. PAAMS provides an international forum to present and discuss the latest scientific developments and their effective applications, to assess the impact of the approach, and to facilitate technology transfer. PAAMS started as a local initiative, but has since grown to become THE international yearly platform to present, to discuss, and to disseminate the latest developments and the most important outcomes related to real-world applications. It provides a unique opportunity to bring multi-disciplinary experts, academics and practitioners together to exchange their experience in the development and deployment of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. PAAMS intends to bring together researchers and developers from industry and the academic world to report on the latest scientific and technical advances on the application of multi-agent system, to discuss and debate the major issues, and to showcase the latest systems using agent based technology. It will promote a forum for discussion on how agent-based techniques, methods, and tools help system designers to accomplish the mapping between available agent technology and application needs. Other stakeholders should be rewarded with a better understanding of the potential and challenges of the agent-oriented approach.

TOPICS
Problems
·    Agent-based simulation and prediction
·    Distributed problem solving
·    Agent cooperation and negotiation
·    Agent societies and social networks
·    Real-time multi-agent systems
·    Human agent interaction, user interfaces
·    Adaptation, learning and personalization
·    Reputation, trust, privacy and security
·    Agent engineering and development tools
·    Evaluation, ethical and legal issues
Domains
·    Information recovery and information systems
·    Knowledge management and data intensive systems
·    Intelligent control and manufacturing systems
·    Embodied agents and autonomous systems
·    Multi-robot systems and real world robotics
·    Internet softbots and web intelligence
·    Virtual agents, animation and games
·    Pervasive agents and ambient intelligence
·    E-learning and educational systems
·    User-centered applications and assisting agents

DEMO AWARD
The best demo paper in PAAMS'13 will be awarded with 2000? and a diploma.

GRANTS
The BISITE research group (http://bisite.usal.es) of the University of Salamanca, organiser of PAAMS 2013, offers 40 grants/awards to facilitate the attendance to doctoral and young doctors both to the event itself (including Workshops and Special Sessions) and to the parallel collocated events.
More information: http://www.paams.net/grants

SUBMISSION
Review process
PAAMS welcomes the submission of application papers with preference to the topics listed in the call for papers. All submitted papers will undergo a thorough review process; each paper will be refereed by at least three experts in the field based on relevance, originality, significance, quality and clarity.
Types of submissions
They must consist of original, relevant and previously unpublished sound research results related to any of the topics of the conference.
Submitting papers
All papers must be formatted according to the Springer template, with a maximum length of 10-12 pages in length, including figures and references. All proposed papers must be submitted in electronic form (PDF format) using the Paper Submission Page.
Publication
Accepted papers will be included in PAAMS 2012 Proceedings. At least one of the authors will be required to register and attend the symposium to present the paper in order to include the paper in the conference proceedings. All accepted papers will be published by Springer Verlag in the LNCS/LNAI series.

IMPORTANT DATES
·    Paper submission deadline: November 26th, 2012
·    Notification of acceptance: January 28th, 2012
·    Camera-Ready papers due: February 25th, 2013
·    Conference Celebration: May 22nd-24th, 2013

COMMITTEES
Scientific
·    Yves Demazeau - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France)
·    Toru Ishida - Kyoto University (Japan)
Organizing
·    Juan M. Corchado - University of Salamanca (Spain)
·    Javier Bajo - Technical University of Madrid (Spain)

CONTACT
Dr. Juan M. Corchado
Dr. Javier Bajo
Web: http://www.paams.net
Email: paams@usal.es
Tel: +34 923 294400 (Ext:1525)
Tel: +34 618 696589
Fax: +34 923 294514
----

http://www.paams.net/sites/default/files/CFP/PAAMS13_Call_For_Papers.pdf

Cooperative Robots and Sensor Networks (RoboSense 2012)

The International Workshop on Cooperative Robots and Sensor Networks (RoboSense 2012) 

http://www.coins-lab.org/events/RoboSense12/   
**************************************************************************

Springer Special Edition

Best selected papers will be invited to submit an extended version of their papers to the special edition of Springer Book “Cooperative Robots and Sensor Networks” under the book series “Studies in Computational Intelligence”.

Overview

Wireless connected robots and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have enabled great potentials and a large space for ubiquitous and pervasive applications. Robotics and WSNs have mostly been considered as separate research fields and little work has investigated the marriage between these two technologies. However, these two technologies share several features, enable common cyber-physical applications and provide complementary support to each other.

The objective of this workshop is to bring together researchers from academia, and industry working in to both robotics and sensor networks areas to present and discuss recent advances and innovative ideas pertaining to these fields. Papers dealing with the coupling between robots and sensor networks are particularly sought. The workshop also looks for contributions about cyber-physical applications based on robotics and sensor networks, such as intelligent transportation systems, healthcare monitoring, industrial automation, etc.

The workshop will provide a relaxed forum to present and discuss new ideas, new research directions and to review current trends in these areas. The workshop will be based on short presentations that should encourage discussions among the attendees. Statements which are innovative, controversial or that present new approaches are specially sought.


Workshop Chairs

Anis Koubaa, Al-Imam Mohamed bin Saud University (Saudi Arabia)/CISTER Research Unit, Portugal.
Abdelmajid Khelil, TU Darmstadt, Germany


Important Dates

Abstract Submission: February 28, 2012 (extended)
Paper Submission: March 06, 2012 (extended)
Notification of Acceptance: April 06, 2012 
Final Manuscript Due: May 01, 2012
Authors Registration Due: May 10, 2012 



Call for Papers

The workshop is seeking original research and position papers dealing with hot topics in mobile robots and sensor networks. Innovative and/or controversial ideas are specially sought. Papers presenting integration between sensor networks and robotics fields will be particularly appreciated. The workshop welcomes papers in three main tracks:

    Wireless Sensor Networks Track
        Communication and Network Protocols (MAC and Network Layers issues)
        Wireless Technologies (IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee, 6LoWPAN, RPL, WiMax, UWB)
        Localization and Tracking
        Link Quality Estimation
        Fundamental Theoretical Limits and Algorithms
        Performance Evaluation, Simulation and Modelling Tools
        Measurement and Experimental Tools
        Security and Privacy
        Programming Models and Languages
        Operating Systems
        Service-Oriented Architecture
        Hardware Design and Implementation
    Mobile Robots Track
        Path Planning
        Multi-Robot Task Allocation
        Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM)
        Coordination and Cooperation
        Autonomous Navigation
        Robot Localization
        Swarm Intelligence
        Multi-robot systems
        Unmanned vehicle systems
        Learning for control
        Bio-inspired robotic
        Probabilistic Exploration and Coverage
        Object Detection & Collision Avoidance
        Motion estimation
    Cyber-Physical Applications
        Intelligent Transportation Systems
        Vehicular Networks
        Health-Care Monitoring
        Surveillance
        Smart Home
        Industrial Automation
        Internet-of-Things
        Case Studies


TPC Members (in progress)

    Adel Alimi, National School of Engineering of Sfax, Tunisia
    Luis Almeida, University of Aveiro, Portugal
    Mário Alves, CISTER Research Unit, Portugal
    Raul Aquino, University of Colima, Mexico
    Adel Ben Mnaouer, Dar Al-Uloom University, Saudi Arabia
    Xianghui Cao, Zhejiang University, China
    Michel Devy, LAAS/CNRS Group, France
    José Ramiro Martínez de Dios, University of Seville, Spain
    Fakir Dawood, Yanbu University College, Saudi Arabia
    Bernardine Dias, Carnegie Mellon University, Qatar
    Rüdiger Dillmann, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
    Mohamed Elarbi, Al-Imam University, Saudi Arabia
    Joerg Haehner, University of Hannover, Germany
    Tian Huang, University of Warwick, UK
    Geoffrey A. Hollinger, University of Southern California, USA
    Jiong Jin, University of Melbourne, Australia
    Omar Lengerke, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
    Xu Li, University of Waterloo, Canada, Canada
    Rongxing Lu, University of Waterloo, Canada
    Daniel Mosse, University of Pittsburgh, USA
    Gian Pietro Picco, University of Trento, Italy
    Carlos Sagues, University of Zaragoza, Spain
    Silvia Santini, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
    Ye-Qiong Song, IINPL / INRIA Lorraine, France
    Yuuichi Teranishi, University of Osaka, Japan
    Takashi Tsubouchi, University of Tsukuba, Japan
    Naoki Wakamiya, University of Osaka, Japan
    Andreas Willig, Canterbury University, New Zealand
    Habib Youssef, University of Sousse, Tunisia
    Andrea Zanella, University of Padova, Italy
    Fumin Zhang, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
    Marco Zuniga, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Self-organizing Systems - IWSOS 2012

* IFIP IWSOS 2012
* 6th International Workshop on Self-organizing Systems
*
* Main technical sponsor: the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP)
*
* Technical co-sponsor: the European Network of Excellence Euro-NF
*
*http://iwsos2012.ewi.tudelft.nl/
*
* Delft, The Netherlands
* March 15-16, 2012
*
********************************************************************

We cordially invite you to participate in IFIP IWSOS 2012.

The main theme of the workshop is to discover the network science behind self-organizing systems, to facilitate and advance the understanding, learning, modeling, and analysis of self-organizational processes in nature (e.g., metabolic, DNA, brain networks) and to apply the knowledge of self-organization to man-made networks and systems.

The goal of the IWSOS workshops is to bring together leading international researchers and practitioners to create a visionary forum for discussing the future of self-organization. IWSOS addresses theoretical aspects of self-organization as well as applications in communication and computer networks and complex systems.

The following key topics will be addressed:
- Design and analysis of self-organizing and self-managing systems
- Inspiring models of self-organization in nature and society
- Structure, characteristics and dynamics of self-organizing networks
- Techniques and tools for modeling self-organizing systems
- Robustness and adaptation in self-organizing systems
- Self-organization in complex networks like peer-to-peer, sensor, ad-hoc, vehicular and social networks
- Control of self-organizing systems
- Decentralized power management in the smart grid
- Self-organizing group and pattern formation
- Self-organizing mechanisms for task allocation, coordination and resource allocation
- Self-organizing information dissemination and content search
- Risks and limits of self-organization

IFIP IWSOS 2012 is a two-day workshop that features two keynote talks given by:
1.    Prof. Shlomo Havlin, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
2.    Prof. Karl Aberer, EPFL, Switzerland
The first day of the workshop will focus on presenting new research contributions in the field of self-organizing systems, while the second day revolves around short paper presentations, panel discussions, and interaction with the workshop participants.

The entire program can be viewed athttp://iwsos2012.ewi.tudelft.nl/?page_id=65.

** Venue
Delft University of Technology - Aula
Mekelweg 5, 2628 CC, Delft, The Netherlands
March 15 - 16, 2012

** Committees

* General Chairs
Piet Van Mieghem, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
David Hutchison, Lancaster University, United Kingdom

* Program Chairs
Fernando Kuipers, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Poul Heegaard, NTNU-Trondheim, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

* Publicity Chairs
Maria Kihl, Lund University, Sweden
Karin Anna Hummel, University of Vienna, Austria (on leave) and Marie Curie Fellow at ETH Zurich, Switzerland

* Local Organization
Christian Doerr, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Huijuan Wang, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Wendy Murtinu-van Schagen, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

* Steering Committee
Hermann de Meer, University of Passau, Germany
David Hutchison, Lancaster University, UK
Bernhard Plattner, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
James Sterbenz, University of Kansas, USA
Randy Katz, UC Berkeley, USA
Georg Carle, TU Munich, Germany (IFIP TC6 Representative)
Karin Anna Hummel, University of Vienna, Austria (on leave) and Marie Curie Fellow at ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Agent-Oriented Software Engineering -AOSE 2012

                        AOSE 2012
13th International Workshop on Agent-Oriented Software Engineering

********** SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED ***********


Held with AAMAS 2012, Valencia, Spain, June 4, 2012
http://winf.in.tu-clausthal.de/events/aose12


MOTIVATION

Since the early 1990s, multi-agent system researchers have developed a
large body of knowledge on the foundations and engineering principles
for designing and developing agent-based systems. The 12 past editions
of the agent-oriented software engineering workshop (AOSE) had a key
role in this endeavor. For 2012, the workshop organizers and the
steering committee propose to organize an edition of AOSE workshop aimed
at exploring the new emerging role of agent-oriented software
engineering as a bridge from the now consolidated agent oriented
programming languages and platforms, to recent systems modelling
paradigms like self-*, autonomic systems, and systems of systems (SoS).
Thus, it is our hope to explore from an agent-based perspective,
foundations, models, methods, architectures, and tools for
engineering future software-intensive IT eco-systems.

The workshop organizers plan to publish accepted papers on a USB stick
as part of the AAMAS workshop registration package.
Revised post-proceedings papers will later be published in
a volume of the Lecture Notes for Computer Science series.


GOALS and TOPICS

The general goal of this year workshop is twofold: The first goal is to
study the role of agent-oriented software engineering in the design
phase of agents development. It is well known and accepted that agents -
from the software engineering perspective - are of particular interest
as an analysis abstraction. This has been true for several years but the
most recent advancements in agent-oriented programming languages have
proposed new challenges: software engineers may now design and code
their solutions in terms of agents. The old need of moving to the
object-oriented level of abstraction is overpassed and the new
developing platforms allow for a more natural transformation of AO
analysis models into AO design models. This reality has been soon
perceived by researcher and practitioners. An example of this new trend
may be found in the refreshed interest about testing of agents.

The second goal concerns the other side of the proposed ideal bridge:
the needs of new design approaches specifically suited for facing the
needs of self-organizing systems, autonomic systems and systems of
systems. In the last years we have seen considerable research efforts on
these topics; however, only few of them have their scope and foundations
in the software engineering field.

Novel efforts are necessary to cope with these new challenges in order
to find specific solutions that could bring such systems from research
to industrialization. In this context, a means for bridging the above
mentioned research (and application) streams may come from the advances
on organizations, norms, and institutions. Are they mature enough for
being applied to stable agent-oriented languages and for contributing to
the engineering of self-organizing and autonomic systems? The proposed
aim is find an answer to this question or to propose further hints for
future investigations on the application of organizations, norms and
institutions to the design of agent-oriented systems.

Topics of regular papers include but are not restricted to:

* Agent-based concepts for systems of systems engineering
* Agent-based solutions for managing complexity in software engineering
* Agents and model-driven approaches
* Agents and services
* Agents for self-adaptive systems
* Alignment of agents with service-oriented software development
* Autonomy vs. dependability and robustness
* CASE tools to support agent-oriented software development in practice
* Coordination infrastructures for multi-agent systems
* Engineering multi-agent organizations
* Engineering self-organizing systems
* Goal-oriented design
* Implications of introducing agent-based solutions on the development organization
* Integration of agents with legacy systems
* Middleware integration of agent-based software
* Multi-agent based simulation
* Programming agents and multi-agent systems
* Qualities and tradeoffs of agent-based architectures
* Reusable design knowledge: patterns and reference architectures
* Social engineering
* Software architectures for multi-agent systems
* Standardization efforts for multi-agent systems
* Testing of agent-based software
* Validation of agent technology in practice
* Verification of agent-based software


AUTHOR GUIDELINES

AOSE welcomes the submission of theoretical, experimental,
methodological as well as application papers with a clear research focus
on the topics outlined above. Each paper will be evaluated by three
members of the PC. Papers that present a valuable idea that needs
further development can be accepted as a short paper.


SUBMISSIONS

Papers should be between 8 and 12 pages, including the text, figures,
and references. The submissions must be formatted according to the
Springer Verlag LNCS style. PDF format is required. Papers can be
submitted via EasyChair 'AOSE2012',
https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aose2012
The good receipt of your submission will be confirmed by email.


PUBLICATIONS

Pre-proceedings containing all accepted papers are provided
electronically on a USB stick as part of the AAMAS workshop registration
package. The plan is to publish revised versions of accepted papers in a
Lecture Notes in Computer Science volume. For this purpose, authors will
be given the opportunity to revise and re-submit their contributions
after the conference.


IMPORTANT DATES

Paper submission deadline: 11th March 2012
Paper notifications: 6th April 2012
Camera ready paper (pre-proceedings): 8th April 2012
Workshop: 4th June 2012


COMMITTEES

Organizing Committee
* Massimo Cossentino, National Research Council of Italy, Palermo, Italy
* Joerg P. Mueller, Technische Universitaet Clausthal, Institut for Informatik, Germany

Preliminary Program Committee:

Carole Bernon,Universite Paul Sabatier, France
Lars Braubach,University of Hamburg, Germany
Scott A. Deloach,Kansas State University, USA
Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni,University Pierre and Marie Curie, France
Giancarlo Fortino,Universita della Calabria, Italy
Aditya Ghose,University of Wollongong, Australia
Holger Giese,University of Potsdam, Germany
Adriana Giret,Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain
Marie-Pierre Gleizes,Universite Paul Sabatier, France
Jorge Gomez-Sanz,Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain
Juan Carlos Gonzalez Moreno,Universidad de Vigo, Ourense, Spain
Joao Leite,University of Lisbon, Portugal
Philippe Mathieu,Universite Lille 1, France
Frederic Migeon,Universite Paul Sabatier, France
Ambra Molesini,University of Bologna, Italy
Pavlos Moraitis,Universite Paul Descartes, France
Andrea Omicini,University of Bologna, Italy
Flavio Oquendo,Universite de Bretagne Sud, France
Juan Pavon,Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain
Alexander Pokahr,University of Hamburg, Germany
Alessandro Ricci,University of Bologna, Italy
Fariba Sadri,Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, England
Valeria Seidita,University of Palermo, Italy
Onn Shehory,IBM Haifa Research Lab, Israel
Danny Weyns,Linnaeus University, Sweden

Multi-agent Systems and Social Networks (MASSN2012)

The 1st International Workshop on

        Multi-agent Systems and Social Networks (MASSN2012)


co–located with the 2012 International Conference on 

        Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2012) 

 26-29 August 2012, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, TURKEY


It is our pleasure to invite you to participate in the The 1st International
Workshop on Multi-agent Systems and Social Networks (MASSN2012)  that is held as a part of the International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2012).

Social networks and multi-agent systems share both the structure and the scope, since they are composed of  individuals  connected with  some kinds  of 
relationship  and  they are  realized  for accomplishing individual and/or common
goals. A multi agent system is a system composed of multiple interacting agents; therefore, it is natural to think about synergies between social network and multi-agent system research and application. In fact, multi-agent system models, techniques and technologies have been used and have important potentialities for the study of social networks and the development of social network models. Moreover, the results coming from the experimentation of the more widespread social network systems could be used for the improvement of multi-agent system models, techniques and technologies.

This workshop aims at promoting the interchange among the two communities to allow a transfer of methodologies and to clarify the meaning of the respective terminologies which share many concepts but only at an informal level. 
    
The workshop aims not only at presentation of papers but also to promote the discussion about the following research topics:

    i) to show the relationships of multi-agent systems with social network models and techniques; and

   ii) to discuss about the use of multi-agent systems in development of social network theories and systems.

 
Topic of Interest
 

The scope of the The 1st International Workshop on Multi-agent systems and Social Networks (MASSN2012) includes, but is not limited to the following topics:

 · Multi-agent social network modeling and analysis
 · Multi-agent recommendation networks
 · Multi-agent community discovery
 · Multi-agent data mining and network analysis
 · Multi-agent evolution of patterns in the Web
 · Dynamics and evolution patterns of social networks
 · Organizational structure evaluation
 · Collaborative environments, incl. wikis
 · Applications of multi-agent social network analysis
 

Special Issue

The extended versions of selected papers presented during the MASSN 2012 workshop will be published in the special issue of the prestigious Social Network Analysis and Mining (SNAM) journal.

 
Paper Submission

Papers reporting original and unpublished research results pertaining to the above topics are solicited. New full paper submission deadline is May 7, 2012. These papers will follow an academic review process. Full paper manuscripts
must be in English with a maximum length of 8 pages (using the IEEE two-column
template). Submissions should include the title, author(s), affiliation(s), e-mail address(es),tel/fax numbers, abstract, and postal address(es) on the first page. Papers should be submitted to the https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=massn2012. If Web submission is not possible, manuscripts
should be sent as an attachment via email to kaya@firat.edu.tr by May 7, 2012. The attachment must be in PDF or Word .doc format.

It is important to note that IEEE CPS will publish the proceedings of ASONAM 2012 and hence all the rules and regulations of IEEE CPS will be applied as explained in the following link:

http://www.computer.org/portal/web/cscps/policies

Papers will be selected based on their originality, timeliness, significance,
relevance, and clarity of presentation. Authors should certify that their
papers represent substantially new previously unpublished work. Paper
submission implies that the intent is for one of the authors to present the
paper if accepted and that at least one of the authors register for a full
conference fee.


Key Dates

· May 7, 2012 : Full paper submission deadline
· June 1, 2012 : Notification of acceptance
· June 15, 2012 : Camera-ready papers due
· June 15, 2012 : Presenting author registration due
· August 26, 2012 : Workshop 
 

General Chair

· Brahim Chaib-draa, Computer Science and Software Engineering Department, Laval University, Canada

Email: chaib@ift.ulaval.ca
 

Workshop Co-Chairs

· Mehmet Kaya, Department of Computer Engineering, Firat University, Elazig, Turkey
Email: kaya@firat.edu.tr
· Mohsen Afsharchi, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, Iran
Email: afsharchim@znu.ac.ir


Program Committee (To be extended)

· Reda Alhajj, University of Calgary, Canada
· Kae Won Choi, SeoulTech, Korea

· Sertan Girgin, Google France, France
· Krzysztof Juszczyszyn, Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland
· Keivan Kianmehr, University of Western Ontario, Canada
· Tansel Ozyer, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Turkey
· Faruk Polat, Middle East Technical University, Turkey
· Mehmet Tan, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Turkey 

Multi-Agent System Technologies - MATES 2012

MATES 2012 - The Tenth German Conference on Multi-Agent System Technologies
"Research and Innovation for a Smarter Society"

October, 10th-12th, 2012.
Trier, Germany
http://mates2012.uni-trier.de
===========================================================================

The German conference on Multi-Agent system TEchnologieS (MATES) provides an interdisciplinary forum for researchers, users (members of business and industry) and developers of intelligent agents and multi-agent systems. The thematic focus of this MATES 2012 is on technologies that enable societies and organisations to be more resilient, inter-connected and collaborative. The conference investigates technologies for truly open distributed systems --- covering a wide spectrum of approaches from self-organization and autonomous systems to agreement computing. Advances in research work, as well as prototyped or fielded systems of intelligent agents will be presented and discussed. The conference covers the whole range from theory to application of agent- and multi-agent technologies in order to promote theory and application of agents and multi-agent systems. The conference features an exhibition of practical applications with an advanced concept of agency. Integral part of the technical program will be an exhibition of a variety of tools for the development, and prototypes of all kinds of practical applications of agent and multi-agent technology at the conference venue. The conference will also host a doctoral consortium.

For the tenth time the German special interest group on Distributed Artificial Intelligence jointly with the steering committee of MATES organizes this international conference in order to promote theory and application of agents and multi-agent systems. Building on the sequence of agent-related events in Germany in the past such as VDI 1998 (Chemnitz), VertIS 2001 (Bamberg), and KI 2002 (Aachen), the MATES conference series (from 2003 to 2011) now is exclusively devoted to agents and multi-agent systems, and the cross-fertilization between agent theory and application. This year is also the 20th year of the German special inerest group on Distributed Artificial Intelligence – another reason for an inspiring conference on agents! The conference language is English.

Salve – welcome to Trier! The conference takes place in Germany’s oldest city - close to Saarbrücken, Frankfurt/Main and Luxemburg as well as the well-known Leibniz Center for Informatics (Schloss Dagstuhl).

The MATES series has been ranked by the Computing Research & Education initiative as a CORE B conference. The proceedings will be published as Springer LNCS.

Contact: mates2012@easychair.org

TOPICS OF INTEREST

MATES 2012 welcomes contributions from the field of agent-oriented computing and agent technologies. We solicit both basic as well as applied research papers on recent advances in the area of intelligent agents and multi-agent systems in general. Also papers reporting on the successful application of agent technologies in any kind of domain are very welcome. MATES 2012 encourages submissions from recent and emerging areas of interest such as a Autonomic Computing, Self-organisation and Agreement Technologies. Additionally, we encourage the submission of elaborated vision and challenge papers that discuss mid-term and long-term directions for research and application.

The topics of interest for MATES-2012 include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Agent-based simulation and analysis of social networks
• Agents and communities
• Large-scale agent-based simulation of cities, economies, etc.
• Adaptive agents and multi-agent learning
• Advanced theories of collaboration: Modelling and formation of teams, coalitions, groups, and organizations
• Agents and autonomic computing
• Agent and multi-agent architectures
• Agents and peer-to-peer computing
• Agents and pervasive computing
• Agents for Ambient Intelligence
• Agent-based service discovery, matchmaking, brokering, and composition
• Agent communication languages
• Agents for e-business and e-government
• Agent technologies in the context of service-oriented computing and architectures
• Agent to non-agent interoperability
• Agents in novel applications
• Application of agent-technologies in industrial practice
• Artificial social systems: Conventions, norms, institutions; trust and reputation
• Autonomous robots and robot teams
• Commitment, delegation, responsibility, and obligations in artificial and hybrid societies
• Complex systems and their management
• Coordination, negotiation, argumentation, and conflict resolution
• Deployed agent-based business applications
• Hybrid human and agent societies
• User modelling and interface agents
• Embodied conversational actors and believable agents
• Mobile agents
• Model-driven design of multi-agent systems
• Multi-agent-based simulation
• Multi-agent planning and scheduling
• Multi-agent platforms and tools
• Multi-agent (social) simulation and (cognitive) modelling with agents
• Practical aspects of programming agent systems: Robustness, fault tolerance, scalability and performance measurement
• Roles and structures, adaptive learning and cognition in organizational models
• Semantics of the dynamics of organizational models
• (Semantic) web services and agents
• Standards for agents and multi-agent systems

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Paper submissions to MATES-2012 will be handled using the EasyChair system at this link: www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mates2012.

Submissions must comply with the following requirements:

* For preparation of papers to be submitted please follow the instructions for authors available at the Springer LNCS Web page: http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html.
* The length of each paper including figures and references shall not exceed 14 pages.
* All papers must be written in English and submitted in PDF format.
* Papers that have been accepted or are under review by other conferences or journals are not eligible for submission. However, we encourage interdisciplinary contributions submitted or presented in part to a forum outside of agent technology.

Submissions not conforming to the above instructions may be rejected without review.

Please notice that the submission of a paper should be regarded as an undertaking that, should the paper be accepted, at least one of the authors will attend the conference to present the work.

MATES 2012 will include a doctoral mentoring program: This program will provide an opportunity for students to interact closely with established researchers in their fields, to receive feedback on their work and to get advice on managing their careers.

The Doctoral Mentoring Program will:

* Match each student with an established researcher who will act as a mentor.
* Allow students an opportunity to present their work to a friendly audience of other students, as well as mentors.
* Provide students with contacts and networking opportunities.

IMPORTANT DATES

Abstracts due: April 21, 2012
Full papers due: April 28, 2012
Notification: June 19, 2012
Doctoral mentoring: July 13, 2012
Camera-ready submission: July 13, 2012
Early registration: August 5, 2012
Conference: October 10-12, 2012

CONFERENCE CHAIRS

* Christian Guttmann (EBTIC - Etisalat BT Innovation Centre, Abu Dhabi, UAE)
* Ingo J. Timm (U Trier, Germany)

STEERING COMMITTEE

* Matthias Klusch (DFKI, Germany)
* Winfried Lamersdorf (U Hamburg, Germany)
* Jörg P. Müller (TU Clausthal, Germany)
* Paolo Petta (U Vienna, Austria)
* Rainer Unland (U Duisburg-Essen, Germany)
* Gerhard Weiss (Maastricht U, The Netherlands)

Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems - PRIMA 2012

                                                                              PRIMA 2012

    The 15th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems

                                                                Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia

                                                                    September 3-7, 2012

                                                                http://www.prima2012.org/

                                    Co-located with PRICAI 2012, DC 2012 and PKAW 2012

Paper submission: March 30, 2012

Author notification: May 28, 2012

Camera-ready papers: June 15, 2012

Agent computing is an exciting, transformational approach to developing computer systems

that can rapidly and reliably solve real-world problems that usually demand human knowledge

and expertise. The value, power and flexibility of agent and multi-agent systems has been

demonstrated in application areas such as logistics, manufacturing, simulation, robotics,

decision support, entertainment, and especially in online market environments. As one of

the largest and fastest growing research fields of Computer Science, agent research today

includes a wealth of topics. The PRIMA 2012 Program Committee invites submissions of

original, unpublished, theoretical and applied work on any such topic, and encourages

reports on the development of prototype and deployed agent systems, and of experiments

that demonstrate novel agent system capabilities.

PRIMA 2012 proceedings will be published by Springer as a volume in the LNAI series and

proceedings will be available at the conference. Submitted papers should be 12-15 pages

in Springer LNCS format and must be in a form suitable for "double-blind" review.

Each submission will be subject to peer review in two rounds coordinated by an international

Senior Program Committee, and authors will be able to provide a short "rebuttal" of the

reviews before final decisions are made. A broad range of agent topics are of interest,

but all papers should clearly identify how their scientific or technical contributions

advance the state-of-the-art of agent computing practice or have a strong potential to do so.

Submitted papers should not be under review or submitted for publication elsewhere during

the review period.

Springer LNCS Author Instructions: http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html

Submission: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=prima2012

Enquiries: prima2012-pc-chairs@cse.unsw.edu.au

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Organization

General Chairs

  Sandip Sen  (University of Tulsa, USA)

  Toshiharu Sugawara (Waseda University, Japan)

Local Arrangements Chairs

  Dickson Lukose (MIMOS Berhad, Malaysia)

  Cheah Wai Shiang (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia)

Sponsorship Chairs

  Longbing Cao (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)

  Matthias Klusch (DFKI Saarbruecken, Germany)

  Sarvapali Ramchurn (University of Southampton, UK)

  Jie Zhang (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)

Program Chairs

  Iyad Rahwan (Masdar Institute, UAE and MIT, USA)

  Wayne Wobcke (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Senior Program Committee

  Stephen Cranefield (University of Otago, New Zealand)

  Frank Dignum (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)

  Guido Governatori (NICTA, Australia)

  Katsutoshi Hirayama (Kobe University, Japan)

  Kate Larson (University of Waterloo, Canada)

  Rey-Long Liu (Tzu Chi University, Taiwan)

  Alessio Lomuscio (Imperial College London, UK)

  Andrea Omicini (University of Bologna, Italy)

  Jeremy Pitt (Imperial College London, UK)

 David Pynadath (University of Southern California, USA)

  Alex Rogers (University of Southampton, UK)

  Paolo Torroni (University of Bologna, Italy)

Tutorial Chair

  Edith Elkind (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)

Workshop Chairs

  Sherief Abdallah (British University in Dubai, UAE and University of Edinburgh, UK)

  Hiromitsu Hattori (Kyoto University, Japan)

Publicity Chairs

  Jacob Crandall (Masdar Institute, UAE and MIT, USA)

  Koen Hindriks (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)

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Topics

Foundations of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems

  Logics of Agency

  Logics of Multi-Agent Systems

  Normative Systems

  Computational Game Theory

  Uncertainty in Agent Systems

  Agent and Multi-Agent Learning

  Agent and Multi-Agent System Architectures

Agent Programming Languages and Platforms

  Multi-Agent System Languages and Platforms

  BDI Architectures and Extensions

  Normative Multi-Agent Systems

  Agent-Oriented Software Engineering

  AOSE Methodologies

  Tools for Agent and Multi-Agent System Development

  Formal Specification and Verification

  Deployed System Case Studies

Agent-Based Modelling and Simulation

  Simulation Languages and Platforms

  Artificial Societies

  Virtual Environments

  Workflow Simulation

  Emergent Behaviour

  Modelling System Dynamics

  Application Case Studies

  Collaboration/Coordination/Communication

  Agent Communication Languages and Protocols

  Distributed Problem Solving

  Teamwork Models

  Coalition Formation

  Argumentation, Negotiation, Bargaining

  Auctions and Mechanism Design

  Trust and Reputation

  Computational Voting Theory

Hybrid Technologies

  Agents in Planning

  Agent-Based Scheduling

  Agent-Based Optimization

  Distributed Constraint Satisfaction

  Agents and Data Mining

  Semantic Web Agents

  Agents and Grid Computing

  Agents and Service Oriented Computing

  Agents and Pervasive Computing

  Robotics and Multi-Robot Systems

Application Domains

  Healthcare

  Transport/Logistics

  Emergency/Disaster Management

  Energy/Utility Management

  Sustainability/Resource Management

  Games/Entertainment

  eBusiness/eCommerce/eGovernment

  eResearch/eLearning

  Security/Surveillance

  Smart Cities

Applications

  Adaptive Personal Assistants

  Embodied Conversational Agents

  Virtual Characters

  Multi-Modal User Interfaces

  Autonomous Systems

  Mobile Agents

  Human-Robot Interaction

  Social Recommender Systems