Infrastructures and Tools for Multiagent Systems ITMAS 2011

Dear colleagues, I am pleased to invite you to submit a paper to ITMAS 2011, 2nd International Workshop on Infrastructures and Tools for Multiagent Systems.

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The 2nd International Workshop on Infrastructures and Tools for Multiagent Systems ITMAS 2011 Web page: http://itmas2011.gti-ia.dsic.upv.es

To be held with AAMAS 2011 (http://www.aamas2011.tw/)

2 - 6 May, 2011, Taipei, Taiwan

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DESCRIPTION

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ITMAS aims at bringing together leading researchers from both academia and industry to discuss issues on the design and implementation of infrastructures and tools for Multiagent Systems. When developing applications based on Multiagent Systems, developers and users demand infrastructures and tools which support essential features in Multiagent Systems (such as agent organizations, mobility, etc.) and facilitate the system design, management, execution and evaluation. Agent infrastructures are usually built using other technologies such as grid systems, service-oriented architectures, P2P networks, etc. In this sense, the integration and interoperability of such technologies in Multiagent Systems is also a challenging issue in the area of both tools and infrastructures for Multiagent Systems. A long term goal is the industrial development of infrastructures for building highly scalable applications comprising pre-existing agents that must be organized or orchestrated.

In order for Multiagent Systems to be included in real domains such as media and Internet, logistics, e-commerce and health care, infrastructures and tools for Multiagent Systems should provide efficiency, scalability, security, management, monitorization and other features related to building real applications.

We encourage the submission of papers describing any kind of infrastructures and tools that are used to provide support for Multiagent Systems. We are particularly interested in infrastructures and tools that allow agent-based systems to be adopted by designers and programmers both in academia and industry.

Specific topics for this workshop include, but are not limited to:

* Agent Infrastructures

* Agent Communication Technologies

* Interoperability and Standards

* Integration of technologies to support Multiagent Systems

* Integration of Agent Infrastructures with non-agent Infrastructures

* Efficiency and Scalability Evaluation

* Agent Infrastructure Benchmarks

* Security, Privacy and Identity Management in Multiagent Systems

* Secure Infrastructures and Tools for Multiagent Systems

* Infrastructures and tools supporting Social and Organizational Models

* Infrastructures and tools supporting Trust and Reputation Models

* Infrastructures and tools supporting Intelligent Virtual Environments

* Infrastructures and tools supporting Electronic Institutions

* Infrastructures for agent-based Service-Oriented Systems

* Design, Management and Monitoring tools for Multiagent Systems

* Models and Architectures for Designing Agent Infrastructures

* Coordination infrastructures for Multiagent Systems

* Environment infrastructures for Multiagent Systems

* Infrastructure support to Model-driven Engineering in Multiagent Systems

* Infrastructure mechanisms for self-organising Multiagent Systems

* Information Retrieval Tools for Multiagent Systems

* Semantic Web Tools for Multiagent Systems

* Mobile Agent Technologies

* Industry implementations of Multiagent Systems

* Experiences using Infrastructures and Tools for Multiagent Systems

* Infrastructures and Tools for Biomedical Multiagent Systems

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IMPORTANT DATES

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* Paper Sumbission Deadline: JANUARY, 30, 2011

* Paper Acceptance Notification: FEBRUARY 27, 2011

* Camera-ready copies due: MARCH 7, 2011

* Workshop Date: MAY 2-3, 2011

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ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

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* Vicent Botti (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain)

* Ana Garcia-Fornes (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain)

* Michal Pěchouček (Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic)

* Alessandro Ricci (Alma Mater Studiorum-Università di Bologna, Italy)

* Jose M. Such (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain)

* Danny Weyns (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium)

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PROGRAM COMMITTEE (to be confirmed)

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* Juan M. Alberola (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain)

* Makoto Amamiya (Kyushu University, Japan)

* Matteo Baldoni (Università degli Studi di Torino, Italy)

* Fabio Bellifemine (Telecom Italia, Italy)

* Juan A. Botía (University of Murcia, Spain)

* Vicent Botti (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain)

* Frances Brazier (Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands)

* Nadia Erdogan (I.staurkeynbul Teknik Üniversitesi, Turkey)

* Agustin Espinosa (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain)

* Jomi F. Hübner (Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil)

* Ana Garcia-Fornes (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain)

* Kamalakar Karlapalem (International Institute of Information Technology, India)

* Yasuhiko Kitamura (Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan)

* Abder Koukam (University of Technology UTBM, France)

* Michal Laclavik (Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovak Republic)

* Pavlos Moraitis (Paris Descartes University, France)

* Andrea Omicini (Alma Mater Studiorum-Università di Bologna, Italy)

* Sascha Ossowski (University Rey Juan Carlos, Spain)

* Michal Pechoucek (Agent Technology Center, Czech Republic)

* Alessandro Ricci (Alma Mater Studiorum-Università di Bologna, Italy)

* Juan A. Rodriguez-Aguilar (IIIA-CSIC, Spain)

* Murat Sensoy (University of Aberdeen, UK)

* Carles Sierra (IIIA-CSIC, Spain)

* Michael Shumacher (University of Applied Sciences Western, Switzerland)

* Jose M. Such (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain)

* Pavel Vrba (Rockwell Automation Research Center, Czech Republic)

* Danny Weyns (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium)

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SUBMISSION and REVIEW DETAILS

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Papers will be peer-reviewed by at least 3 reviewers from the Program Committee. Criteria for the selection of papers will include: high quality, clear presentation, novelty of research, relevance to the topics, coverage of relevant state of the art and the practical implementation of the infrastructures and tools presented.

Submissions must follow the Springer LNCS paper format and should be a maximum of 12 pages.

Papers must be submitted in pdf format via the conference management system, available at:

http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=itmas2011

As in previous editions, we are negotiating the publication of extended versions of selected papers as a volume for a special issue in a journal indexed in the SCI.

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CONTACT

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Ana Garcia-Fornes (agarcia(at)dsic(dot)upv(dot)es)

4th International Conference on Web Reasoning and Rule Systems (RR 2010)

4th International Conference on Web Reasoning and Rule Systems (RR 2010)


Call for Papers

Bressanone/Brixen, Italy
September 22-24, 2010

http://www.rr-conference.org/RR2010

Co-located with the Italian Workshop on Semantic Web Applications
and Perspectives (SWAP) 2010.


The International Conference on Web Reasoning and Rule Systems (RR) is
a major forum for discussion and dissemination of new results concerning
Web Reasoning and Rule Systems. RR 2010 builds on the success of the
first three International Conferences on Web Reasoning and Rule Systems
(see http://www.rr-conference.org), held in Innsbruck, Austria (2007),
Karlsruhe, Germany (2008), and Chantilly, Virginia, USA (2009), which
received enthusiastic support from the Web Reasoning community. In 2010,
RR will continue the excellence of the new series and aim to attract
the best Web Reasoning and Rules researchers from all over the world.

Suggested topics include the following (but are not limited to):

*  Representation techniques for Web-based knowledge
*  Acquisition of rules and ontologies by knowledge extraction
*  Combining open and closed-world reasoning
*  Combining rules and ontologies
*  Design and analysis of reasoning languages
*  Efficiency and benchmarking
*  Implemented tools and systems
*  Foundations and applications related to relevant standardization
     bodies such as the W3C Rule Interchange Format (RIF), Web
     Ontology Language (OWL2) and SPARQL working groups, or the
     W3C Uncertainty Reasoning for the WWW Incubator Group, etc.
*  Ontology usability
*  Ontology languages and their relationships
*  Querying and optimization
*  Rules and ontology management (such as inconsistency handling
     and evolution)
*  Reasoning with uncertainty and under inconsistency
*  Reasoning with constraints
*  Rule languages and systems
*  Rule interchange formats and Rule markup languages
*  Scalability vs. expressivity of reasoning on the Web
*  Approximate reasoning techniques for the Web
*  Integration of statistical methods and symbolic reasoning
*  Stream reasoning
*  Semantic Web Services modeling and applications
*  Web and Semantic Web applications and experience papers


PUBLICATION

The proceedings will be published by Springer in the Lecture Notes
in Computer Science (LNCS) series (acceptance pending) and will
be available at the conference. After the conference, there will
be a special issue of the (new IOS Press) journal "Semantic Web
- Interoperability, Usability, Applicability" with selected
papers from the conference.


SUBMISSION OF PAPERS

Submissions must be typeset using the Springer LaTeX2e
style llncs for Lecture Notes in Computer Science (see
http://www.springer.com/comp/lncs/Authors.html), and
must be in PDF format. Submission is via EasyChair
(http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=rr2010).

The length should not exceed 15 pages for full papers,
9 pages for short papers, 4 pages for posters, and 6 pages
for system descriptions (for system demos at the conference).
The stated lengths include title, abstract, and references.
Short papers, posters, and system descriptions should be
clearly marked as such in the title and in the easychair
submission system. Submissions that deviate substantially
from these guidelines may be rejected without review.
Original research and application papers are welcome;
submissions will especially be judged for originality and
scientific quality. All accepted papers, posters, and
system descriptions will be included in the proceedings.


IMPORTANT DATES

Abstract submission deadline: May 15, 2010
Paper/poster/demo submission deadline: May 22, 2010
Paper/poster/demo accept/reject decisions: June 24, 2010
Camera-ready due: July 15, 2010
Last day for early registration fee: July 15, 2010


CONFIRMED INVITED SPEAKERS

Georg Gottlob (Oxford University, UK)


GENERAL CHAIR

José Júlio Alferes (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal)


PROGRAM CHAIRS

Pascal Hitzler (Wright State University, USA)
Thomas Lukasiewicz (Oxford University, UK)


LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS

Diego Calvanese (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy)
Mariano Rodríguez-Muro (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy)


SPONSORSHIP CHAIR

Krzysztof Janowicz (Pennsylvania State University, USA)


PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Grigoris Antoniou (University of Crete, Greece)
Marcelo Arenas (PUC Chile, Chile)
Jie Bao (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA)
Chitta Baral (Arizona State University, USA)
Leopoldo Bertossi (Carleton University, Canada)
Andrea Calì (Oxford University, UK)
Vinay Chaudri (Stanford Research Institute, USA)
Kendall Clark (Clark & Parsia, USA)
Claudia d'Amato (University of Bari, Italy)
Carlos Damasio (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal)
Wlodek Drabent (IPI PAN Warszawa, Poland)
Sergio Flesca (University of Calabria, Italy)
Christine Golbreich (University of Versailles Saint-Quentin, France)
Claudio Gutierrez (University of Chile, Chile)
Stijn Heymans (TU Vienna, Austria)
Rinke Hoekstra (VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Giovambattista Ianni (University of Calabria, Italy)
Krzysztof Janowicz (Pennsylvania State University, USA)
Domenico Lembo (University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy)
Francesca A. Lisi (University of Bari, Italy)
Gergely Lukácsy (DERI Galway, Ireland)
Jan Maluszynski (University of Linköping, Sweden)
Wolfgang May (University of Göttingen, Germany)
Ralf Möller (TU Hamburg, Germany)
Boris Motik (Oxford University, UK)
Wolfgang Nejdl (LS3 and University of Hannover, Germany)
Matthias Nickles (University of Bath, UK)
Andrea Pugliese (University of Calabria, Italy)
Guilin Qi (Southeast University, China)
Sebastian Rudolph (University of Karlsruhe, Germany)
Alan Ruttenberg (ScientificCommons, Switzerland)
Michael Sintek (DFKI GmbH, Kaiserslautern, Germany)
Umberto Straccia (ISTI-CNR Pisa, Italy)
Heiner Stuckenschmidt (University of Mannheim, Germany)
Terrance Swift (SUNY Stony Brook, USA)
Sergio Tessaris (Free University of Bozen, Italy)
Dirk Vermeir (University of Brussels, Belgium)
Zhe Wu (Oracle, USA)


FURTHER INFORMATION

For further information refer to the RR 2010 web site at

  http://www.rr-conference.org/RR2010

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