EMOTIONAL AND EMPATHIC AGENTS (EEA'12)

             ** WORKSHOP ON EMOTIONAL AND EMPATHIC AGENTS **

                                          at AAMAS 2012

                                 June 4-8, 2012, Valencia, Spain





                          http://gaips.inesc-id.pt/aamas12-wseea

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                                      2ND CALL FOR PAPERS



                 [apologies for cross-postings, please distribute]



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Workshop Organizers

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João Dias (INESC-ID and Instituto Superior Técnico, PT)

Janneke van der Zwaan (Delft University of Technology, NL)

Jason Tsai (University of Southern California, USA)



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Senior Steering Committee

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Ana Paiva (PT)

Catholijn Jonker (NL)

Stacy Marsella (USA)

Virginia Dignum (NL)



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Goals

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The main goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers from different disciplines to discuss the creation of what we call "empathic agents". Empathy has been associated with the processes that make a person to have "feelings that are more congruent with another's situation than with his own situation". Humans, when interacting with virtual agents or robots can be led to feel empathy, and experience a diverse set of emotional reactions. On the other hand, agents and robots can in a certain, perhaps limited way, also show certain emotions in reaction to human emotions, thus seemingly expressing empathy towards other agents and towards humans.  Further, agents interacting in social simulation scenarios may react to the other agents in a way that is more congruent with the other's. Thus, by seeking inspiration in empathic relations established between humans and between humans and animals, in this workshop we expect to explore these dimensions of empathic agents.



This workshop is multidisciplinary in nature. We expect to involve researchers who are not only interesting in studying intelligent virtual agents, social simulation and social robotics, but also those interested in empathy, cognition, ethology, emotions, human interactions, computer graphics, human-robots interaction and human/computer interaction.



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Topics of Interest

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Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

- Models of empathy

- Empathy for rational agents

- Architectures for empathic agents and robots

- Emotional contagion

- Emotional interactions and regulation with agents

- Emotion modeling for empathic agents and robots

- User modeling for empathic agents and robots

- Social robots and social agents and empathy

- Inter-agent communication and empathy

- Expression of virtual agents for empathic interactions

- Empathy and facial expressions in virtual agents

- Empathic synthetic speech for virtual agents

- Applications to health and social education

- Interactive storytelling and empathy

- Entertainment and education applications

- Emotional and empathic agents in video games

- Empathy and long term interactions with virtual agents and robots

- Evaluating empathy in agents and robots

- Evaluating human empathic reactions to artificial agents and robots



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Important Dates

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Paper submission: February 28, 2012

Acceptance notification: March 27, 2012

Camera ready: April 10, 2012

Uploading of workshop papers to website: May 1, 2012

Workshop: June 4-5, 2012 (provisory date)



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Submissions

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Researchers are invited to submit papers for the workshop focusing the topics of interest of the workshop stating clearly how they can contribute to the themes proposed. Papers should be no longer than 8 pages and must use the AAMAS format (http://aamas2012.webs.upv.es/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19&Itemid=19). All papers will be reviewed by at least two members of the program committee in a single-blind review process. At least one author of each accepted paper is required to register for the workshop.



Papers should be submitted through Easychair in pdf format: https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=eeaaamas2012



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Program Committee

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Please check the program committee members at http://gaips.inesc-id.pt/aamas12-wseea/index.php/committees

CfP: Active Media Technology 2010

####################################################################
            Active Media Technology 2010

                  CALL FOR PAPERS
####################################################################

2010 International Conference on Active Media Technology (AMT 2010)

August 28-30, 2010, Toronto, Canada

Homepage: http://www.wici-lab.org/amtbi10/
Mirror page: http://www.yorku.ca/amtbi10 

Co-organized by Web Intelligence Consortium (WIC) 
                IEEE Task Force on Brain Informatics (IEEE TF-BI)
Co-sponsored by York University, Toronto, Canada
                Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science

##################################################################
# Papers Due: *** 31 March 2010 *** 
# Accepted papers will be published by Springer as a volume of 
# the series of LNCS/LNAI.
# Extensions of selected papers from the proceedings will be
# considered for publication in special issues of journals,
##################################################################

In the great digital era, we are witnessing many rapid
scientific and technological developments in human-centred,
seamless computing environments, interfaces, devices, and
systems with applications ranging from business and communication
to entertainment and learning. These developments are collectively
best characterized as Active Media Technology (AMT), a new area
of intelligent information technology and computer science that
emphasizes the proactive, seamless roles of interfaces and systems
as well as new media in all aspects of digital life. An AMT based
system offers services to enable the rapid design, implementation
and support of customized solutions.

The first International Conference on Active Media Technology
(AMT01) was held in Hong Kong in 2001, the second International
Conference on Active Media Technology (AMT04) was held in Chongqing,
China in May 29-31 of 2004, the third International Conference on
Active Media Technology (AMT05) was held in Kagawa, Japan in May
2005, the fourth International Conference on Active Media
Technology (AMT06) was held in Brisbane, Australia in June 7-9,
2006, and the fifth International Conference on Active Media
Technology (AMT09) was jointly held with the 2009
International Conference on Brain Informatics (BI 2009).
Following the success of AMT01, AMT04, AMT05, AMT06 and AMT09,
the Sixth International Conference on Active Media Technology
(AMT10) will be held in Toronto, Canada from August 28-30, 2010.

Active Media Technology 2010 will be jointly held with the 2010
International Conference on Brain Informatics (BI 2010).  The two
conferences will have a joint opening, keynote, reception, and
banquet. Attendees only need to register for one conference and can
attend sessions, exhibits and demonstrations across the
two conferences.

+++++++++++++++++++
Topics of Interest
+++++++++++++++++++

CONFERENCE TOPICS AND AREAS INCLUDE, BUT NOT LIMITED TO

* Active Computer Systems and Intelligent Interfaces
* Adaptive Web Systems and Information Foraging Agents
* Agent-Based Software Engineering and Multi-Agent Systems
* AMT for Semantic Web and Web2.0
* Cognitive Foundations for AMT
* Conversational Informatics
* Data Mining, Ontology Mining and Web Reasoning
* Digital City and Digital Interactivity
* E-Commerce and Web Services
* E-learning
* Entertainment and Social Applications of Active Media
* Evaluation of Active Media and AMT Based Systems
* Human-Web Interaction
* Human Factors in AMT
* Information Retrieval
* Machine Learning and Human-Centred Robotics
* Multi-Modal Processing, Detection, Recognition, and
  Expression Analysis
* Network, Mobile and Wireless Security
* Personalized, Pervasive, and Ubiquitous Systems and their
  Interfaces
* Semantic Computing for Active Media and AMT Based Systems
* Sensing Web
* Smart Digital Media
* Trust on Web Information Systems
* Web Based Social Networks
* Web Mining, Wisdom Web and Web Intelligence

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
On-Line Submissions and Publication
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

High-quality papers in all AMT related areas are solicited. Papers
exploring new directions will receive a careful and supportive
review. All submitted papers will be reviewed on the basis of
technical quality, relevance, significance, and clarity. 

The proceeding of the conference will be published by Springer as a
volume of the series of Lecture Notes in Computer Science/Lecture
Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNCS/LNAI).
Extensions of selected papers from the proceedings will be
considered for publication in special issues of international journals,
including Journal of Intelligent Information Systems (Springer, 
http://www.editorialmanager.com/jiis/).

Authors are strongly encouraged to use Springer LNCS/LNAI manuscript
submission guidelines (available at 
http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html) for their initial
submissions (a maximum of 12 pages in Springer LNCS/LNAI style file). 
All papers must be submitted electronically in PDF format
only, using the conference management tool. 

We will also have poster, demonstration, and late breaking result
paper sessions. Detailed instructions and a paper submission form
can be found the AMT'10 Web page at http://www.wici-lab.org/amtbi10/

A selected number of the best papers from AMT'10 will be expanded
and revised for possible inclusion in "Knowledge and Information Systems:
An International Journal" (http://www.cs.uvm.edu/~kais/) by Springer
and "Web Intelligence and Agent Systems: An International Journal"
(http://wi-consortium.org/journal.html) by IOS Press.

+++++++
Awards
+++++++

AMT 2010 best paper awards and student paper awards will be
conferred on the authors at the conference.

++++++++++++++++
Important Dates
++++++++++++++++

Electronic submission of full papers 
(12 pages in Springer LNAI/LNCS style file):  
*** 31 March 2010 *** 

Notification of paper acceptance: June 1, 2010
Camera-ready of accepted papers: June 24, 2010
Conference:  August 28-30, 2010

++++++++++++++++++++++++
Conference Organization
++++++++++++++++++++++++

Conference General Chairs:
 * Sheela Petty, University of Regina, Canada
 * Runhe Huang, Hosei University, Japan

Program Chairs:
 * Pawan Lingras, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada
 * Aijun An, York University, Toronto, Canada

Organizing Chair:
 * Jimmy Huang, York University, Toronto, Canada

Publicity Chairs:
 * Daniel Tao, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
 * Jian Yang, International WIC Institute/BJUT, China

IEEE-CIS-TFBI Chair
 * Ning Zhong, Maebashi Institute of Technology, Japan

WIC Co-Chairs/Directors:
 * Ning Zhong, Maebashi Institute of Technology, Japan
 * Jiming Liu, Hong Kong Baptist University, HK

WIC Advisory Board:
 * Edward A. Feigenbaum, Stanford University, USA
 * Setsuo Ohsuga, University of Tokyo, Japan
 * Benjamin Wah, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA
 * Philip Yu, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA
 * L.A. Zadeh, University of California, Berkeley, USA

WIC Tech. Committee & WI/IAT Steering Committee:
 * Jeffrey Bradshaw, UWF/Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, USA
 * Nick Cercone, York University, Canada
 * Dieter Fensel, University of Innsbruck, Austria
 * Georg Gottlob, Oxford University, UK
 * Lakhmi Jain, University of South Australia, Australia
 * Jianchang Mao, Yahoo! Inc., USA
 * Pierre Morizet-Mahoudeaux, Compiegne University of Technology, France
 * Hiroshi Motoda, Osaka University, Japan
 * Toyoaki Nishida, Kyoto University, Japan
 * Andrzej Skowron, Warsaw University, Poland
 * Jinglong Wu, Okayama University, Japan
 * Xindong Wu, University of Vermont, USA
 * Yiyu Yao, University of Regina, Canada


*** Contact Information ***

Email: Pawan Lingras  pawan@cs.smu.ca
       Aijun An  aan@cse.yorku.ca

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE GAME AND ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGIES (GET2010)

-- CALL FOR PAPERS - Deadline for submissions (new date): 29 March 2010 --

IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE GAME AND ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGIES (GET2010)
Freiburg, Germany, 26 – 28 July 2010
(http://www.gaming-conf.org/)
part of the IADIS Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems(MCCSIS 2010)
Freiburg, Germany 26 – 31 July 2010
(http://www.mccsis.org)


* Keynote Speaker (confirmed):
Matt Costello, Scriptwriter & Games Designer, USA

* Conference background and goals
This conference aims to bring together research and practice from creative, social and business practitioners and researchers in this challenging field. The focus of this conference is on design, development and evaluation of games, entertainment technologies and the nature of play.

* Format of the Conference 
The conference will comprise of invited talks and oral presentations. The proceedings of the conference will be published in the form of a book and CD-ROM with ISBN, and will be available also in the IADIS Digital Library (accessible on-line).

* Best Papers
Selected authors of best papers will be invited to submit extended versions of their papers to selected journals (i.e. IADIS International Journal on Computer Science and Information Systems - ISSN: 1646-3692) including journals from INDERSCIENCE Publishers.

* Types of submissions 
Full and Short Papers, Reflection Papers, Posters/Demonstrations, Tutorials, Panels and Doctoral Consortium. All submissions are subject to a blind refereeing process.

* Topics related to Game and Entertainment Technologies are of interest. These include, but are not limited to the following topics: 
 
- Development methodologies
- Design issues 
- Controversial issues – we welcome debate and dissension, for example; games as art, entertainment as purely for monetary returns etc
- Special Effects
- Animation
- Mobile and ubiquitous games and entertainment 
- Serious Games and entertainment –applications, critiques
- Philosophical issues
- Prototypes
- Social and cultural uses of/for Play
- Tools and technologies
- Skills, strategy, rules and chance
- Genre
- Immersiveness and engagement
- Research methodologies in creative practice

- Usability and playability
- User/player centered design
- Psychological, social, and cultural differences in perception and participation
- Communities, networks, social interaction and social capital
- Cross-cultural and intercultural approaches
- Assessment of exploratory learning approaches
- Emerging practices


* Important Dates:
- Submission Deadline (new date): 29 March 2010
- Notification to Authors (new date): 30 April 2010
- Final Camera-Ready Submission and Early Registration (new date): Until 24 May 2010
- Late Registration (new date): After 24 May 2010
- Conference: Freiburg, Germany, 26 – 28 July 2010

* Conference Location 
The conference will be held in Freiburg, Germany. 

* Secretariat 
IADIS Secretariat - IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE GAME AND ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGIES 2010
Rua Sao Sebastiao da Pedreira, 100, 3 
1050-209 Lisbon, Portugal 
E-mail: secretariat@gaming-conf.org
Web site: http://www.gaming-conf.org/

* Program Committee 
Game and Entertainment Technologies 2010 Conference Program Chair:
Katherine Blashki, University of Sydney, Australia

General MCCSIS 2010 Conference Co-Chairs:
Piet Kommers, University of Twente, The Netherlands 
Pedro Isaías, Universidade Aberta (Portuguese Open University), Portugal
Dirk Ifenthaler, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany
Nian-Shing Chen, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan

Committee Members: *
* for committee list please refer to http://www.gaming-conf.org/committees.asp