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

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

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

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

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                      2ND CALL FOR PAPERS



                 [apologies for cross-postings, please distribute]



--------------------------

Workshop Organizers

--------------------------

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)



---------------------------------

Senior Steering Committee

---------------------------------

Ana Paiva (PT)

Catholijn Jonker (NL)

Stacy Marsella (USA)

Virginia Dignum (NL)



-------

Goals

-------

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.



---------------------

Topics of Interest

---------------------

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



--------------------

Important Dates

--------------------

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)



---------------

Submissions

---------------

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



-------------------------

Program Committee

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

Trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems (TruMAS'12)

1st International Workshop on Trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems (TruMAS'12)
KES-AMSTA 2012 Special Session, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 25-27 June 2012
http://www2.imm.dtu.dk/~ndra/TruMAS12
Proceedings published by Springer-Verlag in a volume of LNCS/LNAI.

IMPORTANT DATES

5 February 2012  Submission of papers
22 February 2012 Notification of acceptance
7 March 2012 Camera ready
25-27 June 2012 TruMAS and KES-AMSTA

WORKSHOP AIM AND SCOPE

The rapid development of computer-based technologies has made computers more and more complex and ubiquitous. Many computer-based systems are in charge of critical tasks such as, to mention only a few, the management of financial and medical databases, the monitoring of nuclear plants, the flying of airplanes, etc. Multi-agent systems (MAS) have been proposed as a new paradigm for conceptualizing, designing, and implementing open and distributed software systems. The foundational idea behind a Multi-Agent System is to have a loosely coupled network of software agents (i.e., sophisticated computer programs that act autonomously on behalf of their users) which interact to solve problems that are beyond the individual capacities or knowledge of each single agent. Therefore, it is not surprisingly MAS have received a lot of attention as reference computing paradigm to tackle complexity in modern computer-based systems.

However, the complexity of modern computer-based systems as well as their numerous applications has inherently increased the challenges for ensuring trustworthiness. Trustworthiness encompasses vital characteristics of a system such as safety (the non-occurrence of catastrophic consequences for the environment the system works in), security (the non-occurrence of unauthorized disclosure of information), integrity (the non-occurrence of inadequate information alteration), availability (the readiness for correct service of the system), reliability (the property of the system to continuously provide service) or more generically dependability. The overall trustworthiness of a system is connected to all the aforementioned properties and should be regarded holistically. Functional correctness, security, safety, reliability are facets that have to be ensured for the system's components as well as for the system as a whole.

The 1st International Workshop on Trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems (TruMAS 2012) aims at bringing together researchers, engineers and practitioners interested in all the different aspects of trust, dependability and security in Multi-Agent Systems. The workshop is expected to stimulate discussions about the future development of appropriate models, methods, notations, languages and tools for trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems. The overall goal is to explore the different facets of trustworthiness in Multi-Agent Systems, how every single aspect can be fostered, and how they relate.

Topics of interests include, but are not limited to:
- Trust and reputation models, metrics and assessment in Multi-Agent Systems
- Dependability facets in Multi-Agent Systems
- Fault-tolerance and robustness in Multi-Agent Systems
- Architectures for trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems
- Robust and secure communication in Multi-Agent Systems
- Robust and secure negotiation in Multi-Agent Systems
- Software engineering methodologies for trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems
- Security and access control in open Multi-Agent Systems
- Self-configuration and adaptation
- Formal methods and frameworks to model, analyze, prove, or measure aspects of trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems
- Industrial experiences in the adoption of trust-based Multi-Agent Systems approaches
- Rigorous software development to ensure trustworthiness in Multi-Agent Systems

Since the overall goal of trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems includes the investigation of several cross- disciplinary issues such as a deep understanding of trust vs. trustworthiness, trust-based approaches, dependability, etc..., a synergy between different scientific communities and research disciplines is needed. For this reason, although the workshop seems naturally focused on multi-agent issues, contributions from different disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, psychology, communication sciences, as well as from computer science specific sub-disciplines such as software engineering and dependability are welcomed and encouraged.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Submitted full papers must not exceed 10 pages in length, including bibliography and well-marked appendices. Papers can be submitted using the PROSE Online Paper Submission system available on the KES-AMSTA'12 Web site. Please remember to select the TruMAS invited session entry in the "Session Name" drop-down box when submitting your paper.

Please use the LNCS templates and style files available on the Springer Web site (Information for LNCS Authors).

Submitted papers will be evaluated by the program committee and chosen for presentation based on their scientific contribution and relevance to the topics of the workshop. At least one author of each accepted paper must register to the workshop and participate presenting the paper.

Proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in a volume of LNCS/LNAI.

CHAIRS

Nicola Dragoni
DTU Informatics
Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
ndra@imm.dtu.dk

Manuel Mazzara
School of Computing Science
Newcastle University, UK
manuel.mazzara@newcastle.ac.uk

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Faycal Abouzaid, CRAC, Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal, Canada
Enrico Denti, DEIS, University of Bologna, Italy
Nicoletta Fornara, Faculty of Communication Sciences, University of Lugano, Switzerland
Katsuhide Fujita, Institute of Engineering Innovation, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Mauro Gaspari, Department of Computer Science, University of Bologna, Italy
Paolo Giorgini, Information Engineering and Computer Science Department (DISI), University of Trento, Italy
Nathan Griffiths, Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, UK
Koji Hasebe, Academic Computing & Communications Center, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Hiromitsu Hattori, Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, Japan
Takayuki Ito, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan
Waqar Jaffry, Department of Artificial Intelligence, VU University, The Netherlands
Andrew J I Jones, Department of Informatics, King's College London, UK
Steve Marsh, Communications Research Centre, Canada
Hernan Melgratti, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Paul Scerri, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Eugen Staab, imc AG, Germany
Daniel Villatoro, Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, Spanish Scientific Research Council, Spain
Mirko Viroli, DEIS, University of Bologna, Italy

Workshop on WEB INTELLIGENCE & COMMUNITIES (WI&C'12)

4th International Workshop on WEB INTELLIGENCE & COMMUNITIES (WI&C'12)
http://wic.litislab.fr

to be held at the 2012 World Wide Web International Conferences (WWW'12)
Lyon, France, April 16-20, 2012

*Important Dates:*

Paper submission deadline: January 27th, 2012
Acceptance notification : February 27th, 2012
Camera ready paper : March 23rd, 2012
Workshop : April 16th, 2012

*INVITED SPEAKER*

We are honored to have a invited talk from Ashwin Ram (PARC & Georgia Tech).
Title: Health & Wellness 2.0 with social networks for healthcare

*SCOPE OF THE WORKSHOP*

Web Intelligence consists of a multidisciplinary area dealing with exploiting data and services over the Web, to create new data and services using both Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. Communities appear as a first-class object in the areas of web intelligence and agent technologies, as well as a crucial crossroads of several sub-domains (i.e. user modelling, protocols, data management, data mining, content modelling, etc.). These sub-domains impact the nature of the communities 
and the applications which are related to them. These applications are numerous, and the success of well-known Social Network Sites for entertainment should not be allowed to over-shadow the other application domains, for instance in education, health, design, knowledge management, and so forth. 

The workshop will provide presentation and discussion opportunities for researchers working on web intelligence applied to collaborative networks, such as virtual communities. The possibilities and consequences of the web usage for collaborative networks are tremendous and new tools are required to satisfy users and service providers.

The workshop Web Intelligence and Communities expects contributions on topics such as:
 Multi-agent models and tools for Virtual Communities (VC)
 Services and Grid Services for VC, Service oriented architectures
 Web information mining, filtering and retrieval within/for VC
 Web-based applications and platforms for VC
 Intelligent web interaction, querying, diffusion
 Semantics and ontology engineering for VC
 Self-* models and techniques for VC
 Social networks modelling, virtual communities, social intelligence
 Context-based approach, profile management, personalization and recommendations for/through VC
 Privacy preserving, security, trust-based computing & reputation systems
 Applications: E-* (market, procurement, technologies, health, government, etc.) and VC
 VC and content and knowledge repositories, behaviour modelling and exchange
 Web intelligence, mobility and VC, Ambient Intelligence, Pervasive computing
 Performances evaluation, experiments, user feed-back
 Surveys on WI and VC
 Semantic Web technologies for Social Data integration and fusion
 Human-based behaviour patterns and modelling


*SUBMISSIONS*

The Web Intelligence and Communities workshop welcomes the submission of theoretical, experimental, methodological as well as application papers. Discussion papers and demonstration papers (for presentation during the workshop) are also welcome.

Submitted papers should be 10 pages maximum in length (4 pages for the discussion and demonstration papers), including figures and references. The paper must be formatted in pdf according to style guidelines of ACM SIG Proceedings Template available here: http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates

All submissions should be done online on the workshop submission web site:https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=wic2012

The WI&C workshop are traditionnaly followed by post-proceedings
published in a renowned international journal (for the 2 last ones, it
was the International Journal on Web Intelligence & Agent
Systems). Discussions are in progress to decide which journal will
publish a special issue with the post-proceedings of WI&C 2012.

* WORKSHOP CHAIRS *

 • Rajendra Akerkar, Western Norway Research Institute, Norway
 • Pierre Maret, Hubert Curien Laboratory, Université Jean Monnet, Saint-Étienne, France
 • Laurent Vercouter, LITIS Laboratory, INSA de Rouen, France

* PROGRAM COMMITTEE *

Altmann Jorn, Seoul National University, South Korea
Amblard Frédéric, University of Toulouse I, France
Badica Costin, University of Craiova, Romania
Calmet Jacques, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
Camacho Fernández David, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
Corcho Oscar, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
Currie Ken, CAPDM Ltd., Edinburgh, UK
De Coi Juri Luca, University of Saint Etienne, France
Delaforge Nicolas, INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France
Dey Anind, Carnegie Mellon Institute, USA
El Morr Christo, York University, Canada
Favre Cécile, ERIC, University of Lyon 2, France
Gilani Wasif, SAP Research, United Kingdom
Halpin Harry, W3C, Scotland
Heckmann Dominikus, Saarland University, Germany
Kawash Jalal, University of Calgary, Canada
Kristoffersen Steinar, Ostfold University College, Norway
Letia Ioan, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Lingras Pawan, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada
Lopez Guillaume, University of Tokyo, Japan
Molli Pascal, University of Nantes, France
Occello Michel, University Pierre Mendes France, France
Ramanath Maya, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India
Ribière Myriam, Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs France
Rios Sebastián, University of Chile, Chile
Sasikumar M, C-DAC, India
Soulier Eddie, University of Technology of Troyes, France
Stahl Christoph, DFKI Saarbrucken, Germany
Stan Johann, Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs France
Story Henry, W3C
Tarkkanen Kimmo, University of Turku, Finland
Teigland Robin, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
Tellioglu Hilda, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
van Beijnum Bert-Jan, University of Twente, Netherlands
Werthner Hannes, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Ying Ding, Indiana University Bloomington, USA


--
*Laurent Vercouter* Professor in Computer Science
LITIS lab, INSA de Rouen, Rouen, France
Ph: (+33) 232 959 986

Declarative Agent Languages and Technologies (DALT 2012)

            10th International Workshop on
             Declarative Agent Languages and Technologies
                             (DALT 2012)

                          4 or 5 June 2012

                           Valencia, Spain
                (held in conjunction with AAMAS 2012)

         URL: http://www.di.unito.it/~baldoni/DALT-2012/

----------------------------------------------------------------------
                           CALL FOR PAPERS
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The workshop  on Declarative Agent Languages  and Technologies (DALT),
in  its tenth  edition this  year,  is a  well-established forum  for
researchers  interested  in  sharing  their experiences  in  combining
declarative  and  formal approaches  with  engineering and  technology
aspects  of agents  and  multiagent systems.   Building complex  agent
systems calls for models  and technologies that ensure predictability,
allow for  the verification of properties,  and guarantee flexibility.
Developing  technologies  that can  satisfy  these requirements  still
poses  an  important   and  difficult  challenge.   Here,  declarative
approaches  have the  potential of  offering solutions  satisfying the
needs   for  both  specifying   and  developing   multiagent  systems.
Moreover,  they  are gaining  more  and  more  attention in  important
application   areas  such  as   the  semantic   web,  service-oriented
computing, security,  and electronic contracting.

DALT 2012 will be held as a satellite workshop of AAMAS 2012, the 11th
International  Joint Conference  on Autonomous  Agents  and Multiagent
Systems,  in June  2011 in Valencia, Spain.   Following the  success of
nine previous editions, DALT will again aim at providing a discussion
forum to  both (i) support  the transfer of declarative  paradigms and
techniques  to   the  broader  community  of   agent  researchers  and
practitioners, and (ii) to bring  the issue of designing complex agent
systems  to  the  attention  of  researchers  working  on  declarative
languages and technologies.

DALT 2012 will have as a special interest topics those future trends of
the web, where declarative languages and technologies for multiagents
systems will play an effective role: in particular, social computing
(models of social interactions, trust, commitments, and contracts;
social  environments based on declarative technologies) and its related
semantic issues (explicit representation of knowledge and mechanisms for
allowing societies of agents to reason on that).

----------------------------------------------------------------------
                          TOPICS OF INTEREST
----------------------------------------------------------------------

DALT topics of interest include, but are not limited to:


DALT 2012 special topic: declarative approaches for agent-based social
computing
* models of social interactions among agents
* models of buiness interactions among agents
* models of trust, commitments, and reputation for agents
* declarative description of contracts and negotiation policies
* social environments based on declarative technologies
* Semantic Web-aware declarative agents

General themes:
* specification of agents and multi-agent systems
* declarative approaches to engineering agent-based systems

Formal techniques:
* (constraint) logic programming approaches to agent systems
* distributed constraint satisfaction
* modal and epistemic logics for agent modeling
* game theory and mechanism design for multi-agent systems
* semantics of agent communication
* model checking agents and multi-agent systems
* agent communication and coordination languages
* protocol specification, verification, and reasoning

Declarative models:
* declarative models of agent beliefs, goals and capabilities
* declarative models of bounded rationality
* declarative approaches for agent-based grid computing
* declarative paradigms for the combination of heterogeneous agents
* declarative approaches to organizations and electronic institutions
* agent-inspired declarative approaches to Web services and
service-oriented computing

Applications of declarative techniques to:
* multi-agent systems for service-oriented computing
* agent-based grid computing
* security and trust in multi-agent systems
* e-health, e-commerce, e-learning, sociotechnical systems, social
networks, virtual organizations.

Evaluation of declarative approaches:
* experimental analysis of declarative agent technologies
* industrial experiences with declarative agent technologies

----------------------------------------------------------------------
                       SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
----------------------------------------------------------------------

We  welcome and  encourage  the submission  of high-quality,  original
papers, which  are not being submitted  simultaneously for publication
elsewhere.  Papers  should be written in  English, formatted according
to the Springer LNCS style,  and not exceed 16 pages. Paper submission
is electronic via the conference website.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
                         WORKSHOP PROCEEDINGS
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Printed copies of  the proceedings will be available  at the workshop.
Assuming a sufficient number of high-quality submissions, we are again
going to  consider the publication of formal  post-proceedings with an
international  publisher.   The post-proceedings  of  DALT 2003  (LNAI
2990), DALT 2004  (LNAI 3476), DALT 2005 (LNAI  3904), DALT 2006 (LNAI
4327),  DALT 2007 (LNAI  4897), DALT  2008 (LNAI  5397),  DALT 2009
(LNAI  5948), and DALT 2010 (LNAI 6619) have  been published  by
Springer-Verlag  in the Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence series.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
                           IMPORTANT DATES
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Paper submission deadline:                    28 February 2012
Notification of acceptance/rejection:         27 March 2012
Camera-ready copies due:                      10 April 2012
Workshop Date:                                4 or 5 June     2012

----------------------------------------------------------------------
                         WORKSHOP ORGANISERS
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Matteo Baldoni (University of Torino, Italy)
Louise Dennis (University of Liverpool, UK)
Viviana Mascardi (University of Genova, Italy)
Wamberto Vasconcelos (University of Aberdeen, UK)
_______________________________________________

6th MASTA @ EPIA 2011 - Thematic Track on Multi-Agent Systems: Theory and Applications

6th MASTA @ EPIA 2011
Thematic Track on Multi-Agent Systems: Theory and Applications

10-13 October 2011, Lisbon, Portugal

http://epia2011.appia.pt/masta

Submission deadline: May 10, 2011
---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -

---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -
Introduction
---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -

Since 1993, the area of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) has been present in all EPIA Conferences, both as individual tracks and as autonomous workshops. Focusing on a fundamental subject of Artificial Intelligence, the 6th edition of Multi-Agent Systems: Theory and Applications - MASTA 2011 Thematic Track, will be a forum for presenting and discussing the most recent and innovative work on MAS.

Departing, from the end of the 1980’s, from the two main branches of Decentralized Artificial Intelligence and Distributed Problem Solving, research on MAS has developed in areas of increasing specialization and autonomy as diverse as agent theories and architectures, cognitive modelling, coordination, negotiation and argumentation, social organization and social simulation, swarm intelligence, and agent-oriented programming.

Agent technology has been used to solve real-world problems in a range of industrial and commercial applications, including manufacturing, supply chain management, process control, telecommunications, air traffic control, transportation systems, and business process management.

---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -
Aims and Scope
---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -

Research on MAS has a vigorous, exciting tradition and has led to important theories and systems. However, new trends and concerns are still emerging and form the basis of current and future research. This thematic track is intended to provide a discussion forum on the most recent and innovative work in all areas of MAS.

The unifying focus of the thematic track will be on methodological aspects. Both theoretical and practical research should be situated in the context of existing or new methodologies. This will not preclude any specific topic, but preference will be given to research work that establishes some connection with the methodological aspects or to successful applications built upon some methodology.

---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -
Topics of Interest
---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

     * Agent theories, Architectures and Languages;
     * Cognitive models, including emotions and philosophies;
     * Formal Methods for Modelling Agents and MAS;
     * Cooperation, Coordination and Teamwork;
     * Automated Negotiation and Computational Argumentation;
     * Multi-Agent Evolution, Adaptation and Learning;
     * Trust and Reputation in MAS;
     * Communication: protocols and languages;
     * Artificial Social Systems;
     * Agent-Oriented Software Engineering;
     * Multi-Agent Simulation and Modelling;
     * Norms and Institutions in MAS;
     * Ethical and Legal issues raised by Agents and MAS;
     * Industrial and Commercial Applications;
     * Scalability and Performance of MAS.

---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -
Submission Information
---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -

Submission of papers is made electronically through the Conference website (epia2011.appia.pt). Authors must remove their names from the papers and should take reasonable care not to indirectly disclose their identity (blind reviewing process).

Papers should be no longer than 12 pages, including figures and references, and should be formatted according to the Springer's LNCS/LNAI format, following the instructions on Springer’s website (http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0).

Papers of higher quality will be published in Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI), by Springer (proceedings indexed by the Thomson ISI Web of Knowledge). All other accepted papers will be published in the local proceedings.

---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -
Important Dates
---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -

     * Full Paper Submission:       May 10, 2011
     * Notification of Acceptance:  June 10, 2011
     * Camera-ready Papers:         July 1, 2011
     * Conference Date:             October 10-13, 2011

---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -
Organizing Committee
---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -

Paulo Urbano
Departamento de Informática
Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa
Edifício C6, Piso 3, Campo Grande
1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal
pub [at] di [dot] fc [dot] ul [dot] pt

Cesar Analide
Departamento de Informática
Universidade do Minho
Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal
analide [at] di [dot] uminho [dot] pt

Fernando Lopes
Departamento de Modelação e Simulação
Laboratório Nacional de Energia (LNEG)
1649-038 Lisbon, Portugal
fernando [dot] lopes [at] ineti [dot] pt

Henrique Lopes Cardoso
Departamento de Engenharia Informática
Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto
Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
hlc [at] fe [dot] up [dot] pt

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Additional Information
---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -

Additional information can be found at the Conference website (epia2011.appia.pt/masta) or asked for by e-mail, using the address masta2011 [at] appia [dot] pt.

---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -
Steering Committee
---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -

Eugénio Oliveira, Universidade do Porto, Portugal
Helder Coelho, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
João Balsa, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Luís Reis, Universidade do Porto, Portugal

---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -
Program Committee
---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -

Alejandro Hérnandez, Universidad Veracruzana, Spain
Alexander Pokahr, University of Hamburg, Germany
Amal Elfallah, Université Paris VI, France
Amílcar Cardoso, Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal
Ana Paula Rocha, Universidade do Porto, Portugal
Andrea Omicini, Università di Bologna, Italy
António Pereira, Universidade do Porto, Portugal
António Rocha Costa, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Carlos Martinho, Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal
Christian Lemaître, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Mexico
Cristiano Castelfranchi, ISTC-CNR, Italy
Eugénio Oliveira, Universidade do Porto, Portugal
F. Jordan Srour, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
Frank Dignum, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
Helder Coelho, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Huib Aldewereld, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
Jaime Sichman, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
Javier Bajo, Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Spain
Javier Carbó, Universidad Carlos III Madrid, Spain
João Balsa, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
João Leite, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
John-Jules Meyer, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
Jomi Hübner, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil
Jordi Sabater-Mir, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Jörg Müller, TU Clausthal Institut für Informatik, Germany
Juan Burgillo, Universidade de Vigo, Spain
Juan M. Corchado, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain
Laurent Vercouter, École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne, France
Luís Botelho, ISCTE, Portugal
Luís Correia, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Luís Macedo, Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal
Luís Moniz, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Luís Reis, Universidade do Porto, Portugal
Marc Esteva, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Michael Fisher, University of Liverpool, UK
Murat Sensoy, University of Aberdeen, UK
Neil Yorke-Smith, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
Nicoletta Fornara, Università della Svizzera Italiana (University of Lugano), Switzerland
Nuno Lau, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
Olivier Boissier, École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne, France
Onn Shehory, IBM Haifa Research Lab, Israel
Pablo Noriega, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Paolo Torroni, Università di Bologna, Italy
Paulo Ferreira Jr., Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brazil
Paulo Novais, Universidade do Minho, Portugal
Pavlos Moraitis, Université Paris Descartes, France
Pedro Mariano, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Reyhan Aydogan, Bogazici University, Turkey
Rosa Vicari, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Santiago Ontañón Villar, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Virginia Dignum, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Wamberto Vasconcelos, University of Aberdeen, UK
Wojtek Jamroga, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Ya'akov Gal, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
Yun-Gyung Cheong, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technologies, South Korea
Yves Demazeau, Laboratoire d'Informatique de Grenoble, France

---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -
6th Multi-Agent Systems: Theory and Applications - MASTA @ EPIA 2011
Thematic Track @ EPIA 2011                          Lisbon, PORTUGAL
http://epia2011.appia.pt/masta                    masta2011@appia.pt
---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - -  -  -  -  -   -

2011 International Conference on Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Methods

MSV'11
The 2011 International Conference on Modeling,
Simulation and Visualization Methods

Date and Location: July 18-21, 2011, Las Vegas, USA
http://www.world-academy-of-science.org/

==================================================

You are invited to submit a full paper for consideration. All accepted papers will be published in the MSV conference proceedings (in printed book form; later, the proceedings will also be accessible online) - the proceedings will be indexed in Inspec / IET / The Institute for Engineering & Technology, DBLP / Computer Science Bibliography, and others. Those interested in proposing workshops/sessions, should refer to the relevant sections that appear below.

The main keynote lecture will be delivered by Prof. David Lorge Parnas (Fellow of IEEE, ACM, RSC, CAE, GI; MRIA); there will also be 8 other distinguished speakers, 12 planned tutorials and panel discussions as well as about 50 research paper presentations.

SCOPE: Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

O  Simulation languages
O  Modeling and simulation for computer engineering
O  Modeling and simulation for education and training
O  Molecular modeling and simulation
O  Performance modeling, simulation, and prediction
O  Modeling, simulation, and emulation of large-scale, volatile environments
O  Modeling and simulation tools for nanotechnology
O  Information and scientific visualization
O  Real-time modeling and simulation
O  Geometric modeling
O  Perceptual issues in visualization and modeling
O  Modeling methodologies
O  Specification issues for modeling and simulation
O  Visual interactive simulation and modeling
O  Visualization tools and systems for simulation and modeling
O  Java-based modelers
O  Scalability issues
O  Numerical methods used in simulation and modeling
O  Finite and boundary element techniques
O  Process simulation/modeling
O  Device simulation/modeling
O  Circuit simulation/modeling
O  Performance evaluation and simulation tools
O  Multi-level modeling
O  Simulation of machine architectures
O  Simulation of wireless systems
O  Simulation and modeling with applications in biotechnology
O  CAD/CAE/CAM
O  Prototyping and simulation
O  Biomedical visualization and applications
O  Databases and visualization
O  Interaction paradigms and human factors
O  Parallel and distributed simulation
O  Discrete and numeric simulation
O  Geographic information systems and visualization
O  Internet, web and security visualization
O  Virtual reality and simulation
O  Virtual environments and data visualization
O  Petri nets and applications
O  Finite element methods
O  Soft computing / fuzzy logic
O  Tools and applications
O  Object-oriented simulation
O  Knowledge-based simulation
O  Emerging technologies and applications


USEFUL WEB LINKS:
The DBLP list of accepted papers of MSV 2010 appears at:
http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/msv/msv2010.html
The main web site of MSV'11 can be accessed via:
http://www.world-academy-of-science.org/


IMPORTANT DATES:

March 10, 2011:    Submission of papers (about 5 to 7 pages)
April 03, 2011:    Notification of acceptance (+/- two days)
April 24, 2011:    Final papers + Copyright/Consent + Registration
July 18-21, 2011:  The 2011 International Conference on Modeling,
                   Simulation and Visualization Methods (MSV'11)


ACADEMIC CO-SPONSORS:

Currently being prepared - The Academic sponsors of the last offering of MSV (2010) included research labs and centers affiliated with (a partial list): University of California, Berkeley; University of Southern California; University of Texas at Austin; Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia; Emory University, Georgia; University of Minnesota; University of Iowa; University of North Dakota; NDSU-CIIT Green Computing & Comm. Lab.; University of Siegen, Germany; UMIT, Austria; SECLAB (University of Naples Federico II + University of Naples Parthenope + Second University of Naples, Italy); National Institute for Health Research; World Academy of Biomedical Sciences and Technologies; Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia; International Society of Intelligent Biological Medicine (ISIBM); The International Council on Medical and Care Compunetics; Eastern Virginia Medical
School & the American College of Surgeons, USA.


SUBMISSION OF PAPERS:

Prospective authors are invited to submit their papers by uploading them to the evaluation web site at:  http://world-comp.org 
Submissions must be uploaded by March 10, 2011 and they must be in either MS doc (but not docx) or pdf formats (about 5 to 7 pages - single space, font size of 10 to 12). All reasonable typesetting formats are acceptable (later, the authors of accepted papers will be asked to follow a particular typesetting format to prepare their final papers for publication.) Papers must not have been previously published or currently submitted for publication elsewhere.
The first page of the paper should include: title of the paper, name, affiliation, postal address, and email address for each author. The first page should also identify the name of the Contact Author and a maximum of 5 topical keywords that would best represent the content of the paper. Finally, the name of the conference (ie, MSV) that the paper is being submitted for consideration must be stated on the first page.

The length of the final/Camera-Ready papers (if accepted) will be limited to 7 (two-column IEEE style) pages.

Each paper will be peer-reviewed by two experts in the field for originality, significance, clarity, impact, and soundness. In cases of contradictory recommendations, a member of the conference program committee will be charged to make the final decision (accept/reject) - often, this would involve seeking help from additional referees by using a double-blinded review process. In addition, all papers whose authors included a member of the conference program committee will be evaluated using the double-blinded review process. (Essay/philosophical papers will not be refereed but may be considered for discussion/panels).

All proceedings of WORLDCOMP will be published and indexed in: 
Inspec / IET / The Institute for Engineering & Technology, DBLP / CS Bibliography, and others. The printed proceedings will be available for distribution on site at the conference.

In addition to the publication of the proceedings, selected authors will be invited to submit extended versions of their papers for publication in a number of research books being proposed/contracted with various publishers (such as, Springer, Elsevier, ... 7247) - these books would be composed after the conference. Also, many chairs of sessions and workshops will be forming journal special issues to be published after the conference.


MEMBERS OF PROGRAM AND ORGANIZING COMMITTEES:

The members of the Steering Committee of The 2010 congress included:
Dr. Selim Aissi (Chief Strategist, Intel Corporation, USA);
Prof. Hamid Arabnia (ISIBM Fellow & Professor, University of Georgia;
Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in
Biomedicine; Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Supercomputing, Springer;
Advisory Board, IEEE TC on Scalable Computing); 

Prof. Ruzena Bajcsy (Member, National Academy of Engineering, IEEE Fellow, ACM Fellow, Professor; University of California, Berkeley, USA);

Prof. Hyunseung Choo (ITRC Director of Ministry of Information & Communication; Director, ITRC; Director, Korea Information Processing Society;
Assoc. Editor, ACM Transactions on Internet Technology; Professor,
Sungkyunkwan University, Korea); 

Prof. Winston Wai-Chi Fang (IEEE Fellow, TSMC Distinguished Chair Professor, National ChiaoTung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, ROC); 

Prof. Andy Marsh (Director HoIP,
Secretary-General WABT; Vice-president ICET and ICMCC, Visiting
Professor, University of Westminster, UK); Dr. Rahman Tashakkori
(Director, S-STEM NSF Supported Scholarship Program and NSF Supported
AUAS, Appalachian State U., USA); Prof. Layne T. Watson (IEEE Fellow,
NIA Fellow, ISIBM Fellow, Fellow of The National Institute of Aerospace,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA); and
Prof. Lotfi A. Zadeh (Member, National Academy of Engineering; IEEE
Fellow, ACM Fellow, AAAS Fellow, AAAI Fellow, IFSA Fellow; Director,
BISC; Professor, University of California, Berkeley, USA).
The list of Program Committee of MSV 2010 appears at:
http://www.world-academy-of-science.org/worldcomp10/ws/conferences/msv10/committee

The MSV 2011 program committee is currently being compiled. Many who have already joined the committee are renowned leaders, scholars, researchers, scientists and practitioners of the highest ranks; many are directors of research labs., members of National Academy of Engineering, fellows of various societies, heads/chairs of departments, program directors of research funding agencies, deans and provosts as well as members of chapters of World Academy of Science.

Program Committee members are expected to have established a strong and documented research track record. Those interested in joining the Program Committee should email  editor@world-comp.org  the following information for consideration/evaluation: Name, affiliation and position, complete mailing address, email address, a one-page biography that includes research expertise and the name of the conference (ie, MSV 2011) offering to help with.


GENERAL INFORMATION:

MSV conference is an important track of a federated research conference. It is being held jointly (same location and dates) with a number of other research conferences (WORLDCOMP). WORLDCOMP is the largest annual gathering of researchers in computer science, computer engineering and applied computing. We anticipate
to have 2,000 or more attendees from over 85 countries.

WORLDCOMP 2011 will be composed of research presentations, keynote lectures, invited presentations, tutorials, panel discussions, and poster presentations. In recent past, keynote/tutorial/panel speakers have included: Prof. David A. Patterson (pioneer/architecture, U. of California, Berkeley), Dr. K. Eric Drexler
(known as Father of Nanotechnology), Prof. John H. Holland (known as Father of Genetic Algorithms; U. of Michigan), Prof. Ian Foster (known as Father of Grid Computing; U. of Chicago & ANL), Prof. Ruzena Bajcsy (pioneer/VR, U. of California, Berkeley), Prof. Barry Vercoe (Founding member of MIT Media Lab, MIT),
Dr. Jim Gettys (known as X-man, developer of X Window System, xhost; OLPC), Prof. John Koza (known as Father of Genetic Programming, Stanford U.), Prof. Brian D. Athey (NIH Program Director, U. of Michigan), Prof. Viktor K. Prasanna (pioneer,
U. of Southern California), Dr. Jose L. Munoz (NSF Program Director and Consultant), Prof. Jun Liu (Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard U.), Prof. Lotfi A. Zadeh (Father of Fuzzy Logic), Dr. Firouz Naderi (Head, NASA Mars Exploration Program/2000-2005 and Associate Director, Project Formulation & Strategy, Jet Propulsion Lab, CalTech/NASA), and many other distinguished speakers. To get a
feeling about the conferences' atmosphere, see the 2010 delegates photos available at: www.pixagogo.com/1676934789

An important mission of WORLDCOMP is "Providing a unique platform for a diverse community of constituents composed of scholars, researchers, developers, educators, and practitioners. The Congress makes concerted effort to reach out to participants affiliated with diverse entities (such as: universities, institutions, corporations, government agencies, and research centers/labs) from all over the world. The congress also attempts to connect participants from
institutions that have teaching as their main mission with those who are affiliated with institutions that have research as their main mission. The congress uses a quota system to achieve its institution and geography diversity objectives."

One main goal of the congress is to assemble a spectrum of affiliated research conferences, workshops, and symposiums into a coordinated research meeting held in a common place at a common time. This model facilitates communication among researchers in different branches of computer science, computer engineering,
and applied computing. The Congress also encourages multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary research initiatives; ie, facilitating increased opportunities for cross-fertilization across sub-disciplines.


PROPOSAL FOR ORGANIZING SESSIONS/WORKSHOPS:

Each session will have at least 6 paper presentations from different authors (12 papers in the case of workshops). The session chairs will be responsible for all aspects of their sessions; including, soliciting papers, reviewing, selecting, ...
The names of session chairs will appear as Associate Editors in the conference proceedings and on the cover of the books. 

Proposals to organize sessions should include the following information: name and address (+ email) of proposer, his/her biography, title of session, a 100-word description of the topic of the session, the name of the conference the session
is submitted for consideration (ie, MSV), and a short description on how the session will be advertised (in most cases, session proposers solicit papers from colleagues and researchers whose work is known to the session proposer).
email your session proposal to  editor@world-comp.org
We would like to receive the session proposals as soon as possible.

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.

****************************************************************************************

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

****************************************************************************************

------------------------------

DESCRIPTION

------------------------------

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

---------------------------------

IMPORTANT DATES

---------------------------------

* 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

---------------------------------

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

---------------------------------

* 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)

---------------------------------

PROGRAM COMMITTEE (to be confirmed)

---------------------------------

* 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)

---------------------------------

SUBMISSION and REVIEW DETAILS

---------------------------------

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.

--------------------------

CONTACT

--------------------------

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

Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - ENASE 2011

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

                              CALL FOR PAPERS

6th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - ENASE 2011

                        Website: http://www.enase.org

                             June 8 - 11, 2011 
                                Beijing, China


Hosted by Beijing Jiaotong University

Proceedings will be submitted for indexation by: Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index, INSPEC, DBLP and EI


Submission deadline: January 24, 2011.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Dear Colleague,

We would like to draw your attention to the 6th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering (ENASE 2011), which has currently an open call for papers.
ENASE 2011 will be held in Beijing, China next June 8-11 and will be hosted by the Beijing Jiaotong University. It will be held in conjuction with ICEIS 2011 (http://www.iceis.org) and registration to ENASE will allow free access to ICEIS.

ENASE is interested in promoting high quality research as it can be confirmed by last year acceptance rates, where from 70 submissions, 27% were accepted as full papers and 16% were presented as short papers.

Submitted papers will be subject to a double-blind review process. All accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings, under an ISBN reference, on paper and on CD-ROM support. CXCS

Revised and extended versions of all full paper which are presented at the conference will be published by Springer-Verlag in a CCIS Series book. 

All papers presented at the conference venue will also be available at SciTePress' Digital Library (www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/).

Workshops and special sessions are also invited. If you wish to propose a workshop or a special session, for example based on the results of a specific research project, please send a proposal to the ENASE secretariat. Workshop chairs and Special Session chairs will benefit from logistics support and other types of support, including secretariat and financial support, to facilitate the development of a valid idea.

Please check further details at the conference website (http://www.enase.org). 


Should you have any question or suggestion please don't hesitate to contact me.


Kind regards,
Helder Coelhas
ENASE Secretariat
Av. D.Manuel I, 27A 2 esq.
2910-595 Setubal, Portugal
Tel.: +351 265 520 185
Fax: +44 203 014 5433
Email: enase.secretariat@insticc.org




ENASE Website: http://www.enase.org
June 8 - 11, 2011
Beijing, China

IMPORTANT DATES:            
Regular Paper Submission: January 24, 2011
Authors Notification (regular papers): March 25, 2011
Final Regular Paper Submission and Registration: April 4, 2011


TOPICS OF INTEREST:

    * Software and Systems Development Methodologies
    * "3A" (Agile, Aspect-oriented and Agent-oriented) Software Engineering
    * Service-oriented Software Engineering and Management
    * Component-based Software Engineering and Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Systems
    * Model-driven Engineering
    * Meta Programming Systems and Meta-modeling
    * Knowledge Management and Engineering
    * Architectural Design and Meta Architectures
    * Business Process Management, Engineering and Reengineering
    * Process-centric Paradigms
    * Service-oriented Architectures
    * Service Science
    * Application Integration Technologies
    * Enterprise Integration Strategies and Patterns
    * e-Business Technologies
    * Requirements Engineering Frameworks and Models
    * Collaborative Requirements Management Systems
    * Business and Software Modeling Languages
    * Software Quality Management
    * Software Change and Configuration Management
    * Geographically Distributed Software Development Environments
    * Cross-feeding between Data and Software Engineering
    * Design Thinking as a Paradigm for Software Development
    * Formal Methods
    * Software Process Improvement
 

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Harold Krikke
Tilburg University, The Netherlands

Xuewei Li
Beijing Jiaotong University, China

Kecheng Liu
University of Reading, U.K.

Leszek A. Maciaszek
Macquarie University, Australia / University of Economics, Poland

Yannis A. Phillis
Technical University of Crete, Greece

Shoubo Xu
Chinese Academy of Engineering / Beijing Jiaotong University, China


For more information please visit the conference website: http://www.enase.org/keynote_speakers.asp


CONFERENCE CHAIR:
Joaquim Filipe
Polytechnic Institute of Setubal / INSTICC, Portugal


PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS:
Leszek A. Maciaszek
Macquarie University ~ Sydney, Australia and University of Economics ~ Wroclaw, Poland

Kang Zhang
University of Texas at Dallas, U.S.A.


PROGRAM COMMITTEE:
Available at http://www.enase.org/call_for_papers.asp#program_committee

Technical Forum Group on Agent- and Multi-Agent Based Simulation (TFGSIM)

*************************************************************************
Technical Forum Group on Agent- and Multi-Agent Based Simulation (TFGSIM)
Co-located with EUMAS 2010 

15 December 2010, Paris, France
Call for Participation & Position Statements
*************************************************************************

http://www.irit.fr/TFGSIM


Following the tradition of Agent Link Technical Forum Groups, we
announce the first edition of a Simulation Technical 
Forum Group focussing discussions on methodological and technical 
aspects of agent- and multi-agent-based simulation. 
We will work on identification of and solution suggestions for challenges 
of agent- and multi-agent-based simulation. We also want to 
establish links between members of the agent-based simulation community 
which could lead to common research activities and projects.

Topics of interest are (but are not limited to):
* Can modelers creativity be supported by engineering?
* What are the particular challenges in agent-based simulation engineering?
* Suggestions for design, testing, calibration, verification and validation 
  strategies, methods, tools?
* Can we come up with a shared meta model of an agent-based simulation model?
* Challenges and solutions for multi-scale modeling?
* Can AOSE specification languages be used for simulations?
* Is a simulation problem more than just a particular set of requirements?
* What kind of AOSE models for supporting Agent-based simulation design?
* How can we systematically involve human experts and stakeholders?
* What kind of tools do we need for supporting agent-based simulation and 
  modelling?
* What are the particular properties that a modeller must be able to 
  expect from a simulation platform/engine?

*************************************************************************
Preliminary Program

The meeting will be held on December 15th at University of Jussieu in 
Paris, France, near the location where EUMAS 2010 
(http://lipade.math-info.univ-paris5.fr/eumas10/index.html) will be held directly 
after the Technical Forum - that will this year consist of a groups working 
on Self-Organisation and on Agent-based Software Engineering in addition to
this group on agent- and multi-agent based simulation.
 
The initial agenda for this meeting plans sessions with talks focussed on 
particular challenges followed by a general panel session. In the first part, a small 
number of focussed presentations will be given followed by discussions on 
the topics raised by the presentations. 
In the second one, a broad panel-like discussion on most relevant topics 
for participants will be held.
The speakers for each panel are to be selected and will be announced through 
the Simulation TFG web page. Suggestions are welcome. Schedule, contributions 
(both in form of papers and presentation slides) and other working documents 
will also be published on this web page.

*************************************************************************
Contributions

Participants are strongly encouraged to submit position papers. The deadline 
for contributions related to talks to be held during the meeting is 
November 15th 2010. Papers should be sent to the working group chairs (see below). 
They will be made available for all participants well before the meeting in order to 
prepare discussions. We accept position papers, papers illustrating new researches 
in the area as well as any other scientific relevant contribution (also demonstration 
of prototypes) in the area the above listed topics or others suitable for discussing 
in the frame of the TFG. There will be no formal proceedings therefore already published 
papers are welcome too (provided that in this way no existing copyright is infringed).
The format and length of position papers are open.

*************************************************************************
Registration for TFGSIM is free. Unfortunately, there will be no funding for 
attendants in this edition. For any question or comment, do not hesitate to 
contact the TFGSIM chairs.

See you in Paris,

Franziska Klügl 
Modeling and Simulation Research Center, Örebro University, Sweden 
franziska.klugl@oru.se

and

Carole Bernon
Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse, University of Toulouse III, France
bernon@irit.fr

Special Issue on “State of the Art in Self-Adaptive Software Systems”

=======================================================
Call for Papers
Special Issue on “State of the Art in Self-Adaptive Software Systems”
Journal of Systems and Software (JSS)
=======================================================

Modern software systems have to operate under highly dynamic and
unpredictable operating conditions. User needs may change dynamically,
availability of resources may vary, subsystems may come and go at runtime,
etc. To deal with such dynamics, systems must be self-adaptive, i.e. they
must be able to adapt themselves at runtime to optimize performance, protect
from intrusions, heal from failures, etc. During the last decade, multiple
approaches have been proposed to engineer self-adaptive systems. From these
efforts, we learned that the construction of self-adaptive systems is
significantly more challenging than traditional systems. The aim of this
special issue is to provide an overview of the state of the art in the field
of self-adaptive software systems and outline the challenges for future
research.

We invite quality submissions focusing on all aspects of self-adaptation,
with an emphasis on the engineering of self-adaptive software systems.
Topics of interest include, but are not restricted to:

- models and theories for self-adaptation
- formal methods for self-adaptive systems
- architectural styles and patterns for self-adaptive systems
- control loops and reflective architectures for self-adaptation
- quality of service concerns in self-adaptive systems
- mechanisms that support monitoring, analysis, planning, and execution
phases of self-adaptation
- dealing with uncertainty in self-adaptive systems
- self-adaptation versus self-organization
- verification of self-adaptive systems, including runtime verification
- methods for engineering self-adaptive systems
- evolution of self-adaptive systems
- case studies and empirical experiments involving self-adaptive systems
- validation of self-adaptation
- application of self-adaptation techniques in industrial and real world
settings
- self-adaptation in component-based system
- self-adaptation in service-oriented systems
- agent-based approaches to self-adaptation
- aspect-oriented approaches to self-adaptation
- self-adaptation in pervasive and mobile systems
- application of principles from biology, sociology, and physics to engineer
self-adaptive systems

All articles should consider the practical application of the idea through
case studies, experiments, empirical validation, or systematic comparisons
with other approaches already in practice.

Submissions
==========
Papers are limited to 20 pages and have to be prepared according to the
author instructions available at:
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/505732/authorinstructions

All papers will be refereed by at least two reviewers knowledgeable in the
domain of self-adaptive systems.

Papers have to be submitted using the Elsevier manuscript system:
http://ees.elsevier.com/jss/

Please select the article type “Special Issue: Self-Adaptive Systems” on the
submission website.

Key Dates
=========
March 15, 2011 – Submission website open
March 31, 2011 – Submission deadline
July 31, 2011 – Final Decisions
Publication – Tentatively December 2011

Info
====
Email: JSS-special-issue2010@cs.kuleuven.be
Web site:
www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/505732/description#description

Guest Editors
=============
Danny Weyns, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Sam Malek, George Mason University, USA
Jesper Andersson, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Bradley Schmerl, Carnegie Mellon University, USA