MA4CS'06

 MA4CS'06 — Call for Papers
2nd Workshop on Multi-Agents for Modeling Complex Systems
A satellite workshop of the European Conference on Complex Systems 2006 (ECCS'06)
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford — 25-29 September 2006

Workshop Chairs
  Salima Hassas                 University of Lyon 1, France
                                http://liris.cnrs.fr/salima.hassas
  Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo   Birkbeck, University of London, UK
                                http://www.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/~dimarzo

Key dates
  Abstract submission (intention of submission)   10 July 2006
  Paper submission                                20 July 2006
                                                  (extended to 15 August 2006)
  Notification of acceptance                       5 September 2006
  Camera ready                                    15 September 2006
  Workshop                                        one day between 25-29 September 2006
                                                  (later fixed as Friday 29 September)

Workshop site   http://www710.univ-lyon1.fr/~hassas/MA4CS/index.html
ECCS'06 site    http://complexsystems.lri.fr/Portal/tiki-index.php?page=ECCS%2706
MA4CS'05        http://www710.univ-lyon1.fr/~hassas/MA4CS/MA4CS05.html

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PRESENTATION

The Multi-Agents paradigm is more and more used as a tool for modeling,
simulating or programming complex systems, in different disciplines:
mechanics, economy, urbanism, sociology, biology, computer science, etc.

The Complex Systems field of research focuses on the study of systems that
exhibit complexity as a phenomenon inherent to the system's nature. The
system is considered as a dynamic network of interacting entities, where its
global behavior and organization are obtained through a non linear
aggregation of the local behaviors of its components. The system is thus
considered through the perspective of its dynamics and organization.

The Multi-Agents (MAS) field of research, while being often considered as a
sub-domain of AI, is influenced by many disciplines outside AI. These
disciplines include Biology, Ethology, Sociology, Economics, Organization and
Management Science, Complex Systems, and Philosophy. Today MAS research
activity covers different fields of computer science: software engineering,
AI, networks, distributed systems, etc. The MAS research focuses on the study
of communications languages, interaction protocols, multi-agents
architectures and methodologies, operational and theoretical models that
facilitate the development of systems designed as a set of autonomous
interacting entities (called agents), invested in the achievement of a
collective task. Many work has been achieved in the multi-agents domain.
Multi-agents applications are developped at a large scale in different
domains, but more efforts need to be made to come up with theoretically
grounded models or assessed methodologies for modelling and programming
complex systems using the multi-agents paradigm.

This workshop aims to bring together researchers from MAS and Complex Systems
domains, in order to cross-fertilize research held in both fields, and come
up with, theories, tools, formal or/and operational models and methodologies
for MAS approaches dedicated to complex systems. This workshop welcomes
papers submission from both mature work and work in progress that contribute
to cover one topic or more from the topics of interest below. Contributions
that could help to better understand why multi-agents succeed in modelling
complex systems where other pardigms or tools fail are particularly
encouraged. We encourage also, contributions on viewing multi-agents as
complex systems, and on the use of theories and advances in complex systems
field for multi-agents modelling.

The first edition of the MA4CS workshop has focused on both MAS systems and
simulations. This 2nd edition of MA4CS intends to focus on the important
issue of control and/or governance of complex systems based on multi-agents
modeling.

TOPICS

The main topics of interest include but are not restricted to:

  * Multi-agents based simulation of complex systems
  * Self-organizing mechanisms in MAS
  * Operational models for self-organizating systems
  * Dynamics and emergent organizations in MAS
  * Co-evolution of organizations in a MAS
  * MAS based modeling of bio-inspired systems and systems inspired by nature
  * Tools and methodologies for multi-agents modeling of complex systems
  * Formal models and theories of multi-agents modeling of complex systems
  * Applications of MAS based modeling in complex systems
  * Complexity and emergence control/management in MAS

SUBMISSION

The submission should not exceed 15 pages in the Springer-Verlag LNCS style
(http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html). It must be sent either in
PostScript or PDF format to the Scientific Organizers (Salima Hassas or
Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo).

All accepted papers will be available on the day of the workshop in a set of
working notes.

Based on the quality of submitted papers, we inted to organize a Special
Issue of the ACM Transaction on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems Journal
(TAAS) where extended versions of selected papers from this workshop will be
considered for publication.

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Transcribed from the call circulated by Salima Hassas on 5 July 2006, with
the deadline extension announced on 20 July 2006. Spelling and wording are
as in the original.