NorMAS 2008

 From: Guido Boella <guido@di.unito.it>
To: normlist@di.unito.it
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:28:43 +0100
Subject: [normlist] NorMAS'08 Workshop 2nd CFP colocated with DEON'08

***apologies for multiple postings***

feel free to distribute this cfp

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2nd Call for Paper
3rd International Workshop on
Normative Multiagent Systems
(NorMAS 2008)

15-16 July, 2008

http://deon2008.uni.lu/normas08.html

Associated with DEON 2008, 15-18 July, 2008 http://deon2008.uni.lu/

Norms are essential for artificial agents that are to display behaviour 
comparable to human intelligent behaviour or collaborate with humans. 
Norms play a central role in many social phenomena such as coordination, 
cooperation, decision-making, etc. There is an increasing interest in 
the role of norms in societies, both inside and outside the agent 
community. NorMAS therefore focuses on normative multiagent systems.
Normative multiagent systems combine theories and frameworks for 
normative systems with multiagent systems. Thus, these systems provide a 
promising model for human and artificial agent co-ordination, because 
they integrate norms and individual intelligence. They are a prime 
example of the use of sociological theories in multiagent systems, and 
therefore of the relation between agent theory and the social sciences, 
e.g., sociology, philosophy, economics, legal science, etc.

Normas08 follows Normas05 and Normas07.
Normas05 was held on April 12 and 13, 2005 at the University of 
Hertfordshire, England as part of AISB conventions organized by the 
Society of the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of 
Behaviour  (http://normas.di.unito.it/zope/aisb05/). The best papers 
were presented in a double special issue of Computational & Mathematical 
Organization Theory Journal of Springer 
(http://www.springerlink.com/content/9508t27tr9279617).
Normas07 was held on March 18-23, 2007 as the Dagstuhl Seminar 07122 
(http://www.dagstuhl.de/en/program/calendar/semhp/?semnr=07122). The 
best papers were presented in a forthcoming special issue of Journal of 
Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (Springer).

NorMAS provides an excellent opportunity to meet researchers studying 
norms in cognitive science, social sciences, agent theory, computer 
science, philosophy, etc. to discuss the current state and identify 
potential future directions and research issues.
NorMAS 2008 extends its focus on the traditional view of norms by 
introducing the topic of commitments, often used in MAS to model protocols.
 
TOPICS OF INTEREST
The topics of this workshop include, but are not restricted to, the 
following issues:
·    multiagent or society level:
o    balancing dynamics and statics at the agent (micro) and agent 
society (macro) level
o    coordination based on normative multiagent systems
o    emergence of conventions, norms, roles, and normative multiagent 
systems
o    combining conventions with regulative, permissive, constitutive and 
other types of norms
o    relation between NorMAS and contracts, security, and (electronic) 
institutions
o    commitments vs obligations
o    commitments, protocols and Agent Communication Languages
·    agent level:
o    alternatives to and extensions of the homo economicus and BDI logics
o    extending logical frameworks to encompass norms in agent decision 
making
o    how to implement theories of norms in artificial agents
o    policies and commitments
·    applications of NorMAS:
o    multiagent social simulation models containing norms
o    mixing artificial and human agents in hybrid social systems
We welcome both theoretical work (formal models, representations, 
specifications, logics, verification) and implementation-oriented work 
(architectures, programming languages, design models, simulations, 
prototype systems) on these specific topics.

SUBMISSION
Authors are invited to submit an original, previously unpublished, 
research paper pertaining to any of these topics. The paper should be in 
English, and should be no longer than 15 pages, or approximately 7500 
words. The first page should contain the full name and contact 
information for at least one of the authors, and it should contain an 
abstract of no more than ten lines. Authors should submit their papers 
electronically, in either .pdf or .ps format.
Authors should consult the instructions on the website for submitting 
their papers electronically. (Anyone who is unable to send the paper 
electronically and wishes to submit hard copies should inquire for 
details from one of the program co-chairs at the addresses given below.) 
Authors are especially encouraged to use the Springer LNCS styles if 
possible; these are available at 
http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html. The deadline for 
submission is March 1 2008.
 
TIMETABLE
March 15, 2008: submission deadline
April 10: notification of acceptance
April 30: deadline for final, camera-ready versions
July 15 and 16, 2008: NorMAS 2008 workshop
July 16-18, 2008: DEON'08 conference

PUBLICATION
Publication will be provided to all participants. As in  the previous 
editions, a selection of papers will published in a  special issue of a 
relevant journal.

INVITED SPEAKERS
To be announced.

GENERAL AND PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS

Guido Boella
Dipartimento di Informatica
Università di Torino
Torino
Italy
guido@di.unito.it

Gabriella Pigozzi
Individual and Collective Reasoning
Computer Science and Communication
University of Luxembourg
Luxembourg
gabriella.pigozzi@uni.lu

Munindar P. Singh
Department of Computer Science
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8206, USA

Harko Verhagen
Department of Computer and Systems Sciences
Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University.
Stockholm
Sweden
verhagen@dsv.su.se

Program Committee

Thomas Agotnes, Bergen University College, Norway.
Olivier Boissier, ENS Mines Saint-Etienne, France.
Rafael Bordini, Durham University, UK.
Jan Broersen, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Pompeu Casanovas,  UAB-Institute of Law and Technology, Barcelona. Spain
Stephen  Cranefield, U. of Otago. New Zealand.
Mehdi Dastani, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Paul Davidsson - BTH, Sweden.
Frank Dignum, Utrecht University. The Netherlands.
Maria Fasli - Essex University, UK.
Nicoletta Fornara, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland.
Aldo Gangemi ISTC-CNR Rome, Italy.
Guido Governatori, The University of Queensland, Australia.
Davide Grossi, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
Joris Hulstijn, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Michael  Luck, King's College London, UK.
John-Jules Ch. Meyer, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Eric Matson, Wright State University, USA).
Pablo Noriega, IIIA-CSIC, Spain.
Eugenio Oliveira, Universidade do Porto, Portugal.
Andrea Omicini, University of Bologna, Italy.
Sascha Ossowski, University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain.
Antonino Rotolo University of Bologna, Italy.
Carles Sierra IIIA-CSIC, Spain.