ANI@REM 2005

 

                     Last Call for Papers
                   ========================

                  International Workshop on
                Agents, Norms and Institutions
               for Regulated Multiagent Systems
                          (ANI@REM)

            http://platon.escet.urjc.es/ANIREM2005/

                      To be held at the
            Fourth International Joint Conference on
       Autonomous Agents & Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2005)
                   Utrecht, the Netherlands

                      25 or 26 July 2005


THEME & TOPICS

Multi-agent systems are often understood as complex entities where a
multitude of agents interact, usually with some intended individual or
collective purpose. Such a view usually assumes some form of structure,
or set of norms or conventions that articulate or restrain interactions
in order to make them more effective in attaining those goals, more
certain for participants or more predictable. The engineering of
effective regulatory mechanisms is a key problem for the design of open
complex multi-agent systems, so that in recent years it has become a
rich and challenging topic for research and development.

Of the many possible ways of looking at the problem of regulating
multi-agent systems, this workshop focuses on a normative approach,
based on the use of Norms in Artificial Institutions. Lately there has
been an explosion of new approaches, both theoretical and practical,
exploring the use of norms as a flexible way to constrain and/or impose
behaviour and these are reflected in specifications of norm languages,
agent-mediated electronic institutions, contracts, protocols and policies.

The workshop invites specialists from various fields to discuss
conceptual, formal and technical aspects that bear upon the
formalization, design, construction and deployment of regulated
multi-agent systems. The workshop intends to bring together active
researchers to present and debate recent developments.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

   * Ontologies, methodologies, tools and standards for regulated MAS.
   * Coordination and interaction conventions, technologies and artifacts.
   * Languages for Norms: expressiveness VS efficiency.
   * Normative and meta-normative concepts, frameworks, and formalisms
     (consistency, issuance, implementation, verification, enforcement,
     sanctioning and repair mechanisms...).
   * Architectures for norm-compliant agents.
   * Issues in regulatory dynamics (creation, evolution, change,
     dissapearance).
   * Electronic institutions and virtual organizations.
   * Examples of significant regulated environments
   * Issues in regulated MAS implementation
   * Simulation of norm-regulated MAS
   * Social science background for regulated MAS: Roles, authority,
     motivation, social power and other social relationships and
     attitudes.

We particularly encourage authors to submit innovative and original
papers that report on

   * Software frameworks, tools, and methodologies
   * Applications, case studies, and experimental work
   * Formal and theoretical models

Position papers and papers describing ongoing work are welcome as well.


PROCEEDINGS

Proceedings will be available at the workshop. It is planned to publish
revised and extended versions of the papers as a Springer LNCS volume
(pending confirmation).


IMPORTANT DATES

Paper submission deadline:              March 18, 2005  (*EXTENDED*)
Notifications of acceptance/rejection:  April 18, 2005
Workshop Date:                          July, 25th or 26th, 2005


PREPARATION & SUBMISSION OF PAPERS

For preparation of papers to be submitted please follow the instructions
for authors available at the Springer LNCS Web page:
http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html. For those not using the
Springer LNCS style files: The paper must be formatted in A4 size using
10 point Times. (If Times is not available, please use one of the
similar fonts widely used in phototypesetting.) Printing area should be
12.2 x 19.3 cm, and the interline distance should be arranged in such a
way that some 42 to 45 lines occur on a full-text page.

The length of each paper including figures and references may not exceed
12 pages. All papers must be written in English and submitted in PDF
format.

Authors should submit their paper (in .PS or .PDF format only) by
attaching it to an email to anirem@agentcitiesuk.net.
The email should also contain paper title, author name(s),
affiliation(s), contact information of the main author, and a few
keywords describing the topic (eg. from the list above).


ORGANISATION


* Workshop Co-Chairs:

  Gabriela Lindemann, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany
  Sascha Ossowski, University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain
  Julian Padget, University of Bath, UK
  Javier Vázquez-Salceda, Utrecht University, The Netherlands


* Program Committee:

  Cristiano Castelfranchi, NRC Rome, Italy
  Rosaria Conte, NRC Rome, Italy
  Ulises Cortes, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain
  Paul Davidsson, BTH, Sweden
  Marina De Vos, University of Bath, UK
  Frank Dignum, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
  En Hong Chen, University of Science and Technology, China
  Tom van Engers, Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  Fabiola Lopez, Autonomous University of Puebla, Mexico
  Mike Luck, University of Southampton, UK
  Thomas Malsch, Tech. University Hamburg-Harburg, Germany
  John-Jules Meyer, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
  Pablo Noriega, IIIA, CSIC, Spain
  James Odell, Agentis, USA
  Andrea Omicini, University of Bologna, Italy
  Mario Paolucci, CNR, Rome, Italy
  Paolo Petta, Austrian Research Institute for AI, Austria
  Juan Antonio Rodriguez-Aguilar, IIIA, CSIC, Spain
  Ingo Schulz-Schaeffer, Tech. University of Berlin, Germany
  Juan Manuel Serrano, University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain
  Phillip Sheu, University of California, USA
  Jaime Sichman, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
  Carles Sierra, IIIA, CSIC, Spain
  Mihaela Ulieru, University of Calgary, Canada
  Wamberto Vasconcelos, University of Aberdeen, UK
  Harko Verhagen, Stockholm University, Sweden