[agents] AOSE'08 Deadline extension to 31 of January

[Jorge J. Gomez Sanz]

With apologies for multiple copies.

Due to requests received from multiple authors, we have extended the deadline.

New dates:

31 January, 2008: Paper submission
25 February 2008: Notification of accepted papers
5 March, 2008: Camera-ready submission
12-13 May, 2008: AOSE 2008 Workshop


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CALL FOR PAPERS

The Ninth International Workshop on
AGENT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (AOSE-2008)
http://grasia.fdi.ucm.es/aose08

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To be held at The Sixth International Joint Conference on Autonomous
Agents & Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2008) Estoril, Portugal, May 12
(or 13) 2008


INTRODUCTION
Since the mid 1980s, software agents and multi-agent systems have
grown into a very active area of research and also commercial
development activity. One of the limiting factors in industry take up
of agent technology is however the lack of adequate software
engineering support, and knowledge in this area.

To bridge this gap, the Agent Oriented Software Engineering
workshop brings together researchers and practitioners on multi-agent
systems with a strong focus on software engineering issues.

The AOSE-2008 workshop will build on the success of the six previous
AOSE workshops. The first AOSE-2000 workshop was held at the ICSE2000
conference in Limerick, Ireland, in June 2000; The AOSE-2001 workshop
was held at the Fifth International Conference on Autonomous Agents
(Agents 2001); since 2002, the AOSE workshop was co-located with the
International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents & Multi-Agent
Systems (AAMAS).


TOPICS OF INTEREST
The workshop welcomes the submission of all papers on aspects of agent
oriented software engineering. A non-exaustive list of relevant topics
include:

* Methodologies for agent-oriented analysis and design
* Agent-oriented requirements analysis and specification;
* Relationship of AOSE to other SE paradigms (e.g., OO);
* Process models for agent-based development
* UML and agent systems;
* Model-driven architecture (MDA) for MAS;
* Service-oriented computing in the context of agent-based systems;
* Refinement and synthesis techniques for agent-based specifications;
* Verification and validation techniques for agent-based systems;
* Software development environments and CASE tools for AOSE;
* Standard APIs for agent programming;
* Formal methods for agent-oriented systems, including specification
  and verification logics;
* Model checking for agent-oriented systems;
* Engineering of large-scale agent systems;
* Experiences with field-tested agent systems;
* Best practice in agent-oriented development;
* Practical coordination and cooperation frameworks for agent systems;
* Standardisations for AOSE;
* Re-use approaches for agent-oriented software, including design
  patterns, frameworks, components, and architectures;
* Integration of agent-oriented software into existing business processes
  and implications on business process re-engineering;
* Implications of agent-oriented software on organizational and social
  structures within and between companies (e.g. changes in roles,
  responsibilities, transparency, business processes and decision schemes).


SPECIAL TRACKS
In addition to papers of general interest, we hope to have two special
tracks: one is a Development Case Studies track, the other is a
Development Support track.

1. Development Case Studies
Authors are invited to submit a solution to a selection of the AgentLink
case studies (see special tracks page) based on existing agent oriented
methodologies. These solutions need not show a relevant scientific
contribution, but instead how a methodology can solve a problem. With
this format, we hope to attract the attention of young practitioners
who, with a reduced effort, will gain access to the workshop and
contribute to the community with another AOSE example. Submissions will
be evaluated taking into account coherence, quality, and feasibility.
Accepted submissions will be considered for the post-proceedings in an
appropriate form, possibly by combining submissions into a single
jointly authored paper. Depending on the quality, a journal extension
may be considered. Authors will be required to attend the workshop.

The selection of Agentlink case studies, and more details of the
required content and review criteria, can be found on the special
tracks web page:
 http://grasia.fdi.ucm.es/aose08/specialtracks/specialtracks.html

2. Development Support
This year, we aim to update the current state-of-the-art in relation
to support tools for AOSE aiding a user of methodologies in concrete
development stages (analysis/requirements, design, implementation,
testing, maintenance, management). This could be in form of framework
instantiation tool, a specification editor, or an agent platform, to
give just a few examples. AOSE 2008 therefore solicits papers
describing such implemented AOSE support tools.  Submissions will be
evaluated taking into accout robustness of the tool, actual
developments in which it was applied, people using it, and why this
tool is relevant in the selected development stage/stages.

Accepted submissions will be considered for the post-proceedings in an
appropriate form, possibly by combining submissions into a single
jointly authored paper. Depending on the quality, a journal extension
for individual submissions may be considered. Authors will be required
to attend the workshop and present their work in a demo session.

Authors interested in this track should see the web page for more
details of the required content and review criteria:
 http://grasia.fdi.ucm.es/aose08/specialtracks/specialtracks.html


PROCEEDINGS
Proceedings from previous editions of AOSE were formally published by
Springer-Verlag within the LNCS series. The intention is, again, to
publish the proceedings with Springer. We also plan a special issue of
a journal in addition to the Springer proceedings, for selected papers
arising out of the workshop discussions. See the workshop web pages
for the latest news about this initiative.


SUBMISSION OF PAPERS
All papers submitted as PDF files and must conform the LNCS
format. Instructions and templates can be found here:
 http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html

Papers should be sent through the Easychair conference manager:
 http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aose08
The submission procedure requires authors to create an account
through the conference manager.

Choose the appropriate category for your paper when you deliver your
contribution. Each category has different size limits and policies
with respect to the post-proceedings:
o Main AOSE: 12 pages long
  No special instructions.
o Development Case Studies track: max 8 pages.
  Each submission must have an annex of free format and undetermined
  length (in addition to the 8 page limit) to include the more complete
  specification (but should not exceed 2MB). The title of the paper must
  be "Case study XX with methodology YY", where XX is the number of the
  case study (see special track page) and YY the name of the methodology.
  The submission should introduce the solution, the decisions made, and
  how the solution satisfies the three evaluating parameters: coherence of
  the specification (if it makes sense and answers the initial problem),
  quality features of the system (is there an effort to look for
  efficiency, for instance?), and feasibility (if it can be implemented).
o Development Support track: max 8 pages.
  Each submission must contain the name of the tool, a brief description,
  the name of the relevant development stage, the concrete relevance of
  the tool to the specified stage, and instructions to obtain the tool.
  In addition, the text should address the evaluation criteria given
  above (robustness, developments using the tool, current users, and
  relevance). The title of the paper must be "Support for XX stage with
  YY", where XX is the name of the stage or stages and YY the name of the
  tool. If the tool helps in different stages, we recommend using in the
  title the following short names for each stage: RG (requirements
  gathering), AN (analysis), DE (design), IM (implementation), TS
  (testing), and MN (Maintenance).


IMPORTANT DATES
31 January, 2008: Paper submission
25 February 2008: Notification of accepted papers
5 March, 2008: Camera-ready submission
12-13 May, 2008: AOSE 2008 Workshop


ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Michael Luck (co-chair) King's College London, UK
Jorge J. Gomez-Sanz (co-chair) Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
Workshop email: aose08 at fdi.ucm.es

STEERING COMMITTEE
Paolo Ciancarini, University of Bologna
Michael Wooldridge, University of Liverpool
Joerg Mueller, Technische Universitat Clausthal
Gerhard Weiss, Software Competence Center Hagenberg GmbH (SCCH)

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
Claudio Bartolini (HP Labs, USA)
Bernard Bauer (Siemens, Germany)
Federico Bergenti (Universita degli Studi di Parma, Italy)
Carole Bernon (University Paul Sabatier, France)
Olivier Boissier (ENS Mines Saint-Etienne, France)
Massimo Cossentino (ICAR-CNR, Italy)
Keith Decker (University of Delaware, USA)
Scott DeLoach (Kansas State University, USA)
Klaus Fischer (DFKI, Germany)
Paolo Giorgini (University of Trento, Italy)
Marie-Pierre Gleizes (Institut de Recherce en Informatique de Toulouse, France)
Michael Huhns (Center for Information Technology, USA)
Vicent Julian Inglada (Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain)
Joao Leite (New University of Lisbon, Portugal)
Juergen Lind (Iteratec, Germany)
Carlos Jose Pereira de Lucena (PUC-Rio, Brazil)
Simon Miles (King's College London, UK)
Haris Mouratidis (University of East London, UK)
Eugenio Oliveira (Universidade do Porto, Portugal)
Andrea Omicini (Universita di Bologna, Italy)
Juan Pavon (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain)
Michal Pechoucek (Czech Technical University, Czech Republic)
Anna Perini (Istituto Trentino di Cultura, Italy)
Fariba Sadri (Imperial College, UK)
Brian Henderson Sellers (University of Technology Sydney, Australia)
Onn Shehory (IBM, Israel)
Viviane Torres da Silva (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain)
Arnon Sturm (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel)
Laszlo Varga (Computer and Automation Research Institute, Hungary)
Michael Winikoff (RMIT, Australia)
Eric Yu (University of Toronto, Canada)


AAMAS COORDINATION
This workshop has strong links with two other AAMAS workshops: Agent
Theory to Agent Implementation (AT2AI) and Programming Multi-Agent
Systems (ProMAS). In this spirit, these workshops will coordinate their
activities, including the organisation of a joint session. Details will
be published on the AOSE web site.

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Dr. Jorge Gomez Sanz

Office 437
Facultad de Informática
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
28040 Madrid (Spain)

Phone: + 34 91 394 7644
Fax  : + 34 91 394 7547
email: jjgomez at sip.ucm.es
web:   http://grasia.fdi.ucm.es/jorge

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