[agents] [CFP] ACM-SAC 2009 APSLA Track: Agent-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications

[Eric Platon]

### Apologies in case of cross-postings ###

(Second call for APSLA)

APSLA, Agent-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications
Track of the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, 24th Edition
Honolulu, Hawaii, USA,
March 8 - 12, 2009
http://apsla.ex.nii.ac.jp/

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For organization updates, formatting and submission instructions:
Web site of ACM SAC 2009: http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2009/
---

APSLA aims at investigating how multi-agent technologies can
contribute to the engineering of complex software systems. The
inherent distribution of resources and processes, and the frequently
changing operational conditions in the requirements of modern systems
emphasize the need for decentralized control, and open and adaptive
software, where multi-agent technologies provide suitable models and
techniques.

This second edition of APSLA focuses on two topics of interest
identified after the present state of research, the outcomes of the
first edition, and related events in the agent community:
--- Theme 1: Engineering Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems.
This theme focuses on adaptive systems. Agent technologies are used
increasingly to the purpose of self-adaptation and self-organization,
as can be observed in Autonomic Computing. The aim of this theme is to
gather research that discusses these two approaches in system
engineering with multi-agent technologies. Papers of particular
interest should report on engineering practice and experience.
--- Theme 2: "Pragmatic programming": Let's talk about debugging,
testing, and validating agent systems.
This theme focuses explicitly on pragmatics in programming systems
based on multi-agent technologies. The current state of the art shows
a certain amount of work related to practice with multi-agent
technologies, but also limited investigations in topics such as
debugging, testing, and validation of multi-agent-based systems. Agile
and formal methods are two aspects that are particularly relevant to
this theme.

Papers may address any stage of software development that pertains to
the two themes of this year edition, including requirement analysis,
architectural design, detailed design, implementation, and testing.
Papers may report on processes and methods in addition to tools and
techniques. Of particular interest are papers with perspectives that
cut across the traditional boundaries of languages, systems and
applications in the development of complex distributed software systems.

Submissions will be considered as full-paper submissions in the review
process (5 pages in ACM format, plus 3 purchasable extra pages). High
quality submissions will be selected as full-papers and eligible for
best paper award. Other submissions will be considered either as short
papers (2 pages and poster), or rejected if they do not meet theme or
quality requirements.

APSLA aims at a high quality event and the first edition featured an
acceptance rate inferior to 18%. This second edition will pursue the
same target, and the organizing team is considering about inviting the
best papers of the track to a special issue of an international
journal related to the two themes of this year edition.

--- Submission process and format ---
The submission process is double-blinded: Name and affiliation of the
authors must NOT appear on the submissions. The process is supported
by an eCMS paper management tool:
http://sac.cs.iupui.edu/SAC2009/

Submissions must represent original and previously unpublished work that
is not currently under review in any other conference or journal.
Submitted papers should meet the 5-page length in the ACM two-column
format, with the purchasable option for 8 pages in total.

Important note on the page number: If a paper submitted for reviews is
more than 5 pages (and less than the strict maximum of 8 pages), the
authors shall be aware that we reserve the right to reconsider the
acceptance of the camera-ready version if it is reduced to 5 pages and
the quality of the paper becomes unacceptable for publication.

Papers should be submitted in PDF format exclusively.

--- Important dates ---
Aug 16, 2008 : Submission of papers by authors (Blind review: The name
of the authors must not appear on the submission).
Oct 11, 2008 : Notification of paper acceptance/rejection.
Oct 25, 2008 : Camera-ready copies of accepted papers.

--- Organizers ---
Eric Platon, NII, Japan
Alessandro Ricci, University of Bologna, Italy
Fuyuki Ishikawa, Sokendai, Japan

--- Program Committee ---
Gul Agha, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champain, USA
Cyrille Artho, AIST, Japan
Olivier Boissier, Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne, France
Rafael Bordini, Durham University, UK
Jean-Pierre Briot, Universite Paris 6, France
Ruben Fuentes, Universidad Computense Madrid, Spain
Alessandro Garcia, Lancaster University, UK
Paolo Giorgini, University of Trento, Italy
Benjamin Hirsch, TU Berlin, Germany
Jomi Fred Huebner, Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Brazil
Alexei Iliasov, Newcastle University, UK
Fabien Michel, Universite de Reims, France
Hiroyuki Nakagawa, University of Electro-Communications, Japan
Van Parunak, NewVectors Inc., USA
Jean-Francois Perrot, Universite Paris 6, France
Paolo Petta, Austrian Research Inst. for Artificial Intelligence,  
Austria
Jose Ghislain Quenum, Makerere University, Uganda
Martin Rehák, Czech Technical University, Czech Republic
Nicolas Sabouret, University Paris 6, France
Onn Shehory, IBM, Israel
Kostas Stathis, University of London, Royal Holloway, UK
Danny Weyns, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Hironori Washizaki, Waseda University, Japan
Michael Winikoff, RMIT University, Australia