[agents] CFP ACM SAC - Special track on Agreement Technologies

[Juan Antonio Rodriguez]

+++ Apologies for multiple copies due to cross posting. +++
+++ Please forward this email to anyone who might be interested. +++


CALL FOR PAPERS

*********************************************

ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2009)

Special Track on Agreement Technologies

March 8 - 12, 2009

Waikiki Beach, Honolulu,
Hawaii, USA

*********************************************

http://www.iiia.csic.es/~jar/sacat09


We are pleased to solicit original, unpublished and novel papers for
publication and presentation in the 2009 ACM Symposium on Applied
Computing (SAC) Track on Agreement Technologies
(http://www.iiia.csic.es/~jar/sacat09). Articles describing novel ideas
and applications in all areas of agreement technologies are of interest.
The 2009 ACM SAC Track on Agreement Technologies will be held at
Honolulu, USA from March 8-12, 2009.

The ACM Symposium on Applied Computing is recognized as a primary forum
for applied computer scientists and application developers from around
the world to interact and present their work. SAC 2009 is sponsored by
the ACM Special Interest Group on Applied Computing (SIGAPP) and is
presented in cooperation with other ACM Special Interest Groups. For
more information on ACM SAC 2009, please visit
http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2009/.

AIMS AND SCOPE
==============

Nowadays, most transactions and interactions for both business and
leisure applications are mediated by computers and computer networks.

> > From email to virtual worlds, the way people work and enjoy their free
>   
time has changed dramatically in less than a generation. This change has
led IT research and development to focus on aspects such as new
Human-Computer Interfaces or enhanced routing and network management
tools. However, the greater impact of this pervasive use has been on the
way that applications are conceived and developed. These applications
require components to which more and more complex tasks can be
delegated, components that show increasing levels of intelligence,
components that are capable of sophisticated modes of interacting with
one another and with human users, as increasingly they are massively
distributed, sometimes embedded in all sort of appliances and sensors.

There is therefore a need for the development of models, frameworks,
methods and algorithms for constructing large-scale open distributed
computer systems where autonomy, interaction and mobility are the key
characteristics. We envision that such technologies can be structured
around the concept of agreement among computational agents. The notion
of agreement as the glue that puts together computational agents in an
open system is based on three fundamental concepts: (1) a normative
context, that determines "the rules of the game", i.e. how the
interactions between agents are intended to take place, (2) the
establishment of an agreement for action between the agents that
respects the normative context, and (3) the fulfilment of any agreements
reached by the participants.

Under the umbrella of agreement technologies we consider the techniques
and tools that enable software components to reach and fulfil agreements
on the mutual provision of services. For agreement technologies to
succeed in building next generation open distributed systems there are
many, diverse challenges: the semantic alignments between the different
ontologies employed by agents; the need for negotiation, argumentation,
coordination and social choice models to allow agents to reach
agreements with one another; the development of trust and reputation
models that deal with agents failing to honour their commitments even
when agreements are signed; formal models and tools for virtual
organisations and institutions defining normative contexts (the rules of
the game), within which to reach agreements; the need for learning
models to adapt the rules of the game within which to reach agreements;
the adaptability of agents to cope with different normative contexts
within which to reach agreements that may even change over time and a
better understanding of agreement mechanisms by means of game and
decision theoretic results.

Topics covered include but are not limited to:

* Negotiation
* Argumentation
* Computational social choice
* Decision and game theoretic foundations for agreement
* Multi-agent resource allocation
* Trust and reputation
* Coordination and distributed decision making
* Semantics of agreement (e.g. ontology representation, ontology alignment)
* Models and tools for virtual organisations and institutions
* Adaptability of virtual organisations and institutions
* Middleware for virtual organisations and institutions
* Normative contexts for virtual organisations and institutions
* Applications of agreement technologies (e.g. web service composition,
contract automation, supply chain automation, sensor networks, etc.)


PAPER SUBMISSION
================

Original papers from the above-mentioned or other related areas will be
considered. All papers should represent original and previously
unpublished work that are currently not under review in any conference
or journal. Both basic and applied research papers are welcome.
Each submitted paper will be fully refereed and undergo a blind review
process by at least three referees. The accepted papers in all
categories will be published in the ACM SAC 2009 proceedings.

Submit your paper electronically in either PDF or postscript format. The
author(s) name(s) and address(es) must not appear in the body of the
paper, and self reference should be in the third person. This is to
facilitate blind review. The body of the paper should not exceed 4,000
words.
Submission is entirely automated by an eCMS paper management tool, which
is available from the main SAC Web Site:
http://sac.cs.iupui.edu/SAC2009. Authors must first register their own
account by obtaining a password, and then follow the instructions.
Authors will use this system for formal paper submission and other
correspondence.
The camera-ready version of the accepted paper should be prepared using
the ACM format available at
http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2009/downloads09.htm . Accepted
full papers should not exceed 5 pages in a double column format (with
the option, at additional expense of 80USD per extra page, to add three
more pages). Accepted poster papers will be published as extended 2-page
abstracts in the symposium proceedings.
Authors of accepted papers must be prepared to sign a copyright
statement and must pay the registration fee and guarantee that their
paper will be presented at the conference. To submit a paper, author
need to strictly follow guidelines at
http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2009/. We strongly suggest to use
the available camera ready templates, and adhere to the 5 page limitation.
After completing the submission, please send also an email to:
sacat09 at iiia.csic.es. The body of the email should include the title of
the paper, the author(s) name(s) and affiliation(s), and the address
(including e-mail, telephone, and fax) to which correspondence should be
sent. The subject of the email should be "SAC2009 AT track submission".
Registration is required for paper and poster inclusion in the
Conference Proceedings, and for event attendance.


PUBLICATION
===========

Papers accepted for the Special Track on Agreement Technologies will be
published by ACM both in the SAC 2009 proceedings and in the Digital
Library.


IMPORTANT DATES
===============

Aug 16, 2008: Paper Submissions Due
Oct 11, 2008: Notification of paper acceptance/rejection
Oct 25, 2008: Camera-ready copies of accepted papers
March 8 - 12, 2009: Special Track on Agreement Technologies.
Please notice that the submission deadline is **STRICT**. By no means we
shall grant any extension.


ORGANIZERS
==========

Jess Cerquides - University of Barcelona, Spain
Peter McBurney - University of Liverpool, UK
Pablo Noriega - IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Juan A. Rodriguez-Aguilar, IIIA-CSIC, Spain


PROGRAM COMMITTEE
=================

Josep Ll. Arcos, IIIA-CSIC
Alexander Artikis, National Centre for Scientific Research "Demokritos",
Greece
Vicent Botti, Polytechnical University of Valencia, Spain
Carlos Chesevar, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina
Mehdi Dastani, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
John Debenham, University of Sydney, Australia
Ulle Endriss, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Marc Esteva, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Alessandro Farinelli, University of Southampton, UK
Shaheen Fatima, Loughborough University, UK
Andrea Giovannucci, University Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Llus Godo, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Hiromitsu Hattori, Kyoto University, Japan
Takayuki Ito, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan
Han La Poutré, CWI, The Netherlands
Maite Lopez-Snchez, University of Barcelona, Spain
Mike Luck, King's College, UK
Sascha Ossowski, University Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
Andrea Omicini, University of Bologna, Italy
Simon Parsons, City University of New York, USA
Henry Prakken, Utrecht University & University of Groningen, The
Netherlands
Iyad Rahwan, British University of Dubai, Dubai
Sarvapali Ramchurn, University of Southampton, UK
Alessandro Ricci, University of Bologna, Italy
Marco Schoerlemmer, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Sandip Sen, University of Tulsa, USA
Onn Shehory, IBM, Israel
Carles Sierra, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Simeon Simoff, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Elizabeth Sklar, City University of New York, USA
Wamberto Vasconcelos, University of Aberdeen, UK
Danny Weyns, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium


INFORMATION
===========
For further information please contact: sacat09 at iiia.csic.es