[agents] International Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems and Collaborative Technologies (I-MASC 2010)

[Wei Chen]

International Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems and Collaborative Technologies (I-MASC 2010)

CALL FOR PAPERS

As part of
The 2010 International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems (CTS 2010) http://cisedu.us/cis/cts/10/main/callForPapers.jsp

May 17 – 21, 2010
The Westin Lombard Yorktown Center
Chicago, Illinois, USA

IMPORTANT DATES
Paper Submissions: ----------------------------- January 7, 2010 
Acceptance Notification: ----------------------- February 8, 2010 
Camera Ready Papers and Registration Due: ------ March 1, 2010

SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES
Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) have grown into an interdisciplinary field that includes various tracks and embraces many previously distinctive research areas.  Particularly, multi-agent coordination, a sub-area of MAS, investigates how multiple intelligent computational agents work together to achieve high level goals beyond the capabilities of single agents.  Many different approaches have been investigated, such as partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP), task structure analysis, coordination communication protocols, etc.  Collaborative Technologies and Systems (CTS) have evolved significantly as well. These tend to investigate the design and development of effective environments or tools that help human users work together in a distributed collaborative, possibly virtual, fashion.  Some notable examples of CTS include Collaboratories, collaborative design/editing, and on-line collaboration tools and environments.  CTS is beginning to look at the challenges of supporting coordinated, purposive activities.  MAS is still facing challenges of scaling to large numbers of entities and real-world tasks (see, for example, Hendler's question of, “where are all the intelligent agents?" ).  

This workshop will explore potential synergy between CTS and MAS/coordination because they share a common ground: how multiple entities ─ intelligent agents or humans alike - work together to carry out potentially related tasks.  We will ask questions of whether and how design and development of collaborative systems, promoting coordinated human activity, could be enhanced by incorporating insights from MAS.  Collaborative technologies embody practical considerations from the human users' points of view, allowing users to ignore how the underlying (agent) infrastructure is implemented.  Meanwhile, MAS/coordination investigates intelligent agents’ underlying algorithms and mechanisms and, in some cases, how artificial agents can interact with people as peers.  Conversely, intelligent agents will not see significant acceptance, nor will they be able to manage the complexity and knowledge-intensity of meaningful practical applications, without developing some understanding of how to make effective use of human contributions throughout the specification, execution, evaluation and refinement stages of the software lifecycle.  

This workshop solicits papers that discuss synergies between MAS and CTS, possible advantages/disadvantages of hybrids between them for designing and developing modern distributed collaborative software systems, and research and/or real-world experience and/or applications and/or lessons learned that involve both CTS and MAS.  That is, any paper that addresses both CTS and MAS, preferably in one or a set of applications that share similar underlying research challenges, is of interest to this workshop.  An example could be: the design and development of a collaborative environment (say, a distributed planning tool) that enables multiple heterogeneous, human experts and agents to work in combination across computer networks on courses of actions in response to cyber attacks.  Another example might be systems or interfaces supporting divisions of labor between CTS and MAS elements during execution.  

Workshop topics include (but are not limited to) combinations of the following issues:
• MAS: Coordination of and by Computational Agents
-	Agent Communication, Languages and Protocols
-	Agent Models and Architectures
-	Multi-Agent Coordination and Cooperation
-	Human-Agent Interaction
-	Multi-User/Multi-Agent Interaction
-	Teamwork, Coalition Formation, Coordination
-	Peer to Peer Coordination
-	Modeling the Dynamics of MAS
-	Agent-based System Development
-	Collective Decision Making
-	Bargaining and Negotiation
-	Auction and Mechanism Design
-	Cooperative and Non-Cooperative Agents
-	Complex MAS
-	Virtual Agents Applications
-	Conversational Agents
-	Distributed Task Planning and Execution
-	Cooperation with Humans and Robots
-	Collective Intelligence
-	Agent Reasoning
-	Mining Agents
-	Security Agents

• CTS:  Agent Technologies and Systems Supporting Collaboration Among Humans
-	Architectures and Design of Collaborative Systems
-	Frameworks and Methodologies for Collaboration
-	Cognitive and Psychological Issues in Collaboration
-	Collaborative Human-Centered Systems
-	Cultural Aspects & Human Factors in Collaboration
-	Interfaces for Collaborative Work
-	Social Software Based Collaboration
-	Visualization of Collaborative Processes
-	Web Infrastructure for Collaborative Applications
-	Information Infrastructure for Collaboration
-	Management of Metadata for Collaboration
-	Mobile and Wireless Collaboration Systems
-	Modeling and Simulation of Collaboration
-	Platforms for Collaboration
-	Collaboration in Domain Applications

Important: a submitted paper must have at least one keyword from EACH column!

Synergies of CTS and MAS topics are of interest with respect to any phase of a human or software systems lifecycle:  specification, implementation, testing, evaluation, and deployment. 


PAPER SUBMISSION
We invite researchers in academia, industry, and research institutions to submit papers on the above or related topics.  Submitted papers must not have been published or simultaneously submitted elsewhere.  Submission should include a cover page (together with the actual paper as a whole PDF document) with authors' names, affiliation addresses, fax numbers, phone numbers, and email addresses. Please, indicate clearly the corresponding author and include up to 6 keywords from the above list of topics and an abstract of no more than 400 words.  The full manuscript should be at most 10 pages (the cover page does NOT count towards this page limit) using the two-column IEEE format.  Additional pages will be charged an additional fee.  Please include page numbers on all submissions to make it easier for reviewers to provide helpful comments. Submit a PDF copy of your full manuscript to the Workshop paper submission site at http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=imasc2010. 

Only PDF files will be accepted.  Each paper will receive a minimum of three reviews.  Papers will be selected based on their relevance, significance, originality, technical clarity, and presentation.  Submission implies the willingness of at least one of the authors to register and present the paper, if accepted.  At least one author of an accepted paper must register for and present the paper at the workshop for the paper to be published in the Symposium Proceedings. Instructions for final manuscript format and publication requirements will be posted on the CTS 2010 Symposium web site later.  It is our intent to have the Symposium Proceedings formally published in hard and soft copies and be available at the time of the conference.  The Proceedings are projected to be included in the IEEE Digital Library and indexed accordingly.  


WORKSHOP CO-CHAIRS
Dr. Wei Chen	(Primary Contact)
Intelligent Automation, Inc.
15400 Calhoun Drive, Suite 400, Rockville, MD 20855, USA
(301) 294-5278, 	wchen at i-a-i.com 
Dr. Edmund Durfee	
Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, 2260 Hayward Street, Ann Arbor MI 48109-2121, USA 
(734) 936-1563,	durfee at umich.edu 
Dr. Toru Ishida
Department of Social Informatics, Kyoto University Yoshida Honmachi, Sakyo, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan
+81 742 70 2280,	ishida at i.kyoto-u.ac.jp 
Dr. Robert Neches
Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California
4676 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, USA
+1-310-448-8481, 	RNeches at isi.edu 


INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE:  
All submitted papers will be reviewed by the workshop technical program committee members following similar criteria used in CTS 2010.  

•	Myriam Abramson 		Naval Research Laboratory, USA
•	Kevin Couśin		Air Force Institute of Technology, USA
•	Tim Finin			University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA
•	Patricia Fitzgerald	Air Force Research Laboratory, USA
•	Zhi Jin			Peking University, China
•	Jason Li 			Intelligent Automation, Inc., USA
•	Peng Liu			Pennsylvania State University, USA
•	Margaret Lyell		Intelligent Automation, Inc., USA
•	Christopher Lynnes	National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), USA
•	Mark Maybury		MITRE Corporation, USA
•	Bill McQuay 		Air Force Research Laboratory, USA
•	Jack Meier			Boeing Corporation, USA
•	Pavel Nahodil		Czech Technical University, Czech republic
•	Volkmar Schau		Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany
•	Waleed W. Smari 		University of Dayton, USA
•	Elena Simperl		University of Innsbruck, Austria
•	Munindar P. Singh		North Carolina State University, USA
•	Pedro Szekely		University of Southern California, USA
•	Anni Tsai			Army CERDEC, USA
•	John Yen 			Pennsylvania State University, USA
•	Chengqi Zhang		University of Technology - Sydney, Australia
•	Haibin Zhu			Nipissing University, Canada


If you have questions regarding workshop paper submission or the workshop content, please contact the workshop organizers. 

For information or questions about Symposium's paper submission, tutorials, posters, workshops, special sessions, exhibits, demos, panels and forums organization, doctoral consortium, and any other information about the conference location, registration, paper formatting, etc., please consult the Symposium’s web site at URL: http://cisedu.us/cis/cts/10/main/callForPapers.jsp  or contact one of the Symposium's Co-Chairs: Bill McQuay at William.McQuay at us.af.mil and Waleed W. Smari at Smari at arys.org.  


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