[agents] New Submission Deadline: Jan. 31, 2011 - 2nd Intl WS on Multi-Agent Systems and Collaborative Technologies

[Wei Chen]

*** New Submission Deadline: January 31, 2011 ***

The Second International Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems and Collaborative
Technologies (I-MASC 2011)

CALL FOR PAPERS

As part of

The 2011 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems
(CTS 2011) http://cts2011.cisedu.info/ 
May 23 - 27, 2011
The Sheraton University City Hotel
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

INVITED SPEAKER

Robert Kohout, Ph.D.,
DARPA/I2O Program Manager

SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES

Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) has 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 the 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 the division of labor between CTS and MAS
elements during execution.

The Workshop topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

* 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 keywords from BOTH lists of MAS
and CTS!  

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

You are invited to submit original and unpublished research works on the
above and other topics related to Collaborative Technologies and Multi-Agent
Systems.  Submitted papers must not have been published or simultaneously
submitted elsewhere.  Submission should include a cover page 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
450 words.  The full manuscript should be at most 8 pages (the cover page
does NOT count towards this page limit) using the two-column IEEE format.
Additional pages will be charged additional fee.  Please include page
numbers on all preliminary 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=imasc2011.

Notably, (1) only PDF files will be accepted; (2) papers should have the
following name format for easy identification: 'Surname_Initial_1.PDF',
where the Surname is that of the first author; and (3) follow the Easy Chair
website instructions to login into the system (or create your account if
necessary) and upload your paper accordingly.

Each paper will receive a minimum of three reviews.  Papers will be selected
based on their originality, relevance, technical clarity and presentation.
Submission implies the willingness of at least one of the authors to
register and present the paper, if accepted.  Authors of accepted papers
must guarantee that their papers will be registered and presented at the
workshop.  

Accepted papers will be published in the Conference proceedings.
Instructions for final manuscript format and requirements will be posted on
the CTS 2011 Conference web site.  It is our intent to have the proceedings
formally published in hard and soft copies and be available at the time of
the conference.  The proceedings is projected to be included in the IEEE
Digital Library and indexed accordingly. If you have any questions about
paper submission or the workshop, please contact the workshop organizer.  

IMPORTANT DATES

Paper Submissions: ------------------------------------------- January 31,
2011 
Acceptance Notification: ------------------------------------- February1,
2011 
Camera Ready Papers and Registration Due: -------------------- March 1,
2011
Conference Dates:  ------------------------------------------- May23 - 27,
2011

WORKSHOP ORGANIZER(S)

Dr. Wei Chen (Chair)
Intelligent Automation, Inc.
15400 Calhoun Drive, Suite 400, Rockville, MD 20855, USA
+1-301-294-5278, 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. 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 (Partial):  

All submitted papers will be reviewed by the workshop technical program
committee members following similar criteria used in CTS 2011.  

* Myriam Abramson       Naval Research Laboratory, USA
* Giacomo Cabri         University of Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy
* Kevin Couśin          Air Force Institute of Technology, USA
* Tim Finin             University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA
* Zhi Jin               Peking University, China
* William McQuay        Air Force Research Laboratory, USA
* Elena Simperl         University of Innsbruck, Austria
* Brian Slack           Boeing, USA
* Waleed Smari          University of Dayton, USA
* Munindar Singh        North Carolina State University, USA
* Pedro Szekely         University of Southern California, USA
* John Yen              Pennsylvania State University, PA, USA
* Chengqi Zhang         University of Technology - Sydney, Australia
* Laura Zavala          University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA
* Haibin Zhu            Nipissing University, Canada

Previous I-MASC Workshop:
1st I-MASC10 at CTS10, Chicago, Illinois, USA 

If you have questions regarding workshop paper submission or the workshop
content, please contact the workshop organizers. For information or
questions about Conference's paper submission, tutorials, posters,
workshops, special sessions, exhibits, demos, panels and forums
organization, doctoral colloquium, and any other information about the
conference location, registration, paper formatting, etc., please consult
the Conference's web site at URL: http://cts2011.cisedu.info/ or contact one
of the Conference's organizers or Co-Chairs: Geoffrey C. Fox at
gcf at indiana.edu  and Waleed W. Smari at Smari at arys.org.  


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