[agents] ACAN2014 - THE 7TH INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON AGENT-BASED COMPLEX AUTOMATED NEGOTIATIONS

[Katsuhide Fujita]

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** CALL FOR PAPERS - ACAN 2014
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** THE 7TH INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON AGENT-BASED COMPLEX AUTOMATED NEGOTIATIONS
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** AAMAS 2014, Paris, France, May 5-6
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  Website - http://www.tuat.ac.jp/~katfuji/ACAN2014/index.html
  Submissions - http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=acan2014

To be held in conjunction with the 13th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2014) Paris, France.


[Important dates]
  January 22, 2014 - Submission deadline
  February 19, 2014 - Acceptance notification
  March 6, 2014 - Camera-ready deadline
  MAY 5-6, 2014 - ACAN2014

[Submissions]     
Submissions should conform to the ACM SIG style (see http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates for more details). The workshop welcomes submissions of original works relevant to the topics described above. The workshop will accept submissions of both full papers (maximum 8 pages) and short papers (maximum 4 pages).

[Scope and Background]
Complex Automated Negotiations have been widely studied and are one of the emerging areas of research in the field of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. The complexity in an automated negotiation depends on several factors: the number of negotiated issues, dependencies between these issues, representation of the utility, negotiation protocol, negotiation form (bilateral or multi-party), time constraints, and so on. Complex automated negotiation scenarios are concerned with negotiation encounters where we may have for instance, a large number of agents, a large number of issues with strong interdependencies, real time constraints, etc. Many real world negotiation scenarios present one or more of the mentioned elements. Software agents can support the automation of complex negotiations, by negotiating on the behalf of their owners and providing adequate strategies to their owners to achieve realistic, win-win agreements. In order to provide solutions in such complex automated negotiation scenarios, research has focused on incorporating different technologies including search, CSP, graphical utility models, Bayesian nets, auctions, utility graphs, optimization and predicting and learning methods. The applications of complex automated negotiations could include e-commerce tools, decision-making support tools, negotiation support tools, collaboration tools, as well as knowledge discovery and agent learning tools.

ACAN2014 will discuss, among others, the following aspects and topics of such complex automated negotiations within the field of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, including but not limited to:

- Complex Automated Negotiation Frameworks and Mechanisms
- Bilateral and Multilateral Negotiation, 
- High dimension Multi-Issue Negotiation, Large Scale Negotiation, Concurrent Negotiation, Multiple Negotiation, Sequential Negotiation, Negotiation under Asymmetric Information, and so on.
- Prediction of Opponent's Behaviours and Strategies in Negotiation
- Simulation Models and Platforms for Complex Negotiations
- Coordination Mechanisms for Complex Negotiations
- Matchmaking and Brokering Mechanisms
- 2-Sided Matching
- Utility and preference representations in negotiation
- Computational Complexity of Multi-Issue Negotiations
- Eficient Negotiation with Human Opponents. Cognitive Aspects of Human Negotiations. 
- One-Many and Many-Many Negotiation Protocols. Leveled Commitment Mechanisms.	
- Emerging Applications for Electronic Negotiations (Crowdsourcing, Social Networks etc.)
- Relation between electronic negotiation and other resource allocation protocols (auctions, contract net protocols etc.)
- Applications for Automated Negotiations (e.g. cloud computing, smart grid, electronic commerce etc.)

A considerable number of researchers in various sub-communities of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems are actively working on these and related issues. They are, for instance, being studied in agent negotiation, multi-issue negotiations, auctions, mechanism design, electronic commerce, voting, secure protocols, matchmaking & brokering, argumentation, co-operation mechanisms and distributed optimization. The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers from these communities to learn about each other's approaches to the complex negotiation problem, encourage the exchange of ideas between the different areas, and potentially foster long-term research collaborations to accelerate progress towards scaling up to larger and more realistic applications. 


[Post-proceedings and Past Special Issues]
Studies in Computational Intelligence Series (Springer):
  Rational, Robust, and Secure Negotiation Mechanisms in Multiagent Systems
  Rational, Robust and Secure Negotiations in Multiagent Systems
  Advances in Agent-Based Complex Automated Negotiations
  Innovations in Agent-Based Complex Automated Negotiations
  New Trends in Agent-Based Complex Automated Negotiations
  Complex Automated Negotiations: Theories, Models, and Software Competitions
  Novel Insights in Agent-based Complex Automated Negotiation
  
Journals and Special Issues
  RRS2006 Special issue in Multiagent and Grid Systems
  RRS2007 Special issue in the Journal of International Transactions on Systems Science and Applications
  ACAN2008 Special issue on Journal of Multi-Agent and Grid Systems, 6(5-6), 2010
  ACAN2009 Special issue in Computational Intelligence (to be published in 2012)
  ACAN2010 and ACAN2011 Special issue in Decision Support System Journal (to be published in 2013-2014)

[Organizers]
Organizers
Dr. Katsuhide Fujita (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan)
Prof. Takayuki Ito (Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan)
Dr. Valentin Robu (University of Southampton, UK)
Prof. Minjie Zhang (University of Wollongong, Australia)

Organizing Committee
Prof. Tokuro Matsuo (Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology, Japan)
Dr. Quan Bai (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand)
Prof. Miguel Angel Lopez-Carmona (Universidad de Alcala, Spain)
Prof. Ivan Marsa-Maestre (Universidad de Alcala, Spain)
Dr. Shaheen S. Fatima (Loughborough University, UK)
Prof. Hirofumi Yamaki (Tokyo Denki University, Japan)
Dr. Naoki Fukuta (Shizuoka University, Japan)

Program Committee Members (Tentative)
Prof. Paul Scerri (Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, USA)
Dr. Mark Klein (MIT, USA)
Prof. Katia Sycara (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
Dr. Fenghui Ren (University of Wollongong, Australia)
Dr. Raz Lin (Bar-Ilan University, Israel)
Prof. Sarit Kraus (Bar-Ilan University, Israel)
Prof. Catholin Jonker (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)
Dr. Enrico Gerding (University of Southampton, UK)
Dr. Koen Hindriks (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)
Dr. Gheorghe Cosmin Silaghi (UBB Cluj, Romania)
Dr. Lotzi Boloni (University Florida, United States)
Dr. Scott Buffett (National Research Council Canada)

[Contact]
Katsuhide Fujita
Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Address: Buld. 10, room 403, 2-24-16 Naka-cho, Koganei-shi, Tokyo 184-8588, Japan
Email: katfuji at cc.tuat.ac.jp