[agents] 2nd CFP OptMAS-DCR at AAMAS: International Workshop on Optimisation in Multi-Agent Systems and Distributed Constraint Reasoning

[Meritxell Vinyals]

=======================================================================
                         CFP: International Workshop on

   Optimisation in Multi-Agent Systems and Distributed Constraint Reasoning

(OptMAS-DCR)

       To be held in conjunction with the

Thirteenth International Conference on Autonomous and Multi-Agent Systems

(AAMAS 2014)

=======================================================================

Workshop Website
---------------------------

http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~wyeoh/optmas-dcr2014/


Call
------

We are glad to announce that a Joint Call for papers has been agreed 
between the Workshop on Optimization
in Multi-Agent Systems (OptMAS) and the Workshop on Distributed 
Constraint Reasoning (DCR). This joint
OptMAS-DCR workshop invites works from different strands of the 
multi-agent systems community that pertain
to the design of algorithms, models, and techniques to deal with 
multi-agent optimisation problems. We will also
  place a particular emphasis on DCR approaches, which include the 
modeling, formulation and solution of DCR
  problems, including both Distributed Constraint Satisfaction and 
Optimization problems.


Important dates
-----------------------

* January, 22, 2014 - Submission of contributions to workshops

* February 19, 2014 - Workshop paper acceptance notification

* March 12, 2014 - Submission of camera-ready version

* May 5-6, 2014 - Workshop takes place in conjunction with AAMAS 2014.



Invited Talk
-----------------------


An invited speech will be given by Prof. Toby Walsh

www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~tw/?

  Background
-----------------

The number of novel applications of multi-agent systems has followed an 
exponential trend

over the last few years, ranging from online auction design, through 
multi-sensor networks,

to scheduling of tasks in multi-actor systems. Multi-agent systems 
designed for all these

applications generally involve some form of very hard optimization 
problems that are

substantially different from problems traditionally dealt with in other 
areas (e.g. industrial

processes or scheduling applications). More specifically, the technical 
issues that multi-agent

algorithm designers have to deal with include:


* Open systems:algorithms to compute solutions to mechanisms that deal 
with different

stakeholders, who may be self-interested or may have different 
computation/communication

capabilities from their peers.


* Distributed systems:algorithms that are across different system 
components, such as those

that deal with agents that are tied to physical devices. This involves 
considerations of

computation and communication constraints, and the possibility of 
failures of the components

and/or communication links.


* Privacy concerns:optimizing while minimising the exchange of private 
information.


* Solution quality bounds:problems requiring algorithms with quality bounds.


* Robust optimisation:techniques to deal with optimizations that are 
repeated with only slight

changes in the input data and/or unreliable input data.


* Highly parallel architectures:e.g., multi-core, GPGPU, which deal with 
large-scale problems.


Keywords
--------------

Topics include but are not limited to:

*  Distributed constraint optimization/satisfaction

*  Winner determination algorithms in auctions

*  Coalition formation algorithms

*  Algorithms to compute Nash and other equilibria in games

*  Optimization under uncertainty

*  Optimization with incomplete or dynamic input data

*  Algorithms for real-time applications

*  GPU for general purpose computations (GPGPU)

*  Multi-core and many-core computing

*  Cloud, distributed and grid computing


Submission
-----------------

Participants should submit a paper (maximum *15* pages in LNCS Springer 
style), describing their work
  on one or more of the topics relevant to the workshop. Alternatively, 
participants may submit a shorter
paper (maximum *5* pages in LNCS Springer style) presenting a research 
statement or perspective on
topics relevant to the workshop.


All submissions are conducted via the OptMAS-DCR 2014 EasyChair website:

http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=optmasdcr2014


Reviewing process
---------------------------

Papers will be reviewed by at least 2 program committee members. 
Criteria for selection of papers
will include: technical quality, novelty, significance, and clarity.

Publication
-----------------

Pre-proceedings containing all accepted papers are provided 
electronically on a USB stick as a part
of the AAMAS workshop registration package. Best papers from OptMAS 2008 
and OptMAS 2009
were selected for publication in the special issue on Optimisation in 
Multi-Agent System of the
Journal of Autonomous and Multiagent Systems. Best papers from OptMAS 
2011 and 2012 were
invited to submit to a special issue on Optimisation in Multi-Agent 
System of the Computer Journal.
We plan to continue this initiative for the current and next editions.


Organizing committee
--------------------------------

Dr. Archie Chapman, University of Sydney
Dr. Meritxell Vinyals, University of Southampton
Dr. William Yeoh, New Mexico State University
Dr. Roie Zivan, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev


Programme Committee

--------------------------------

Tenda Okimoto
Roger Mailler
Christian Bessiere
Jesus Cerquides
Alessandro Farinelli
Juan Rodriquez-Aguilar
Marius Silaghi
Matthew Taylor
Chongje Zhang
Jose Fernandez-Marquez
Talal Rahwan
Onn Shehory
Pradeep Varakantham
Tomas Klos
Sven Koenig
Robert Lass
Hala Mostafa
Gauthier Picard
Christian Blum
Katsutoshi Hirayama

Yoonheui Kim
Bo An
Ana Bazzan
Patricia Gutierrez
Pedro Meseguer
Toni Penya-Alba
Maria Polukarov
Marc Pujol-Gonzalez
Long Tran-Thanh