[agents] DAAF - Call for Papers

[Marco Lützenberger]

The 1st International Workshop on Developing and Applying Agent Frameworks (DAAF)

URL: http://daaf.dai-labor.de
in conjunction with ANT-2014 conference
June 2 - 5, 2014 Hasselt, Belgium

===== CALL FOR PAPERS =====

The 1st International Workshop on Developing and Applying Agent Frameworks (DAAF) provides an
international forum for experts that are involved in the development of multi-agent frameworks and that work
together in order to make multi-agent technology more attractive for industrial stakeholders.

===== SCOPE =====

Jack, JADE, JADEX, JIAC, JaCoMo, Janus, are only the most popular examples for frameworks
that support the development of multi-agent based applications. The real number of multi-agent frameworks
is hard to guess, not least because many research groups use their very own implementations in order
to perform experimental research. Usually the results from this experimental research are published, while
the underlying implementation is rarely described.

These information, however, are extremely valuable for practitioners as they help them to understand
what kind of framework features are required by researchers. The large number of available implementation
platforms shows that there is great effort to implement multi-agent frameworks and agent oriented software
respectively, though, it also shows that there are mostly specialised solutions available.

In academic terms, this trend is well appreciated as it emphasises the activity of the community, though, after
roughly 20 years of research in agent oriented software engineering, the community was - as yet - not able
to convince industrial stakeholders to use agent technology for larger industrial endeavours.

One possible reason for this lack of acceptance is the difficulty to assess the practical applicability of theorems
that are presented under the umbrella of agent research. Many works are evaluated by means of custom
implementations that are streamlined towards the problem but neglect other features of software agents.
The bottom-line is that the presented concept may work for a laboratory setup but may require adaptions in the
field, where one is dealing with a real distributed system (including comprehensive communication, incomplete knowledge,
unavailability of services, etc.).

Evaluations that are done by means of a  framework which is commonly accepted by the community and which is
known to be applicable for real world problems may help industrial stakeholders to better understand the practical
implications of research results and may help to make the agent paradigm more attractive. Admittedly, such framework
will not be able to change the industries’ point of view, though, it may help the agent community to assess their
works in terms of practical applicability and thus help to direct agent research towards industrial requirements.

The aim of this workshop is to discuss the features, usability and performance of all implementation platforms that
can be used to implement agent oriented software. It is our aim to establish an international forum of experts that
are involved in the development of multi-agent frameworks and that work together in order to realise our all interest,
namely: to make agent technology more attractive for industrial stakeholders.

Therefore, DAAF solicits papers addressing the development of frameworks that support and facilitate the
development of agent oriented software applications. Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

- Agent frameworks
- Application of agent frameworks
- Agent development techniques
- Tools, tool-suites and environments for the development of agent oriented software
- Integrated development environments for agent oriented software engineering
- Agent programming languages
- Agent oriented software engineering
- Quality management for agent frameworks
- Certification and standardisation of agent frameworks
- Agent-based development methodologies
- Agent oriented simulation frameworks
- Interesting applications that were developed by means of agent frameworks

===== SUBMISSION AND PROCEEDINGS =====

All accepted papers will be scheduled for oral presentations and will be included in the conference proceedings
published by Elsevier Science in the open-access Procedia Computer Science series on-line. At least one author
of each accepted paper is required to register and attend the conference to present the work.

The submitted paper must be formatted according to the guidelines of the Procedia Computer Science
template (http://cs-conferences.acadiau.ca/ant-12/ecrc-procs.zip). The submitted technical papers must
be no longer than eight pages in length, including all figures, tables and references. Authors are requested to
submit their papers electronically using the online conference management system in PDF format before
the deadline (see important dates). The submission processes will be managed by easychair.org. If you have
used this system before, you can use the same username and password. If this is your first time using EasyChair,
you will need to register for an account by clicking "I have no EasyChair account" button. Upon completion of
registration, you will get a notification email from the system and you are ready for submitting your paper. You
can upload and re-upload the paper to the system by the submission due date.

The number of pages for workshop papers is limited to 6 pages. The selective outstanding papers presented at the
workshops, after further revision, will be considered for publication in journals special issues.

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

Full paper submission: 14.02.2014
Author notification: 08.03.2014
Camera ready version: 01.04.2014
Workshop: 02.-05.06.2014

===== REGISTRATION =====

Please visit: http://cs-conferences.acadiau.ca/ant-14/#registration for more information. 

===== VENUE, ACCOMMODATION & VISA REQUIREMENTS =====

Please visit: http://cs-conferences.acadiau.ca/ant-14/#conferenceVenue for more information. 

===== WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS =====

Marco Lützenberger
Distributed Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (DAI-Lab)
Technische Universität Berlin
marco.luetzenberger at dai-labor.de

Jan Keiser
Distributed Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (DAI-Lab)
Technische Universität Berlin
jan.keiser at dai-labor.de

Nils Masuch
Distributed Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (DAI-Lab)
Technische Universität Berlin
nils.masuch at dai-labor.de