[agents] Call for Papers: AAMAS 2017 - Sixteenth International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems

[Sebastian Stein]

*Call for Papers: AAMAS 2017*
*Sixteenth International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent
Systems*



*Important Dates:*




*Abstract Submission:       11th of November 2016 (23:59 UTC-12)Full Paper
Submission:    15th of November, 2016 (23:59 UTC-12)Rebuttal Phase:
        9th – 10th of January, 2017 (23:59 UTC-12)Author Notification:
      24th of January, 2017*

*About AAMAS:*

AAMAS is the leading scientific conference for research in autonomous
agents and multiagent systems. The AAMAS conference series was initiated in
2002 by merging three highly respected meetings: the International
Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS); the International Workshop on
Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL); and the International
Conference on Autonomous Agents (AA). The aim of the joint conference is to
provide a single, high-profile, internationally respected archival forum
for scientific research in the theory and practice of autonomous agents and
multiagent systems.



*Information for Authors*
AAMAS 2017 encourages the submission of analytical, empirical,
methodological, technological, and perspective papers. Analytical and
empirical papers should make clear the significance and relevance of their
results to the AAMAS community. Similarly, methodological and technological
papers should make clear their scientific and technical contributions, and
are expected to demonstrate a thorough evaluation of their strengths and
weaknesses in practice. It is strongly encouraged that papers focusing on
specific agent capabilities evaluate their techniques in the context of
autonomous agent architectures or multiagent systems. A thorough
evaluation, conducted from a theoretical or applied basis, is considered an
essential component of any submission. Authors are also requested to pay
particular attention to discussing how their work relates to the state of
the art in autonomous agents and multiagent systems research as evidenced
in, for example, previous AAMAS and related conferences. All submissions
will be rigorously peer reviewed and evaluated on the basis of the overall
quality of their technical contribution, including criteria such as
originality, soundness, relevance, significance, quality of presentation,
and understanding of the state of the art.

AAMAS 2017, the sixteenth conference in the AAMAS series, seeks the
submission of high-quality papers limited to 8 pages in length, with any
additional pages containing only bibliographic references. Reviews will be
double blind; authors must avoid including anything that can be used to
identify them. Please note that submitting an abstract is required to
submit a full paper. However, the abstracts will not be reviewed and full
papers must be submitted for the review process to begin.  All work must be
original, i.e., it must not have appeared in a conference proceedings,
book, or journal and may not be under review for another archival
conference. In addition to submissions in the main track, AAMAS 2017 will
be soliciting papers in special tracks. The review process for the special
tracks will be similar to the main track, but with program committee
members specially selected for each track.  All accepted papers for the
special tracks will be included in the proceedings.



*JAAMAS Submissions*
AAMAS 2017 will also accept papers for presentation that have appeared in
the Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems (JAAMAS) in the 12
months period preceding the AAMAS notification date. These articles also
have the option to publish an extended abstract (maximum two pages,
excluding bibliography) in the AAMAS proceedings. The articles must be
original and not previously published as a full paper in an archival
conference. The submission process for this track is separate from the main
paper submission process. Information will be posted on the relevant page.

For details on JAAMAS, visit - http://www.springer.com/comput
er/ai/journal/10458



*Topics of Interest*
The conference solicits papers addressing original research on autonomous
agents and their interaction. Topics of interest include (but are not
limited to) the following:


*Agent Theories and Models:*- Logic and Game Theory
- Logics for agents and multi-agent systems
- Formal models of agency
- Belief-Desire-Intention theories and models
- Cognitive models
- Models of emotions


*Communication and Argumentation:*
- Commitments
- Communication languages and protocols
- Speech act theory
- Multi-agent reasoning
- Deductive, rule-based and logic-based argumentation
- Argumentation-based dialogue and protocols


*Agent Cooperation:*- Biologically-inspired approaches and methods
- Collective intelligence
- Distributed problem solving
- Teamwork, team formation, teamwork analysis
- Coalition formation (non-strategic)
- Human-robot/agent interaction
- Multi-user/multi-virtual-agent interaction
- Multi-robot systems


*Knowledge Representation and Reasoning:*- Ontologies for agents
- Reasoning in agent-based systems
- Single and multi-agent planning and scheduling
- Trust and reputation


*Agent Societies and Societal issues:*- Organizations and institutions
- Socio-technical systems
- Normative systems
- Values in MAS (privacy, safety, security, transparency,…)
- Monitoring agent societies
- Architectures for social reasoning
- Trust and reputation
- Value-sensitive design of multi-agent systems
- Policy, regulation and legislation


*Humans and Agents:*- Human-robot/agent interaction
- Multi-user/multi-virtual-agent interaction
- Agents competing against humans
- Agent-based analysis of human interactions
- Agents for improving human cooperative activities


*Learning and adaptation:*- Reward structures for learning
- Evolutionary algorithms
- Co-evolutionary algorithms
- Multiagent learning
- Learning agent capabilities (agent models, communication, observation)
- Learning agent-to-agent interactions (negotiation, trust, coordination)


*Agents & Mainstream Computing:*- Service-oriented architectures
- Mobile agents
- Autonomic computing
- P2P, web services, grid computing, ...


*Agent-based simulation:*- Social simulation
- Simulation techniques tools and platforms
- Complex systems
- Validation of simulation systems
- Modelling for agent based simulation
- Interactive simulation
- Emergent behaviour
- Analysis of agent based simulations


*Engineering Multi-Agent Systems:*- Modelling and specification languages
- Programming languages and frameworks for agents and multi-agent systems
- Development techniques, tools, and platforms
- Methodologies for agent-based systems
- Verification, fault tolerance and resilience of multi-agent systems


*Verification and validation of agent-based systems:*- Testing of
agent-based systems, including model based testing
- Verification of agent-based systems, including model checking
- Synthesis of agent-based systems


*Systems and organization:*- Autonomic computing
- Complex systems
- Self-organization
- Novel agent and multiagent applications


*Economic paradigms:*- Auctions and mechanism design
- Bargaining and negotiation
- Behavioral game theory
- Cooperative games: theory & analysis
- Cooperative games: computation
- Noncooperative games: theory & analysis
- Noncooperative games: computation
- Social choice theory
- Game theory for practical applications



*General Chairs:*Kate Larson (University of Waterloo)
Michael Winikoff (University of Otago)



*Program Chairs:*Sanmay Das (Washington University in St. Louis)
Ed Durfee (University of Michigan)



*Special Tracks*
As mentioned above, AAMAS 2017 will feature the following four special
tracks. These are:


*Innovative and Industrial Applications (Chairs: Paul Scerri and Pradeep
Varakantham)*
Research from, and relevant to, the AAMAS community has permeated a variety
of domains and applications, both as central to the application and in key
supportive roles. For example, the community pursues research in topics
including resource allocation, constrained optimization, learning,
scheduling, agent-based simulation, and game-theoretic equilibrium
computation, and applies them in domains ranging from security to
biomedicine to robotics to financial and internet market design. Ideas and
technologies from this research are responsible for significant
revenue-generation and cost-saving, as well as for supporting important
public policy and business strategy decision-making.

We are interested in hearing about how research makes it into practice and
what the current problems of interest are. This special track provides the
ideal forum to present, discuss, and demonstrate compelling applications,
agent system deployment experiences, and new business ideas. The goal is to
promote the fostering of mutually-beneficial relationships between those
doing foundational scientific research and those using autonomous agents
and multiagent systems in real-world commercial, non-profit, and government
applications.

We invite papers across two sub-tracks:

1 "Industrial Applications" sub-track: This is primarily for industry
practitioners and researchers to present application work that is more
mature, commercially deployed and uses agents/multiagent systems technology
in practice. Submitted material will be evaluated based on the use of
agent/multiagent systems technology for real problems over a reasonable
duration (minimum of 3 months), evidence of impact, and lessons for the
agents/multi-agents community of what worked and what did not.

2 "Innovative Applications" sub-track: This is open to all researchers to
showcase promising new applications of agent/multiagent systems technology
that are at an early stage, with no requirement of deployment. Papers will
be evaluated on innovativeness of the proposed application, use of
agent/multiagent methods and evidence of possible improvement, either in
simulation or by other qualitative means.

Accepted papers of both sub-tracks will automatically get an opportunity to
present a demonstration at the conference.

Papers accepted to the “Industrial Applications” sub-track will receive a
special award for taking agents to the real world.


*Submission Instructions*
For the industrial applications sub-track, authors should submit a
presentation of their work in whatever electronic medium best shows the
AAMAS relevant features of the application, whether a video, PPT,
deployment, webpage or software.  Acceptance to the track will be
determined based on both the degree to which interesting agent technologies
feature in and improve the deployed system, as well as the benefit to the
community to understanding the challenges and solutions in the
application.  Authors must submit a single page document accompanying the
primary submission, briefly summarizing what interesting agent technologies
are featured in the deployed system and the impacts those technologies have
had.

For the innovative applications sub-track, authors need to follow the same
paper submission instructions as used for submitting to the main track
(maximum of 8 pages, excluding references, in AAMAS format).



*Robotics (Chairs: Christopher Amato and Alessandro Farinelli)*
We invite papers that advance theory and application of single and multiple
robots. Papers on the interaction between robots and agents (broadly
defined) are particularly welcome, but all papers at the intersection of
artificial intelligence and robotics are welcome.

Papers are solicited in all areas, including, but not restricted to:
* Human-robot interaction
* Robot communication and teamwork
* Machine learning for robotics
* Mapping, localization and exploration
* Architectures for teams of robots
* Networked robot/sensor systems, distributed robotics
* Robot planning and plan execution (including action and motion planning)
* Robot teams, multi-robot systems, robot coordination
* Robotic agent languages and middleware for robot systems
* Swarms and collective behaviour
* Modular robotics



*Embodied Virtual Agents and Human-Agent Interaction (Chair: Catherine
Pelachaud)*

Virtual agents are embodied agents that emulate autonomous human-like
behavior in simulated interactive or physical environments. We encourage
papers on the design, implementation, and evaluation of virtual agents as
well as challenging applications featuring them. Of particular interest are
papers addressing how humans interact with virtual agents. The goal is to
provide an opportunity for continued interaction and cross-fertilization
between the AAMAS community and researchers working on virtual agents and
to strengthen links between the two communities.

Papers are solicited in all areas, including, but not restricted to:

- Embodied cognition
- Multimodal agent interaction
- Affective behaviour
- Socio-cultural behaviour
- Verbal and non-verbal behaviour
- Human(s)-virtual agent(s) interaction
- Virtual agents in games and education
- Virtual agents for improving human activities
- Agent-based analysis of human interactions



*Blue Sky Ideas (Chair: Vincent Conitzer)*
The emphasis of this track is on visionary ideas, long-term challenges, and
new research opportunities. This track is designed to overcome the
constraints of the traditional review process, and will serve as an
incubator for innovative approaches, risky and provocative ideas, and to
propose challenges and opportunities for the field in the near future.



*General Information*
All full papers accepted to the main track and the special tracks will be
presented in parallel technical sessions. All the papers will be published
in the conference Proceedings and will be permanently available after the
conference at http://www.ifaamas.org/proceedings.html.

In addition, AAMAS 2017 will include:

- Workshops
- Demonstrations
- Poster presentations for full papers and extended abstracts
- Invited talks and panel discussions

The submission processes for the workshops and demonstrations are separate
from the main paper submission process. Information will be posted on the
relevant pages.



*Policies*

*Policy on multiple and previous submissions.*
Authors may not submit any paper to AAMAS 2017 that has already appeared in
an archival forum. Authors must ensure that no submission to AAMAS 2017 is
under review for another archival forum between the AAMAS 2017 submission
and decision dates.


*Policy on harassment at the conference environment.*
IFAAMAS is committed to organising the AAMAS conference and its affiliated
events in an environment that is free of harassment for everyone involved:
delegates, organisers, conference workers, and reviewers. All participants
in IFAAMAS events are asked to embrace our intention to foster a
harassment-free scientific community, and to understand that IFAAMAS will
respond appropriately to incidents of harassment if they occur. The
complete IFAAMAS harassment policy is available at
http://www.ifaamas.org/harassment.html.


*For further details about AAMAS 2017, please visit the website at
<http://www.aamas2017.org <http://www.aamas2017.org>>*
Please also follow us on Twitter (@AAMAS2017) and like us on Facebook (
www.facebook.com/aamas2017).