CfP: MASTA - 4th Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems: Theory and Applications

[Oliver Obst]

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MASTA
4th Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems: Theory and Applications
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Since 1993 the area of Multi-Agent Systems/Distributed Artificial
Intelligence has been present in the EPIA conferences, both as  
individual
tracks in the main conference and as autonomous workshops. Focusing on a
fundamental area of research in Artificial Intelligence, the 4th MASTA
workshop will be, in the context of EPIA’07, the forum for presenting  
and
discussing the most recent and innovative work in the area of multi- 
agent
systems.

Departing, from the end of the 1980’s, from the two main branches of
Decentralized AI and Distributed Problem Solving, research in  
Distributed
Artificial Intelligence/Multi-Agent Systems has developed in areas of
increase specialisation and autonomy as diverse as: agent-oriented
programming and software engineering; cognitive modelling; swarm
intelligence; coordination in MAS; social organisation modelling; social
simulation; agent architectures; and many more.

Today, besides the existence of countless application areas, theoretical
research in these topics has also a great activity and development.  
Being a
young research area, a lot of work is still to be done, both on its
foundations and on the methodological approaches that will allow for a
better grounding of the results obtained.

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Topics of Interest
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- Agent Architectures
- Agent Programming Languages
- Agent-Based Applications
- Agent-Oriented Software Engineering
- Automated Negotiation and Decision Making
- Artificial Social Systems
- Cognitive models, including emotions and philosophies
- Cooperative Information Agents
- Communication: languages, semantics, protocols, and conversations
- Cooperation, Coordination and teamwork in MAS
- Ethical and legal issues raised by Agents and MAS
- Multi-Agent Evolution, Adaptation and Learning
- Multi-Agent Simulation & Modelling
- Formal Methods for Modelling Agent-Based Systems
- Scalability and Performance of MAS
- Industrial and Commercial Applications

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Scope - Technical Description
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Following the previous workshops on autonomous software agents and
multi-agent systems that have been organized in the context of the EPIA
conferences (MASTA in 1997, 2001 and 2005), the purpose of this  
workshop is
to provide a high-profile, internationally respected discussion forum  
on the
most recent and innovative scientific research and applications in  
the areas
of multi-agent systems and autonomous agents. As in previous  
occurrences of
MASTA, the unifying focus of the workshop will be on the methodological
aspects. Both theoretical research and more practical one should be  
situated
in the context of existing/new methodologies for agent-oriented software
engineering. This framework is not intended to preclude any specific  
topic,
but preference will be given to research work establishing some  
connection
with the methodological aspects or to successful applications built upon
some existing or developing methodology. Theoretical papers should make
clear the significance and relevance of the theoretical results to the
Multi-Agent community, while more practical, applied ones, should  
clearly
relate to the state of the art and make clear their own contribution.

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Paper Submission
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Submissions must follow the guidelines specified in the conference site.
Authors must remove their names from the submitted papers, and should  
take
reasonable care not to indirectly disclose their identity. The  
Springer LNCS
format must be used (instructions in
http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html/).

Paper submissions will be made in PDF format, through the submission  
page
available in EPIA 2007 website.

More detailed and up-to-date information, including types and maximum
lengths of submissions, may be found in http://epia2007.appia.pt

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Proceedings
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Workshop papers of higher quality will be selected for publication in  
the
main volume of the conference proceedings, to be published by  
Springer, in
the LNAI series. The remaining accepted papers will be published in  
local
workshop proceedings, in hard-copy, in CD-ROM and in the web.

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Conference Site
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Further and up-to-date information can be found in the official site  
of the
conference at: http://epia2007.appia.pt

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Important Dates
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30-Jun-07 Paper Submission Deadline
28-Jul-07 Author Notification
01-Set-07 Deadline for Final Camera-Ready Copies
03/07-Dec-07 EPIA Conference

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Organising Committee
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Luis Paulo Reis
LIACC – Laboratório de Inteligência Artificial e Ciência de  
Computadores,
Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto
Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal
Tel. +351 91 9455251 / Fax. +351 22 5081443
http://www.fe.up.pt/~lpreis
E-mail: lpreis at fe.up.pt

João Balsa
Departamento de Informática,
Faculdade de Ciências de Lisboa, Bloco C6, Piso 3,
Campo Grande, 1700 Lisboa, Portugal
Tel: +351 21 7500508 / Fax: +351 21 7500084
http://www.di.fc.ul.pt/~jbalsa/
E-mail: jbalsa at di.fc.ul.pt

Paulo Novais
Departamento de Informática,
Universidade do Minho
Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga
Tel: +351 253 604437 / Fax: +351 253 604471
http://www.di.uminho.pt/~pjn/
E-mail: pjon at di.uminho.pt

Eugénio Oliveira
LIACC – Laboratório de Inteligência Artificial e Ciência de  
Computadores,
Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto
Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal
Tel. +351 22 5081829 / Fax. +351 22 5081443
http://www.fe.up.pt/~eol/MEMBERS/eco.html
E-mail: eco at fe.up.pt

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Program Committee
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Ana Paiva (IST, Univ. Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal)
Ana Paula Rocha (Universidade do Porto, Portugal)
Andrea Omicini (DEIS, Italy)
Andreia Malucelli (Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Curitiba, Brazil)
António Rocha Costa (Univ. Católica de Pelotas, Brazil)
Cristiano Castelfranchi (ISTC/CNR ,Italy)
David Hales (Università di Bologna, Italy)
Eugénio Oliveira (Universidade do Porto, Portugal)
Hélder Coelho (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Isabel Praça (ISEP/IPP, Portugal)
Iyad Rahwan (British Univ.Dubai, & Univ. Edinburgh, UAE)
Jaime Sichmann (Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil)
João Balsa (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
João Leite (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal)
John-Jules Meyer (University of Utrecht, Netherlands)
Jordi Sabater (IIIA, CSIC, Spain)
Jorg Muller (Siemens AG, Germany)
Jorge Louçã (ISCTE, Portugal)
Julian Padget (University of Bath, UK)
Klaus Fischer (DFKI, Germany)
Luis Antunes (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Luís Moniz (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Luís Nunes (ISCTE, Portugal)
Luís Paulo Reis (Universidade do Porto, Portugal)
Marie-Pierre Gleizes (Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse III, France)
Mark d'Inverno (Westminster University, UK)
Mikhail Prokopenko (CSIRO ICT Centre, Sidney, Australia)
Nikos Vlassis (Technical University of Crete, Greece)
Nuno Lau (Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal)
Oliver Obst (University of Newcastle, Australia)
Paolo Petta (Austrian Research Institute for AI, Austria)
Paul Guyot (NII, Tokyo, Japan)
Paul Valckenaers (Katholic University Leuven, Belgium)
Paulo Leitão (IP Bragança, Portugal)
Paulo Novais (Universidade do Minho, Portugal)
Reinaldo Bianchi (FEI – São Paulo, Brazil)
Virginia Dignum (University of Utrecht, Netherlands)
Wojtek Jamroga (Clausthal University of Technology, Germany)
Yves Demazeau (IMAG, Grenoble, France)

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-- 
Oliver Obst          ES208   form follows function (Louis Sullivan).
Fon: +61 2 492 16175                          http://oliver.obst.eu/
Uni Newcastle  School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science