CFP: Programming Multi-Agent Systems (PROMAS 2010)

[Peter Novak]

                  Call for Papers
                ===================

          Eighth international Workshop on
        Programming Multi-Agent Systems (ProMAS'10)
         <http://agents.felk.cvut.cz/promas2010/>

      ProMAS'10 is a satellite workshop at AAMAS 2010
           Toronto, Canada, 10-14 May 2010
         <http://www.cse.yorku.ca/AAMAS2010/>


Even though the contributions of the multi-agent systems (MAS) community  
can make a significant impact in the development of open

distributed systems, the techniques resulting from such contributions will 
only be widely adopted when suitable programming

languages and tools are available. Furthermore, such languages and tools  
must incorporate those techniques in a principled but

practical way, so as to support the ever more complex task of professional 
programmers, in particular when the systems have to

operate in dynamic environments.

The ProMAS workshop series aims to address the practical programming  
issues related to developing and deploying multi-agent

systems. In particular, ProMAS aims to address how multi-agent systems  
designs or specifications can be effectively implemented.

In its previous editions, ProMAS constituted an invaluable occasion  
bringing together leading researchers from both academia and

industry to discuss issues on the design of programming languages and  
tools for multi-agent systems. In particular, the workshop

promotes the discussion and exchange of ideas concerning the techniques,  
concepts, requirements, and principles that are important

for multi-agent programming technology.

We encourage the submission of proposals for programming languages and  
tools that provide specific programming constructs to

facilitate the implementation of the essential concepts used in  
multi-agent system analysis and specifications (e.g., mental

attitudes, distribution, and social interaction). We also welcome  
submissions describing significant multi-agent applications, as

well as agent programming tools that allow the integration of agents with 
legacy systems.

Further, we are particularly interested in approaches or applications that 
show clearly the added-value of multi-agent

programming, and explain why and how this technology should be adopted by 
designers and programmers both in academia and industry.

Specific topics for this workshop include, but are not limited to:

- Programming Languages for multi-agent systems
- Programming models and abstractions for multi-agent systems
- Extensions of traditional languages for multi-agent programming
- Theoretical and practical aspects of multi-agent programming
- Computational complexity of MAS
- Semantics for multi-agent programming languages
- High-level executable multi-agent specification languages
- Algorithms, techniques, or protocols for multi-agent issues
 (e.g., coordination, cooperation, negotiation)
- Agent communication issues in multi-agent programming
- Implementation of social and organisational aspects of MAS
- Formal methods for specification and verification of MAS
- Verification tools for implementations of MAS
- Agent development tools and platforms
- Generic tools and infrastructures for multi-agent programming
- Interoperability and standards for MAS
- Programming mobile agents
- Safety and security for mobile MAS deployment
- Fault tolerance and load balancing for mobile MAS
- Application areas for multi-agent programming languages
- Applications using legacy systems
- Programming MAS for Grid-based applications
- Programming MAS for the Semantic Web
- Deployed (industrial-strength) MAS
- Benchmarks and testbeds for comparing MAS languages and tools
- Integration of agent and mainstream technology

Important Dates:
----------------

Paper submission deadline:              2 February,     2010
Notifications of acceptance/rejection:  2 March,        2010
Camera-ready copies due:                19 March,       2010
Workshop Date:                          10th/11th May,  2010 (TBA)


Submission Details:
-------------------

Authors should submit their papers via a conference management system.  
Papers should be formatted using Springer LNCS style
(http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html) and have a maximum of 15  
pages.

Accepted papers will be published as a technical report and distributed  
among participants during the workshop. As was the case

for previous editions of the ProMAS workshop, we are planning to publish  
extended versions of selected papers as a volume of the

Lecture Notes in Computer Science series by Springer-Verlag.


Programme Committee:
--------------------

Matteo Baldoni (University of Torino, Italy)
Juan Botia Blaya (University of Murcia, Spain)
Olivier Boissier (Ecole des Mines de St Etienne, France)
Lars Braubach (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Louise Dennis (University of Liverpool, UK)
Ian Dickinson (Epimorphics Ltd, UK)
Mauro Dragone (University College Dublin, Ireland)
Bernd Farwer (Durham University, UK)
Michael Fisher (University of Liverpool, UK)
Jorge Gomez-Sanz (Universidad Computense Madrid, Spain)
Vladimir Gorodetsky (Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia)
James Harland (RMIT, Australia)
Koen Hindriks (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)
Benjamin Hirsch (Technical University of Berlin, Germany)
Jomi Hubner (Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brasil)
Joao Leite (University Nova de Lisboa, Portugal)
Viviana Mascardi (Genova University, Italy)
John-Jules Meyer (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
Jorg Muller (Clausthal University of Technology, Germany)
Andrea Omicini (University of Bologna, Italy)
Frederic Peschanski (LIP6, France)
Michele Piunti (CNR, Italy)
Agostino Poggi (Universita degli Studi di Parma, Italy)
Alexander Pokahr (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Alessandro Ricci (University of Bologna, Italy)
Birna van Riemsdijk (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)
Sebastian Sardina (RMIT University, Australia)
Ichiro Satoh (NII, Japan)
Munindar Singh (North Carolina State University, USA)
Kostas Stathis (City University London, UK)
Paolo Torroni (University of Bologna, Italy)
Leon van der Torre (University of Luxemborg, Luxemborg)
Cao-Son Tran (New Mexico State University, USA)
Gerhard Weiss (Software Competence Center Hagenberg, Austria)
Wayne Wobke (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Neil Yorke-Smith (SRI, USA)
Yingqian Zhang (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)

Organising Committee:
---------------------

- Dr. Rem Collier (University College Dublin, Ireland)
- Dr. Peter Novak (Czech Technical University, Czech Republic)
- Prof. Jurgen Dix (T.U. Clausthal, Germany)

Steering Committee:
---------------------

- Dr. Rafael Heitor Bordini, Federal University of Rio Grande do
 Sul, Brazil
- Dr. Mehdi Dastani, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
- Prof. Jurgen Dix, Clausthal University of Technology, Germany
- Prof. Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, University of Paris VI, France