CFP: MATES 2012 - The Tenth German Conference on Multi-Agent System Technologies

[Christian Guttmann]

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Call For Papers

MATES 2012 - The Tenth German Conference on Multi-Agent System Technologies
"Research and Innovation for a Smarter Society"

October, 10th-12th, 2012.
Trier, Germany
http://mates2012.uni-trier.de
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The German conference on Multi-Agent system TEchnologieS (MATES) 
provides an interdisciplinary forum for researchers, users (members of 
business and industry) and developers of intelligent agents and 
multi-agent systems. The thematic focus of this MATES 2012 is on 
technologies that enable societies and organisations to be more 
resilient, inter-connected and collaborative. The conference 
investigates technologies for truly open distributed systems --- 
covering a wide spectrum of approaches from self-organization and 
autonomous systems to agreement computing. Advances in research work, as 
well as prototyped or fielded systems of intelligent agents will be 
presented and discussed. The conference covers the whole range from 
theory to application of agent- and multi-agent technologies in order to 
promote theory and application of agents and multi-agent systems. The 
conference features an exhibition of practical applications with an 
advanced concept of agency. Integral part of the technical program will 
be an exhibition of a variety of tools for the development, and 
prototypes of all kinds of practical applications of agent and 
multi-agent technology at the conference venue. The conference will also 
host a doctoral consortium.

For the tenth time the German special interest group on Distributed 
Artificial Intelligence jointly with the steering committee of MATES 
organizes this international conference in order to promote theory and 
application of agents and multi-agent systems. Building on the sequence 
of agent-related events in Germany in the past such as VDI 1998 
(Chemnitz), VertIS 2001 (Bamberg), and KI 2002 (Aachen), the MATES 
conference series (from 2003 to 2011) now is exclusively devoted to 
agents and multi-agent systems, and the cross-fertilization between 
agent theory and application. This year is also the 20th year of the 
German special inerest group on Distributed Artificial Intelligence – 
another reason for an inspiring conference on agents! The conference 
language is English.

Salve – welcome to Trier! The conference takes place in Germany’s oldest 
city - close to Saarbrücken, Frankfurt/Main and Luxemburg as well as the 
well-known Leibniz Center for Informatics (Schloss Dagstuhl).

The MATES series has been ranked by the Computing Research & Education 
initiative as a CORE B conference. The proceedings will be published as 
Springer LNCS.

Contact: mates2012 at easychair.org

TOPICS OF INTEREST

MATES 2012 welcomes contributions from the field of agent-oriented 
computing and agent technologies. We solicit both basic as well as 
applied research papers on recent advances in the area of intelligent 
agents and multi-agent systems in general. Also papers reporting on the 
successful application of agent technologies in any kind of domain are 
very welcome. MATES 2012 encourages submissions from recent and emerging 
areas of interest such as a Autonomic Computing, Self-organisation and 
Agreement Technologies. Additionally, we encourage the submission of 
elaborated vision and challenge papers that discuss mid-term and 
long-term directions for research and application.

The topics of interest for MATES-2012 include, but are not limited to, 
the following:
• Agent-based simulation and analysis of social networks
• Agents and communities
• Large-scale agent-based simulation of cities, economies, etc.
• Adaptive agents and multi-agent learning
• Advanced theories of collaboration: Modelling and formation of teams, 
coalitions, groups, and organizations
• Agents and autonomic computing
• Agent and multi-agent architectures
• Agents and peer-to-peer computing
• Agents and pervasive computing
• Agents for Ambient Intelligence
• Agent-based service discovery, matchmaking, brokering, and composition
• Agent communication languages
• Agents for e-business and e-government
• Agent technologies in the context of service-oriented computing and 
architectures
• Agent to non-agent interoperability
• Agents in novel applications
• Application of agent-technologies in industrial practice
• Artificial social systems: Conventions, norms, institutions; trust and 
reputation
• Autonomous robots and robot teams
• Commitment, delegation, responsibility, and obligations in artificial 
and hybrid societies
• Complex systems and their management
• Coordination, negotiation, argumentation, and conflict resolution
• Deployed agent-based business applications
• Hybrid human and agent societies
• User modelling and interface agents
• Embodied conversational actors and believable agents
• Mobile agents
• Model-driven design of multi-agent systems
• Multi-agent-based simulation
• Multi-agent planning and scheduling
• Multi-agent platforms and tools
• Multi-agent (social) simulation and (cognitive) modelling with agents
• Practical aspects of programming agent systems: Robustness, fault 
tolerance, scalability and performance measurement
• Roles and structures, adaptive learning and cognition in 
organizational models
• Semantics of the dynamics of organizational models
• (Semantic) web services and agents
• Standards for agents and multi-agent systems

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Paper submissions to MATES-2012 will be handled using the EasyChair 
system at this link: www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mates2012.

Submissions must comply with the following requirements:

* For preparation of papers to be submitted please follow the 
instructions for authors available at the Springer LNCS Web page: 
http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html.
* The length of each paper including figures and references shall not 
exceed 14 pages.
* All papers must be written in English and submitted in PDF format.
* Papers that have been accepted or are under review by other 
conferences or journals are not eligible for submission. However, we 
encourage interdisciplinary contributions submitted or presented in part 
to a forum outside of agent technology.

Submissions not conforming to the above instructions may be rejected 
without review.

Please notice that the submission of a paper should be regarded as an 
undertaking that, should the paper be accepted, at least one of the 
authors will attend the conference to present the work.

MATES 2012 will include a doctoral mentoring program: This program will 
provide an opportunity for students to interact closely with established 
researchers in their fields, to receive feedback on their work and to 
get advice on managing their careers.

The Doctoral Mentoring Program will:

* Match each student with an established researcher who will act as a 
mentor.
* Allow students an opportunity to present their work to a friendly 
audience of other students, as well as mentors.
* Provide students with contacts and networking opportunities.

IMPORTANT DATES

Abstracts due: April 21, 2012
Full papers due: April 28, 2012
Notification: June 19, 2012
Doctoral mentoring: July 13, 2012
Camera-ready submission: July 13, 2012
Early registration: August 5, 2012
Conference: October 10-12, 2012

CONFERENCE CHAIRS

* Christian Guttmann (EBTIC - Etisalat BT Innovation Centre, Abu Dhabi, UAE)
* Ingo J. Timm (U Trier, Germany)

STEERING COMMITTEE

* Matthias Klusch (DFKI, Germany)
* Winfried Lamersdorf (U Hamburg, Germany)
* Jörg P. Müller (TU Clausthal, Germany)
* Paolo Petta (U Vienna, Austria)
* Rainer Unland (U Duisburg-Essen, Germany)
* Gerhard Weiss (Maastricht U, The Netherlands)

-- 
Christian Guttmann, PhD
iCare Theme Leader
http://events.kustar.ac.ae/EBTIC/Staff/Christian_Guttmann.html
EBTIC (Etisalat BT Innovation Centre)
Khalifa University
Abu Dhabi Campus
PO Box 127788
Abu Dhabi UAE
Tel: +97124018125