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Call for Papers 1st International Symposium on Normative Multiagent Systems
(NorMAS2005)
NorMAS2005 is a one day symposium part of the 2005 AISB convention. The
general theme for the convention is "Social Intelligence and Interaction in
Animals, Robots and Agents". It is held from April 12 to April 2005 at the
University of Hertfordshire, de Havilland Campus, Hatfield, England. AISB
conventions are organized by the largest AI society in the United Kingdom,
SSAISB which stands for Society of the Study of Artificial Intelligence and
the Simulation of Behaviour.
Norms are essential for artificial agents that are to display behaviour
comparable to human intelligent behaviour or collaborate with humans,
because the use of norms is the key of human social intelligence. Norms play
a central role in many social phenomena such as coordination, cooperation,
decision-making, etc. There is an increasing interest in the role of norms
in societies, both inside as outside the agent community. Now the time is
ripe for a symposium focussing on this central sociological concept given
that the field of (multi)agent research is moving more and more from the
individual, cognitive focussed agent models to models of socially situated
agents. NorMAS therefore focuses on normative multiagent systems.
Normative multiagent systems combine theories and frameworks for normative
systems with multiagent systems. Thus, these systems provide a promising
model for human and artificial agent co-ordination, because they integrate
norms and individual intelligence. They are a prime example of the use of
sociological theories in multiagent systems, and therefore of the relation
between agent theory and the social sciences, e.g., sociology, philosophy,
economics, legal science, etc.
NorMAS2005, as part of AISB2005, will provide an excellent opportunity to
meet researchers studying norms in cognitive science, social sciences, agent
theory, computer science, philosophy, etc. to discuss the current state and
identify potential future directions and research issues.

TOPICS OF INTEREST
The topics of this symposium include, but are not restricted to, the
following issues:


  a.. multiagent or society level:
    a.. balancing dynamics and statics at the agent (micro) and agent
society (macro) level
    b.. coordination based on normative multiagent systems
    c.. emergence of conventions, norms, roles, and normative multiagent
systems
    d.. combining conventions with regulative, permissive, constitutive and
other types of norms
    e.. relation between NorMAS and contracts, security, and (electronic)
institutions
  b.. agent level:
    a.. alternatives to and extensions of the homo economicus and BDI logics
    b.. extending logical frameworks to encompass norms in agent decision
making
    c.. how to implement theories of norms in artificial agents
  c.. applications of NorMAS:
    a.. multiagent social simulation models containing norms
    b.. mixing artificial and human agents in hybrid social systems
IMPORTANT DATES
31 October 2004: Submissions deadline
22 November 2004: Notification of authors
17 December 2004: camera ready copies deadline
14 January 2005: early registration deadline
12-15 April 2005: AISB2005 convention

PROCEEDINGS
The papers accepted for the symposium will be published in the AISB
proceedings. Moreover, the best papers will be published in a special issue
of a renowned international journal.

SUBMISSION DETAILS
The length of each paper including figures and references should not exceed
12 pages. All papers must be submitted in PDF or postscript format. A format
description will be issued shortly. Papers are to be send to the following
email address: [log in to unmask]

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
Guido Boella - Dipartimento di Informatica, Universita' di Torino (co-chair)
Cristiano Castelfranchi - Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies
(ISTC), Italy
Paul Davidsson - BTH, Sweden
André Meyer - TNO, Netherlands
Maria Fasli - Essex University, UK
Leendert van der Torre - CWI Amsterdam, Netherlands (co-chair)
Harko Verhagen - DSV, KTH/SU, Sweden (co-chair)


SYMPOSIUM WEBSITE
http://normas.di.unito.it/zope/aisb05/


AISB CONVENTION WEBSITE
http://aisb2005.feis.herts.ac.uk/