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2nd CALL FOR PAPERS - M A B S 2008

Ninth International Workshop on
MULTI-AGENT-BASED SIMULATION (MABS'08)

http://mabs2008.dcti.iscte.pt
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To be held at The Sixth International Joint Conference on Autonomous
Agents & Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2008) Estoril, Portugal, May 12-13,
2008.

AIMS AND SCOPE

The meeting of researchers from MAS engineering and the
social/economic/organizational sciences is extensively recognized for
its role in cross-fertilization, and has undoubtedly been an important
source of inspiration for the body of knowledge that has been produced
in the MAS area. Multi-Agent Based Simulation (MABS) is a vibrant
inter-disciplinary area which brings together researchers within the
agent-based social simulation community (ABSS) and the Multiagent
Systems community (MAS). The focus of ABSS is on simulating and
synthesising social behaviours in order to understand real social
systems via the development and testing of new concepts. The focus of
MAS is on the solution of hard engineering problems related to the
construction, deployment and efficient operation of multiagent systems.
The MABS workshop series continues to pursue its goal to bring together
researchers interested in MAS engineering, with researchers focused on
finding efficient solutions to modelling complex social systems, in such
areas as economics, management, and organizational and social sciences
in general. In all of these areas, agent theories, metaphors, models,
analysis, experimental designs, empirical studies, and methodological
principles, all converge into simulation as a way of achieving
explanations and predictions, exploring and testing of hypotheses,
better designs and systems.

The range of technical issues that MABS has dealt with, and continues to
deal with, is quite diverse and extensive. Relevant topics to this
workshop include, but are not limited to, the following:

Simulation methodologies
- standards for MABS
- methodologies and simulation languages for MABS
- simulation platforms and tools for MABS
- visualisation and analytic tools
- approaches for large-scale simulations
- scalability and robustness in MABS

Simulation of social and economic behaviour
- formal and agent models of social behaviour
- cognitive modelling and social simulation
- game theory and simulation
- social structure: social networks and simulating organisations
- simulating social complexity (e.g. structures and norms, social order,
emergence of cooperation and coordinated action, self-organisation, the
micro-macro link)

Applications
- MABS in environmental modelling
- agent-based experimental economics
- participative-based simulation
- MABS and games

All of these topics are important for both the MAS community doing
simulation, and for economic, social, and organisational scientists
doing simulation. Without limiting the range of traditional topics
addressed in this area, in this workshop we also expect to challenge the
community to submit the latest results in one additional area:
MABS in education: Opportunities and challenges

Given the relatively mature stage of simulation both in MAS engineering
and the social/economic sciences, the bulk of material produced for
educational and pedagogical goals is becoming quite significant. On the
other hand, the topic of using simulation itself for educational
purposes is becoming a consolidated area, for which the agent paradigm
provides obvious insights and techniques. The potential for
cross-fertilization between researchers in MAS engineering and
social/economic scientists may well be of significant interest, insofar
as simulation provides opportunities for students to practice their
theoretical knowledge. In effect, one major benefit of work with
simulation is that students are able to conduct experiments with
artificial agents, and gain practical experience and convey knowledge
about economic/social processes, that would be difficult to isolate in
natural agents.

PREVIOUS MABS WORKSHOPS

This workshop is the ninth of the MABS series. From 1998 to 2000, the
workshop was organized every two years, in association with ICMAS. Since
2002, the workshop has become an annual event, always associated with
AAMAS (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and now 2008). The impact of
the Multi-Agent-Based book series has been quite significant, ranked 705
among all publications in computer science available from DBLP (of which
there are above 1200), as measured for example by databases such as
citeseer (http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/impact.html). This excellent level
of quality has been recognised since the inception of the meeting, and
its proceedings have always been published by Springer-Verlag, as the
Multi-Agent-Based Simulation Series. Further details of the previous
workshops can be found at http://www.pcs.usp.br/~mabs.

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission deadline: January 25, 2008
Notification of acceptance: February 25, 2008
Deadline for authors' revised contributions, according to reviewers'
remarks: March 3, 2008
MABS 2008 Workshop, Estoril, Portugal: May 12-13, 2008

PUBLICATION

All accepted papers will be printed in the AAMAS workshop proceedings. In addition, following the
tradition of the previous MABS workshops, we intend to publish the accepted papers, after a further
reviewing process, in Springer-Verlag's Multi-Agent-Based Simulation book series, LNAI, with the
title "Multi-Agent-Based Simulation IX, 9th International Workshop, Lisbon, Portugal, May 2008,
Revised Papers". The preliminary schedule for the post-proceedings process is the following:

Second reviewing: September, 2008
Revised camera-ready papers: October, 2008
Publication: December, 2008

SUBMISSION

A PDF file containing the paper should be e-mailed to [log in to unmask] by the 25th of January
2008.
The paper must be in Springer LNCS format (see
http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html) and no more than 12 pages
long.

ACCEPTANCE STANDARDS

All submissions will go through a peer review process, with two or three
independent PC members reviewing each submission. Only those deemed to
be 1) relevant to the workshop's aims, 2) presenting original work, and
3) of good quality and clarity will be accepted. Following the workshop,
participants will be required to revise their papers, which will undergo
a second review process before publication in the post-proceedings.

ORGANISATION

Nuno David (Lisbon University Institute, ISCTE, Portugal)
Jaime Sichman (Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil)

THE MABS STEERING COMMITTEE

Frédéric Amblard (University of Toulouse, France)
Jaime Simão Sichman (University of São Paulo, Brazil)
Keiki Takadama (University of Electro-Communications, Japan)
Keith Sawyer (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
Luis Antunes (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
Nigel Gilbert (University of Surrey, UK)
Paul Davidsson (Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden)
Rosaria Conte (National Research Council, Italy)
Scott Moss (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Adolfo López Paredes (INSISOC, Valladolid, Spain)
Akira Namatame (National Defense Academy, Japan)
Alexis Drogoul (IRD, MSI research team, Vietnam)
Ana Bazzan (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil)
Carles Sierra (IIIA, Spain)
Cesáreo Hernández Iglesias (INSISOC, Valladolid, Spain)
Claudio Cioffi-Revilla (George Mason University, USA)
Cristiano Castelfranchi (ISTC/CNR, Italy)
David Hales (University of Bologna, Italy)
David Sallach (Argonne National Lab and University of Chicago, USA)
Diana Adamatti (University of São Paulo, Brazil)
Elizabeth Sklar (City University of New York, USA)
Emma Norling (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
Ernesto Costa (University of Coimbra, Portugal)
Frédéric Amblard (University of Toulouse, France)
H. Van Parunak (NewVectors LLC, USA)
Harko Verhagen (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Helder Coelho (Lisbon University, Portugal)
Jaime Sichman (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil)
Jan Treur (Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Joao Balsa (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Jorge Louçã (ISCTE, Portugal)
Juan Pavon Mestras (Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain)
Juliette Rouchier (Greqam/CNRS, France)
Keith Sawyer (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
Keiki Takadama (University of Electro-Communications, Japan)
Klaus Troitzsch (University of Koblenz, Germany)
Liz Sonenberg (University Melbourne, Australia)
Luis Antunes (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
Marco Janssen (Indiana University, USA)
Maria Marietto (Universidade Federal do ABC, Brazil)
Mario Paolucci (IP/CNR Rome, Italy)
Nick Gotts (Macaulay Institute, Scotland)
Nigel Gilbert (University of Surrey, UK)
Nuno David (Lisbon University Institute, ISCTE, Portugal)
Oswaldo Teran (University of Los Andes, Venezuela)
Paul Davidsson (Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden)
Paulo Novais (Universidade do Minho, Portugal)
Rainer Hegselmann (University of Bayreuth, Germany)
Robert Axtell (George Mason University, USA)
Rosaria Conte (ISTC/CNR Rome, Italy)
Satoshi Kurihara (Osaka University, Japan)
Scott Moss (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
Sung-Bae Cho (Yonsei University, Korea)
Takao Terano (University of Tsukuba, Japan)
Wander Jager (University of Groningen, Netherlands)

WORKSHOP WEB PAGE

http://mabs2008.dcti.iscte.pt