Call for Papers
                        Autonomous Agents 2001
                      Fourth International Workshop on
        DECEPTION, FRAUD AND TRUST IN AGENT SOCIETIES
                   http://www.ip.rm.cnr.it/news/wstrust.htm
                                        May 29, 2001
                           Montreal Canada

Conference URL: http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~agents2001/

** Paper Submission Deadline: MARCH 9, 2001 **

Trust underlies all interactions among autonomous agents, whether
human or artificial.  However, most existing research on agents
assumes full trust among the agents.  This is rarely justified in
practical applications.  Indeed, human societies have evolved a number
of subtle approaches to reduce deception and fraud in human
communications, exchanges and relations, and hence to assure trust
between agents.  The expansion of electronic commerce, however,
magnifies the problems of trust, because agents reach out far beyond
their familiar trade environments and may often interact with others
whom they have never met and who might have only acquired a temporary
identity.  The notion of trust has obvious relationships with the
concepts of agency, rationality, risk, reputation, control, and 
confidence. Simple
formulations of it can lead to all sorts of conundrums.

The aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers from 
different fields (AI, MAS,
Cognitive Science, Game Theory, Social and Organizational Sciences, 
and so on) that can
contribute to a better understanding of trust, reputation, and 
deception in agent
societies. In this perspective, the workshop scope ranges over all 
aspects of trust including
theoretical results on trust as well as its application in agent 
applications such as
human-computer interaction and electronic commerce.

Suggested topics include, but are not restricted to:
*        models of trust and of its functions
*        models of deception and of its functions
*        models and mechanisms of reputation
*        models of fraud
*        role of trust and trusted third parties (TTP) in electronic commerce
*        role of reputation, control and guaranties for trusting agents
*        ways to detect and prevent deception and fraud
*        secure transactions over the network

Papers should not exceed 12 pages and should be sent to one of the 
local organizer
Steve Marsh < [log in to unmask]>, with a cc to Rino Falcone
<[log in to unmask]>.  The preferred mode of submission is as a URL
to a pdf file; if that is impossible, the submission can be sent as an
email attachment.

Revised papers from previous editions of this workshop have resulted in
- a book published by Kluwer;
- two special issues of Applied Artificial Intelligence Journal;
- a Springer book in LNCS/LNAI State-of-the-Art Survey (in preparation).
Similar venues for publication will be explored for this workshop.

IMPORTANT DATES:
Submission of papers                    March 9th 2001
Decision date                           March 30th 2001
Camera ready version due                        April 16th 2001
Workshop                                May 29th, 2001

PROGRAM CHAIRS:
Rino Falcone  - IP-CNR - Italy (contact person)
Suzanne Barber - The University of Texas - USA
Munindar Singh - Computer Science- North Carolina State University - USA
Yao Hua Tan - Erasmus University Rotterdam - The Netherlands
Steve Marsh - National Research Council - Canada - (local organizer)

PROGRAM COMMITTEE (preliminary):
Andreas Birk - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Belgium
Cristiano Castelfranchi - University of Siena - Italy
Robert Demolombe - CERT/ONERA - France
Rune Gustavsson - University of Karlskrona - Sweden
Andrew J I Jones - Dept. of Philosophy - University of Oslo - Norway
Catholijn Jonker - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam - The Netherlands
Jeremy Pitt - Imperial College London - UK
Jeff Rosenschein - University of Jerusalem - Israel
Onn Shehory -  IBM Haifa Res. Labs - Israel
Chris Snijders - Dept. of Sociology, Utrecht University - The Netherlands
Eric Yu - University  of Toronto - Canada
Gerd Wagner - Faculty of Technology Management Eindhoven - University 
of Technology, The
Netherlands
Von-Wun Soo - Dept. of Computer Science, National Tsing Hua University -
Taiwan
========

==========
Rino Falcone
IP - CNR     National Research Council
Division of "Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Modeling and Interaction"
Viale Marx, 15  00137 ROMA

email: [log in to unmask]
tel: ++39 06 86090.211 fax: ++39 06 86090.214
==========

Steve