Call for Papers


Multi-Agents for modeling Complex Systems  (MA4CS'06)

http://www710.univ-lyon1.fr/~hassas/MA4CS/index.html

Satellite Workshop of
the European Conference on Complex Systems 2006 (ECCS '06)

http://complexsystems.lri.fr/Portal/tiki-index.php?page=ECCS%2706&bl


Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
25-29 September 2006


PRESENTATION

The Multi-Agents paradigm is more and more used as a tool for  modeling, 
simulating or programming complex systems, in different  disciplines: 
mechanics, economy, urbanism, sociology, biology,  computer science, etc.

The Complex Systems field of research focuses on the study of systems 
that exhibit complexity as a phenomenon  inherent to the system's 
nature. The system is considered as a dynamic network of interacting 
entities, where its global behavior  and organization are obtained 
through a non linear aggregation of the  local behaviors of its 
components. The system is thus considered  through the perspective of 
its dynamics and organization.

The Multi-Agents (MAS) field of research, while being often considered 
as a sub-domain of AI, is influenced by many disciplines outside AI. 
These disciplines include Biology, Ethology, Sociology, Economics, 
Organization and Management Science, Complex Systems, and  Philosophy. 
Today MAS research activity covers different fields of  computer 
science: software engineering, AI, networks, distributed  systems,  etc. 
The MAS research focuses on the study of communications  languages, 
interaction protocols, multi-agents architectures and  methodologies, 
operational and theoretical models that facilitate the  development of 
systems designed as a set of autonomous interacting  entities (called 
agents), invested in the achievement of a collective task. Many work has 
been achieved  in the multi-agents domain. Multi-agents applications are 
developped at a large scale in different  domains, but more efforts need 
to be made to come up with  theoretically grounded models or assessed 
methodologies for modelling  and programming complex systems using the 
multi-agents paradigm.

This workshop aims to bring together researchers from MAS and  Complex 
Systems domains, in order to cross-fertilize research held in  both 
fields, and come up with, theories, tools, formal or/and  operational 
models and methodologies for MAS approaches dedicated to complex 
systems. This workshop welcomes papers submission from both mature work  
and  work in progress that contribute to cover one topic or more from 
the  topics of interest below. Contributions that could help to better  
understand why multi-agents succeed in modelling complex systems  where 
other pardigms or tools fail are particularly encouraged. We  encourage 
also, contributions on viewing multi-agents as complex  systems, and on 
the use of theories and advances in complex systems  field for 
multi-agents modelling.

The first edition of the MA4CS 
(http://www710.univ-lyon1.fr/~hassas//MA4CS/MA4CS05.html) workshop has 
focused on both MAS systems and simulations. This 2nd edition of MA4CS 
intends to  focus on the important issue of control and/or governance 
of  complex systems based on multi-agents modeling.


TOPICS

The main topics of interest include but are not restricted to:

  * Multi-agents based simulation of complex systems,
  * Self-organizing mechanisms in MAS
  * Operational models for self-organizating systems
  * Dynamics and emergent organizations in MAS
  * Co-evolution of organizations in a MAS
  * MAS based modeling of bio-inspired systems and systems  inspired by 
nature
  * Tools and methodologies for multi-agents modeling of complex  systems,
  * Formal models and theories of multi-agents modeling of complex  systems,
  * Applications of MAS based modeling in complex systems
  * Complexity and emergence control/management  in MAS
SUBMISSION

The submission should not exceed 15 pages in the Springer-Verlag LNCS  
style (http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html). It must be  sent 
either in PostScript or PDF format to the Scientific Organizers  (Salima 
Hassas or Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo).

All accepted papers will be available on the day of the workshop in a 
set of working notes.
Based on the quality of submitted papers, we inted to organize a  
Special Issue of the ACM Transaction on Autonomous and Adaptive  Systems 
Journal (TAAS) where extended versions of selected papers  from this 
workshop will be considered for publication.


IMPORTANT DATES

Abstract submission deadline (intention of submission) : July 10th, 2006
Paper submission deadline : July 20th, 2006
Notification of acceptance : September 5, 2006
Camera ready due : September 15th, 2006
Workshop (the workshop day is not fixed yet): 1 day between September  
25-29, 2006


Workshop Chairs

Salima Hassas,
University of Lyon 1, France
http://liris.cnrs.fr/salima.hassas
hassas at liris dot cnrs dot fr

Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo,
Birkbeck University of London,  UK
http://www.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/~dimarzo
Giovanna.Dimarzo at dcs dot bbk dot ac dot uk

Program Committee ( to be completed)

Sven Brueckner , Altarum Institute, Ann Arbor, USA
Vincent Chevrier , LORIA- Universite H Poincare, Nancy 1 France
Jordi Delgado, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain
Philippe De Wilde, Imperial College London, UK
Bruce Edmonds, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Amal El Fallah Seghrouchn,  LIP6, Univ. Paris X, France
Noria Foukia , University of Otago, New Zealand
Maria Gini , University of Minnesota, USA
Marie-Pierre Gleize, IRIT Toulouse, France
Mark Jelasity, University of Bologna, Italy
Anthony Kargeorgos, University of Thessaly, Greece
Philippe Massonet, CETIC, Belgium
Andrea Omicini, University of Bologna, Italy
Paul Valckenaers, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Dan Yamins, Harvard University, USA

-- 


Regards.

--------------------------------------------------
Bruce Edmonds,
Centre for Policy Modelling,
Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Bldg.,
Aytoun Street, Manchester, M1 3GH. UK.
Tel: +44 161 247 6479
http://bruce.edmonds.name