CFP: 4th German Conf. Multi-Agent System Technologies (MATES 06)

["Huhns, Michael" <huhns@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

                        Fourth German Conference on
                 Multi-Agent System Technologies (MATES 06)
                 September 19 - 21, 2006 in Erfurt, Germany
                          http://www.dfki.de/MATES
        Co-located with Net.ObjectDays 2006; September 18 - 21, 2006
                        http://www.netobjectdays.org/

IMPORTANT DATES
Submission of papers:    April      2, 2006
Notification of authors: May       22, 2006
Camera-ready papers:     June      18, 2006
Conference:              September 19-21, 2006

AIMS & SCOPE

The German conference on Multi-Agent system TEchnologieS (MATES)
provides an interdisciplinary forum for researchers, users and
developers to present and discuss latest advances in research work as
well as prototyped or fielded systems of intelligent agents and
multi-agent systems. The conference aims to promote theory and
application and covers the whole range of agent- and multi-agent
technologies.

For the fourth time the German special interest group on Distributed
Artificial Intelligence in cooperation 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
three successful predecessors in 2003, 2004, and 2005, MATES 2006 takes
place from19th to 21st of September 2006 in Erfurt in the context of the
Net.ObjectDays 2006.  The Net.ObjectDays (NODe 2006,
http://http://www.netobjectdays.org/de/index.html) provide an umbrella
for a set of conferences - such as GSEM (International Conference on
Grid Service Engineering and Management) and SOAS (International
Conference on Self-Organization and Adaptation of Multi-agent and Grid
Systems) - that cover aspects of almost any area of agent technologies,
autonomic computing, aspect-driven and model-driven architectures, and
component-based programming as well as the intersections of these
research areas.

Topics of interest of MATES 2006 are all aspects of agent-oriented
computing and agent technologies.  However, while service-oriented
architectures in general become more and more popular, agent
technologies need to be re-considered and discussed in the context of
up-coming trends in the design of such architectures.  Web service
technologies and the semantic Web are the most obvious examples of this
development.  But also up-coming trends in general software design like
the model-driven architecture and workflow patterns for service
composition need to be discussed. In this context agents operate in a
heterogeneous and possibly geographically distributed environment. A key
challenge of developing agent-based systems in this context is to search
for services that meet the agent's objectives and compose them in a
flexible manner. In the composition of these services complex patterns
of interaction might be involved and an intuitive and easy to read and
understand representation of these patterns is highly desirable.

We solicit papers that report on recent advances in the domain of
intelligent agents and multi-agent systems in general but specifically
encourage elaborated vision and challenge papers that discuss mid-term
and long-term directions for these domains in the context of the above
mentioned topics.

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

AWARDS

MATES issues a "MATES 2006 Best Paper Award".

DOCTORAL MENTORING PROGRAM

MATES 2006 intends to include a doctoral mentoring program, aimed at PhD
students in advanced stages of their research. 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.

PROCEEDINGS

The proceedings of MATES 2006 are planned to be published in the
Springer series "Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence" (LNAI).

SUBMISSION DETAILS

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 should not exceed 12 pages. All
papers must be written in English and submitted either in postscript or
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 requirements may be rejected without review.

All submissions must be sent electronically to
                            mates06@xxxxxx

Acceptable  formats are PDF  and PostScript.

ORGANISATION

General Co-Chairs:

Elisabeth Andre (University Augsburg, D)
Ning Zhong (Maebashi IT, J)

Program Co-Chairs:

Klaus Fischer (DFKI Saarbr=FCcken, D)
Ingo Timm (TZI Bremen, D)

Steering Committee:

Hans-Dieter Burkhard (HU Berlin, D)
Stefan Kirn (University Hohenheim, D)
Matthias Klusch (DFKI, D)
J=F6rg M=FCller (Siemens AG, D)
Rainer Unland (University Duisburg-Essen, D)
Gerhard Weiss (TU M=FCnchen, D)

Program Committee:

Bernhard Bauer, U Augsburg, D
Michael Beetz, U Bonn, D
Wolfgang Benn, TU Chemnitz, D
Federico Bergenti, U Parma, I
Hans-Dieter Burkhard, HU Berlin, D
Monique Calisti, Whitestein Technologies, CH
Cristiano Castelfranchi , CNR, I
Thomas Christaller, Fraunhofer AIS, D
Rosaria Conte, NRC Rome, IT
Stephen Cranefield, U Otago, NZ
Hans Czap, U Trier, D
Mehdi Dastani, U Utrecht, NL
Yves Demazeau, LEIBNIZ/IMAG, F
J=F6rg Denziger, U Calgary, CDN
Torsten Eymann, U Bayreuth, D
Ana Garcia Serrano, TU Madrid, E
Fausto Giunchiglia, U Trento, I
Marie-Pierre Gleizes, IRIT Toulouse, F
Rune Gustavsson, Blekinge TH, S
Heikki Helin, TeliaSonera Helsinki, FIN
Heinrich Hussmann, TU Dresden, D
Toru Ishida, U Kyoto, J
Catholijn Jonker, U Nijmengen, NL
Hillol Kargupta, UMBC Baltimore, USA
Stefan Kirn, U Hohenheim, D
Franziska Kl=FCgl-Frohmeyer, U W=FCrzburg, D
Matthias Klusch, DFKI GmbH, D
Ryszard Kowalczyk, TU Swinburne, A
Daniel Kudenko, U York, UK
Karl Kurbel, EU Viadrina Frankfurt, D
Winfried Lamersdorf, U Hamburg, D
J=FCrgen Lind, iteratec, D
Gabriela Lindemann, HU Berlin, D
Jiming Liu, Hongkong Baptist U, TJ
Stefano Lodi, U Bologna, I
Beatriz Lopez, U Girona, E
Thomas Malsch, TU Hamburg-Harburg, D
Heinz-J=FCrgen M=FCller, Berufsakademie Mannheim, D
J=F6rg M=FCller, Siemens, D
Werner Nutt, Heriot-Watt U Edinburgh, UK
James Odell, Agentis Software, USA
Andrea Omicini, U Bologna, I
Sascha Ossowski, U Rey Juan Carlos Madrid, E
Paolo Petta, OEFAI Vienna, A
Stefan Poslad , Queen Mary U London, UK
Frank Puppe, U W=FCrzburg, D
Alois Reitbauer, ProFACTOR, A
Wolfgang Renz, HAW Hamburg, D
Heiko Schuldt, UMIT Innsbruck, A
Onn Shehory, IBM Research, IT
John Shepherdson, British Telecom, UK
Von-Wun Soo, National Tsing Hua U, TW
Steffen Staab, U Koblenz, D
Robert Tolksdorf, TU Berlin, D
Adelinde Uhrmacher, U Rostock, D
Rainer Unland, U Duisburg-Essen, D
Wiebe Van der Hoek, U Liverpool, UK
Laszlo Zsolt Varga, MTA SZTAKI, H
Daniel Veit, U Karlsruhe, D

CONTACT

Klaus Fischer
German Research Center for
Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH)
D-66123 Saarbr=FCcken, Germany
Phone: +49 (681) 302-3917
Fax  : +49 (681) 302-2235
Klaus.Fischer@xxxxxxx

Ingo Timm
University of Bremen
Center for Computing Technologies (TZI)
Intelligent Systems
D-28334 Bremen
Phone: +49 (421) 218 - 81 76
Fax  : +49 (421) 218 - 71 96
itimm@xxxxxxx