Call  for Papers
             Third International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems
                                   ICMAS'98

                   http://www-leibniz.imag.fr/MAGMA/ICMAS98

                      2 July (Thurs) - 8 July (Wed), 1998
               Cite des Sciences - La Villette, Paris, France

Multi-agent systems are computational systems in which several agents
interact.  The concept of "agent" as a computational entity that can
accomplish goals has spawned a plethora of activity in artificial intelligence
and more widely in computer science. Much of the conceptual power of this
exciting new paradigm arises from the flexibility and sophistication of the
interactions and the organizations in which the agents participate. Agents can
communicate, cooperate, coordinate, negotiate with one another, both in
advancement of their own goals and for the good of the overall system in which
they are situated.  Multi-agent systems may involve computational agents that
are homogeneous or heterogeneous, they may involve activity on the part of
agents having common goals or distinct goals, and they may involve
participation on the part of humans as well as artificial agents.

ICMAS is the premiere international forum specifically devoted to the study of
agent interaction and the development of multiagent systems. ICMAS
participants typically come from the physical, computational, and social
sciences, and are drawn together by their mutual interest in understanding the
phenomena that arise when agents interact, in investigating the interplay
between agents as individuals and as participants in collective settings, and
in formulating languages, architectures, and mechanisms that are specifically
applicable to multiagent systems.


ICMAS'98 TOPICS
---------------

Building on the traditions of ICMAS'95 (June 1995) in San Francisco and
ICMAS'96 (December 1996) in Kyoto, ICMAS'98 is committed to maintaining global
involvement and disciplinary breadth, where the topics of interest will
include but are not limited to:

Interaction capabilities, constraints, and prefererences :
 *  Communication languages and protocols (semantics, pragmatics, etc.)
 *  Organization and social structure (agent roles, social laws, etc.)
 *  Cooperative problem solving (collective goals driving individual choices)
 *  Decentralized systems (individual choices driving collective behavior)
 *  Mechanism design (incentives for aligning individual and group goals)

Reasoning about coordinated interactions
 *  Conflict resolution and negotiation
 *  Multi-agent planning
 *  Coalition formation and organization self-design
 *  Agent modeling and plan recognition
 *  Multi-agent learning     
 *  Distributed search and constraint satisfaction   
 *  Foundations (multi-agent logics, game-theory, economics, philosophy, etc.)

Engineering, deploying, and evaluating multiagent systems
 *  Agent programming languages
 *  Multi-agent programming frameworks
 *  Agent models and architectures
 *  Standards for multi-agent technology (interaction protocols, languages)
 *  Development and engineering methodologies    
 *  Evaluation of multi-agent systems     
 *  Testbeds and development environments
 *  User interfaces and personalizable agents

Practical applications
 *  Agents in electronic commerce
 *  Cooperative information systems
 *  Distributed resource allocation
 *  Information agents on the internet
 *  Multi-agent simulations of social and biological systems
 *  Multiagent vision and robotics
 *  Believable agents in multi-agent settings   
 *  Interacting personal digital assistants
 *  ...and many others...

Contributions to ICMAS are encouraged to span several of these areas, since
investigations into aspects of multiagent systems should tie together ideas on
what the nature of the interactions are, how computational agents should
operate within this framework, how the results have been developed and
evaluated, and the practical significance of the work.


AGENTS' WORLD CONTEXT
---------------------

ICMAS'98 is the cornerstone of a comprehensive gathering of researchers
interested in multiagent systems in numerous settings. Coordinated with
ICMAS'98 will be held seven international events (six workshops and one
competition):

ATAL'98       Agents Theories, Architectures, and Languages
                 Workshop focusing on Theory and Practice of Intelligent Agents
CIA'98        Cooperative Information Agents
                 Workshop focusing on Multi-Agent Systems and Databases
IATA'98       Intelligent Agents for Telecommunications Applications
                 Workshop focusing on Multi-Agent Systems & Telecommunications
CRW'98        Collective Robotics
                 Workshop focusing on Multi-Agent Systems and Robotics
ACW'98        Agents in CommunityWare
                 Workshop focusing on Multi-Agent Systems and Telematics
MABS'98        Multi-Agent Systems and Agent-Based Simulation
                 Focusing on MAS, Social Sciences & Artificial Life
Paris'98      Featuring Robocup'98 and FIRA RWC'98
                 International Competition between Soccer Robots Teams

ICMAS'98 and the seven coordinated events together comprise the "Agents'
World" event that will be held over 5 full days (July 3-4-6-7-8, 1998), with
tutorials presented the day before (July 2, 1998). The ICMAS'98 conference and
the coordinated events will consist of technical sessions presenting reviewed
papers and plenary sessions bringing together different aspects of this highly
interdisciplinary area.


ICMAS'98 SUBMISSIONS
--------------------

Authors should submit five (5) copies of papers and an email version of the
abstract by November 21, 1997 to one of the programme co-chairs. Papers
received after the deadline will be returned unopened. All papers will be
reviewed by the program committee, and authors will be notified of acceptance
by February 13, 1998. Each paper should clearly indicate the nature of its
scientific contribution, and the problems, domains, or environments to which
it is applicable.

Paper Format:
Submitted papers must be printed on 8 1/2" x 11" or A4 paper using 12 point
type (10 characters per inch for typewriters). Each page must have no more
than 38 lines and an average of 75 characters per line. (This corresponds to
LaTex article style, 12 point.) Each paper should have a single title page
which includes a 150-word abstract and up to two topic areas covered by the
paper. (These will be used to focus reviewing and ultimately to structure the
technical program.)  The length of the paper must be at most 5000 words.

Multiple submission:
If a paper might also be submitted to one of the other Agents' World events,
this fact should be clearly indicated on the paper. More generally, a paper
that has been (or will be) submitted to other conferences may be submitted to
ICMAS'98 as long as (1) it is not published or presented at other conferences,
(2) the author clearly indicates on his paper the other places where it has
been submitted, and (3) the author notifies the program co-chair if he submits
his paper to other conferences during the ICMAS'98 review process. Previously
published papers or papers that have been accepted for publication in
conference proceedings, books, or journals should not be submitted to ICMAS.
Papers that have been or will be presented at small workshops/symposia whose
proceedings are available only to attendees may be submitted.


ICMAS'98 CHAIRS
---------------

General Chair:                          Organizing Chair:
 Yves Demazeau                           Alexis Drogoul
 Laboratoire LEIBNIZ-IMAG                Laboratoire LIP6
 Universites de Grenoble et CNRS         Universite de Paris 6 et CNRS
 46 avenue Felix Viallet                 4 place Jussieu
 F-38031 Grenoble cx                     F-75252 Paris Cedex 05
 France                                  France
 Yves.Demazeau@imag.fr                   Alexis.Drogoul@lip6.fr

Programme Co-chairs:
 Europe/Africa:            Americas:                 Asia/Pacific Rim:
  Nick Jennings             Ed Durfee                 Mike Georgeff
  EE Department             EE & CS Department        Australian AI Institute
  Queen Mary & W. College   University of Michigan    171 La Trobe Street
  Mile End Road             1101 Beal Avenue          Melbourne, Victoria 3000
  London E1 4NS             Ann Arbor, MI 48109       Australia
  UK                        USA                       georgeff@aaii.oz.au
  N.R.Jennings@qmw.ac.uk    durfee@umich.edu          deb@aaii.oz.au
 
Publicity Chair:           Publication Chair:        Finance Chair:
 Mike Wooldridge            Piotr Gmytrasiewicz       Mike Huhns
 EE Department              CS and E Department       E & CE Department
 Queen Mary & W. College    University of Texas       University of South
 Mile End Road                 at Arlington              Carolina
 London E1 4NS              Arlington, TX 76019       Columbia, SC 29208
 UK                         USA                       USA
 M.J.Wooldridge@qmw.ac.uk   piotr@cse.uta.edu         huhns@sc.edu


ICMAS'98 PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
----------------------------

Ron Arkin		Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Magnus Boman		Stockholm University, Sweden
Cristiano Castelfranchi	IP-CNR, Italy
Krzysztof Cetnarowicz	University of Mining and Metallurgy, Krakow, Poland
Brahim Chaib-draa	Laval University, Canada
Philip Cohen		Oregon Graduate Institute, USA
Keith Decker		University of Delaware, USA
Jim Doran		University of Essex, United Kingdom
Alexis Drogoul		Universite Paris 6, France
Jacques Ferber		Universite Montpellier II, France 
Klaus Fischer		DFKI, Germany
Francisco Garijo	Telefonica Investigacion y Desarrollo, Spain
Les Gasser		National Science Foundation, USA
Fausto Giunchiglia	Universita di Trento, Italy
Piotr Gmytrasiewicz	University of Texas at Arlington, USA
Vladimir Gorodetski	Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
Rune Gustavsson		University College of Karlskrona/Ronneby, Sweden
Michael Huhns		University of South Carolina, USA
Toru Ishida		Kyoto University, Japan
David Kinny		Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute, Australia
Mark Klein		Penn State University, USA
Sarit Kraus		Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Christian Lemaitre	Laboratorio Nacional de Informatica Avanzada, Mexico
Jean-Pierre Muller	University of Neuchatel, Switzerland
Hideyuki Nakashima	Electrotechnical Laboratory, Japan
Eugenio Oliveira	University of Porto, Portugal
Ei-Ichi Osawa		Sony Computer Science Laboratory Inc., Japan
Lin Padgham		Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia
H. Van Dyke Parunak	Industrial Technology Institute, USA
John Perram		Odense University, Denmark
Anand Rao		Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute, Australia
Antonio Rocha Costa	Pontifica Univ. Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Jeff Rosenschein	Hebrew University, Israel
Tuomas Sandholm		Washington University, USA
Sandip Sen		University of Tulsa, USA
Carles Sierra		AI Research Institute, Spain
Munindar Singh		University of North Carolina, USA
Donald Steiner		Siemens, Germany
Leon Sterling		The University of Melbourne, Australia
Katia Sycara		Carnegie-Mellon University, USA
Milind Tambe		University of Southern California, USA
Jan Treur		Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Garimella Uma		D E Shaw India Software Ltd, India
Walter Van de Velde	Riverland Next Generation, Belgium
Jacques Wainer		UNICAMP Campinas, Brazil
Gerhard Weiss		Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany
Mike Wellman		University of Michigan, USA
Wayne Wobcke		The University of Sydney, Australia
Mike Wooldridge		Queen Mary & Westfield College, United Kingdom
Makoto Yokoo		NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Japan
Chengqi Zhang		The University of New England, Australia
Shi Zhongzhi		Institute of Computing Technology CAS, China


ICMAS'98 ADVISORY COMMITTEE
---------------------------

John Campbell                         Christiano Castelfranchi    
  (University College of London, UK)    (Inst de Psicologia, CNR, Italy)
Susan E. Conry                        Yves Demazeau
  (Clarkson University,  USA)           (LEIBNIZ/CNRS, France)
Edmund Durfee                         Jacques Ferber
  (Univ. of Michigan, USA)              (Univ. of Montpellier, France)
Les Gasser                            Michael Georgeff
  (USC, USA)                            (Australian AI Institute, Australia)
Carl Hewitt                           Michael N. Huhns
  (MIT, USA)                            (Univ. of S. Carolina, USA)
Toru Ishida                           Nick Jennings
  (Kyoto University, Japan)             (Queen Mary and W. College, London, UK)
Christian Lemaitre                    Victor Lesser
  (LANIA, Xalapa, Mexico)               (Univ. of Massachusetts, USA)
Jean-Pierre Muller                    Jeffrey Rosenschein
  (Univ. Neuchatel, Switzerland)        (Hebrew University, Israel)
Donald Steiner                        Katia Sycara                      
  (Siemens AG Germany)                  (CMU, USA)
Mario Tokoro 
  (Keio Univ. / Sony CSL, Japan)


FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT ICMAS'98 AND OTHER AGENTS' WORLD COORDINATED EVENTS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

More detailed information about ICMAS'98 and Agent's World is available on :
   ICMAS'98              http://www-leibniz.imag.fr/MAGMA/ICMAS98
   Agents' World         http://www-lipn.univ-paris13.fr/AgentsWorld

The ICMAS'98 and the seven coordinated events will be held at Cite des
Sciences - La Villette, in the northern part of Paris intra-muros.
More detailed Information about the Cite des Sciences is available at :
   Cite des Sciences     http://www.club-internet.fr/cite-sciences

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