I-MASC 2013 - The 4th International Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems and Collaborative Technologies (I-MASC 2013)

Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) has grown into an interdisciplinary field that includes various tracks and embraces many previously distinctive research areas. Particularly, multi-agent coordination, a sub-area of MAS, investigates how multiple intelligent computational agents work together to achieve high-level goals beyond the capabilities of single agents. Many different approaches have been investigated, such as the partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP), task structure analysis, coordination communication protocols, etc. Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS) have evolved significantly as well. These tend to investigate the design and development of effective environments or tools that help human users work together in a distributed collaborative, possibly virtual, fashion. Some notable examples of CTS include Collaboratories, collaborative design/editing, and on-line collaboration tools and environments. CTS is beginning to look at the challenges of supporting coordinated, purposive activities. MAS is still facing challenges of scaling to large numbers of entities and real-world tasks (see, for example, Hendler's question of, “where are all the intelligent agents?"1).
This workshop will explore potential synergy between CTS and MAS/coordination because they share a common ground: how multiple entities ─ intelligent agents or humans alike - work together to carry out potentially related tasks. We will ask questions of whether and how design and development of collaboration systems, promoting coordinated human activity, could be enhanced by incorporating insights from MAS. Collaboration technologies embody practical considerations from the human users' points of view, allowing users to ignore how the underlying (agent) infrastructure is implemented. Meanwhile, MAS/coordination investigates intelligent agents’ underlying algorithms and mechanisms and, in some cases, how artificial agents can interact with people as peers. Conversely, intelligent agents will not see significant acceptance, nor will they be able to manage the complexity and knowledge-intensity of meaningful practical applications, without developing some understanding of how to make effective use of human contributions throughout the specification, execution, evaluation, and refinement stages of the software lifecycle.
This workshop solicits papers that discuss synergies between MAS and CTS, possible advantages/disadvantages of hybrids between them for designing and developing modern distributed collaborative software systems, and research and/or real-world experience and/or applications and/or lessons learned that involve both CTS and MAS. That is, any paper that addresses both CTS and MAS, preferably in one or a set of applications that share similar underlying research challenges, is of interest to this workshop. An example could be: the design and development of a collaboration environment (say, a distributed planning tool) that enables multiple heterogeneous, human experts and agents to work in combination across computer networks on courses of actions in response to cyber attacks. Another example might be systems or interfaces supporting the division of labor between CTS and MAS elements during execution.
The Workshop topics include (but are not limited to) the following:
MAS: Coordination of and by Computational Agents
Agent Communication, Languages and Protocols
Agent Models and Architectures
Multi-Agent Coordination and Cooperation
Human-Agent Interaction
Multi-User/Multi-Agent Interaction
Teamwork, Coalition Formation, Coordination
Peer to Peer Coordination
Modeling the Dynamics of MAS
Agent-based System Development
Collective Decision Making
Bargaining and Negotiation
Auction and Mechanism Design
Cooperative and Non-Cooperative Agents
Complex MAS
Virtual Agents Applications
Conversational Agents
Distributed Task Planning and Execution
Cooperation with Humans and Robots
Collective Intelligence
Agent Reasoning
Mining Agents
Security Agents
CTS: Agent Technologies and Systems Supporting Collaboration Among Humans
Architectures and Design of Collaborative Systems
Frameworks and Methodologies for Collaboration
Cognitive and Psychological Issues in Collaboration
Collaborative Human-Centered Systems
Cultural Aspects & Human Factors in Collaboration
Interfaces for Collaborative Work
Social Software Based Collaboration
Visualization of Collaborative Processes
Web Infrastructure for Collaborative Applications
Information Infrastructure for Collaboration
Management of Metadata for Collaboration
Mobile and Wireless Collaboration Systems
Modeling and Simulation of Collaboration
Platforms for Collaboration
Collaboration in Domain Applications