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Call for Papers
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Ninth International Workshop on
Programming Multi-Agent Systems (ProMAS'11)
(http://inf.ufrgs.br/promas2011/)

ProMAS'11 is a satellite workshop at AAMAS 2011
Taipei, Taiwan, 2-6 May 2011
(http://www.aamas2011.tw/)


The ProMAS workshop series has produced, throughout this decade, a
number of solid contributions towards programming languages and
development tools that are appropriate for the development of complex
autonomous systems that operate in dynamic environments. With
applications of autonomous software (e.g., UAVs, companion robots,
ambient intelligence, and semantic applications, to name just a few)
becoming required with wide commercial interest, it is imperative to
support the ever more complex task of professional programmers of
multi-agent systems. Importantly, such languages and tools must be
developed in a principled but practical way. ProMAS aims to address
both theoretical and practical issues related to developing and
deploying multi-agent systems.

Now in its 9th edition, ProMAS has been an invaluable venue bringing
together leading researchers from both academia and industry to
discuss issues on the design of programming languages and tools for
multi-agent systems. In particular, the workshop promotes the
discussion and exchange of ideas concerning the techniques, concepts,
requirements, and principles that are important for multi-agent
programming technology. These include the theory and applications of
agent programming languages, how to effectively implement a
multi-agent system design or specification, the verification and
analysis of agent systems, as well as the implementation of social
structures in agent-based systems (e.g., organisations, coordination,
and communication in multi-agent systems).

We encourage the submission of proposals for programming languages and
tools that provide specific programming constructs to facilitate the
implementation of the essential concepts used in multi-agent system
analysis and specifications (e.g., mental attitudes, distribution, and
social interaction). We also welcome submissions describing
significant multi-agent applications, as well as agent programming
tools that allow the integration of agents with legacy systems.
Further, we are particularly interested in approaches or applications
that show clearly the added-value of multi-agent programming, and
explain why and how this technology should be adopted by designers and
programmers both in academia and industry.


Topics of Interest
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Specific topics of interest for this workshop include, but are not
limited to:

- Programming Languages for multi-agent systems
- Programming models and abstractions for multi-agent systems
- Extensions of traditional languages for multi-agent programming
- Theoretical and practical aspects of multi-agent programming
- Computational complexity of MAS
- Semantics for multi-agent programming languages
- High-level executable multi-agent specification languages
- Algorithms, techniques, or protocols for multi-agent issues (e.g.,
coordination, cooperation, negotiation)
- Agent communication issues in multi-agent programming
- Programming of social and organisational aspects of MAS
- Programming environment aspects of MAS
- Formal methods for specification and verification of MAS
- Verification tools for implementations of MAS
- Agent development tools and platforms
- Generic tools and infrastructures for multi-agent programming
- Interoperability and standards for MAS
- Programming mobile agents
- Safety and security for mobile MAS deployment
- Fault tolerance and load balancing for mobile MAS
- Application areas for multi-agent programming languages
- Applications using legacy systems
- Programming MAS for Pervasive Applications
- Programming MAS for Multi-Robot Systems
- Programming MAS for Autonomous Software (e.g., UAVs)
- Programming MAS for Grid-based applications
- Programming MAS for the Semantic Web
- Deployed (industrial-strength) MAS
- Benchmarks and testbeds for comparing MAS languages and tools
- Integration of multi-agent and mainstream technologies


Important Dates
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Paper submission deadline: 30th January 2011
Notification of acceptance/rejection: 27th February 2011
Camera-ready copies due: 13th March 2011
Workshop Date: 2nd or 3rd May 2011


Submission Details
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Authors should submit their papers via the easychair conference
management system:
(http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=promas2011)

Papers should be formatted using Springer LNCS style
(http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html)
and have a maximum of 16 pages.


Publication
-----------

Accepted papers will be appear in informal proceedings to distributed
among participants during the workshop. As was the case with previous
editions of the ProMAS workshop, we are planning to publish extended
versions of selected and invited papers as a volume of the Lecture
Notes in Computer Science series by Springer-Verlag.


Programme Committee
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TBA


Organising Committee
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- Olivier Boissier (Ecole des Mines de St Etienne, France)
- Rafael H. Bordini (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil)
- Louise Dennis (University of Liverpool, UK)


Steering Committee
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- Rafael H. Bordini (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil)
- Mehdi Dastani (Utrecht University, Netherlands)
- Juergen Dix (Clausthal University of Technology, Germany)
- Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni (University of Paris VI, France)