MATES 2011 - The Ninth German Conference on Multi-Agent System Technologies
October, 6th-7th, 2011.
Berlin, Germany

The German Conference on Multi-Agent System Technologies (MATES) provides an interdisciplinary forum for researchers, users, and developers of intelligent agents and multi-agent systems. The conference focuses particularly on enabling technologies for truly open distributed systems -- covering a wide spectrum of approaches from self-organization to agreement computing.

MATES 2011 takes place in Berlin in co-location with Informatik 2011, the 41st Annual Conference of the 'Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.' (GI), and KI 2011, the 34th Annual German Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

The MATES series has been ranked by the Computing Research & Education initiative as a CORE B conference.

Contact: mates2011@ia.urjc.es

AIMS AND 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 covers the whole range of agent- and multi-agent technologies and aims to promote its theory and applications.

Building on the successful predecessors from 2003 to 2010, MATES 2011 will be co-located with Informatik 2011, the 41st Annual Conference of the 'Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.' (GI), and KI 2011, the 34th Annual German Conference on Artificial Intelligence. It will take place from October 6 to 7, 2011 in Berlin. The participants of MATES 2011 will also have full access to the concurrently running program of the "Informatik 2011" and the "KI 2011" conference. The MATES series has been ranked by the Computing Research & Education initiative as a CORE B conference.

TOPICS OF INTEREST

MATES 2011 welcomes contributions from the field of agent-oriented computing and agent technologies. We solicit both basic as well as applied research papers on recent advances in the area of intelligent agents and multi-agent systems in general. Also papers reporting on the successful application of agent technologies in any kind of domain are very welcome. MATES 2011 encourages especially submissions from recent and emerging areas of interest such as a Autonomic Computing, Self-organisation and Agreement Technologies. Additionally, we encourage the submission of elaborated vision and challenge papers that discuss mid-term and long-term directions for research and application.

The topics of interest for MATES-2011 include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Adaptive agents and multi-agent learning
* Advanced theories of collaboration: Modelling and formation of teams, coalitions, groups, and organizations
* Agents and autonomic computing
* Agent and multi-agent architectures
* Agents and peer-to-peer computing
* Agents and pervasive computing
* Agents for Ambient Intelligence
* Agent-based service discovery, matchmaking, brokering, and composition
* Agent communication languages
* Agents for e-business and e-government
* Agent technologies in the context of service-oriented computing and architectures
* Agent to non-agent interoperability
* Agents in novel applications
* Application of agent-technologies in industrial practice
* Artificial social systems: Conventions, norms, institutions; trust and reputation
* Autonomous robots and robot teams
* Commitment, delegation, responsibility, and obligations in artificial and hybrid societies
* Complex systems and their management
* Coordination, negotiation, argumentation, and conflict resolution
* Deployed agent-based business applications
* Hybrid human and agent societies
* User modelling and interface agents
* Embodied conversational actors and believable agents
* Mobile agents
* Model-driven design of multi-agent systems
* Multi-agent planning and scheduling
* Multi-agent platforms and tools
* Multi-agent (social) simulation and (cognitive) modelling with agents
* Practical aspects of programming agent systems: Robustness, fault tolerance, scalability and performance measurement
* Roles and structures, adaptive learning and cognition in organizational models
* Semantics of the dynamics of organizational models
* Standards for agents and multi-agent systems

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Paper submissions to MATES-2011 will be handled using the EasyChair system at this link: www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mates2011.

Submissions must comply with the following requirements:

* 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 shall not exceed 12 pages.
* All papers must be written in English and submitted in 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 instructions may be rejected without review.

Please notice that the submission of a paper should be regarded as an undertaking that, should the paper be accepted, at least one of the authors will attend the conference to present the work.

MATES 2010 Doctoral Mentoring Program

MATES 2011 and KI 2011 will include a joint doctoral mentoring program, aimed at PhD students at 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.
The Doctoral Mentoring Program will:

* Match each student with an established researcher who will act as a mentor.
* Allow students an opportunity to present their work to a friendly audience of other students, as well as mentors.
* Provide students with contacts and networking opportunities.


How to apply?

Please send the following documents via mail to schumann@nii.ac.jp

1. A two-page abstract of your thesis, formatted following the MATES guidelines, which describes research completed and plans for remaining work.
2. CV (max 2 pages) that covers background (name, university, supervisor), education (degree sought, year/status in degree, previous degrees), employment, and relevant experience in research (e.g. publications, presentations, conferences attended, etc).
3. Research statement (1 page) with a short research description in which you please answers to the following questions:

* Have you submitted (or will submit) a paper to the MATES 2011 conference or co-located conferences? If yes, provide list of authors, title, and where submitted.

* Expected date of graduation.
* 
 Type of job desired.




IMPORTANT DATES

Abstracts due: April 11, 2011
Full papers due: April 15, 2011
Doctoral Mentoring Applications: July 1, 2011
Notification: July 15, 2011
Camera-ready submission: July 31, 2011
Early registration: July 31, 2011

MATES 2011 conference: October 6-7, 2011

CONFERENCE CHAIRS

* Franziska Klügl (U Örebro, Sweden)
* Sascha Ossowski (U Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain)



DOCTORAL MENTORING CHAIR (KI/MATES)

* René Schumann (National Institute of Informatics, Japan)



PROGRAM COMMITTEE (to be completed)

* Sahin Albayrak, TU Berlin, Germany
* Klaus-Dieter Althoff, U Hildesheim, Germany
* Bernhard Bauer, U Augsburg, Germany
* Ana Bazzan, UFRGS, Brazil
* Holger Billhardt, U Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
* Vicent Botti, TU Valencia, Spain
* Lars Braubach, U Hamburg, Germany
* Frances Brazier, TU Delft, Netherlands
* Jürgen Dix, TU Clausthal, Germany
* Torsten Eymann, U Bayreuth, Germany
* Klaus Fischer, DFKI, Germany
* Maria Ganzha, Elblag U of Humanities and Economy, Poland
* Paolo Giorgini, U Trento, Italy
* Christian Guttmann, EBTIC, UAE
* Koen Hindriks, TU Delft, Netherlands
* Wiebe van der Hoek, U Liverpool, UK
* Tom Holvoet, KU Leuven, Belgium
* Wojtek Jamroga, U Luxembourg, Luxemburg
* Stefan Kirn, U Hohenheim, Germany
* Matthias Klusch, DFKI, Germany
* Daniel Kudenko, U York, UK
* Stefano Lodi, U Bologna, Italy
* Beatriz Lopez, U Girona, Spain
* Simon Miles, King's College London, UK
* Daniel Moldt, U Hamburg, Germany
* Pavlos Moraitis, U Paris Descartes, France
* Jörg Müller, TU Clausthal, Germany
* Eugenio Oliveira, U Porto, Portugal
* Andrea Omicini, U Bologna, Italy
* Julian Padget, U Bath, UK
* Ana Paiva, U Lisbon, Portugal
* Marcin Paprzycki, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
* Michal Pechoucek, Czech TU, Czech Republic
* Paolo Petta, OFAI, Austria
* Alexander Pokahr, U Hamburg, Germany
* Marko Schorlemmer, CSIC, Spain
* Frank Schweitzer, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
* Kuldar Taveter, TU Tallinn, Estonia
* Ingo Timm, U Trier, Germany
* Denis Trcek, U Ljubliana, Slovenia
* Adelinde Uhrmacher, U Rostock, Germany
* Rainer Unland, U Duisburg-Essen, Germany
* Lászlo Z. Varga, MTA SZTAKI, Hungary
* Cees Witteveen, TU Delft, Netherlands


STEERING COMMITTEE

* Matthias Klusch (DFKI, Germany)
* Winfried Lamersdorf (U Hamburg, Germany)
* Jörg P. Müller (TU Clausthal, Germany)
* Paolo Petta (U Vienna, Austria)
* Rainer Unland (U Duisburg-Essen, Germany)