-------------------------------------------------------------------------
CALL FOR PAPERS

In conjunction with AAMAS / ICML / IJCAI-ECAI 2018

1st International Workshop on
Real Time compliant Multi-Agent Systems
--- RTcMAS 2018 ---

Stockholm - July 15, 2018
http://airtlab.dii.univpm.it/rtcmas
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


AIM and SCOPE
=============
Since Artificial Intelligence applications became mature, there has been growing interest in applying them into complex systems and physical equipments, especially in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) scenarios. Unfortunately, most AI algorithms are characterized by unpredictable or high-variance performances, making them unsuitable for real-time applications under hard deadlines. Recently, research has been conducted on tailoring AI techniques to make them more predictable by explicitly reasoning “within and about” strict timing constraints (deadlines and precedence constraints between different tasks).
Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) have been a relevant topic within AI since its very beginning, and their technological advancements lead to a concrete adoption of decentralized flexible systems with increasing connections, interactions, and computational capabilities. However, little effort has been spent to transfer real-time approaches over MAS where additional constraints deriving from concurrent use of mutually exclusive resources stand (e.g. internal memory, communication channels, and peripherals such as sensors and actuators). Today radically new challenges are arising from the domains of the “Internet of Things” (IoT), CPS and “safety-critical” systems. Unfortunately, in these regards MAS tend to reproduce the same myopic approach of their parent discipline: high-quality of reasoning and human-like interaction with little attention to concrete temporal and resources constraints. In “safety-critical” systems, MAS should not only exhibit rational human-standard behaviors, they must also guarantee the completions of tasks within their deadlines without violating priorities and precedences constraints in accessing mutually exclusive resources. Furthermore, since agents interact, negotiate resources and exchange executions of tasks in a social manner, real-time guarantees should not only be provided at the level of each single agent but they should also be evaluated at the level of the "emergent behaviour" of the entire Agency, and this last vision is quite challenging from a theoretical point of view.

The 1st International workshop on Real-Time compliant Multi-Agent Systems (RTcMAS) aims at gathering contributions from both theoretical and pragmatic perspectives, targeting the employment of MAS in IoT and CPS through the exploitation of methodologies, algorithms and applications from the Real Time Community. As such, RTcMAS has the potential to gather the attention of the AI-interested audience from IJCAI-ECAI and AAMAS, with the goal of building the grounds for the next-generation Intelligent CPS, capable to face the challenges of the “ever more connected” IoT era.


RELEVANT TOPICS
===============
Participants are invited to submit papers on all research and application aspects of RTcMAS, including, but not limited to:

- Real-Time Multi-Agent Systems
- Real-Time Autonomous Systems
- Real-Time Distributed Problem Solving
- Real-Time Smart Task Allocation and Execution
- Real-Time Negotiation and Interaction Protocols
- Simulators and Architectures for Real-Time MAS
- Agent-Oriented Programming for Control Applications
- Agent-Oriented Programming for the Internet Of Things
- Agent-Oriented Programming for Cyber-Physical Systems
- Agent Oriented Software Engineering for Real-Time Systems
- Cyber-Physical Agents
- Emergent Behavioral analysis
- Real-Time Behavior Scheduling
- Robot and Multi-robot Systems
- Simulation of Multi-Agent Systems
- Real-Time Cooperation and Coordination
- Agent Platforms for safety-critical systems
- Performance analysis of Multi-Agent Systems
- Response Time analysis in Multi-Agent Systems
- Industrial applications of Multi-Agent Systems

PAPER SUBMISSION
================
Participants are invited to submit papers from 10 up to 16 pages in length, addressing the topics of the workshop.

Accepted papers, presented at the workshop by one of the authors, will be published in the LNAI Proceedings of RTcMAS (with an ISBN).
Quality, relevance, and originality will impact on the acceptance of the submitted papers. Either full research reports, work-in-progress reports, and literature reviews are all welcome.

Papers must be edited using the LNCS format:

http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0

and be submitted electronically as PDF files via EasyChair at:

https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=rtcmas2018

Papers will be reviewed by at least three PC members. If a paper is accepted, at least one author must register for the workshop and present the paper at the workshop in person.

IMPORTANT DATES:
================
- Paper Submission: May 11, 2018
- Final Notification: May 25, 2018
- Camera Ready Due: June 15, 2018
- Workshop: July 15, 2018

PROGRAM CHAIRS
==============
Davide Calvaresi -- Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy, University of Applied Science Western Switzerland, Switzerland
Aldo Franco Dragoni -- Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy
Giorgio Buttazzo -- Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
=================
Alper Turan Alan, University of Southampton, United Kingdom
José Barbosa, Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Portugal
Alessandro Biondi, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy
Jean-Paul Calbimone, University of Applied Science Western Switzerland, Switzerland
Daniel Cesarini, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy
Vincent Chevrier, Université de Lorraine, France
Alevtina Dubovitskaya, University of Applied Science Western Switzerland, Switzerland
Nicola Falcionelli, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy
Stephan Galland, Université Bourgogne France-Comté, France
Paolo Giorgini, Università di Trento, Italy
Stamatis Karnouskos, SAP, Germany
Paulo Leitão, Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Portugal
Mauro Marinoni, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy
Dagmawi Neway Mekuria, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy
Sara Montagna, Università di Bologna, Italy
Yazan Mualla, Université Bourgogne France-Comté, France
Amro Najjar, École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne, France
Eugénio Oliveira, University of Porto, Portugal
Nelson Rodrigues, Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Portugal
Michael Schumacher, University of Applied Science Western Switzerland, Switzerland
Paolo Sernani, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy
Arnon Sturm, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel