[TYPES/announce] 1st International Workshop on Trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems (TruMAS'12)

[Manuel Mazzara]

1st International Workshop on Trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems (TruMAS'12)
KES-AMSTA 2012 Special Session, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 25-27 June 2012
http://www2.imm.dtu.dk/~ndra/TruMAS12
Proceedings published by Springer-Verlag in a volume of LNCS/LNAI.

IMPORTANT DATES

5 February 2012  Submission of papers
22 February 2012 Notification of acceptance
7 March 2012 Camera ready
25-27 June 2012 TruMAS and KES-AMSTA

WORKSHOP AIM AND SCOPE

The rapid development of computer-based technologies has made computers more and more complex and ubiquitous. Many computer-based systems are in charge of critical tasks such as, to mention only a few, the management of financial and medical databases, the monitoring of nuclear plants, the flying of airplanes, etc.
Multi-agent systems (MAS) have been proposed as a new paradigm for conceptualizing, designing, and implementing open and distributed software systems. The foundational idea behind a Multi-Agent System is to have a loosely coupled network of software agents (i.e., sophisticated computer programs that act autonomously on behalf of their users) which interact to solve problems that are beyond the individual capacities or knowledge of each single agent. Therefore, it is not surprisingly MAS have received a lot of attention as reference computing paradigm to tackle complexity in modern computer-based systems.

However, the complexity of modern computer-based systems as well as their numerous applications has inherently increased the challenges for ensuring trustworthiness. Trustworthiness encompasses vital characteristics of a system such as safety (the non-occurrence of catastrophic consequences for the environment the system works in), security (the non-occurrence of unauthorized disclosure of information), integrity (the non-occurrence of inadequate information alteration), availability (the readiness for correct service of the system), reliability (the property of the system to continuously provide service) or more generically dependability. The overall trustworthiness of a system is connected to all the aforementioned properties and should be regarded holistically. Functional correctness, security, safety, reliability are facets that have to be ensured for the system's components as well as for the system as a whole.

The 1st International Workshop on Trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems (TruMAS 2012) aims at bringing together researchers, engineers and practitioners interested in all the different aspects of trust, dependability and security in Multi-Agent Systems. The workshop is expected to stimulate discussions about the future development of appropriate models, methods, notations, languages and tools for trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems. The overall goal is to explore the different facets of trustworthiness in Multi-Agent Systems, how every single aspect can be fostered, and how they relate. 

Topics of interests include, but are not limited to:
- Trust and reputation models, metrics and assessment in Multi-Agent Systems
- Dependability facets in Multi-Agent Systems
- Fault-tolerance and robustness in Multi-Agent Systems
- Architectures for trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems
- Robust and secure communication in Multi-Agent Systems
- Robust and secure negotiation in Multi-Agent Systems
- Software engineering methodologies for trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems
- Security and access control in open Multi-Agent Systems
- Self-configuration and adaptation
- Formal methods and frameworks to model, analyze, prove, or measure aspects of trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems
- Industrial experiences in the adoption of trust-based Multi-Agent Systems approaches
- Rigorous software development to ensure trustworthiness in Multi-Agent Systems

Since the overall goal of trustworthy Multi-Agent Systems includes the investigation of several cross- disciplinary issues such as a deep understanding of trust vs. trustworthiness, trust-based approaches, dependability, etc..., a synergy between different scientific communities and research disciplines is needed. For this reason, although the workshop seems naturally focused on multi-agent issues, contributions from different disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, psychology, communication sciences, as well as from computer science specific sub-disciplines such as software engineering and dependability are welcomed and encouraged.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Submitted full papers must not exceed 10 pages in length, including bibliography and well-marked appendices. Papers can be submitted using the PROSE Online Paper Submission system available on the KES-AMSTA'12 Web site. Please remember to select the TruMAS invited session entry in the "Session Name" drop-down box when submitting your paper.

Please use the LNCS templates and style files available on the Springer Web site (Information for LNCS Authors).

Submitted papers will be evaluated by the program committee and chosen for presentation based on their scientific contribution and relevance to the topics of the workshop. At least one author of each accepted paper must register to the workshop and participate presenting the paper.

Proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in a volume of LNCS/LNAI.

CHAIRS

Nicola Dragoni
DTU Informatics
Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
ndra at imm.dtu.dk

Manuel Mazzara
School of Computing Science
Newcastle University, UK
manuel.mazzara at newcastle.ac.uk

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Faycal Abouzaid, CRAC, Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal, Canada
Enrico Denti, DEIS, University of Bologna, Italy
Nicoletta Fornara, Faculty of Communication Sciences, University of Lugano, Switzerland
Katsuhide Fujita, Institute of Engineering Innovation, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Mauro Gaspari, Department of Computer Science, University of Bologna, Italy
Paolo Giorgini, Information Engineering and Computer Science Department (DISI), University of Trento, Italy
Nathan Griffiths, Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, UK
Koji Hasebe, Academic Computing & Communications Center, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Hiromitsu Hattori, Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, Japan
Takayuki Ito, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan
Waqar Jaffry, Department of Artificial Intelligence, VU University, The Netherlands
Andrew J I Jones, Department of Informatics, King's College London, UK
Steve Marsh, Communications Research Centre, Canada
Hernan Melgratti, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Daniel Villatoro, Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, Spanish Scientific Research Council, Spain
Mirko Viroli, DEIS, University of Bologna, Italy
(not complete yet)