[robocup-rescue-s] CFP ATDM workshop, Hakodate, Japan, May 2006

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                CFP: First International Workshop on
             Agent Technology for Disaster Management (ATDM)
                              ---
               To be held in conjunction with the
              fifth International Joint Conference on
              Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
                          (AAMAS 2006)

         URL: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~sdr/atdm/
==================================================================

Invite
------
This workshop invites works from different strands of the multi-agent
systems community that pertain to technologies that can be applied in
disaster management scenarios. In so doing, this workshop aims to provide a
forum for the discussion of issues arising in designing, implementing, or
simulating agent-based disaster management systems.

Background
----------

In the light of recent events throughout the world ranging from natural
disasters such as the Asian Tsunami and hurricane Katrina in New Orleans,
to the man-made disasters such as the London terrorist attacks, the topic
of disaster management (also known as emergency response) has become a key
concern and there is now an overwhelming need for better information
technology to help support their efficient and effective management.

Disaster management requires that a number of actors, each with their own
aims, objectives, and resources, be able to coordinate their efforts in a
number of ways to prevent or manage the aftermath of a disaster. The
techniques involved may involve both centralized and decentralized
coordination mechanisms that need to operate in environments prone to
uncertainty given the dynamic nature of disasters. More specifically, the
technical issues that agent-based technologies can deal with include:

* Machine learning algorithms that are efficient and effective in dynamic,
multi-actor environments that are uncertain and incomplete.

* Coordination mechanisms that ensure desirable overall properties emerge
based on local actions and views.

* Coordination mechanisms that enable collectives to plan and act
collaboratively in order to achieve common goals.

* Techniques that enable an actor to effectively balance acting and
information gathering in dynamic, uncertain, multi-actor environments.

* Methods for modelling and predicting the system behaviour that will ensue
from specifications of the local behaviour of the individual actors.

* Techniques that enable an actor to fuse, in a decentralised manner,
inter-related information that is uncertain, incomplete, imprecise and
ambiguous.

* Decentralised system architectures that can operate effectively in
uncertain and dynamic environments and that are robust, scaleable and
flexible in their operation.

Keywords
--------

Papers should target applications of agent-based technology to the area of
disaster management. Also, position statements from ongoing projects
concerned with the application of information technology to disaster
management are also welcome. Relevant topics include but are not limited
to:

1. Teamwork, Coordination, and Planning Mechanisms in dynamic and uncertain
environments.
2. Decentralised agent-based architectures.
3. Mechanism Design.
4. Multi-agent learning.
5. Decision making under uncertainty.
6. Autonomous robots and robot teams
7. Agent-based simulation
8. Distributed constraints optimisation.
9. Market Mechanisms

Submission Instructions
-----------------------

Papers should be formatted using the ACM conference style file
(http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html) and should be in pdf
format. Position statements should not be more than 2 pages and Full papers
should not be more than 8 pages. All submissions must be emailed to sdr AT
ecs dot soton dot ac dot uk.

Important Dates:
---------------

January 15, 2006:
    Deadline for submitting contributions to workshops.
February 19, 2006:
    Acceptance notification to workshop authors.
May 9, 2006
    Workshop takes place in conjunction with AAMAS 2006.

Paper review process
--------------------

Papers will be reviewed by 2 PC members each.

Organising Committee
--------------------

Prof. Nicholas R. Jennings (University of Southampton, UK)

Prof. Milind Tambe (University of Southern California, USA)

Prof. Toru Ishida (Kyoto University, Japan)

Dr. Sarvapali D. Ramchurn (University of Southampton, UK)

Programme Committee (To be decided soon)
-----------------------------------

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Received on Sun Nov 20 12:52:54 2005