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The COIN workshop series brings together the topics of coordination, organization, institutions and norms in multi-agent systems.

These topics have become an established area of agent research and a significant number of influential papers on these topics have been appearing in AAMAS and other agent conferences and workshops. The series of COIN workshops are thus aimed at consolidating and expanding the subject by providing focused events in which researchers from different communities participate.

COIN@AAMAS 2009 is an international workshop of the COIN series, held as a satellite event of AAMAS 2009, in Budapest, Hungary.

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Post-Workshop: Report and Next Steps

COIN@AAMAS 2009 took place on 12 May 2009, with 35 registered participants. The workshop was an exciting and fruitful gathering where discussions followed the papers presented by an international group of speakers. We had participants from Australia, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, UK and USA, to name a few. The organisers would like to say thanks to the participants, to the programme committee and to the steering committee for their support.

The organisers would now like to invite authors of accepted papers to re-submit their articles, addressing comments from reviews as well as from discussions during their presentations at COIN@AAMAS2009. All revised papers will go through another round of reviews and if the reviewers recommend, the paper will be included in the post-workshop proceedings, to be published by Springer-Verlag, as in past versions of the event (see the proceedings of past COIN versions here.)

These are the next steps for authors and reviewers:

  1. Authors should revise their papers in the light of reviewers' comments and discussions/feedback from their presentations.
  2. Authors should submit an electronic version (PDF) of their revised papers via EasyChair.
  3. In addition to the revised paper, authors should also submit a separate report on how they have addressed the reviewers' comments as well as how their papers changed as a result of discussions and feedback from their presentation.
  4. The same reviewers who originally reviewed the papers will decide if the revised versions are suitable for inclusion in the post-workshop proceedings. The separate reports are very important, as they will help reviewers assess how the paper changed/improved with their feedback (as well as the feedback obtained during the workshop).
The timeline for the next steps is given below. Instructions for re-submission are available below.

Accepted Papers

The following papers were accepted for presentation at COIN@AAMAS2009. We had 19 submissions of which 12 papers were selected:

  1. Natalia Criado, Vicente Julian, Vicent Botti and Estefania Argente. A Norm-based Organization Management System
  2. Joey Sik-Chun Lam, Frank Guerin, Wamberto Vasconcelos and Timothy Norman. Building Multi-Agent Systems for Workflow Enactment and Exception Handling
  3. Roberto Centeno, Viviane Silva and Ramon Hermoso. A Reputation Model for Organisational Supply Chain Formation
  4. Jurriaan van Diggelen, Jeffrey Bradshaw, Matthew Johnson, Andrzej Uszok and Paul Feltovich. Implementing Collective Obligations in Human-Agent Teams using KAoS Policies
  5. Stephen Cranefield and Guannan Li. Online monitoring of social expectations in Second Life
  6. Henrique Lopes Cardoso and Eugenio Oliveira. Directed Deadline Obligations in Agent-based Business Contracts
  7. Nicolas Hormazabal, Henrique Lopes Cardoso, Josep Lluis De la Rosa and Eugenio Oliveira. An Approach on Virtual Organizations' Dissolution
  8. Guido Boella, Leon van der Torre and Serena Villata. A Normative Multiagent Approach to Requirements Engineering
  9. Emiliano Lorini and Mario Verdicchio. Towards a logical model of social agreement for agent societies
  10. Martin Kollingbaum, Joseph Giampapa, Katia Sycara and Timothy Norman. Policy-driven Planning in Coalitions - a Case Study
  11. Bastin Savarimuthu, Stephen Cranefield, Maryam Purvis and Martin Purvis. Internal agent architecture for norm identification
  12. Visara Urovi and Kostas Stathis. Playing with agent coordination patterns in MAGE

Call for Papers

Multi-agent systems (MAS) are complex artifacts in which a multitude of autonomous software agents interact, pursuing individual and/or collective goals. Such a view usually assumes some form of organization, a set of norms or conventions that articulate or restrain interactions in order to enable agents to achieve their goals. The engineering of effective coordination or regulatory mechanisms is a key problem for the design of open, complex MAS.

In recent years, social and organizational aspects of agency have become a major issue in MAS research, especially in applications for Service-Oriented Computing, Grid Computing and Ambient Intelligence. These applications enforce the need for using social and organizational aspects in order to ensure social order. Openness of MAS poses new demands on traditional MAS interaction models.

Therefore, the view of coordination and control has to be expanded to consider not only an agent-centric perspective but also societal and organization-centric views. The workshop aims to bring together the topics of Coordination, Organization, Institutions and Norms. These topics have become an established area of agent research and a significant number of influential papers on these topics have been appearing in AAMAS and other agent conferences and workshops. The series of COIN workshops are thus aimed at consolidating and expanding the subject by providing focused events in which researchers from different communities participate.

Topics of interest for COIN@AAMAS09 include (but are not limited to):

  • Modeling (dynamic) multi-agent organizations.
  • Agent communities, electronic institutions and virtual organizations.
  • Languages for norms: expressiveness VS efficiency.
  • Norms, institutions and organizations: authority, (institutional) power, sanctions, contracts, trust, reputation.
  • Issues in regulated MAS implementation.
  • Simulation, analysis and verification of (dynamic) regulated MAS.
  • Scaling and control issues in (dynamic) agent organizations.
  • Organized Adaptation of regulated MAS: protocols and frameworks.
  • Models of norm (law, policy) change: norm revision, conflict detection, norm updates.
  • Legal implications of organized adaptation.
  • COIN@AAMAS09 merges the COIN workshop series with the workshop on Organized Adaptation for Multi-Agent Systems (OAMAS). Therefore, papers that explore the dynamic aspects of norms, organizations and institutions are particularly welcome in COIN@AAMAS09.

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    Important Dates

    This is the timeline for the post-workshop paper re-submission:

    1. Deadline for submission of revised papers and reports: Friday 26 June 2009
    2. Deadline for reviews of revised papers: Friday 24 July 2009
    3. Notification of inclusion in proceedings: Friday 30 July 2009
    4. Submission of camera-ready copy: Monday 31 August 2009 (see instructions below)

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    Post-Workshop Proceedings and Re-submissions

    We invite all authors of papers accepted for presentation at COIN@AAMAS2009 to re-submit their papers, addressing the reviewers' comments as well as factoring in feedback from discussions at the event.

    The revised versions will go through another round of the review process whereby reviewers will assess whether the paper has improved and if they should be included in the proceedings. To facilitate this process, we require that, in addition to their revised papers, authors should also submit a report explaining how they addressed the reviewers' comments and how the paper improved as a result of discussions and comments from the workshop. The report should be provided either as a PDF or a plain text file.

    The papers should be formatted following Springer-Verlag's guidelines, available here. The length of each paper including figures and references should not exceed 16 pages. Revised papers must be written in English and submitted in PDF format.

    Both revised paper and report should be submitted via the EasyChair Web pages. From the main page (after loggin on), select the paper to re-submit a version, then select "Submit a New Version"; you will be presented with a form to upload both the paper (File) and the attachment (Report). Please ensure both files are uploaded. If you experience any difficulties, please contact the organisers.

    Instructions for Submission of Camera-Ready Versions

    Would all authors with papers accepted for inclusion in the post-workshop proceedings ensure that the camera-ready version of their articles reach us on/by

    Monday 31 August 2009

    VERY IMPORTANT: We need the source files of the camera-ready version of your paper, as well as the PDF. Please submit (using one of the options below) a ZIP file with all the files needed in your article.

    Here's how you can pass the ZIP file to us:

    1. Upload the ZIP file on EasyChair and send the organisers an email, OR
    2. Send the organisers an email with the ZIP file

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    COIN@AAMAS 2009 Organisers

    Alexander Artikis (National Centre for Scientific Research Demokritos, Greece)
    Wamberto Vasconcelos (University of Aberdeen, UK)

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    Committees

    Programme Committee

    Alexander Artikis, NCSR "Demokritos", Greece
    Guido Boella, University of Torino, Italy
    Olivier Boissier, ENS Mines Saint-Etienne, France
    Stephen Cranefield, Otago, New Zealand
    Cristiano Castelfranchi, ISTC, Rome, Italy
    Virginia Dignum, University of Utrecht, Netherlands
    Marc Esteva, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
    Nicoletta Fornara, Lugano, Switzerland
    Jomi Fred Hubner, University of Blumenau, Brazil
    Lloyd Kamara, Imperial College, UK
    Victor Lesser, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
    Christian Lemaitre, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Mexico
    Eric Matson, Purdue University, USA
    John-Jules Meyer, University of Utrecht, Netherlands
    Daniel Moldt, University of Hamburg, Germany
    Pablo Noriega, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
    Tim Norman, University of Aberdeen, UK
    Eugenio Oliveira, Universidade do Porto, Portugal
    Sascha Ossowski, URJC, Spain
    Julian Padget, University of Bath, UK
    Alessandro Ricci,Universita di Bologna, Italy
    Antonio Carlos da Rocha Costa, UCPEL, Brazil
    Juan Antonio Rodriguez-Aguilar, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
    Jaime Sichman, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
    Carles Sierra, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
    Kostas Stathis, University of London, UK
    Catherine Tessier, ONERA, France
    Wamberto Vasconcelos, University of Aberdeen, UK
    Leon Van Der Torre, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
    Harko Verhagen, Stockholm University, Sweden
    George Vouros, University of the Aegean, Greece

    COIN Steering Committee

    Guido Boella, University of Torino, Italy
    Olivier Boissier, ENS Mines Saint-Etienne, France
    Virginia Dignum, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
    Nicoletta Fornara, University of Lugano, Italy
    Christian Lemaitre, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Mexico
    Eric Matson, Purdue University, USA
    Pablo Noriega, IIIA-CSIC, Spain
    Sascha Ossowski, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
    Julian Padget, University of Bath, UK
    Jeremy Pitt, Imperial College London, UK
    Jaime Sichman, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
    Wamberto Vasconcelos, University of Aberdeen, UK
    Javier Vazquez Salceda, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain
    George Vouros, University of the Aegean, Greece

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    Programme

    The COIN@AAMAS2009 workshop will be organised as sessions gathering papers in 4 broad topics:

    1. Coordination
    2. Organisations
    3. Norms
    4. Collective Norms and Social Expectations
    Presentations will last 15 minutes, and will be followed by 5 minutes of questions.

    Presenters of articles will comment for 5 minutes on another paper presented in their session during the discussion. The chairs will then lead a 15-minute discussion on the papers of their sessions.

    Click on title for an electronic copy (PDF) of the article.

    Session 1: Coordination — Chair: Stephen Cranefield
    Time Title
    09.00 Building Multi-Agent Systems for Workflow Enactment and Exception Handling
    09.20 Policy-driven Planning in Coalitions - a Case Study
    09.40 Playing with Agent Coordination Patterns in MAGE
    10.00 Discussion
    10.30 Coffee
    Session 2: Organisations — Chair: Julian Padget
    Time Title
    11.00 A Norm-Based Organisation Management System
    11.20 An Approach for Virtual Organizations' Dissolution
    11.40 Towards a Logical Model of Social Agreement for Agent Societies
    12.00 Discussion
    12.30 Lunch
    Session 3: Norms — Chair: Pablo Noriega
    Time Title
    14.00 Directed Deadline Obligations in Agent-based Business Contracts
    14.20 A Normative Multiagent Approach to Requirements Engineering
    14.40 Internal Agent Architecture for Norm Identification
    15.00 Discussion
    15.30 Coffee
    Session 4: Collective Norms and Social Expectations — Chair: Sascha Ossowski
    Time Title
    16.00 Implementing Collective Obligations in Human-Agent Teams using KAoS Policies
    16.20 Monitoring Social Expectations in Second Life
    16.40 A Reputation Model for Organisational Supply Chain Formation
    17.00 Discussion
    17.30 Closing