CALL FOR PAPERS

EPIA 2011
10-13/October/2011

Thematic Track on Social Simulation and Modelling
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Description

Social Simulation is a recent multi-disciplinary effort that has increasingly
established new challenges for the Artificial Intelligence and Multiagent Systems
community, by bringing the agent technology to face complex phenomena such as the
ones found in the social sciences. At the same time, social scientists have been
discovering how the computer and especially the advances in artificial
intelligence and multi-agent systems can provide a new and exciting tool to tackle
the problems of their field, enabling a paradigm shift in social sciences. The
exchange between researchers inboth areas has proven mutually fruitful, as much
inspiration in Multiagent Systems has come from Social Sciences, and these have
benefited from more rigourous and operational concepts as well as from principled
methodologies with which to face experiments with heterogeneous artificial agents.
Social Simulation (SS) brings together the multi-agent systems (MAS) and
agent-based modelling (ABM) communities. The focus of MAS is on the solution of
complex problems related to the construction, deployment and efficient operation
of agent-based systems, while in the context of Social Simulation, the focus of
ABM is on simulating and synthesising social behaviours in order to understand
real social systems (human, animal and even digital) via the development and
testing of new theories. Both these communities are now well-established and have
many common issues, but there remain many ideas and opportunities to be explored
for how to successfully crosslink the two communities.
This workshop aims at presenting the most recent advances in multi-agent-based
exploratory social simulation from a strong computer science and Artificial
Intelligence stance. To promote a multi-disciplinary and cross-influential
approach, this workshop will focus both on ideas coming from Artificial
Intelligence as a new technology to provide insights into ABM community and the
ideas coming from social sciences as new metaphors to provide insights into MAS
community.

Topics of Interest

General issues:
* Agent and environment modelling
* Standards for simulators including inter-operability
* Self-organisation, scalability, robustness in SS
* Policy applications
* SS applications
* Methodologies and techniques that link MAS and ABM works
MAS issues:
* Grid-computing for SS
* Visualisation and analytic tools
* Managing interactions in large-scale systems
* Simulation languages and formalisms
* Complexity
ABM issues:
* Formal and agent-based models of social behaviour and social order
* Social structures and norms
* Cognitive modelling and social simulation
* The emergence of co-operation and co-ordinated action
* Agent-based experimental economics
* Empirically-based agent-based modeling

Important Dates

• Paper submission: May 10
• Acceptance notification: June 10
• Camera-ready papers: July 1

Submission

Please see EPIA submission instructions (http://epia2011.appia.pt).

Organizers

Jo‹o Balsa, jbalsa@di.fc.ul.pt
Universidade de Lisboa,
Portugal

Ant—nio Rocha Costa, ac.rocha.costa@gmail.com
Universidade do Rio Grande,
Brasil

Armando Geller, ageller1@gmu.edu
George Mason University,
USA

Program Committee

• Akira Namatame, National Defense Academy, Japan
• Amilcar Cardoso, DEIUC, Portugal
• Ant™nio C. Rocha Costa, Federal University of Rio Grande, Brazil
• Armando Geller, George Mason University, USA
• Bruce Edmonds, Centre for Policy Modelling, UK
• Cristiano Castelfranchi, ISTC/CNR, Italy
• David Hales, University of Bologna, Italy
• David Sallach, Argonne National Lab and University of Chicago, USA
• Diana Adamatti, Federal University of Rio Grande, Brazil
• Fabio Okuyama, FTEC, Brazil
• Fernando Lima Neto, University of Pernambuco, Brazil
• Frederic Amblard, Universite Toulouse 1, France
• Graaliz Dimuro, Univ. Federal do Rio Grande, Brazil
• Gustavo Lugo, UTFPR, Brazil
• Harko Verhagen, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Helder Coelho, University of Lisbon, Portugal
• Jaime Sichman, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Jean-Pierre Muller, CIRAD, France
• Jo‹o Balsa, University of Lisbon, Portugal
• Jorge Lou‹, ISCTE, Portugal
• Juan Pavon Mestras, Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain
• Juliette Rouchier, Greqam/CNRS, France
• Klaus Troitzsch, University of Koblenz, Germany
• Laszlo Gulyas, Lorand Eotvos University, Hungary
• Luis Antunes, University of Lisbon, Portugal
• Luis Macedo, Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal
• Maciej Latek, George Mason University, USA
• Marco Janssen, Arizona State University, USA
• Natalie van der Wal, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Nigel Gilbert, University of Surrey, UK
• Nuno David, ISCTE, Portugal
• Oswaldo Teran, University of Los Andes, Venezuela
• Patrica Tedesco, Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil
• Paul Davidsson, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden
• Pedro Andrade, IMPE, Brazil
• Pedro Campos, FEUP, Portugal
• Rainer Hegselmann, University of Bayreuth, Germany
• Rosaria Conte, ISTC/CNR Rome, Italy
• Samer Hassan, Univ. Complutense Madrid, Spain
• Shu-Heng Chen, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
• Takao Terano, University of Tsukuba, Japan
• Wander Jager, University of Groningen, The Netherlands