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List of tutorials

T1. Judgement Aggregation -- May 7 afternoon (half day)
Ulle Endriss
Judgement aggregation deals with the question of how to amalgamate the judgements of several individual agents regarding the truth of a set of propositions into a consistent collective view. Originating in Philosophy and Economics, judgement aggregation has recently caught the attention of researchers in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. This is due not only to its appeal as a rich modelling framework for multiagent decision making, but also to the exciting algorithmic questions raised by it. This tutorial will provide an introduction to the field, covering topics such as the doctrinal paradox, the axiomatic method, impossibility theorems, the design of aggregation procedures, strategic manipulation, the complexity of judgement aggregation, and applications in multiagent systems. No specific background is required to follow the tutorial.
http://staff.science.uva.nl/~ulle/teaching/aamas-2013/

T2. Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning -- May 7 (full day)
Daan Bloembergen, Tim Brys, Yann-Michaël De Hauwere, Daniel Hennes, Michael Kaisers, Mihail Mihaylov, Karl Tuyls, Gerhard Weiss
Participants will be taught the core principles of multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL). We will explain practical approaches on how to scale single agent reinforcement learning to situations where multiple agents influence each other and introduce a framework, based on game theory and evolutionary game theory, that allows thorough analysis of the dynamics of multi-agent learning. Several research applications of MARL will be outlined in detail. The tutorial will include a practical hands-on session, where participants can experience the viability of reinforcement learning in several key application domains. Finally, a broad view on the challenges and prospects of multi-agent learning will be given.
http://swarmlab.unimaas.nl/marl_tutorial

THIS TUTORIAL HAS BEEN CANCELED. People registered will be refunded the registration fee T3. Integration, design and validation of social models: a mathematical strategy -- May 6 (full day)
David L. Sallach
The tutorial addresses the use of higher mathematics, primarily in the form of category theory, to design, generate and validate agent-based models, particularly social models. In many areas of applied research, including energy policies, sustainability and ecological risks, national security and social robustness, effective ABMS models contain a significant social component. From cross-domain integration, to coherent software architectures, to multi-scale granularities and robust validation, categorical theory is able to provide uniquely effective forms of design and analysis, and these capabilities are the focus of the tutorial.

T4. Cognitive Agents for Social Simulation -- May 7 morning (half day)
Frank Dignum, Virginia Dignum, Catholijn M. Jonker
Simulation is increasingly being used to analyse and predict important economic and sociological phenomena. These simulations must take into account the complex interactions resulting from how one perceives other people (social cognition) and how one forms own opinions and beliefs (individual cognition). In capturing such dynamics it is essential to formalize both how agents perceive, learn about and restructure their social environments, as well as how they adapt their own attitudes and opinions as resulting from these interactions. That is, in order to fully capture the complexity of social interaction, richer cognitive behaviour is needed. In this way, social relations and individual differences can be understood in terms of the mental models and reasoning rules used by agents to form their decisions. In this tutorial, we will introduce different approaches to agent reasoning in social simulation, present an extensible cognitive architecture that includes personality, normative, cultural and emotional aspects, and discuss the conditions under which increased cognitive expressiveness is necessary.
http://ict1.tbm.tudelft.nl/cass2013/

THIS TUTORIAL HAS BEEN CANCELED. People registered will be refunded the registration fee T5. Commitments in Software Engineering -- May 7 afternoon (half day)
Amit Chopra and Munindar Singh
As software engineering and, specifically, requirements engineering, heads toward the development of sociotechnical systems, it is only natural that we wish to understand social relationships precisely. Likewise, another emerging subarea, RE and Law, is intimately concerned with modeling norms as social relationships. This tutorial will present dwell on an important modeling abstraction, namely, commitment among actors. Over the past few years, the notion of commitments has become a leading way in which to model social relationships succinctly and formally. This tutorial will cover the conceptual and formal aspects related to commitments and show the value of commitments in software engineering, especially requirements engineering. Parts of this tutorial have featured in graduate courses.
https://sites.google.com/site/akchoprawww/announcements/aamas2013tutoria...

THIS TUTORIAL HAS BEEN CANCELED. People registered will be refunded the registration fee T6. Building AOSE Situational Methods Using Method Fragments -- May 7 afternoon (half day)
Sara Casare, Anarosa A. F. Brandão, Jaime S. Sichman
Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) provide a new paradigm for conceptualizing, designing, and implementing software systems, ranging from manufacturing to process control, air traffic control, and information management. Nevertheless, in order to be adopted by the software industry, a controlled and disciplined way to conduct MAS projects based on suitable development methods is needed. Despite the research community efforts concerning the development of MAS, AOSE methods are still at an early stage, mainly being applied in the context of academic projects. Moreover, the development of complex systems using MAS requires specific methods and then the use of Situational Method Engineering techniques for MAS seems to be a promising solution for it. In this tutorial we will address such issue, by presenting a process for building software development methods on demand for MAS projects. Such methods – called MAS Situational Methods - are built using reusable parts of methods (the method fragments) according to a given project situation. At the end of the tutorial, its audience will be able to build MAS situational methods for several class of problems, among them those involving organizational- centered MAS.
http://www.pcs.usp.br/tutorial_aamas2013

T7. Self-Interested Decision Making in Sequential Multiagent Settings -- May 6 (full day)
Christopher Amato, Prashant Doshi, Frans Oliehoek, Zinovi Rabinovich, Matthijs Spaan, Stefan Witwicki
Concentrating on the issues arising from the conflict of self-interested agents, this tutorial will address the growing demand of practical applications to handle sequences of decisions by multiple autonomous agents. Such applications, including the search and rescue in disaster management and security measures scheduling, create complex environments with high degrees of uncertainty, compounded by simultaneous activity of multiple intelligent entities. The tutorial is self-contained and will begin with the introduction of basic concepts and notions of decision and game theories, and then culminating with several advanced decision-theoretic models of complex agent interactions.
http://www.st.ewi.tudelft.nl/~mtjspaan/tutorialDMMS/

T8. Cooperative Decision Making in Sequential Multiagent Settings -- May 6 (full day)
Christopher Amato, Prashant Doshi, Frans Oliehoek, Zinovi Rabinovich, Matthijs Spaan, Stefan Witwicki
Concentrating on the issues arising from the need to coordinate a team activity, this tutorial will address the growing demand of practical applications to handle sequences of decisions by multiple autonomous agents. Such applications, including the search and rescue in disaster management and security measures scheduling, create complex environments with high degrees of uncertainty, compounded by simultaneous activity of multiple intelligent entities. The tutorial is self-contained and will begin with the introduction of basic concepts and notions of decision and game theories, and then culminating with several advanced decision-theoretic models of complex agent interactions.
http://www.st.ewi.tudelft.nl/~mtjspaan/tutorialDMMS/

T9. Agent-Mediated Electronic Negotiation - May 7 afternoon (half day)
Han La Poutre, Takayuki Ito, Shaheen Fatima, Valentin Robu, Katsuhide Fujita
This tutorial aims to give a broad overview of state of the art in agent-mediated negotiation. The tutorial will focus on the game-theoretic foundations of electronic negotiations. We review the main concepts from both cooperative and competitive bargaining theory, such as Pareto optimality, the Pareto-efficient frontier as well as utilitarian, Nash and Kalai-Smorodinsky (egalitarian) solution concepts. We discuss and compare games with complete and with incomplete information. Next, we exemplify these concepts through some well-known sequential bargaining games, such as the ultimatum game. A particular emphasis will be placed on multi-issue (or multi-attribute) negotiation - a research area that has received significant attention in recent years from the multi-agent community. We discuss some of the challenges that arise in modeling negotiations over multiple issues, especially when no information (or only incomplete information) is available about the preferences of the negotiation partner(s), as well as some of the heuristics employed in AI and machine learning research to solve this problem. The second part of the tutorial focuses on multi-issue negotiations which may have realistic limitations like time-constraints, computational tractablility, private information issues, online negotiations, etc.
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/vr2/AAMAS13_NegotiationTutorial.htm

THIS TUTORIAL HAS BEEN CANCELED. People registered will be refunded the registration fee . T10. Designing Computer Agents for Human-Computer Decision-Making -- May 7 morning (half day)
Ya’akov (Kobi) Gal and Sarit Kraus
Settings in which humans and computers make decisions together are becoming increasingly prevalent (e.g., electronic commerce, intelligent tutors, office assistants, negotiation training). How to design effective computer agents in these settings requires understanding the social and psychological factors that affect human behavior, which often transcend our formal models of a “rational” actor. This half-day tutorial will focus on computational representations, algorithms and empirical methodologies for meeting this challenge. It will (1) present historical and contemporary views on human decision-making from behavioral economics and cognitive psychology, (2) show how these results can inform computational models of behavior, and (c) present empirical methodologies for facilitating the design and evaluation of computational strategies in different types of environments.
https://sites.google.com/site/galkraus13/

THIS TUTORIAL HAS BEEN CANCELED. People registered will be refunded the registration fee T11. Comprehensive Trust Management for Multiagent Systems -- May 6 morning (half day)
Sandip Sen
Application domains including e-commerce, e-services, supply chains, social networks, peer-to-peer systems, etc. require participants to repeatedly interact with and rely on other entities in the environment. As agents interact in such open environments, the need for mechanisms that allow the representation of and reasoning with the trust and reputation of other agents become critical. In this tutorial we will overview some of the well-recognized models with emphasis on diversity of techniques to cover maximal application potential. As importantly, we introduce a Comprehensive Trust Management framework that (a) highlights the narrow focus of existing multiagent trust reaches and (b) poses significant research challenges for the community that promises to be both intellectually rewarding and practically potent for developing new frameworks and applications.
http://www.mcs.utulsa.edu/~sandip/tutorials/aamas13CTMS.html

Call for proposals
The AAMAS-13 Organizing Committee invites proposals for the Tutorial
Program, to be held on May 6--7, immediately before the main conference program. AAMAS-13 Tutorials should serve one or more of the following objectives:
  1. Introduce novices to major topics of AAMAS research.
  2. Provide instruction in established practices and methodologies.
  3. Survey a mature area of AAMAS research or practice.
  4. Motivate and explain an AAMAS topic of emerging importance.
  5. Introduce expert non-specialists to an AAMAS area.
  6. Survey an area of agent research especially relevant for people from industry.

Topic areas of interest include all of those listed in the AAMAS-2013 call for papers, including all special tracks.

Submission Requirements

Proposals should be two to four pages in length, and should contain the following information:

  1. A brief description of the tutorial, suitable for inclusion in the conference registration brochure.
  2. A detailed outline of the tutorial, including preferred length (half or full day).
  3. Characterization of the potential target audience for the tutorial, including prerequisite knowledge.
  4. A description of why the tutorial topic would be of interest to a substantial part of the AAMAS audience.
  5. A brief resume of the presenter(s), which should include name, postal address, phone and fax numbers, email address, background in the tutorial area, any available example of work in the area (ideally, a published tutorial-level article on the subject), evidence of teaching experience (including references that address the proposer's presentation skills as applicable), and evidence of scholarship in the area.
  6. The name and e-mail address of the corresponding presenter. The corresponding presenter should be available for e-mail correspondence during the evaluation process, in case clarifications and discussions on the scope and content of the proposal are needed.

The evaluation of the proposal will take into account the level of general interest for AAMAS attendees, the quality of the proposal, and the expertise and skills of the presenters. We emphasize that the primary criteria for evaluation will be whether a proposal is interesting, well-structured, and motivated, rather than the perceived experience/standing of the proposer.

Those submitting a proposal should keep in mind that tutorials are intended to provide an overview of the field; they should present reasonably well established information in a balanced way. Tutorials should not be used to advocate a single avenue of research, nor should they promote a product. It is often beneficial to have multiple presenters who represent multiple perspectives on a research area.

The selection of the tutorials to be included in the final AAMAS program will be based upon a number of factors, including: the scientific/technical interest of the topics, the quality of the proposal, the need to avoid strictly overlapping tutorials, and the unavoidable need to limit the overall number of selected tutorials.

Responsibilities for accepted proposals

AAMAS will be responsible for:

  1. Providing logistic support and a meeting place for the tutorial.
  2. Together with the organizers, determining the tutorial date and time.
  3. Duplicating tutorial material and distributing them to the participants.

Tutorial organizers will be responsible for:

  1. Providing AAMAS with a legible PDF copy of their tutorial notes by March 4, 2013.
  2. Presenting the tutorial at AAMAS-2013.

AAMAS reserves the right to cancel any tutorial if the above responsibilities are not fulfilled, if deadlines are missed, or if too few attendees register for the tutorial to support the costs of running the tutorial.

Important dates

December 16, 2012: Tutorial Proposal Submission Deadline
January 14, 2013: Tutorial Acceptance Notifications
March 4, 2013: Deadline for submitting tutorial notes
May 6--7, 2013: Tutorial Forum Presentations

Submissions and Inquiries
Proposals should be submitted by email (in ASCII or PDF) to:
tutorials.aamas.2013@gmail.com
Inquiries can be sent to that same address or directly to the tutorials chairs:

Rafael Bordini
Faculty of Informatics
PUCRS
R.Bordini@pucrs.br

Christopher Kiekintveld
Department of Computer Science
University of Texas at El Paso
cdkiekintveld@utep.edu