The First
International Workshop on
Mixed-Initiative
Multiagent Systems (MIMS)
May 11, 2009
Budapest, Hungary
ASCII version of the CFP can be downloaded
from here.
Organization &
Location
The first MIMS workshop is held in conjunction with AAMAS-2009 (the Eighth International
Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems), in Budapest, Hungary. It will take place on May
11, 2009, preceding AAMAS 2009.
Aims and Focus
Mixed initiative represents collaboration between humans and
agents to benefit from the strength of both parties. While the initiation and
maintenance of bilateral interaction between humans and agents in mixed environments
is highly favorable, the process is certainly not trivial.
Many of the challenges associated with mixed initiative have
been studied in recent years within specific targeted AI research communities
such as interruption management and adjustable autonomy. The focused studies
made great progress; however a unified system-wide approach, such in the case
of intelligent user-interfaces is missing. For example, both interruption
management and adjustable autonomy domains attempt to improve the process of
initiating interaction with the user when both the agent and the user have a
joint goal. Nevertheless, while for interruption management the analysis
focuses mainly on reasoning about the user’s disturbance by the interruption,
adjustable autonomy research mostly focuses in finding the best time from the
system state of the problem to initiate interaction with the user. A combined
approach in this case would attempt to find the best interaction timing, taking
into consideration both aspects of the problem.
The MIMS workshop will focus on multiagent systems that interact
with humans. Such an interaction can be done explicitly, i.e., direct
human-agent interaction, or implicitly, i.e., interaction through emergent
behavior techniques. In both cases, agents and humans, as individuals or as
groups, can take initiative and decide what to do next. In such environments,
humans and agents may share goals or have conflicting goals, and they may
collaborate or compete for resources. The primary goal of this workshop is to
bring together multiagent researchers from diverse backgrounds that looked at
key issues in multiagent mixed-initiative systems in order to search for a
synergy of ideas. We particularly encourage work that pertains to the following
(non-limiting) topic areas:
·
Innovative approaches for initiating and managing interactions
between agents and humans in collaborative environments.
·
Human vs. agent in a multiagent environment: strengths and
weaknesses.
·
Evaluating the system-wide benefits of joint human and computer
collaborations.
·
Learning user preferences for making decisions on her behalf in
mixed environments.
·
Human and agent reactions to interruption and repeated
interruptions.
·
Combining interruption management and adjustable autonomy to a
unified framework.
·
State representation and visualization for enhanced agent-human
interaction.
·
Applications and case studies.
·
Emergence, evolution and culture of mixed groups, teams and
communities.
·
Control protocols and philosophy: who’s in charge?
·
Building trust between agent and human. Norms and commitments in
a mixed initiative environment.
·
Verification and validation techniques and tools.
·
Mixed-initiative architecture in human-robot environments.
Submission Details
Authors
should submit full papers electronically in PS or PDF format using EasyChair (http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mims2009) or by
email to Osher Yadgar (see email address
below), with the exact subject line: "MIMS submission". Please
include in the first page title of paper; names and affiliations of authors,
and email of primary contact. Papers must be written in English, with a maximum
length of 14 pages. Please format papers according to the Springer LNCS Style. Templates for Word, WordPerfect
and Latex are available. The receipt of submissions will be acknowledged by
email. Submitted papers will be reviewed by the program committee.
All correspondence about submissions and contributions will be
to: Osher Yadgar.
Important Dates
(tentative dates)
·
Paper submission: February 10, 2009
·
Acceptance notification: March 3, 2009
·
Camera ready due: March 15, 2009
·
Workshop date: May 11, 2009
Preliminary Program
8:50-9:00
- Welcome and Introductions (chair: David Sarne)
9:00-10:30
- Session 1: User Assistant Agents (chair: Virginia Dignum)
(plenary presentation)
11:00 -
12:30 Session 2: Agents and Initiative
(chair: Ece Kamar)
12:30-14:00 Lunch
Break
14:00 -
14:50 Session 3: Impact on Humans
(chair: Jereme Haack)
14:50 - 15:30 Discussion (chair: Neil Yorke-Smith)
15:30 Adjourn
Program Committee
·
Pauline Berry, SRI International
·
Barbara Grosz, Harvard University
·
Eric Horvitz,
Microsoft Research
·
Ece Kamar, Harvard
University
·
Sarit Kraus, University of Maryland and Bar
Ilan University
·
Roger Mailler, University of Tulsa
·
David McSherry,
University of Ulster
·
Charles Ortiz, SRI International
·
Kanna Rajan, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research
Institute (MBARI)
·
Zack Rubinstein, Carnegie Mellon University
·
Milind Tambe, University of Southern California
·
Neil Yorke-Smith, SRI International
Workshop Location
MIMS is collocated with the Eight International
Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS-2009),
in Budapest, Hungary. It will take place on May 11, 2009.
Workshop organizers
Osher
Yadgar
SRI International
yadgar “at” ai “dot” sri
“dot” com
Department
of Computer Science
Bar Ilan University,
sarned “at” cs “dot” biu “dot” ac “dot”
il
Neil Yorke-Smith
SRI International
nysmith “at” ai “dot” sri
“dot” com
Primary contact
Osher
Yadgar
SRI International
yadgar “at” ai “dot” sri
“dot” com