Gabriela Lindemann - Böcker

Thisvolumepresentsselected,extendedandreviewedversionsofthepapersp- sented at the 1st International Workshop on Regulated Agent Systems: Theory and Applications (RASTA 2002), a workshop co-located with the 1st Internat- nalJointConferenceonAutonomousAgentsandMulti-AgentSystems(AAMAS 2002), which was held in Bologna, Italy, in July, 2002. In addition, several new papers on the workshop theme appear here as the result of a further call for participation. Agent-technology is the latest paradigm of software engineering methodology. The development of autonomous, mobile, and intelligent agents brings new ch- lenges to the ?eld. Agent technologies and multiagent systems are among the most vibrant and active research areas of computer science. At the same time commercialapplicationsofagentsaregainingattention.Theconstructionofar- ?cial (agent) societies leads to questions that already have been asked for human societies. Computer scientists have adopted terms like emerging behavior, se- organization,andevolutionarytheoryinanintuitivemanner.Multiagentsystem researchershavestartedtodevelopagentswithsocialabilitiesandcomplexsocial systems.However, most of these systems lack the foundation of the social sciences. The intention of the RASTA workshop, and of this volume, is to bring together researchers from computer science as well as the social sciences who see their common interest in social theories for the construction and regulation of mul- agent systems. A total of 17 papers appear in this volume, out of 31 papers submitted. Theyincludeninepaperspresentedintheworkshop(whosepreproceeedingswere published as Communications Vol. 318 Mitteilung 318 of Hamburg University, Faculty of Informatics), as well as six new papers. In addition, an invited paper from Bruce Edmonds re?ects some aspects of the lively discussions held during the workshop. The selection presented is divided into two major topics.

This book constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of the International Workshop on Agents, Norms and Institutions for Regulated Multiagent Systems, ANIREM 2005, and the International Workshop on Organizations in Multi-Agent Systems, OOOP 2005, held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, July 2005. This is the first volume in a new series on issues in Coordination, Organizations, Institutions and Norms (COIN) in multi-agent systems. Topics include modeling, analyzing and programming organizations and more.

The aim of the CEEMAS conference series is to provide a biennial forum for the presentation of multi-agent research and development results. With its p- ticular geographicalorientationtowards Central and EasternEurope, CEEMAS has become an internationally recognized event with participants from all over the world. After the successful CEEMAS conferences in St. Petersburg (1999), Cracow (2001), Prague (2003) and Budapest (2005), the CEEMAS 2007 c- ference took place in Leipzig. The Program Committee of the conference series consists of established researchers from the region and renowned international colleagues, showing the prominent rank of CEEMAS among the leading events in multi-agent systems. In the very competitive ?eld of agent-oriented conferences and workshops, (such as AAMAS, EUMAS, CIA, MATES) CEEMAS is special in trying to bridge the gap between applied research achievements and theoretical research activities. The ambition of CEEMAS is to provide a forum for presenting th- retical research with an evident application potential, implemented application prototypes and their properties, as well as industrial case studies of successful (or unsuccessful) agent technology deployments. This is why the CEEMAS p- ceedings provide a collection of research and application papers. The technical research paper section of the proceedings (see pages 1–290) contains pure - search papers as well as research results in application settings. The goal is to demonstrate the real-life value and commercial reality of multi-agent systems as well as to foster the communication between academia and industry in this ?eld.

For the sixth time, the German special interest group on Distributed Arti?cial Intelligence in cooperation with the Steering Committee of MATES organized the German Conference on Multiagent System Technologies – MATES 2008. This conference, which took place during September 23–26, 2008 in Kaisersla- ern, followed a series of successful predecessor conferences in Erfurt (2003, 2004, and 2006), Koblenz (2005), and Leipzig (2007). MATES 2008 was co-located with the 31st German Conference on Arti?cial Intelligence (KI 2008) and was hosted by the University of Kaiserslautern and the German Research Center for Arti?cial Intelligence (DFKI). As in recent years, MATES 2008 provided a distinguished, lively, and - terdisciplinary forum for researchers, users, and developers of agent technology to present and discuss the latest advances of research and development in the area of autonomous agents and multiagent systems. Accordingly, the topics of MATES 2008 covered the whole range: from the theory to applications of agent and multiagent technology. In all, 35 papers were submitted from authors from 11 countries. The accepted 16 full papers included in this proceedings volume and presented as talks at the conference were chosen based on a thorough and highly selective review process. Each paper was reviewed and discussed by at least three Program Committee members and revised according to their c- ments. We believe that the papers of this volume are a representative snapshot of current research and contribute to both theoretical and applied aspects of autonomous agents and multiagent systems.