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durham.ac.uk>The Fifth Durham Postgraduate Conference in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics Saturday 8th June 2002 School of Linguistics and Language University of Durham, UK CALL FOR PAPERS We are delighted to announce the Fifth Durham Postgraduate Conference in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at the University of Durham (UK) on Saturday, 8th June 2002. Abstracts are invited for presentations of current postgraduate research on any area of theoretical or applied linguistics. Deadline for Abstracts: 3rd April 2002. Notification of Acceptance: 4th May 2002. Abstracts guidelines: - Send 4 camera-ready copies of your abstract (1 with your name & affiliation, and 3 without) - Length: maximum one A4 page - Format: 1.5 spacing; 3cm left/right, top/bottom margins - Font: Times New Roman, 12pt - Title, author's name and affiliation: 14pt, bold, and centred on the line. Accepted papers will be allotted 20 minutes for presentation plus 10 minutes for discussion. Please submit your abstract(s) by post or as a Word file or PDF to: Richard Tolley (pgconf.linguisticsMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
uwe.ac.uk>Due to lots of impending deadlines for everyone, we're extending the ECOMAS 2002 Deadline to March 11, 2002. - ---------------------------------- Deadline Extended to March 11, 2002: Evolutionary Computation and Multi-Agent Systems (ECOMAS 2002) A Birds-Of-A-Feather Workshop At GECCO 2002 Description Of The Workshop Topic Multi-agent systems (MAS) are collections of interacting autonomous entities. The behaviour of the MAS is a result of the repeated asynchronous action and interaction of the agents. Understanding how to engineer adaptation and self-organisation is thus central to the application of agents on a large scale. Moreover, multi-agent simulations can also be used to study emergent behaviour in real systems. Desirable self-organisation is observed in many biological, social and physical systems. However, fostering these conditions in artificial systems proves to be difficult and offers the potential for undesirable behaviours to emerge. Thus, it is vital to be able to understand and shape emergent behaviours in agent based systems. Current mathematical and empirical tools give only a partial insight into emergent behaviour in large, agent-based societies. EC provides a paradigm for addressing this need. Moreover, EC techniques are inherently based on a distributed paradigm (natural evolution), making them particularly well suited for adaptation in agents. At the same time, ideas from natural ecosystems or economies, such as resource flows, niches, and spatial context or neighbourhood can contribute both to the development of MAS and to the improvement of EC techniques. The interaction between these different sources of natural inspiration and the two computing disciplines of MAS and EC is beginning to stimulate a range of systems with properties that extend the MAS and EC concepts in new and interesting directions. Notable examples of systems of that begin to examine the issues of EC in MAS include Holland's ECHO system, Tierra, Avalanche, Egglets, Amalthaea, InfoSpiders, and many others. The workshop follows ECoMAS 2001, which was conducted at GECCO-2001. With more than 70 attendees, ECoMAS 2001 was, in our opinion, a great success. As a result of that workshop (and in order to address a pressing need shared by the majority of the attendees), we have created, organised and launched a new Internet interested community: the ECoMAS Community. Community homepage: www.csm.uwe.ac.uk/~rsmith/ECOMAS/index.htm There is also a discussion forum associated to the community: Forum homepage: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ecomas The goal of the workshop is to maintain a dialog among researchers and practitioners who are examining EC in MAS. The workshop represents an important opportunity for those active or interested in this area to hear about current work, discuss future directions and priorities, and form invaluable research contacts. We also see the workshop as the natural location for reporting and enhancing ECoMAS Community activities. Interest To The GEC Community With the advance of computational power and communications speed, we now live in a computational world where a large number of agents may be working on behalf of any given user. A large number of Internet software agents may be acting on behalf of even the most casual user: searching for music, comparing pension schemes, purchasing good and services,and identifying chat partners, etc. Moreover, these agents may be collaborating with those of other users, while spawning and managing agents of their own. In more formal settings, a business, academic, or government user may simultaneously employ many software agents to manage workflow, trade goods or information, collaboratively solve problems, etc. In the future, even relatively simple household appliances may play a role in this churning system of interacting, computational agents. In this world, EC theories and practices have new implications. Agents that interact according to these theories are no longer locked inside the laboratory conditions imposed by EC researchers and users. The interest in merging the EC and MAS research communities is certainly growing. In the opinion of the organizers, it is important to the GEC community that there is a forum to discuss the particular issues of EC in MAS. Simultaneously, such a forum allows ideas from contemporary MAS research to spread to the GEC community, providing the community itself with a chance to address the need of EC embodiment in a real environment. Accordingly, the organizers see GECCO 2002 as the natural location to hold the ECoMAS 2002 workshop. Workshop Format In the opinion of the organizers, it is important that a workshop involve more than talks and presentations. Therefore, the workshop will be focused on an extensive, directed discussion on the future of EC in MAS. Other aspects of the workshop will be directed at facilitating this discussion: 1) The workshop will allow the selected presenters to post mini-posters. Much of this material will be available before the workshop, via this web site. 2) The first segment of the workshop will consist of mini-presentations to preview the mini-poster session. Authors will be allowed to present a strictly limited number of transparencies. Time constraints will be adjusted, depending on the number of presenters selected, but a limit will be maintained, to allow for the sessions outlined below. 3) The second segment of the workshop will consist of a mini-poster session. 4) The third segment of the workshop will focus on a discussion of the future of EC in MAS. 5) The final, and perhaps most important, segment of the workshop will be a discussion focused on action items for advancing EC in MAS. The organizers feel that explicitly providing time to discuss agendas in the fashion will give the workshop an atypical, meaningful outcome. Submission Instructions DEADLINE EXTENDED!!! If you would like to present material at the workshop please submit a 4 page extended abstract in Postscript or PDF form to cefn.hoileMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue