Call for Papers

The 13th International Workshop on Agent-based Complex Automated Negotiations (ACAN2022) in conjunction with IJCAI-ECAI2022

Complex Automated Negotiations have been widely studied and are one of the emerging areas of research in the field of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. These days, AI systems are being developed by companies and organizations to solve various problems. The extensive use of heterogeneous AI systems requires coordination mechanisms based on automated negotiation technologies that could account for the complexity of our society.

The complexity in an automated negotiation depends on several factors: the number of negotiated issues, dependencies between these issues, representation of the utility, negotiation procedural and protocol, negotiation form (bilateral or multi-party), time constraints, negotiation goals, and so on. Complex automated negotiation scenarios are concerned with negotiation encounters where we may have for instance, a large number of agents, a large number of issues with strong interdependencies, real time constraints, concurrent and inter-depended negotiation, etc. Many real world negotiation scenarios present one or more of the mentioned elements. Software agents can support the automation of complex negotiations, by negotiating on behalf of their owners and providing adequate strategies to them to achieve realistic, win-win agreements. In order to provide solutions in such complex automated negotiation scenarios, research has focused on incorporating different technologies including search, CSP, graphical utility models, Bayesian nets, auctions, utility graphs, optimization and predicting and learning methods. The applications of complex automated negotiations could include e-commerce tools, decision-making support tools, negotiation support tools, collaboration tools, as well as knowledge discovery and agent learning tools.

ACAN2022 will discuss, among others, the following aspects and topics of such complex automated negotiations within the field of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, which have distinct relationships with IJCAI main conference topics:

- Complex Automated Negotiations Frameworks and Mechanisms
- Bilateral and Multilateral Negotiations
- High dimension Multi-Issue Negotiations
- Large Scale Negotiations
- Concurrent Negotiations
- Multiple Negotiations
- Sequential Negotiations
- Negotiations under Asymmetric Information
- Prediction of Opponent's Behaviors and Strategies in Negotiations
- Machine Learning in Negotiations
- Simulation Models and Platforms for Complex Negotiations
- Coordination Mechanisms for Complex Negotiations
- Matchmaking and Brokering Mechanisms
- Utility and Preference Elicitation Technologies in Negotiations
- Utility and Preference Representations in Negotiations
- Computational Complexity of Multi-Issue Negotiations
- Negotiations with Humans, Negotiations in Social Networks etc.
- Knowledge Management in Automated Negotiations.
- Moral consideration for automated negotiations.
- Real-life Aspects of Electronic Negotiations
- Applications for Automated Negotiations (e.g. cloud computing, smart grid, electronic commerce etc.)

A considerable number of researchers in various sub-communities of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems are actively working on these and related issues. They are, for instance, being studied in agent negotiations, multi-issue negotiations, auctions, mechanism design, electronic commerce, voting, secure protocols, matchmaking and brokering, argumentation, co-operation mechanisms and distributed optimization.

The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers from these communities to learn about each other's approaches to the complex negotiation problems, encourages the exchange of ideas between the different areas, and potentially fosters long-term research collaborations to accelerate progress towards scaling up to larger and more realistic applications.

** Automated Negotiating Agents Competition (ANAC) Special Session **

Since 2010, ACAN has been cooperating with ANAC (Automated Negotiating Agents Competition). This year, we have an ANAC special session, in which we plan to explain and discuss the research challenges addressed in ANAC 2020-2022. The participants with winning negotiation strategies, especially in ANAC 2020 and ANAC 2021, are invited to submit their paper.

** Important dates **

- Fast Track (Rejected AAMAS or IJCAI papers)
Submission Deadline: May 25 (23:59 UTC-12)
Author Notification: June 03 (23:59 UTC-12)
Camera-ready deadline: June 25 (23:59 UTC-12)

- Regular Track
Submission Deadline: May 15 (23:59 UTC-12)
Author Notification: June 03 (23:59 UTC-12)
Camera-ready deadline: June 24 (23:59 UTC-12)
ACAN-22: July 24

** Submissions **

The submission Website is https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=acan2022. Submissions should conform to the Springer Computer Science Proceedings (see https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines for more details) and should not be more than 15 pages long. The workshop welcomes submissions of original works relevant to the topics described above. This year, the workshop will accept submissions of both full papers (maximum 15 pages) and short papers (maximum 7 pages). Please refer to the workshop website for more information (https://sites.google.com/view/ijcai-acan2022).

Review Process and Acceptance Standards

For gathering high quality papers, each paper will be reviewed by at least three PC members or experts in the field. Acceptance standards include its technical soundness, novelty, impact and readability. Using the same publication procedure as our previous workshops, we are planning to publish a Post-Workshop book for ACAN2022 in Books Series Studies in Computational Intelligence, by Springer. Also, we will assume that papers accepted should have full-paper quality with small revisions for special issues in a journal (International Journal of Multiagent and Grid Systems, Knowledge-Based Systems journal, Decision Support Systems Journal, and Group Decision and Negotiation Journal- are some possibilities).

** Organizing Committee **

- Dr. Rafik Hadfi (Organizing Co-Chair, Primary Contact Person)
Assistant Professor. Kyoto University, Japan
- Dr. Takayuki Ito (Organizing Co-Chair)
Professor. Kyoto University, Japan
- Dr. Reyhan Aydoğan (Organizing Co-chair)
Assistant Professor. Özyeğin University, Turkey
- Dr. Ryuta Arisaka (Organizing Co-Chair)
Assistant Professor. Kyoto University, Japan

** Program Committee Members **

- Dr. Tim Baarslag (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), the Netherlands)
- Dr. Quan Bai (University of Tasmania, Australia)
- Prof. Dr. Miguel Angel Lopez Carmona (University of Alcara, Spain)
- Prof. Susel Fernandez (University of Alcara, Spain)
- Dr. Enrico Gerding (University of Southampton, UK)
- Dr. Koen Hindriks (Vrije Universiteit The Netherlands)
- Dr. Dave de Jonge (IIIA-CSIC, Spain)
- Prof. Dr. Catholjin Jonker (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)
- Dr. Mark Klein (MIT, USA)
- Prof. Dr. Sarit Kraus (Bar-Ilan University, Israel)
- Dr. Weihua Li (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand)
- Dr. Jiamou Liu, (Auckland University, New Zealand)
- Prof. Dr. Ivan Marsa Maestre (University of Alcara, Spain)
- Dr. Shun Okuhara (Mie University, Japan)
- Prof. Takanobu Otsuka (Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan)
- Dr. Fenghui Ren (University of Wollongong, Australia)
- Dr. Victor Sanchez-Anguix (Politecnica de Valencia, Spain)
- Prof. Dr. Katia Sycara (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
- Prof. Gu Wen (JAIST, Japan)
- Prof. Jawad Haqbeen (Kyoto University, Japan)
- Prof. Sofia Sahab (Kyoto University, Japan)
- Dr. Amro Najjar (Université du Luxembourg)


** Call for Sponsorship **


ACAN is not for profit. Sponsorship money will be used to sustain the yearly workshop; i.e. for student travel support, awards, promotional material, and organizational costs of ACAN.

Overall guidelines
- Organizers are responsible for sponsorship money.
- Sponsors are listed on all certificates, websites, and promotional materials.

- Bronze Sponsor package: €1,500+
Small-sized Logo on the website of ACAN

- Silver Sponsor package: €3,000+
Medium-sized Logo on the website of ACAN
Logo on the award certificates
Logo on promotional material, such as: flyers, poster, ACAN workshop room at IJCAI

- Golden Sponsor package: €5,000+
Large-sized Logo on the website of ACAN
Logo on the award certificates
Hand over the awards to best paper winner
Receive a photo of the handover of the prize
Logo on promotional material, such as: flyers, poster, ACAN workshop room at IJCAI